Waiting is hard.
We’ve been actively waiting to be matched with a birth mom for nearly nine weeks. That means our home study has been approved, applications submitted and filed, profile book completed…all the things we worked on so diligently for three months are behind us. These were the kinds of things we had some measure of control over: setting appointments, tracking down places actually open for fingerprinting during COVID, detailing our financial status a dozen times. While our to-do list was extensive, it wasn’t infinite, and checking off boxes maximized our time and minimized the wait by giving us something tangible to control. Tedious, yes, but with every form completed and scanned I knew we were one measurable step closer to bringing our baby home.
For these past nine weeks, not one single thing has been in our control.
In the past nine weeks we have chosen to present on twenty-one cases. Twenty-one times our hearts leapt seeing the email with the case that could be “the one”. Twenty-one times we have shared the heart of our family with a brave mama who has decided that her circumstances are not suitable for raising a baby right now. Twenty-one times we have prayed for her from afar, often by name, asking God to give her wisdom and courage in making this choice. Oh, and please let her choice be us! Twenty-one times we have not been chosen.
So we wait.
As much as I’d love to be, I’m not in control of this situation. But because I am confident I have been called for this purpose, I can trust that God is working it out in His time, in His way. He has already chosen a baby for us, as well as first mama to connect with and love on. We are ready for her, and we must wait for her to be ready for us.
If we can maximize our time while we wait, we can minimize the weight of our wait time.
Don’t misunderstand me: none of these things will actually shorten our wait time. Instead, investing energy and emotion in these areas will help lighten our wait, and making this time more enjoyable will make it seem shorter. And when our wait is finally over, we’ll be much better prepared for the next chapter because we will have used the time for good instead of worry.
This principle applies to any season of waiting: trying to conceive, pregnancy, a job search, contemplating a move, planning a wedding, caring for a loved one. You cannot control the wait time, but you can maximize your time while you wait.
Instead of allowing the wait to weigh me down, I am choosing to wait with intention.
Waiting with intention means focusing on what I can control while giving God what I cannot:
While we wait, we will share our story wherever we can. Adoption is part of our ministry and a way to naturally open the the door to talk about our calling and growing faith with others.
While we wait, we will work to raise the last bit of money we will need to bring our baby home. We will use our fundraisers as another platform to share our story.
While we wait, we will prioritize our mental and physical health. We will pour into each other and ourselves so that we can soon pour a great deal into a new baby and hopefully his/her birth family.
While we wait, we will embrace our time as a family of four. We will not let our children get shuffled to the side because we are so focused on the baby we are waiting for. We will be intentional about our time together, preparing for the coming days when a newborn will consume a lot of our energy.
While we wait, we cannot measure how much closer we are to the day we get to bring our baby home. But we will maximize our time and our faith while we wait, and the moment we get to hold our precious baby in our arms every second of the wait will be made worth it.
