Wait or Wake Up?

Hi Friends!
This is Merle writing  -
I’ve been thinking and reflecting the past few weeks about all the things God has done to confirm and facilitate our call to adoption. And as I look back at that sentence I just wrote I’m struck by the realization that it’s not about me and Kim. We’re just pieces of the puzzle He is using in the life of a little girl to bring glory to God. Praise God for His answers to prayer. As I look back, He has blazed such a clear path for us that we only had a few times (and they seem incredibly small now) that we felt lost or unsure.

I must say that this has so far not gone exactly as I envisioned. The process of adoption especially international adoption is an extremely long process. If you’ve read Kim’s earlier blog posts you know some of the red tape that is a part of the process. Friends of ours have been in this process for 3 or 4 times as long as us already and are still waiting to bring their child home. I was ready for this and expecting this. Scripture is very clear about God’s timing and we are encouraged to “wait on the Lord”(Isaiah 40:31, Psalm 27:14). I’m a pretty patient guy when it comes to the big things in life, especially the difficult ones.  I usually like to take lots of time before making a big decision, so I was prepared to wait for God’s clear timing. As usual God is always in the process of stretching us. While some of us need our faith stretched by waiting on God, mine was to be stretched by being pushed by God.

My early expectation was that the agency would send us a referral once our dossier was completed and approved by China. When Kim called me to the computer to watch the video of our “Little Miss So Sad” I had no expectation that this could be our daughter. In fact my “guard” was up as it often is when Kim shows me pictures of precious children in need. (See video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbcEtVUNBjU&feature=youtu.be).  When the video came to the image of Lucy waving at the camera, it felt like she was waving right at me.  I think I connected with her at that point, but it was such a long shot, could we really connect all the pieces to adopt this particular child? Our home study was not even complete; we still had forms to fill out and training to complete. This didn’t feel like “waiting on the Lord”. But as it turns out my faith was to accept what God was putting in front of us. We did a few things to see if our adoption agency could get Lucy’s file, and we had even given up thinking that this was perhaps our daughter. But God miraculously brought her file to us, and it was sweet confirmation that this was His will.

All I can say is that every day we love her more, and God can’t move too fast for me anymore. But perhaps now I’ll get my chance to wait on the Lord.