Living in God's Peace

I keep waiting to reach the place in my walk with God where my first response is faith. It seems that no matter what circumstance I face my first reaction is fear. I will say that what I do see in my life is a quicker response time. It takes less and less freak out before the faith kicks in every time I face a circumstance in my life that is uncomfortable or scary or painful. But, that's not what I desire for myself is just a quickER response. I want my response to be immediate. I was fearful when we got the call about Dora and was fearful when I got that phone call on Thursday. But the point is that my fear is irrational because I know that God is faithful in all circumstances in my life, the good and the bad. He has proven Himself over and over again and STILL I have problems trusting Him. It grieves my spirit. But, just so we're all clear, I'm OK now. By Thursday night I was fine. Exhausted and drained, but the line had been drawn, the decision had been made and I was confident in it.

As all of this has kind of settled in my mind and my heart I was reminded of two women from the Old Testament. Jocabed, the mother of Moses, and Hannah the mother of Samuel. Both women only had the infant and toddler years to teach their children Godly character and wisdom. Both men grew to be very influential and important figures in the history of His people which I think is such a testament to the teaching that their mothers did in the short time that they had them. And, it's such a blessing to their mothers as well to watch their children grow into men of God from afar. Even if I only have the next six months with Dora I have so much I can teach her! God put her in my life at this point in her life because we needed each other and I'm content in that. I pray that I have years and years to teach her many many things and that she can grow up in our family, but you better believe that I will seize every opportunity to teach her as much as possible between now and then. We're at this place where we choose to be hopeful that she will permanently be a member of our family and we need you to be there with us. We realize that we're putting you in a potentially emotionally risky position, but we're all adults here and we believe that God is gracious enough to help you through it. We have a child here who is very observant and very aware of how she is being treated and we expect our family and friends to treat her as a permanent member of our family. Both our children are equal.

Here's the thing that I've learned about the system. What we're experiencing is NORMAL! Why Dora's social worker made it seem like we're the first people this has ever happened to and that it was completely unexpected baffles my mind and it certainly caused me an inexcusable amount of confusion and pain. In talking with our SW it became very clear that this is 100% normal, expected and happens all the time and in most instances the child does not go back to their parent. The more I've thought about other families that have had experiences with the county the more I've realized that most/many/all have experienced something similar and all of these realizations provided the beginning of healing in my heart. Had our SW been the one to call to tell us the news I would have been saved a lot of pain! I really expected the court process to be drawn out than they expected because it just seems like nothing is as easy as people expect it to be. The amount of backtrack in the process caught me off guard though and really shocked my system. Just like in anything else it's scary until you have all the facts and then when you're educated it suddenly isn't as scary as it once was. So, we're living life in our new reality. It's a risky and potentially costly reality, but we're right where God wants us to be. We didn't go into this process with blinders only hearing what we wanted to hear. We were well aware of the risk and we made an educated decision. In many ways we're counting the cost of that decision now. It really makes me think about the Christian life. Receiving the gift of salvation is the easy part, but the cost of discipleship is great. If you think for a moment that the Christian walk is supposed to be easy, free of pain and suffering than you need to reconsider. Jesus said that we are to deny ourself, take up our cross DAILY and follow Him. For some that means losing friends, for others it means financial hardship or infertility or disability or death. But the thing is, the benefits far out way the cost. It's the same here. The decision to adopt was easy and now we're in the tough part, counting the cost of our decision. BUT, whether the time we have with Dora is 6 months, 12 months, 12 years or a lifetime, the benefits will far out way the cost.

The other thing that I've learned about the system is that they drag things out way longer than anyone thinks that they ought to so that they can say that they did everything they possibly could to reunify mom and child. I've heard it from foster parents and our social worker alike that often they run it out without ever having any intention of reuniting them. I don't fully understand why they do what they do, but I do know that God is STILL in control of the court's decisions. It isn't a surprise to Him and He already has a plan laid out in the best interest of everyone involved.

I've gotten the sense that people aren't sure what to say to us or are afraid of giving us false hope. Don't be. Our eyes are WIDE open, but instead of living in fear of the future we're living in hope. So please choose to hope with us. Don't be afraid that by encouraging us or admitting that there's hope is in any way giving us a false sense of security or hope. It's not going to hurt us in the future if you were hopeful with us along the way. It will hurt us now if you choose to live in fear, discouragement or doubt. We're living in hope of the future and we expect you to as well. If you can't do that then maybe we're better off without each other until this process is over. NO ONE is more aware of the risk than we are.

I think you can't really understand God's peace unless you have experienced it or are experiencing it. But I would be a wreck without it! God's peace is one of the many benefits of discipleship and it is what gives me the strength to walk through the trials I face