Walking in Faith

It's been almost a year since I first saw our Sweet Sparrow's face.  Funny how I thought the "wait" would end once I was approved to officially move forward with her adoption.  I never would have imagined that it would be just the beginning of the most difficult part of the wait.  

When God gave me the dream in May, I knew she was my daughter.  Not a doubt in my heart.  When I found out that after two years of no movement on the waiting list, she was matched the very hour I was approved, confusion consumed me.  For the life of me, I could not make sense out of it.

I still don't know why God allowed that to happen except that his plans for her and the story he is writing is bigger and more beautiful than anything I could have dreamt. 

In these last few weeks, he has drawn me closer to him in ways I've never experienced.  My faith has reached new levels of depth, trust, and surrender.  

However, this growth has not come without costs.  There have been days of immense sorrow, utter despair, rage and fist-shaking at God, unending questioning, and a deluge of tears.

Excruciating doesn't come close to describe what these last few weeks have been.

I've had moments where I've wavered.  I almost didn't go to my USCIS fingerprint appointment.  I declared I would put the girls back in school, I would get a "safe" job, and we would live the rest of our lives with no risk, and therefore, would not set ourselves up for disappointment and heartache.  We would live what I call the "MMC" or Magnolia Market Christianity that seems to flood our church culture today.  The type of Christianity where our life looks perfectly put together.  All blessings, no heartache.  No risk.  Safe.  Boring.

I even asked to view the waiting list of children, knowing I could match today with a child who needs a family.  But as I scrolled through the list, I knew deep in my heart what God spoke to me through that dream in May.  None of those children were mine.  

Our Sparrow is the dream God gave me.

 God snapped me back to reality and reminded me that it is his promise he gave and his way for fulfilling it.  He brought me back to Sarah and Abraham.  God promised them a son.  Sarah grew impatient because in her human wisdom, she could not fathom a way for her to conceive in her old age.  So she did what I can relate to - she took things into her own hands and told Abraham to sleep with Hagar, her maid,  to produce a son.  He did and Ishmael was born.

But Ishmael was not the son through which God's promise to Abraham would be fulfilled.  Instead, Sarah's meddling and rushing God's promise only caused heartache and jealousy. 

I was becoming Sarah.

You see, I had lost my focus of his power, his ways, his purposes.  Who am I to question the path on which he is leading me?  My view is completely myopic while his is a wide angle lens.  He is working behind the scenes in ways I don't know.  He's doing things that I would never conceive.  He's fulfilling plans and answering prayers of which I have no knowledge.  

I've heard from people all of the world.  Words of encouragement.  Words of empathy.  Words of compassion.  Words of "me too."  He is using her story to bring others to deeper levels of faith - deeper understanding, deeper trust, deeper surrender, and ultimately, deeper hope.

As I continue in this wait, I am slowly learning to have joy.  Joy that he writing the most incredible story. Joy that he knows the exact moment he will bring her back to me.  Joy that he is growing and stretching my faith, taking me to new levels of trust in him.  Joy that he is omniscient.  Joy that he is omnipotent.  Joy that he will fulfill his promise.  Joy that he is worthy to be trusted, honored, and praised.

Joy that I know him and that our relationship is becoming more intimate with each passing day.

So while I will never understand his ways and his purposes, I am choosing to have faith ~ the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.