The joy of adopting and the pain of the process make a sweet and salty mix, a combo that's not always easy to swallow. While with God every bitter thing is sweet, the bitter can sometimes overshadow the sweetness when the mixture seems to be such an unequal concoction.
Intentional or not, people can be cruel. Personally, I'd like to smack down the next person who tells me that my son will come home "all in God's timing." While true, for someone who's been waiting for nearly four years, this is the equivalent of quoting Romans 8:28 to someone who's just lost a loved one. It stings.
Or even worse, "Your son's not home yet because God still has things He wants to work out in you first before you're ready for him to come home." Yes, I was actually told this. And even though God is still working on me (and will continue to do so even when my son is home), I know this statement is not true. And yet it is painful. And cruel. And so very un-Christlike. As Proverbs 27:3 says, "Stone is heavy and sand a burden, but a fool's provocation is heavier than both."
Our lives are not always a picture of stained glass perfection; sometimes the glass has jagged edges that can cut you. The heat of God's refining fire? It burns before it purifies. And so even though you are passionately pursuing the One who relentlessly pursues you, you may find yourself facing far more heat than you ever thought you could withstand.
Though my faith sometimes flounders, the struggle will not destroy my faith, but will instead strengthen it. The very thing that the enemy intended to destroy me with will be the very thing that plants a powerful seed within me that will grow...and blossom...and produce unimaginable fruit that will in turn destroy the works of the enemy.
So, what do I do in the face of all this? I choose to believe. I choose to believe God is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do. I do believe...but like the nameless man in the New Testament, I too must add, "Help my unbelief."
There's nothing like an adoption to cause you to abandon your pretensions and posturing, to let go of your carefully constructed image and trade it all in for a richer, deeper, below-the-surface life...a life hidden in Christ where real growth and intimacy occurs. And in those depths you will be cut off from your very self and grafted into Christ. It is there you will find that, truly, nothing can separate you from the love of God.
I didn't sign up for all the heartbreak and pain I've endured, but I wouldn't trade the person I've become through it all for anything. On the other side of the storm the sun shines again, the rainbow appears, and new growth is evident to all who have eyes to see.
In the end, I will live without fear, I will love with abandon, and I will ultimately become something infinitely more beautiful than the woman I was before I started the adoption process. And even though my journey is not yet complete, the scars I've accumulated serve to remind me that I showed up for the game; and one day I will joyfully proclaim that I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I kept the faith.
