A New Somewhere

For many months Travis and I have been talking about adopting again. We have felt eager and ready to, and we have been seeking the Lord’s direction on it. In the last couple of months, we believe that the Lord has made it clear to us that His response to us is not now.
Not now?!
Why not? Adoption is a good thing, if we are willing and able, why wouldn’t He want us to? I’ve seen and heard the stories of crazy adoptions, radical steps, God leading in staggering ways to build families, care for orphans, and making statements about the value of life, the heart of God… But He’s telling us not now? His response caught me off guard; I thought He would grab our hands and pull us back down this road as soon as we were willing and ready. But no, not now, not us.

I guess a good thing is not always our thing.

Meanwhile, The Lord has stirred the hearts of some very close, dear friends of ours to adopt and they have begun the process at the same time that the Lord is telling us not to. While this is an answer to our prayers for the spirit of adoption to spread, it has stirred up a surprising and unwelcome quagmire within me.

As she and I talk with other friends, she shares her experiences with beginning the adoption process –the questions, the emotions, the beginning of the tearing open of the soul. Others look at her and listen and take it in.
I hear my story. That’s my story.
Those are my feelings, emotions, experiences.
I feel them slipping away –out of my voice, my hand, my heart, and into hers.
I want to pull them back to myself, claim them as my own.
I feel fearful that my story will disappear, that by sharing it with others that it will get diluted, become an echo -a distant echo, a faded memory.

I fear that the work God has been doing in me through all of that will be paused, put on the shelf, while He moves His favor and attention to her -like a lone train car, left alone in the train yard, while the engine pulls a long line of attached cars out into the great beyond.

I realize that I long again for the way God worked in my life throughout our adoption process –He was so real, so close, so vivid. Life became very clear, the truly important things were in macro focus and all else became a background blur. I had never before been worked on –down into my deepest inner core- as I had been during our adoption experience.

Over the last three years, adoption and caring for orphans has become our passion. We believe the Lord has drawn us into this world and sliced our hearts open for His purposes in it. We have seen His heart for the orphan, a world so real but so unseen by many.

Now. And now, when I am honest with myself, I feel like this treasure, this precious jewel, the life changing blessing, this heart-ripping gift, is being pulled out of my hand to be placed into hers. I know with my mind where the reality and theology of these feelings breakdown, but feelings rarely care about facts.

For these past couple of weeks, I have wrestled with God, I’ve asked Him to show me, to show me that He isn’t abandoning me, setting me aside. To show me that this passion that He has given me still has a purpose, that He will continue to use me and work through me. I keep hearing in my mind, “I will be with you, I will never leave you or forsake you.” (Joshua 1:5b)

In church this morning, our pastor was talking about King David and his plans to build a temple for the Lord- but the Lord had other plans for him. In drawing out the lessons, he asked us, “Do you feel like God has left you behind?”
Do I?!
Did he get a memo from God to ask that question this particular Sunday morning?
Then he continued, “When God says ‘no’, it’s not rejection, it’s redirection.”

I looked around the sea of faces… was he speaking just to me? It felt like a specific message to my heart, a word that I hungrily needed to hear.

He continued, “If you feel abandoned by God, remember He is taking you to somewhere, not just from somewhere.”

As I write this, I hear thunder rolling deeply, loudly overhead in the dark night sky.
It sounds like, it feels like, it reminds me,
That God is overhead, He is moving, and He is working.

“Faith is telling your emotions where to get off” ~C. S. Lewis.