For about the past month, I have had a harder time praying about adoption. Sometimes the words don't come easily. We don't know where this road will lead, we don't know when, we don't know if its foster first and adopt later, so I have a really hard time knowing what to ask or say. A while back, I realized I was treating adoption the way Luca treated daylight savings time. After daylight savings (for a good two weeks) I woke up each morning to Luca's face. He was irate that activity in our house had not begun. He would wake me up whining and crying, "Why aren't we eating?", "Why are the brothers sleeping?", "When do I get dressed?", "I need milk, I need my shoes, we have to go!" One day as I was praying for a baby, I realized... To God I look like Luca. Shoot. Clearly, He knows what is in store for us and His plan is better than mine. I can't just keep whining that it hasn't happened yet. To give you the full extent of my impatience, one day I heard a speaker on the radio talk about adoption and how important it is, and I emailed her to ask her why I don't have a baby yet. Crazy, I know. After my impatience, revelation hit: I just didn't know how to pray. Then about a week ago I started praying for hope. And I can tell you, a week praying for hope does a world of change.
To start, I will say this: when we seek God, He answers. Jeremiah 33:3 says, "Call to me and tell you great and unsearchable things that you do not know." He knows that sometimes we need help seeing the bigger picture. After I started praying for hope I read this quote in an Ann Voskamp blog,
"When this season of life is finished and the full story is told, we will not have even one small complaint with the leadership of God. In heaven, we will finally be fully seeing the one who has carried us far more often that we even realized, and kept us far more frequently that we could ever imagine."
Maybe this is stuff I should have been seeing all along. But to be truthful, I needed to pray for this reminder in order for God to bring it to my attention. Some days, no most days, my strength simply is not enough. I am just so grateful that God gives me a glimpse of His love and hope when I ask. It has really refreshed my walk down the adoption path. And maybe this has been a hopeful reminder to you as well, that we can pray and He will answer.