waiting well

This is Part 2 in a four-part series. Click here to read Part 1.

The Wait began in February 2017, when we turned in our adoption profile for birth mothers to peruse. Our agency could give no estimated timeline for a match or placement; we simply had to trust God that His timing is perfect. Giving lip service to that is easy enough; but as the months pass, adoption opportunities fail to materialize, and everyone around you is getting placed with a tiny newborn, feeling forgotten comes easily. Did the agency even show our profile? Did birth moms dislike our profile? Why didn’t things move more quickly?

The Lord used the underlying panicky feeling in my gut to teach me how to wait patiently for Him to work. Waiting seems passive, but it’s not—it demands action. To wait well requires incessant prayer, constant connection to the One who works on our behalf, the One who gives peace beyond our comprehension. He trained me to know that I failed to trust Him fully, when I felt anxious—when I felt like I needed to take control of finding an adoption match. 

He also used The Wait to teach me not to compare my lot to another’s. Doing so only breeds discontentment and, eventually, if left to percolate, bitterness. The Lord reminded me that He only gives good gifts to His children; the gospels of Matthew and Luke are clear about this. Of course, we must acknowledge that our greatest need is freedom from sin. Jesus accomplished this by His perfect life (the one none of us could ever live), His death on the cross, and His resurrection on the third day. This is the greatest gift. Once saved from sin, God promises to sanctify us, to make us more like Jesus…He Himself provides the way to obey His command, “Be holy, as I am holy.” God’s best gifts to us make us look to Jesus—and make us look more like Him—after we receive them.

They say hindsight is 20/20, and I certainly find truth in that. The Wait, and all I learned in it, provided the perfect precursor to The Loss—the second season in our story, about which I’ll post in two weeks!