Playing the waiting game

My brother in-law, Scott, has been raving about the movie "Courageous" for a few months. We've been meaning to watch it, but my short attention span often distracts me from movies. This weekend we helped Scott move into a new apartment, so as a token of his appreciation, he bought us the movie. After we unpacked from our holiday travels today, we watched it. The acting is sometimes cheesey, but I appreciated the message. Given our circumstances and struggles with infertility, the movie was tough to watch at times...

In July we will have been on the list of available adoptive parents through our agency for one year. Maybe this is arrogant of me, but I honestly didn't think we'd be on the list for this long. I know one year isn't that long. It seems like most of the adoptive parents who've worked through our agency waited for a year or two before a placement was made. But the irrational side of me thinks, "We're young, financially stable, and semi-interesting---who wouldn't pick us to parent their child?!" I tend to over-analyze things anyway, so as the months have passed, I've started thinking about our profile letter and what needs to be changed in order to make us more "marketable." It's such a crazy experience, really. We have two pages in text and photos to "sell ourselves" to prospective birth parents, to convince them to meet us face to face to talk about parenting their child.

As we watched the movie I wondered if we'd ever be parents. I feel like I go back and forth on this. At times I feel sure that God wants us to be parents and will bless us when the timing is right. Other times I'm not so sure, and I wonder if parenting is in the cards for our lives; I don't know if it's just a fear of mine, or if it's a real possibility. And so this is where faith comes into play. I have faith that what God ordains in our life is what's best--even if it may not align perfectly with my idea of what's best. It's not easy to have this kind of faith, to say to God--"Do what you want." I want to adopt kids, and I want to be parents who bring their kids to Christ and work to foster their relationship with Him. Remaining childless forever terrifies me. So it's hard to submit to God and say, "Do what you want." But...like John writes in John 3:30--"He must become greater; I must become less."

This infertility/adoption road hasn't been an easy one to travel. But, it's made my faith more genuine and practical. It's teaching me to set aside my own desires to seek God as my only source of fulfillment. And though the road sometimes feels like a dead end, I'll keep walking, searching for beauty along the way.