So Close

I thought that I would go ahead and post an update because I'm not sure how the next "official" monthly update will go.
It has been an interesting month for us and the other families waiting with us to adopt from Ethiopia through our agency. As you know, at the beginning of the month we found out that we had actually moved BACK a place on the waitlist. It was a difficult blow to feel like we had lost a couple months of progress on the wait. Yet, even still we know that God is ALWAYS faithful and His timing is perfect. We trust that God has ordained this moment for us and that in the wait He is constantly drawing us back to Him. I wish it didn't always have to take a difficult situation to make us cling to God. We've learned over the last couple years that God is our ONLY source of strength. God has used many things to show us that. At some moments it was because we (Bryan and I individually) really didn't have anyone else to turn to but God.
This crazy, emotional, God-dependant rollercoaster has become our comfort zone. It has been all we know for the last couple years. As strange as it might sound, it has been wonderful going through the hard times, being constantly pushed to our very limits, because it has forced us to go to God for everything. We've had no choice but to trust in God and put our faith in Him to...complete our family, provide financially, work on the hearts of the few that doubt us, allow us to just get out of bed some mornings. It's scary to be pushed out of your comfort zone. Will we be able to depend so completely on God when we have our child and things are going well? Will we have the same zeal for our faith when we have what we want, to be parents? While we are ready and excited for the next chapter of our lives, it's also kind of a scary thing.
This is all being said because right now we are unofficially #3 on the boy list and #7 on the girl list. We are so close to meeting our child. We are so close to our hopes and dreams being realized. We would both honestly say that there are many times, maybe most of the time, that it just didn't feel like this would ever happen. Like having our own child to love was just something too good that was unattainable for us. We know in our heads that's not true, but in the long...long wait it feels like that's all you'll ever do, wait. But now we are so close to not ever having to wait again to know our first child.

-amory

February #s

For February we are officially 8 on the boy list and 12 on the girl list. No, that is not a mistype. I did say 8 on the boy list. Yes, we moved back a place this month. Why? Well I don't really have an answer for that. It could be caused by a couple different things. Here is an excerpt from the email we received with our updated numbers.
1)Families may return to the waitlist at anytime due to extenuating circumstances including the difficult situation of losing a referral. (There was a failed adoption last month and it is possible that family was put back on the wait list but don't know that they were).
2)Families ahead of you on the waitlist may alter their parameters at anytime assuming they have the approval of their social worker as well as our social services department. (someone ahead of us on the girl list could have decided to get on the boy list too).

It was not disclosed to us the exact reason why our number went up on the list, so we just have to cling to the fact that God is still on his throne and is sovereignly in control of this process. That being said, it doesn't mean that we don't still get frustrated. It still hurts to every day come home to a childless home and an empty nursery. There are still days that we just want to scream because it's so frustrating that there is NOTHING we can do to speed things up. We are still completely in love with a child on the other side of the world and are just dying to find out what our child looks like. But as much as it hurts to wait, I also know that I shouldn't want this to go any faster than God intends it to. I know that for me to become a mother, another mother must lose her beloved child, and our child must lose his/her first mother. I don't wish that kind of grief on anyone, even if it means I can be a mother. I know that it is inevitable that my child will have to experience this grief and I WANT to be there to comfort my child when that time comes, but I don't want my child to experience that grief a second before he/she has to. So we wait. We trust that God's timing is perfect and that we must be obedient and WAIT ON HIM, however difficult that wait might be.
-amory