Posted on August 12, 2010 - by Megan
Waiting: spiritual boot camp
It’s been two weeks now, and we haven’t heard anything yet from the orphanage. One of the hardest tings about adoption is the waiting and not-knowing. Truthfully, everything about waiting and not-knowing goes against my nature. I am a doer. I am great at making things happen. So, what’s a girl to do who is charged with waiting, dare I say, patiently? As Tom Petty says, “The waiting is the hardest part.”
It frustrates me that adoption had to be so hard—it almost seems wrong. After all, if there are 147 million orphans in the word, why not make it as easy as possible to get these kids home to their forever families? It may not need to be so hard, but it is. Ask anyone who had done it and they’ll tell you the same thing. It will stretch you in ways you never anticipated.
True to His redemptive nature, I am beginning to think that God is up to something in the waiting. There is more purpose in it than we know. Waiting becomes a sort of spiritual boot camp preparing us for the Kingdom work of radical hospitality. As my friend Katy reminded me the other day, adoption isn’t natural, it’s the Gospel.
In order to adopt, your heart has to be readied for the work of welcoming a child into your home who did not come from your body. When you think about it, it is an extraordinary thing to do. There will be resistance, difficulty, and certainly, spiritual opposition. Faith makes you ready, reliance on God makes you ready, and tenacity makes you ready. Whether we like it or not, all of these things grow in the fertile soil of waiting.
Perhaps, in order to truly respond to the orphan crisis as adoptive parents, we must change. We must become stronger, more willing to sacrifice for Christ, more determined. Adoption requires sacrifice, and a lot of it. I wonder if the sacrifice is actually the beginning of bonding with our future children. As we slog through the difficulty, we become more committed to the them, more invested. These are the seeds of real love.
I am reminding myself this week that there is a child in Uganda who is our child. We don’t know each other yet, but God knows us and chose us for one another. Just like Joel and I fight for Fionn and Felicity, we must fight for our future family, trusting that along the way, God is making us ready to be the parents He has called us to be. “Adoption is a journey,” people often say. It is a journey that will change you, and maybe that is the point.
How has your faith grown during the waiting?
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My name is Megan Hyatt Miller. I'm a little Emmilou Harris, a little Bonnie Rait, and a dash of Paula Dean—mostly because I identify with her unbridled use of butter and ample hips. I am passionate about living and telling a good story. I'm a wife, a stepmom and and an adoptive mom. I am passionate about adoption, racial reconciliation, and creating beauty and a sense belonging for those I love. To learn more, click here. Thanks for stopping by.
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August 12, 2010
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Gail Hyatt said:
Don’t forget there’s even a 9 mo waiting period with our biological children. The waiting is so necessary!
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August 12, 2010
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Andrew Cornell said:
Awesome, awesome post. I am in an incredible waiting period personally and I second all you wrote. As I sat in quiet yesterday morning, God clearly impressed upon me, “Stop striving. I will provide for your every need.” I thought I should look up the definition of striving – to make strenuous efforts towards a goal, to struggle vigorously, to try hard. It’s funny how God brings us to a place where we almost can’t struggle because there’s nothing we can do. We can only ask him to grow our faith. The waiting IS crucial.
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August 12, 2010
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karen miller said:
and for some – they wait not only 9 months – but months and even years to have a baby – the waiting isn’t easy – but the gift of a child either naturally or by adoption that you have waited a long time for is a precious gift of God
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August 12, 2010
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Cyberquill said:
What exactly is a “forever family”?
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August 12, 2010
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David said:
Hey,
I can so relate to the waiting & the impatience, we are in the UK so a very different situation with very different proceedures, due to infertility we decided to adopt, we have 2 beautiful children, both of whom have learning disabilities, we choose to adopt children who were unlikely to be ‘wanted’ but they still put so many obstacles in the way at pretty much every turn.
Many a time we were in tears as we thought it was too tough to keep going on, we really felt like giving up on more than 1 occasion but as soon as we had a specific child in our sights we fought tooth & nail to make sure the adoption went through, we could handle failure in a sense before we had a child lined up but once there was a young life who we knew we could love then we fought for them, and came out with 2 of the most gorgeous kids you could ever wish for.
It took about 18 months before we adopted our first and about the same time 2nd time around.
Mind you, with our kids the fighting has continued all the way through their childhood, our eldest is 1 and we still have more battles ahead, as we fight for the right care, the right schooling, the right treatment, we seem to have to fight for everything they are entitled to, and deserve, at every turn. It is exhausting but so so worth it.