Where Has She Been?

"Where has she been?" you might find yourself asking. Fair question. I did not intend to stop blogging for nearly the entire month of June, but somehow, it has almost come to that. I have thought about writing a few times over the last few weeks, but I didn't realize how long it had been until I was chatting with a sweet fellow teacher during a workshop yesterday morning, and she said, "You haven't been writing as much lately." She was totally right! There are a lot of reasons. I was traveling to visit my grandparents for a week without much downtime or access to the internet. And then there is the fact that the adoption world, for us, has fallen all but silent. I think there has been one referral this month. But if I am honest, the main reason I haven't written much lately is that I have reached a point and a place where I don't really know what to say.

We are over two years into a process that had a projected one year timeline when we started. Weeks, sometimes months, go by with no movement. My heart aches and breaks for all of these children, my children, living in orphanages for the most formative months and years of their lives because of a flawed system, a system in which these precious children are not valued as they should be. I feel so lost, so hurt. And yet, at the same time, so convinced that our children are in Ethiopia.

I wish I could be stronger. I wish I could be the woman who looked trial and heartache and hurt in the face and said, "I am not afraid of you. You have no hold on me." But on so many days, I am the woman who curls up and cries. I am the woman whose heart cycles through hope and disappointment over and over again. I am the woman who is empty.

And these things, these weaknesses I am seeing in myself, are difficult for me to write about.

You see, when we started this adoption journey on April 10, 2012, I never once imagined that June 2014 would come and go and we would still be waiting to see our children's faces for the first time. I didn't think it was possible. But here we are. Twenty six months in with no real end in sight.

And lately, I have found myself looking to God and asking, "Where are you?"

More than anything I wish I could tell you that God answered me right back, "I'm right here."

But that has not happened.

I do KNOW that He is here, but I feel so alone, forgotten.

And that is hard for me.

I was talking with my adoption soul sister, Amy, last week while I was driving home from the Carolinas. We were discussing sharing venting about how frustrated we both are with this whole process. I was sharing specifically about how it has been so hard to see person after person in my life cross the bridge into motherhood, while I am still stuck on the other side of the chasm. In a moment of pure honesty, I told her that I felt like God has just left us.

As soon as I said it, my insides coiled up. That is not something you are supposed to feel, much less say out loud to another human being.

But, as she always does, Amy came through for me. With no judgment whatsoever, she reminded me that what I have with God is a RELATIONSHIP. She asked me to think about my relationship with Adam. Was I always only ever happy with him? Did I ever feel like he had forgotten me? Now, I am married to the most incredible man God ever created, so these things do not happen with any kind of frequency. But…yes. There have been times over the course of our ten years together that I have felt less than overjoyed by something that my husband has said or done, and usually because I misunderstood what he was actually saying or doing.

Well, Amy pointed out, you are in a relationship with God. There will be times when you are confused and hurt. But He always loves you, and He is always there.

Amy, I don't know if you know how much those words saved me in that moment.

I have been feeling like such a failure lately, because God has asked us to walk through this terribly difficult thing, and I have been so feeble. I have doubted and cried and argued and raged, when I should have been trusting, praising and thanking. But even during all of that, God has not left me.

And He won't.

I am still in the process of reading through the Psalms. One thing I have noticed is that over and over again, psalmists plead with God to not be silent forever, to not leave them in the pit for all days. I have found such comfort in these psalms. Not because they are particularly uplifting, but because the psalmists are honest. They feel alone, and they tell God that.

And I can, too.

So I am trying to embrace that moving forward from here. I have NO idea what lies ahead of us. We might be on the waiting list for years. I hope and pray that is not the case. But if it is, I hope and pray harder that God will strengthen my legs to stand firm.

Love,
Baylor