GUEST BLOGGER: When Waiting

Brad and Jessica Inman are a wonderful couple that I have known for many years. Jessica and I shared a good bit of teenage angst together over smarties and hair dying sessions.  I love that we are now walking different paths toward adoption alongside each other.  Over the past year and a half I have seen them go through the steps to prepare for their child and have been inspired by their commitment to waiting for their child.
Right now they are raising funds for their adoption process HERE.  There are 3 days left to get in an order on one of their gorgeous tshirt designs and I personally can not pass up those beautiful bracelets!  They would make wonderful gifts, too.

Recently Jessica shared hear heart on her blog with powerful insight on what the process of waiting can be like.  The depth of surrender that she and Brad have reached in this process is so powerful that I can only imagine how blessed their child will be to have such amazing parents.
Here is her blog post, shared with permission. You can follow Jessica at her blog Songbird Stories.
Waiting
In many areas of life there is often a high level of excitement when something happens quickly.  Whirlwind romances, accelerated graduations, babies born within the first year of marriage, quick progression up the corporate ladder.  It somehow seems to indicate that these people have something special.  A love so strong, a work ethic so intense the normal parameters do not apply.  This happens in the adoption world as well.  Speeding up the process is a major goal for many people.  When home studies come through quickly, matches are made soon after, fundraisers boom and a baby is home with the new parents within months – it must be a miracle!  And I believe it is; I really do.  God has timing for each situation and for those, it was speedy.

But then there are the rest of us.  Those of us that have been in the process for years.  Those of us that feel like each step requires determination and some amount of struggle.  We watch as others we were journeying with move forward, sometimes even more than once, while we have the same answer to give each time we are asked if there is news: “we’re still waiting”.  If all those other people who get propelled quickly through careers, romances, adoptions, and the like are experiencing God’s favor and blessing…what does that mean about those of us left plodding along?

I don’t have a theologically deep answer.  Or even a feel-good one.  But I do know that the timing is just as deliberate, just as miraculous, and God’s favor is not absent when the wait is long.  He does not indicate that speed has anything to do with blessing; it is us humans who love a sped-up story.  It’s why we think getting rich in your twenties might be better than a steady, fifty-year long career in the same company.  I think God does love surprising us sometimes and knocking out some of the hard work for us.  But what if that work, the struggle, the waiting was so important?  What if in the waiting He changed us and healed us?  What if He even changes what we think we are waiting and longing for?We have experienced this in our lives and seen it in others’.  We experienced it with our struggle with infertility, and in the biggest way, our marriage.  I hope to share more of that story one day but our marriage was rebuilt, healed, and massively changed. And it took time, struggle, work, and waiting.
Having others wait with you is a support like very few others.  We have had people pray for and over us, hope for us, sing over us, believe for us.  Especially when could not pray, hope, or sing, and when we did not believe and were so weary.  Many of them are still doing these things.  We are forever grateful to them and love them fiercely. I have also had the opportunity to wait with several friends on big things, and it is deep privilege to be allowed to share in another’s grief, hopes, and joy.
We have been waiting in a new stage lately.  Two months ago we presented (had our profile shown) to an expectant mother for the first time.  After the initial agreement with her attorney, there was silence.  No contact.  No updates.  For two months.  We were told she probably wouldn’t decide for weeks (not  months) and to expect no replies until she did.  The wait affected us in ways we didn’t even immediately realize.  It was hard and stressful as the baby’s due date inched closer and closer and still no word came to us.  We made a very, very difficult decision to stop that wait and withdraw our presentation last week, and begin to present to other women.  I wish it had gone differently but that situation and wait showed us we were ready to be in this stage, united.    It had a purpose.

Still, it can be incredibly difficult to see those we were side by side with jump forward while we stay back.  This week a friend who is with the same adoption consultant as we are presented to the same expectant mother we did (this was our second time presenting and their first).  She and her husband were chosen.  We were not.  They have been in the process 4-5 months.  We have been officially in process for a little over 18 months. We also experienced this in the infertility world.  Some of the people we were in the same boat with have gone on to have one or more children in the past several years.  None of this diminishes our joy for our friends, but it does remind us of our wait.

Sometimes the wait seems unfair and far too long.  Several  months ago I saw a friend finally bring her baby home after nine years in the adoption process and six failed adoptions.  I think rejoicing is still going on around the world for their family!!  No one understood at the time why the wait was so long, but their precious daughter just wasn’t here yet.  In contrast to the miraculous speedy stories this could sound like a cautionary tale.  It is not.  Rather, stories like this are beautiful evidence of timing and the perseverance of love and commitment.
It is easy to feel forgotten, left behind, less desirable than those that are chosen (just like it can with relationships, jobs, and in our situation, being chosen to parent).

We sometimes feel hurt, jealousy and any number of unpleasant things when someone gets what we are waiting for, without the effort we have put forth and especially if it’s someone close to us.  Even though we may truly be rejoicing with them.

But I try to trust that the wait has value.  The result cannot be rushed and wouldn’t be the same if it was.  Whatever the reason for the wait, in various areas of my life, I am grateful for things I am learning in that place (though I have not mastered any of them and expect to be learning them for a long time!)  Things like contentment, living in the present, patience, and how to celebrate with others even when I am disappointed or weary.  I have learned to appreciate the family we already have, the one that is just Brad and me.  I have learned that we have an incredible support system, family and community.  I have learned that things hard-fought for and long-awaited are sometimes the sweetest.

So for now we wait.  With anticipation.

PLEASE VISIT THEIR STORE AND CONSIDER MAKING A PURCHASE TO SUPPORT THEM IN THE ADOPTION PROCESS!!