Nothing Catchy

I can't think of a title for tonight. There isn't anything catchy that will effectively sum up all of the madness in my brain.  So just hold on while I weed through the muck....there's a point, I promise.

On Friday, Jake visited our new favorite FedEx store (by favorite I mean, we should ask about a stock option after the amount of money we've spent there in the last month) and he mailed our final, corrected, re-corrected, re-re-corrected medical documents to Ukraine. Our translator has the rest of our dossier ready to go and is litrally just waiting on the mail man. We aren't in the clear yet, though. As much as I want to squeal with delight, we won't be officially cleared of any paperwork errors until the message is received that says "you have an appointment with SDA on......".  THEN, we cheer! In the meantime, continue to pray for our family as the figurative pins and needles feel more literal every day ;)

So now that we think that we can expect a travel date soon, we're forced to deal with this one issue that we have graciously ignored up until this point......Cole and Zella. The mother in me wants to jump off a cliff at the idea of leaving them for 4-6 weeks. The mother in me wants to just take them with us. But I know that's not what God is asking us to do. When God called us to Ukraine, He made it very clear that none of this process would be done on our terms. This is no exception to that. If we knew, if we had the faces and names of our children, we would take Cole and Zella. But when we arrive in Ukraine we will be asked to choose, based on a few medical records, which child(ren) we believe God has chosen for our family. We need to be able to hear Him, with our best listening ears, with as few emotional or physical distractions as possible. The lives of our future children depends on our obedience.  But no pressure. So today, we started planning. Today, it started to hit me. Today, the weight of what is about to happen, began to weigh on my shoulders and for about 20 minutes, God allowed me to believe that my hurt was suffering, and then He snapped me out of it......

We designated today as "Mommy and Daddy are wearing clothes with holes in them after not shopping for themselves for over a year, today we buy clothes" day.  We packed up the herd and hit Savannah and the second we pulled into the parking lot (keep in mind, this is all while I was wallowing in having to make uncomfortable decisions and feeling sorry for myself), there was a homeless man very slowly making his way through the parking lot. Jake and I cringed a little. Cole is 7 now. He GETS it. And it hurts him. And he doesn't understand suffering just as much as we don't understand suffering, but as parents, we still try to shield him. It wasn't possible today. We got out of the truck, nervously opened the stroller, took children by the hand and Jake and I both paused.....this is that moment. That moment when God slaps you in the face. We both heard this gentlemen before we saw him. You could hear his agony. He was coughing very very badly and with every step there was a painful moan that probably generated from his deformed foot. We just stood there. squeezing the life out of our kids hands as if it would pour life into him. I heard it in Jakes voice. His own agony of having no idea how to help the man. What do we do?  What do we say? Where is a shelter in Savannah?  And I had no solutions. None. I went to church this morning and listened to the preacher tell me how much God loved me as I sipped on my hot coffee with my new hair color and cute boots. And I had not a single solution for this mans suffering.....except to pray. And as a family we stood in the parking lot and prayed for this man and I caught Cole patting me on the back when we finished praying as if to say "you met your good deed quota". And walking away, the prayer felt like it was in vain. So I'm so good and holy that I can fly to a foreign country and adopt a child or two in the name of Jesus commanding us to look after the widows and orphans, but I can't count the guy in the parking lot in the same category as "the least of these"? And then I walked into a mall, to buy myself new clothes, when the ones that I was wearing were perfectly fine. And the feeling that I felt......the thing that turns into more of a whispering than a feeling, it didn't go away today.

Normal shopping trips consist of me beating myself up in at least 3 dressing rooms and leaving with maybe two shirts because the bottom half of me is allergic to pants made for skinny people. I couldn't even try them on today. I don't need new pants! Do I have any comprehension of how blessed I am to even have pants?!!! What makes me so special? What makes my kids so special? Why was Gods plan for OUR lives so blessed......and the lives of the homeless, and the lives of 100's of millions of orphans, why were the plans for their lives different than the plan for my own?  I can't say that its because I've been a good Christian girl my whole life. Because I haven't.  I am fully aware that God saved me, and sought me out. I can think back, just right in the very moment, of at least 10 times when I could have died or been severely injured or made the wrong life altering decision.....I know God saved me and sought me out and pursued me. My sins are no greater or no less.....or less punishable or more forgiveable than any other sinners. So why me? Why this blessed life for someone so painfully undeserving?  Why so many blessings, for someone so quick to wallow in non-suffering?  And God reminded me of His plan......that we walk, trusting, but always seeking His face, even when we don't know the why and there is more hurt than we can wrap our brains around and the suffering is gut wrenching and there isn't aren't enough resources....we have to trust Him anyways, even in the suffering, seeking His face.   

 Here's the thing......I don't know their stories. But I know mine. I know that my story is one of deliverance. Its a story of pain that ends in great joy. Its a story, that because of the pursuant love of God, my story never ends! Today, we failed. WE FAILED. Jesus' hands and feet never walked away and prayed. He laid His hands on the leper. He touched the eyes of the blind man. He got up in the mess and muck and mire and stood us on the rock.  Today, because we let ourselves get distracted from what the goal should always be, we let a soul walk away from us. We let an opportunity be missed. Never again.

Jake and I have said from the very beginning of this adoption, that it wasn't just about children. Today, I believe that more than ever. Yes.....we are humbled and honored that God chose such an imperfect pair to parent one/two (insert your number here) blessings. But God has been working us, hard, through this whole journey. He has been constantly reminding us that His heart doesn't ONLY hurt for children and it doesn't ONLY hurt for orphans. He loves EVERYONE. He has been taking the super duper ugly parts of us and exposing them in nasty ugly ways. He has shown us that all that we have, is 1st, its His and 2nd, way more than we need. He has shown us what it means to be adopted.....because we've lived it. He has shown us what it means to be walking blindly by faith. He has shown us what it means to truly give it up and trust. He has shown us that He is faithful in His promises. He has shown us that He will make our paths straight if all of our ways acknowledge Him. We mess up. Every. Single. Day. Multiple times a day. And He has shown to us, every single day, that He loves us. He loves us. And love is a choice. He chooses us.  Its our responsibility to choose Him. To choose love. To be love. 

We are undeservingly blessed to lay our heads down tonight with hope of a future. With the hope of joy in the morning. Every single person, big, small, whatever....they all deserve that hope, that joy.