My petulant inner child

I have been having an enormous pity party today. I mean, like boo-hooing, glum, sit on the couch all day kind of pity party.

We began the adoption process for the second time about three weeks ago. Adoption is anything but predictable, let me tell you. We got told by three programs we were interested in that they just aren't accepting new families. We were dejected, but still we pressed on.

I made a spreadsheet of every country we might be interested in adopting from and one by one, we went through and eliminated countries. We prayed. We talked. I spent hours on the phone and in email contact with social workers. And finally, we made a decision - South Africa.

And today I get a call from our social worker. The good news is we qualify at a state level to adopt. The not so good news is the partners in South Africa need more detail on my back problems and they want a letter from my physician. I quickly got a message in to my primary physician and said I needed it as soon as possible, but a few hours later I got a call back saying she didn't feel familiar enough with my case and asked me to have my specialist write it. My specialist I have seen exactly one time.

Cue meltdown.

Tonight, after I put Max to bed, I sat down to read a bit. I started reading Jen Hatmaker's Seven a few days ago, and I read these words tonight:

"I'm going to bed tonight grateful for warmth, an advantage so expected it barely registers. May my privileges continue to drive me downward to my brothers and sisters without. Greater yet, I'm tired of calling the suffering "brothers and sisters" when I'd never allow my biological siblings to suffer likewise. That's just hypocrisy veiled in altruism. I won't defile my blessings by imagining I deserve them. Until every human receives the dignity I casually enjoy, I pray my heart aches with tension and my belly rumbles for injustice."

Dang. Here I am upset that I have another hoop to jump through to bring my child home when that very child is likely going to bed hungry and lonely tonight. How incredibly childish and petulant I feel.

So, tonight I am going to bed with these words running through my head, my mantra for the coming months and years:

"If all the things that you stood for
Were burned to ashes at your door
Would you stay and try some more
What if the love you gave
Starin' at you from the grave

Would it make your heart explode"

 

May God give me the strength to stay and try some more.