Home Study - Done !

So, we are done with the home study.  It’s hard to believe it but it’s true.  It will take another few weeks to get it all written up but I am so relieved that this part is over.  My husband was with me and in fact we celebrated our 30^th Wedding Anniversary the day before; got a huge bouquet of roses and flowers which was so thoughtful of him.  So he can’t be all that mad at me for putting him through this.  We shall see what unravels if anything after this or will I come to the conclusion that still I can’t do this.  I’m too old.  Then I look at these other ladies my age who have just brought a child home from China and they seem to be able to do it just fine; raise a young child I mean, some of them have more than one which is amazing I think.  When your will is so strong to help a child that you bring home four or five children and you can see them blossom with love and care that is all that counts, not what age you are.  At the bottom of it all you do what you have to do to keep that child fed, clothed and loved, you just do it, it’s a natural instinct in us and it doesn’t matter if you’re thirty or you’re fifty. When they grow up to be a teenager will they be embarrassed to have an older mom?  Probably but at least they have a mom and dad; that safety net they need to prosper.   

For now I breathe a sigh of relief that we’ve scaled this mountain but I know there are more mountains to come.  Still the home study has to go into the government and be approved.  Right now we don’t see a reason why it wouldn’t be but you never know what they’re looking for.  So we’re looking at the summer by the time this is all said and done if summer ever comes.  Temperatures here are up and down every day so that there is no real promise of spring much less summer but hopefully soon.  

Never did I think when I was younger that I would be on this road to help a child in this way but something in me just says that this is exactly where I should be.

30 Years This Tuesday

This week we celebrate our 30the Wedding Anniversary.  Yes, we’ve been married thirty years and in that time successfully raised three children.  That whole time we were watching them grow up and making sure they have everything they need to learn to be adults themselves and now they are.  Our job is done or so I thought and so my DH still thinks.  We are done. So how is it that if one is called to help an orphan/adopt that the calling comes after you think you were done raising children?  Why is it for some people it’s before they even start a family, or during raising a family and for some it’s after?  Yes, I know the plan is his, not ours. I try telling to my DH but it’s not sticking.  I told him it has nothing to do with us or what we want, or feel or think. The plan is his. Still he is doubtful. I can’t help that thinking that there is a lesson to be learned here in some way. I wish I knew what it was. What is it exactly I am fighting for? Is there a child really meant for us or is it something even greater than that?  But what can be greater than the gift of a life for both child and us?

Though I’m firmly on this road I’m still so full of questions.  I wish the questions were answered all at once … now but I have to be patient and surely I’m learning to be patient much more than I ever have before.  At times my nerves are raw and the slightest bit upsets me but that too I need to learn to control, take a deep breath and go on.  Is this what it was like for Jesus Christ when he was on the cross for us who took a deep heavy breath with each fall so he can go on.  Someone wrote in a Yahoo group, adoption is not for the faint of heart; no it’s not but you can certainly learn from it, you can find strengths in you that you never knew you had, strengths that are dug up and brought to the surface and you realize these are the values that make you who you are, who you’ve always been; in my case perhaps, a good mom.

Be As It May

There is so much waiting in adoption.  You do a couple of steps and then you wait.  With the home study you wish you could do it all at once but you can’t.  There is so much the social worker wants to cover especially in our case and then even the social worker needs a holiday.  So we wait for her to come back.  In the meantime my DH and I are doing more talking and there is some peace at completing the home study and hopefully achieving a successful outcome.  My belief that we were meant to do this (help a child)  has not wavered but we have both had to come to a compromise.  I know in adoption there is no compromise, you either do it or you don’t do it but that’s just it, I realized that is the compromise – after completing the home study and getting an approval we will decide then to either adopt or don’t adopt.  I have had to accept that the adoption may not happen.  I can’t force it to happen. I cannot put a child into that situation where it may not be wanted.  I will let the dice roll where it may so to speak.  My DH has agreed that it may or may not happen which is a step ahead of it will not happen as it originally began.  In fact this weekend he has seen me buy a piece of clothing or two for this child and he smiled and said he is ok with it.  He has admitted he can see how my eyes light up when he mentions China.  I am praying about a child but I’m afraid to think too much, care too much, ask too much about her but she is neglected and needs help very badly.  I wish I could whisk her out of there right now but I can’t, I have to wait and see what God has in mind for us.  We went to church again on Sunday, all our kids, grandson, my parents, my niece, I brought them all, is this what you wanted my Lord, I say.  My time through the home study has been emotionally painful, is this my sacrifice to you?  If so, here it is, here is my sacrifice and acceptance of you again, my Lord.