Time management and Adoption

Tot Lot 2013 was full of awesomeness and exhaustion. Apparently time can truly fly - because I just experienced that first hand. I was able to serve with some wonderful people, learn a new position at camp, watch my own kiddos have a blast and know that the kids we worked with were impacted. What better way to spend a week?

I got back from camp almost a week ago.......believe me when I say that I came home and hit the ground running!

Daily swimming lessons began Monday for the youngest two Calder kids, swim team continued daily for the eldest, Joel's 5th birthday was Monday, Jake's 9th birthday was Tuesday, and Joel's friend birthday party took place on Wednesday night - throw into that mix working my "new job" at the church four hours each day on Monday & Wednesday as well - and you see why this is the first time I've sat down to blog since I left for camp almost 2 weeks ago :)

Whew.

I was SO grateful for Independence day for another reason this year. A break!

Although things have been crazy busy for me, I have been rejoicing in it! I had a lot of time on my hands over the course of this last year with only one kid left at home, who had preschool three mornings a week. A lot of time to read, sit, work on adoption stuff, hang with the kids.....which sounds great and WAS great, some of the time. However, our adoption process started almost a full year ago. Do you see the problem? Waiting for something AND I having lots of extra non-filled time? It's not pretty people. Time crawls by.

Literally....

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So to say that I am grateful for the busyness right now is an understatement. I definitely don't want to stay as busy as this past week forever, and definitely won't, but for right now it is actually refreshing!

On the adoption front....

I really thought we'd have a new referral by now. It has almost been a month since we lost our 1st referral. Of course, I don't have much to go on with my expectation, except for the experiences of a few other people that I have connected with (via technology). Based on that, we seem to be waiting longer.....so this week I emailed our program director to ask if there was anything pending. His response took me by surprise. Not necessarily bad. Just surprising. I assumed when we were waiting for a new referral we would be placed at the "top of the list" for any new child that came along within our parameters (amongst the 5 or 6 orphanages our agency works with). That is not the case. We ARE at the "top of the list", BUT just at the particular orphanage that our first referral came from.  Apparently, once your dossier (our huge bunch of paperwork we sent off to Ethiopia back in January) is started with an orphanage that is where the next referral must come from.

WHHHHAAAAAATTTTTTT?

Freak out moment ensues.

Well, how big is that orphanage? How many referrals come from there? Just how long is our wait going to be for the next referral? The American in me wants answers. This is the information age. Give me answers! Size. Data of all past referrals. Something for me to analyze.......

Well we are dealing with Ethiopia. They are not in the information age.

Unfortunately, I had some internal ugly moments.

The internal ugliness lasted a few hours that night.

I am not proud that was my first response.

I wish I could be such a mature person that my first response is always trust. Within my first response, albeit ugly, there is always prayer. But not always trust. Stink.

But God yanked me out of that within hours. I have been clinging to Psalms 130 throughout this process. I'm not going to write it out in it's entirety for you once again, but a lot of it is about crying out to God and waiting.

Finding myself meditating on that chapter yet again, God pointed out something afresh and anew to me. vs.7 "O Isreal, (which I put in O, Cheryl), put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption."

That's when it hit me. When I get ugly disappointed? My focus, my sights, my hope have been skewed because the adoption has moved to the forefront and become my focus.

Adoption isn't the focus. My hope isn't in Adoption.

My hope is in the Lord. Full Redemption. Unfailing Love. That is the big picture. When I focus on that - it sure puts the adoption happenings in perspective and disappointment has a hard time hanging around.

I am REDEEMED.  And a God who loves me (loves you) enough to do that? Have a plan for our redemption even before we knew it.....even though we run from it.....even though we downplay it.......even while we were sinners in our sin. That is some love. "But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

Awesomeness.

Although adoption is so important to us, it cannot become the main thing.

Please be praying for us - and especially for our daughter who we now know, based on the orphanage information, is somewhere in Northern Ethiopia.
Pray that we would rest in God's timing and with joy watch the remaining portion of the adoption process unfold.

Because I can't help myself......a song (since I missed Tuesday's tunes)

Scandal of Grace

Hillsong United 2013