5 Months

5 months.

As of yesterday (October 12) it's been 5 months since our dossier was logged into China's database.

5 months of virtual silence on the adoption front.

5 months of waiting. Hoping. Praying.

5 months of jumping up, sprinting across the room, house, where ever, every time my phone rang in the hopes that our case worker's name would be displayed on my caller ID. Ok, more like 3 1/2 months of that, and then a friend mentioned, perhaps I should assign our case worker a special ring tone, so that my kids wouldn't hear me sigh every time it wasn't her. :)

These past months, looking back, have gone by at warp speed. Our summer flew by with a flurry of fun, activities, trials, tears, not enough really warm days, relaxing, and through it all each day we woke up with new hope that today could be the day we were going to be matched.

As days, weeks, and months have now passed most days are good, fine, ok, as far as waiting goes, but there are days that are frustrating, hard, and disappointing. And the past 2 weeks have been hard as the realization of how long we've been waiting sets in. In the grand scheme of things, I know this time will seem like a drop in the bucket. However, right now it seems long. And when you're getting big packets of paperwork from your social worker because your home study expires in December so we need to be fingerprinted (for the 3rd time at the local level), fill out background checks, again, and get everyone scheduled for new physicals because we need new medical forms filled out...the wait seems long. So we start chipping away at our paperwork, try and get the required face-to-face meeting with our social worker scheduled; and get all the odds and ends she needs to see or verify in order to update our home study.

When we received the news back in May that we were all logged in, we were told that the estimated wait time to be matched with a special needs girl would be 0-9 months. Of course my brain went right into calculating where 9 months would put us (Feb. 2015). I shared my discouragement with my husband about the possibility of having to wait that long and he reassured me that the 0-9 months was just an estimate and that he was pretty sure we'd be matched within 3 months (my husband is the ultimate optimist). :) Obviously, the 3 month thing didn't happen. So we are more then half way into a possible 9 month wait to be matched. Now, I guess I could look at it as, we're over the waiting hump, we're more then half way in, but it hurts to think we've possibly got another 3 1/2 months to wait for a picture.

Hope.

Despite these months of waiting, and all the craziness that's taken place over the past 5 months, the insanity that I feel like we're living in right now, despite it all, everyday, I wake up with a hope that, today could be the day.

My hope is in Jesus.

With Jesus there's always hope.

Throughout these months God has also been showing/teaching me the importance of thankfulness. Especially thankfulness in times and situations where there seems to be nothing to be grateful or thankful for. And some days it's really challenging, but I always have things to be thankful for, always! There are days I must choose to be thankful. But having a bed to sleep in, clothes to wear, food to eat, clean water to drink...I have much to be thankful for!

In these days of waiting, through the hardness and frustration, not that I don't have meltdowns or have trouble seeing sometimes; I'm learning to be thankful not only through my trials, but for them. It's in those places I'm meeting Jesus in ways I've not known Him before, and that I truly am thankful for!!

"To be Grateful for an unanswered prayer, to give thanks in a state of interior desolation, to trust in the love of God in the face of the marvels, cruel circumstances, obscenities, and commonplaces of life is to whisper a doxology in darkness." -Brennan Manning