Definitely Worth the Wait!

There is no question to the hardest part of adoption... WAITING! From start to finish, our adoption took 19 months! We waited 9 months for a referral and 10 months after we found out Sarah was our daughter.


However, Emily's arrival was no less dramatic. After 2.5 yrs. of infertility and loss, I had a high-risk pregnancy almost from the beginning with spotting and then bedrest beginning at 22 weeks.


As every Guatemala adopting family remembers, November and December of last year were very dark and scary times during our adoption process with what seemed like a power struggle between the U.S. and Guatemala. Simultaneously, November 18, I went into the hospital with hard labor 4 months too soon. The fear of losing BOTH our daughters was very real. Those couple months were beyond my ability to cope emotionally and the Lord mercifully sustained me and my husband with HIS strength and grace.


I recount these hard days simply to REMEMBER the glories of God and the amazing things He has done! True, I fall into bed every night completely exhausted but the only tears I shed these days are ones of joy as I behold my two beautiful MIRACLES from God!


If you've read this far, I encourage you to read the very meaningful poem I've pasted below the girls' "out-takes". Found it a couple years ago and it's sentiment has been the "rock" behind my waiting! Oh yeah, I PROMISE to post pics of the girls' room soon... thanks for the requests : )

I could NOT get them both to smile at the same time!

Sisterly love : )

Naptime already?!?

Wait

Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried.

Quietly, patiently, lovingly, He replied.
I pleaded, and I wept for a clue to my fate,

And the Master so gently said, “Child, you must wait.”

“Wait? Your say wait?” my indignant reply.

“Lord, I need answers, I need to know why.
Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard?

By faith I have asked, and I’m claiming your Word.

“My future, and all to which I can relate

Hangs in balance, and you tell me ‘wait’?
I’m needing a ‘yes’, a go-ahead sign,

Or even a ‘no’, to which I can resign.

“And Lord, you have promised that if we believe,

We need but to ask, and we shall receive.
And Lord I’ve been asking, and this is my cry:

I’m weary of asking: I need a reply!”

Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate

As my Master replied once again, “You must wait.”

So I slumped in my chair; defeated and taut

And grumbled to God; “So I’m waiting, for what?”
He seemed then to kneel and His eyes met with mine

And He tenderly said, “I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens, darken the sun,

Raise the dead, cause the mountains to run.

“All you see I could give, and pleased you would be.

You would have what you want, but you wouldn’t know Me.
You’d not know the depth of My love for each saint;

You’d not know the power that I give to the faint.

“You’d not learn to see through clouds of despair;

You’d not learn to trust, just by knowing I’m there.
You’d not know the joy of resting in Me,

When darkness and silence was all you could see.

“You would never experience that fullness of love

As the peace of My Spirit descends like a dove.
You would know that I give, and I save, for a start,

But you’d not know the depth of the beat of My heart.

“The glow of My comfort late in the night;

The faith that I give when you walk without sight;
The depth that’s beyond getting just what you ask

From an infinite God who makes what you have last.

“And you never would know, should your pain quickly flee,

What it means that ‘My grace is sufficient for thee’.
Yes, your dreams for that loved one o’ernight could come true,

But the loss! If you lost what I’m doing in you.

“So be silent, my child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to get to know Me.
And though oft’ may My answers seem terribly late,
My most precious answer of all...is still...wait.”
-Russel Kelfer