Over the past year JJ and I have sat in a lot of actual waiting rooms. Sometimes there are seasons in life that feel like waiting rooms too. Learning to be content with God’s timing for us to have children has definitely been a room we feel like we have been waiting in for a long time. We started trying for a baby 6 months after we were married. It’s been two and a half years since then.
We did the whole fertilely test thing and everything came back normal. My doctor told us that it can take some couples 5-8 years before they are able to conceive. It was then that we really started to think hard about adoption. We decided that after I was done teaching for the school year that we would look into an adoption agency. Well, in May we miscarried and a month later I was in Hawaii with my family trying to heal, and move on. While in Hawaii my accident happened and that put trying for another baby on hold for almost another whole year.
When I look at that paragraph above, it makes me cry. I know many women who have gone through much more difficult things. And, I really am so thankful for our sweet little life, but going through those things was hard, and lonely. Learning to be content, waiting on God, and endeavoring to live every day with purpose is a lot. But I think living that way is seeing things from the wrong perspective. People talk a lot about “giving things to God”, and while it sounds easy to do in theory, it’s actually the most difficult thing I have ever done. Giving my issues with fertility and health to God is something I didn’t just do once, I do it daily.
When I look back on the past two and a half years I am honestly so thankful for it all. If those things hadn’t happened we probably wouldn’t have the strong marriage that we have. We probably wouldn’t be becoming foster/adoptive parents. And I know that I wouldn’t love the Lord as much as I do today. When you stop seeing life as a waiting room and start seeing it as God’s desire for your life it can help to shift your perspective from yourself to God and others. I am so thankful for all of our “waiting” because through it God has grown me. He has grown my ability to be patient. He has grown my love for the moment. He has grown my ability to trust in Him. He has grown my capacity to see His hand through everything. He has grown my heart to be quiet and listen for Him.
Waiting sucks. But it’s in waiting that we find the quiet moments in life. Those quiet moments are where God tends to speak the loudest. When He speaks, I need to listen. Now we are awaiting a phone call from the state to tell us we are licensed to foster. Then we will wait for a phone call from a DCS worker with a placement. Our hope is that this journey will lead us to adopt our own little love. And that means more waiting.
Waiting in rooms, whether big or small, in hospitals or courthouses, is part of God’s plan. My job, is to be quiet and listen.
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