The Adoption Advent

The Christmas Advent tradition has become entangled with the slow, out-of-control adoption theme in my life.

It’s fitting that I’m writing this in the first days of advent, when we embrace the expectation of a child planned and promised ages before His due date. Generations ebbed and flowed, while the promise hung suspended in the stillness, like a teasing star, shiny and hopeful but never close enough to touch.

Sometimes the advent is so slow it seems like a lie. The waiting seems to mock God’s goodness or hiss that the promise was empty.

But the promise didn’t fail, and weary years of lingering finally heaved and gave way to an unexpected Light that moved close enough for our fingers to reach. The promise was the remedy to the broken world, wrapped up in red, new flesh. Jesus.

It’s easy for us to see in the aftermath of the promise that it was worth the wait.

But the longing before the promise was worth it too. We have to RELIVE the waiting to truly understand the significance of the promise fulfilled. That’s why we dwell in Advent every year. And it strengthens us in our personal “advents”…as we wait on the coming of God’s promises to each of us.

I’m sure you’ve had “wait training” in your own life. Adoption has been one of those perseverance battle grounds for me.

Seven years ago (after two years of indecision) my husband and I decided to start an adoption process through foster care in CT.

When we started the lengthy home study in January of 2013, we didn’t know that it would be just over a year before we’d be placed with our (now adopted) youngest son.

When we were placed with that son, we didn’t know it would take a full year to finalize his adoption. (Although, we would find out later, that is a relatively short wait for foster-adoption.)

But the last couple of years have taught me a very different kind of waiting. The kind of groaning-in-your-soul waiting that isn’t entirely sure there’s anything on the other end of the darkness.

For years I’ve longed to begin an adoption process again, and have even felt that God was leading me to that path Himself.

I cried irrationally whenever I saw foster adoption ads and pictures of waiting children posted at the children’s museum or other public places. I would do a double take when I saw “adopt a road” signs, and I’ve had many literal dreams of adopting again. Whether I was at a mom’s group or one of my favorite coffee shops, I kept running into adoption stories, as though God simply would. not. drop. it.

But the adoption path was blocked. For years my husband was not convinced we should have a fourth child, and despite all my imaginative schemes, I realized that I couldn’t just sneak a baby into the house the way one might try to sneak a vegetable into a grilled cheese sandwich.

I desperately wanted my husband to share my desire- but at the same time, I didn’t want him to say “yes” to something that he truly disagreed with. (Manipulation and resentment, I’m told, aren’t foundational elements of healthy, long-lasting marriages.)

Why would God give me a desire that He wouldn’t also give my husband?

Last year during Advent, I was deep in prayer and expectation, believing God kept giving me the greenlight. But on a long drive to visit friends shortly after Christmas, my husband and I had a very difficult conversation that seemed to be the end of my adoption dream.

I grieved quietly for what seemed to be a lost dream, but also over my identity crisis with God.

Either my husband just hadn’t gotten the memo from God yet…or (my greater fear) I had totally gotten the memo wrong myself.

There is nothing more earth-shaking than believing that your relationship and communication with God might be built on something false. Had I ever heard God speak at all? Suddenly, waiting seemed cruelly empty of destination…like a merry-less merry go round.

The HOPE of the dream makes the waiting worth it…but take away the hope and all that waiting begins to mock you. “Didn’t anyone tell you this was impossible? What kind of lie must your life be- are you just making this all up?”

Oh, I know that some of our dreams have to die, or at least be buried to become the seeds of new dreams. And even mishearing God is often part of our journey to know His voice more clearly. I’m slowly learning that God doesn’t waste our waiting, whether He is refining our dream or refining us.

And for me, God whispered that it wasn’t just my husband He was preparing…but also me. I’ve felt God say that this process would cost me- and I believe there’s a new death to myself I have yet to arrive at.

But God is faithful, and His promise has not failed me. I truly believe He has been gently teaching me to trust His voice, and my ability through His Spirit to know His voice. (John 10:27; John 16:15)

Over this past summer –July 4th to be precise, but only crazy-promise-waiters would know the exact date– my husband casually mentioned that he “could imagine another child” in our family. And that off-handed comment became the first of many steps towards the miracle I had waited for.

Now, seven years after our first adoption process, we’re embarking on a NEW adoption journey. We attend a foster orientation this month, followed by weekly foster-adoption classes from January to March.

You may have missed the ups and downs of my journey to this point. But I believe I need to share parts of our slow story as it unfolds instead of holding onto it until it until my answer comes.

My mom has begun a journey of sharing the MIDDLE of people’s stories and struggles in a forum called “Meet Me In the Middle“. (She also shares about a diversity of issues that encourage unity. Check her out!) I think she’s onto something powerful, because when we hear the faith story from the end, we miss the struggle and hidden glory of wrestling through the hard parts together.

So I’m here to invite you to a front seat to our adoption as it unfolds. This post ends with a positive resolution, but not every post will. As we get farther into the journey, there will be many things I can’t share for privacy reasons. But I can still share my heart in the process.

I’d love to know that you will be there encouraging and praying for us in the adventure and not just at the finish line. I want you to comment with your own crazy chaos or words of wisdom when I’m about to lose my mind.

May you grace me with the messy glory of your failures and triumphs in your own waiting journey.

Finally, I hope to infuse courage for those of you who are looking to start the process to foster adoption as well. It’s easy to forget the harsh details when we write in past tense while holding our promise in our hands; may this reveal the bitter-sweet details of the now-before-the-answer.

Thank you for beginning this advent adventure with me.