Between the start of the school year, selling one of our rental properties (closing is today!), and completing immigration paperwork and other travel preparations, this momma has been stretched to her limits. I have experienced support in unfathomable ways from family, friends, and even families of my students. I have also felt Satan's pull to create doubt and anxiety in ways like never before.
This new kind of waiting is unlike any of the other nearly 5 years of waiting we have done. Now the waiting is specific. I have names and faces to who my heart has been waiting for. My heart melts every time I look at their pictures and breaks every time I read their file. My two bio daughters have been beyond amazing with the prospect of adding two more sisters to their family.
I love how thoughtful Shannon is in preparing to be the biggest sister of four - she's even made posters, school presentations about international adoption and might even have a password on her iPad related to her new sisters. Amelia's heart is so sweet as she prays every night at dinner for God to protect and love D and S while we wait to meet them.
God's hand is undoubtedly in this. His fingerprints have been all over this adoption journey in ways I could never have predicted. I still am in awe of the timing of our response to being called to adopt from the the DR being barely a month before our new Reilly girls' entrance into orphanage care. I believe God was tugging at our hearts when they may have been experiencing some of their most darkest days and God connected us as family years before we would ever know who they are.
I know all of that to be true and feel humbled to be on this adoption journey. I have to cling to this as I purposefully reject the thoughts and questions Satan is trying to make a reality. I have heard Satan say to me "There's no way your family can afford to live in another country to 6 months - you are heading for financial ruin." Or "Do you really believe you are qualified to care for a blind child? Can you really provide for their needs and will you really be the best fit for them?" Or "Is all of this worth turning your current daughters' lives upside down and taking them away from family and friends? Aren't you afraid of ruining their lives?" The list could go on...
I can only respond with: "Of course our family cannot do this on our own, but with God on our side nothing is impossible. His plans for my family are far greater than anything I could dream up on my own."
Our church has been going through a series on Spiritual Warfare this fall. It is so timely with today's current events, but also with the events going on in my own family. My best defense against Spiritual Warfare is to go to His word. Here are just a few verses than have given me strength to reject doubt and anxiety in this season in my life:
Evildoers do not understand what is right,
but those who seek the Lord understand it fully.
~Proverbs 28:5
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
~Jeremiah 29:11
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
~Isaiah 40:31
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
~Proverbs 3: 5-6
But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
~Joshua 24:15
I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
~John 14:18
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