As I have written before to you, I am so blessed, invigorated, and strengthened in my walk with the Lord when I hear personal testimonies of God's faithfulness under the weight of trial. I hope you will be equally ministered to as you read from a young couple that has waited patiently on the Lord to extend their table through adoption.
Our wait for children began about five years
ago. We had been married a little over 3 years, and we were ready to begin
building our family. Like any other young couple, we thought it would happen
very easily (and quickly), but as the months progressed, and each test turned
up negative, I began sensing that something had to be wrong.
Since we were only 26 at the time, our doctor
recommended that we wait a year before getting any testing done. A year went
by, and we decided to start the testing process to see what was preventing us
from becoming pregnant. After a host of tests, we found out that we were both
fine: perfectly healthy. There were no concerns, no red flags, and no hint that
anything was wrong. We continued to wait, sure that eventually God was going to
bless us with children; he was just calling us to wait and to trust him for the
timing.
One year turned into two years, and two years
quickly turned into three. It was during this time that we began seriously
considering adoption. Honestly, I’m a little embarrassed that it took us that
long. Adoption just wasn’t at the forefront of our minds; not because we didn’t
see the merit in it, we just didn’t see anyone doing it. No one in our
immediate families had adopted and there were only a few families in our church
that had adopted children, and there wasn’t anyone that we knew well or
personally that was going through the process. It was completely unfamiliar
territory to us.
So, we began to pray and fast and read books
and information on adoption, and it was over this time period of a few months
that God began really confirming his call on us towards adoption. Adoption
moved from a “second-best” option in our hearts to the very best option! We
were excited and thankful that God had called us to this ministry, and we began
to see the beauty in the fact that we too, had been adopted by God. This became
a precious truth to us and helped to fuel our passion for adoption.
In November of 2009, we officially began the
process to adopt from a foreign country. In some ways, we thought the hard part
was over. What could be worse than years of unexplained infertility? At least
now we knew there was going to be a child at the end of this process, and
hopefully two, since we were praying for twins! Well, we were definitely wrong,
and there were many more hard times in store for us.
We thought our wait time for our adoption
would be about a year, and it was easily double that. Our official wait-time
was extended three times and there were changes that occurred in the country that
also caused extensive delays. It would take too long to chronicle everything
that happened during these months and years, but the overwhelming theme was
discouragement and disappointment. From the time we sent our paperwork, it was
over a year before we had any good
news. Each time we were contacted by our adoption agency during that time
period, it was to notify us of further delays.
But, God sustained our hope and our trust. He
refined us and used this trial to drive us more deeply into the love of Christ
that was shown for us on the cross. We began to see the importance of measuring
God’s love for us based on the cross and not on our circumstances. By
withholding something from us that was very good, he was giving us more of
himself and showing us that he truly is sufficient to meet our greatest needs
and to satisfy our hearts. We were learning in a very deep way what it means to
find comfort and joy in the Lord, even when our hearts were breaking.
I’m so thankful for my husband and the way he
led our family during these tough years. He tenderly cared for and shepherded
my heart and faithfully pointed me to Christ. He sent me an email during this
time that I probably read close to a hundred times over the past several years.
It is still as helpful to me today as the day he sent it to me, and it shows a
lot of what God was teaching us during our wait.
•
Remember that to live is Christ. The life of
satisfaction is a life of growing in the knowledge of God and being used by him
to expand his kingdom and benefit his people and spread his Gospel. This is the
life that is truly life. This is the life that brings real hope and a deep
anticipation of the Glory and inheritance to come.
◦
“Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever
comes to me will not hunger, and whoever believes in me will not thirst” John
6:35
•
Remember that every ounce of pain and disappointment
that you feel is “grace cloaked in grief.” It is pure grace to your soul. God
is winning your heart through your pain. “O Cross that liftest up my head, I
dare not ask to fly from thee.” And why do we not ask to fly from our crosses?
Because they lift our heads up to God.
◦
“Count it all
joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you
know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its
full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James
1:2-4)
◦
"More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces
endurance, and endurance
produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame,
because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who
has been given to us." (Romans 5:3-5)
◦
"And we know that for those who love God all
things work together for good, for those who are called according to his
purpose." (Romans 8:28)
•
Trust that God’s way of ordering our life is perfect.
What he brings into our lives is the best thing possible.
◦
In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been
predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will
(Ephesians 1:11).
◦
God is in control and is working out every detail
according to his will, "for he is in the heavens and does whatever he
pleases" (Psalm 115:3). His plan for us is better than our own plan for
us, so resign yourself to His will and rest in Him.
His plan truly is better for us than what our
own plans would be, and it was just a matter of months before we would tangibly
see that to be true.
Almost two years exactly from when we applied
for our adoption, we finally saw the faces of our children. After months and
months of delays, the Lord blessed us with the most beautiful twin boys in all
of the country (Yes, twins! And we didn’t even think it was possible that this
prayer would be answered!). They are four months old, and Lord willing, we will
bring them home this summer. Through all of those months of waiting and praying
and wondering why it was taking so long, the Lord was preparing these sweet
little boys for us. We had to wait that long because they just weren’t ready
yet, and I guess in some ways, we weren’t ready yet either. The Lord was
working on us and refining us; we are different people now than we were when
this all started and I’m sure that we’ll forever be thankful for these
precious, yet painful, waiting years.
And truthfully, our “waiting” isn’t over. We
still have several months before we’ll have our boys home, but it’s more than
that. In some ways, going through this trial has made me realize that “waiting”
is just part of the Christian life. Until Christ returns, we are all going to
be “waiting”… and most often, that waiting is going to be painful. It could be
the agony we feel when we are waiting for healing of some physical ailment, or
waiting for a job, or waiting for change to happen in us or in those we love.
I’ve come to think that at least one of God’s purposes in this is to keep us
from loving this world and from clinging too tightly to our lives here. Isn’t
it true that heaven and the thought of no more tears and no more sorrow is most
sweet to us when we are in the furnace of affliction? And in some ways, waiting isn’t just part of
the Christian life, it is the essence of it… we are people who wait. We wait
for the return of our savior, Jesus Christ. We wait for the redemption of our
bodies and for our heavenly home. We eagerly wait for the day when he takes his
rightful throne and makes all things new.
The world looks at suffering and assumes that
something must be wrong. We need to avoid pain and suffering at all cost! Even
Christians can be tempted to think that suffering is a sign of God’s judgment
and happiness and ease are a sign of his blessing. This principle, however, is
not supported by scripture or by the experience of faithful Christians
throughout the years. As John Piper shares in his book, Desiring God:
I have never heard anyone say, "The really deep
lessons of life have come through times of ease and comfort." But I have
heard strong saints say, "Every significant advance I have ever made in
grasping the depths of God's love and growing deep with him, has come through
suffering." Samuel Rutherford said that when he was cast into the
cellars of affliction, he remembered that the great King always kept his wine there.
Charles Spurgeon said that those who dive in the sea of affliction bring
up rare pearls. The pearl of greatest price is the glory of Christ. Thus
Paul stresses that in our sufferings the glory of Christ's all-sufficient grace
is magnified. If we rely on him in our calamity, and he sustains our
"rejoicing in hope," then he is shown to be the all-satisfying God of
grace and strength that he is.
If we hold fast to him "when all around our soul
gives way," then we show that he is more to be desired than all we have
lost. Christ said to the suffering apostle, "My grace is sufficient
for you, for [my] power is perfected in weakness." Paul responded to
this: "Gladly, then, I will boast about my weaknesses, that the power of
Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, with
insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's
sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).
So suffering clearly is designed by God not only as a way to wean Christians
off of self and onto grace, but also as a way to spotlight that grace and make
it shine. That is precisely what faith does; it magnifies Christ's future
grace.
The deep things of life in God are discovered in suffering. So it
was with Jesus himself. "Although he was a Son, Jesus learned
obedience through what he suffered" (Hebrews 5:8). The same book
where we read this also tells us Jesus never sinned (Hebrews 4:15). So
"learning obedience" does not mean switching from disobedience to
obedience. It means growing deeper and deeper with God in the experience
of obedience. It means experiencing depths of yieldedness to God that
would not have been otherwise demanded. (Desiring God p. 265-266)
Greater depths of yieldedness to God; I love
the thought of growing in my yieldedness to God, and truly, I’m thankful for
anything that causes this to happen.
