Waiting

I know the Lord has his timing and I know He is working in and through the circumstances of our fertility and adoption and I know that I'm trying to finish a midwifery degree that will most certainly not be completed before Spring next year but I just keep getting these surges of impatience! I want my children and I want them NOW! I'm reading books about motherhood and parenting. I'm praying. I'm identifying areas that I will likely struggle with when I'm a mom and I'm forming plans to deal with them in a healthy way. I'm preparing myself to lay down my claim on my time and my rights. How much more ready can I be??? When Lord, when?? How much longer!? I don't want to look at another cute Filipino toddler. I don't want to look at another cute Filipino baby. I don't want to look at other families and their happy family times. Have mercy Lord! I don't want to hold another baby until I'm holding mine! I've waited so long and I've been so patient...

Forgive me for that emotional outburst. It's just been building up for a little while and I just needed to get that out.

On that note, I read something encouraging in the book, A Mother's Heart: A look at values, vision, and character for the Christian mother by Jean Fleming. I've read 3/4 of it and I can already highly recommend it - especially if you already have kids. I have many other things I'd like to share about the book but today I just want to focus on one rather encouraging part. Here's an excerpt:

Waiting on God - For Children

"Before I was pregnant with Matthew, I studied the lives of biblical women who had waited for a child. These women were Sarah, the mother of Isaac; Hannah, the mother of Samual; Rebekah, the mother of Jacob; Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist; and Samson's mother. From my study I gained a conviction that every child comes from God and ought to live for God's purposes.

Each of these women was initially barren. They waited and waited to conceive a child. Since failure to bear a child in their culture was often considered a curse, they experienced torment and ridicule. All of them endured a painful wait. Two of them - Sarah and Elizabeth - reached old age before conceiving.

Was it really necessary for these women to experience the agony of a long wait? Yes, there was a purpose.

God had something special in mind. He wanted to give each of these mothers a special child - a child with a specific purpose - and He wanted to receive the glory. Everyone must know that God did it. The awe and wonder of conception is often lost on us, since almost anyone can conceive - rich or poor, educated or uneducated, godly or ungodly. We can easily forget the part God plays in every birth.

Unless a sense of wonder accompanies parenthood, we may either take our responsibility too lightly or else cling too tightly to our children. God knows that withholding children often produces a different mentality in a waiting mother- or father-to-be.

I wonder if Abraham could have laid his son Isaac on the altar if the long wait had not prepared his heart. Would Hannah have given her beloved young Samuel to God's service if he had come much earlier? Did the wait produce a conviction that Samuel came from God and should live for God's purposes, a conviction she otherwise might not have experienced?

Perhaps another reason God allowed these mothers to endure a long wait was to lay a groundwork of prayer. They knew that these children were children of purpose and promise, and undoubtedly each of them was much prayed for."

I feel like I can relate to the desperate cries of Hannah in 1 Samuel who poured out her soul to the Lord out of her great anguish and grief.

I was so delighted when I read this part of the book because I have never read anything like it before. It resonated with me because I believe God has told me on several different occasions that he has a purpose in the waiting. I may never know exactly what that reason is but I am encouraged to once again be reminded that what I'm experiencing and have experienced in the past 4 1/2 years has not been a random waste of time. God is building something in us. He is preparing us for something. I have already noticed that my faith is much stronger and has more depth than it would had we gotten pregnant in 2004 like we had planned. Of course God can see what we can not. So I'm hoping in his wisdom and his unfathomable, huge-scale, x-ray vision. One who is wise, all-knowing, all-seeing and loving? Ok. He's got it covered. I can chill out now.

I really believe God is going to perform a miracle for Andrey and I like he did for each of those women in the bible mentioned here. In fact, in the past month we have received two more prophetic words about us conceiving a child. My brother and sister-in-law were praying for us recently and really felt God was going to bless us with a child - and my brother felt specifically that it was going to be a girl. They told us this while we were in the US. Then, when we returned to Cebu our friend at church said he recently had a vision of us and we had a daughter. He said she was very beautiful and that she looked like me. These aren't the only words we have received from the Lord. Even years ago, as friends have prayed and encouraged us, we were told several times that as they prayed, they got the sense that it was going to happen and that we shouldn't be discouraged.

And why is that 9 out of 10 people, after we tell them we are adopting, tell us about some one they know who adopted and then not long after found out they were miraculously pregnant? I can't tell you how often I hear that story over and over again. It's bizarre.

I am almost to the point where I can say that I know it's going to happen. It's only a matter of time. Besides, what about this?

"Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." Mark 11:24

In my adult mind, I doubt. But with the simplicity of a child's faith, I choose to believe. Why wouldn't it happen? Nothing is impossible with God. And if Sarah and Elizabeth can get pregnant when they are old women then I can have faith enough to get pregnant despite our circumstances - no matter how ridiculous it seems.