One Month and Counting...

Tomorrow marks one month since we officially submitted our LOI to adopt our Charlie. While I knew logically we would not receive our LOA (letter of acceptance) from China within the first month, it didn’t stop me from refreshing my email multiple times a day just in case :).

The wait for this LOA is really a difficult one because we have no idea how long to expect it to be. We could receive the LOA next week or we could receive it two months from now. The other steps in the process seem to have pretty good timeline estimates, but this one seems totally random.

I am so thankful we now know who our child is and have seen his sweet face, but it definitely challenges my patience. I want to wait well, knowing God's timing is absolutely the best thing for our family and just rest in that. But my heart longs to hold him and kiss his chubby little cheeks. I long to lavish him with the love that only a mommy and daddy can truly give. I long to tell him he's a perfectly made child of the most perfect God.

I know that time will come, it's the "soon, but not yet" I'm currently stuck in that threatens my sanity.

Several families on my agency's Facebook page have recently traveled to China to bring their babies home and I love seeing their pictures and reading the blog accounts of their trips. I met these families on the page when they weren’t even matched with children yet, and to follow their journey to now having that child in their arms is encouraging. It does remind me that this will happen. It's not just some fantasy I've dreamt up, but we will bring our son home to his forever family soon.

I read an article about waiting recently that talked about not missing the "here and now" while we are waiting on our desired future state to come to fruition. God wants to use me now and wants to continue to transform me into the wife, mother and friend he wants me to be. If I am so focused on the future, I might miss what he wants for me to learn while I wait. This is my new challenge to myself - to listen to God and seek him as I watch his plans unfold. These plans are his, after all.

I think Steven Curtis Chapman says it best in his song "The Glorious Unfolding"...

And this is going to be a glorious unfolding
Just you wait and see and you will be amazed
You’ve just got to believe the story is so far from over
So hold on to every promise God has made to us
And watch this glorious unfolding