30 May 2010

I mourned the loss of our adoption match a little more this morning. It just hit me, after days of being okay with it all, that we probably would have been leaving today or tomorrow to go get our son if nothing had changed. I wept and wept during the sermon. Then the verse that God gives us "joy instead of mourning" (Isa 61:3) came up and hope resurged. He has been so good, so kind, so comforting during this time of sadness for us. And, He just keeps reminding me of the promise and the hope. We keep giving Him this sadness, and He keeps pointing us to the joy that is just around the corner.

Just in case all this doesn't translate well in black and white, I'm not trying to point out that I'm some sort of super-spiritual saint who is sanctimoniously enduring this suffering for Jesus' sake. It's not that at all. I'm lost in wonder and mesmerized by the grace of the Shepherd leading us through this experience. Even in my past adoption disappointments (and other disappointments along the way), I've never had this sense of His closeness, His comfort, His promise, His involvement. I'm sharing because I'm surprised! I'm sharing because it's never been like this before. The disappointment and mourning are very, very real. But somehow, the hope is even more real. Somehow, for some reason I don't even know, this moment in time is one of the holiest I've ever known.

Ug. I don't feel like I'm conveying this well at all. If you haven't had this sort of God-experience, I'm not the one to explain it to you. All I can say is I'm falling way deeper in love with Him. The very same type of experience that threatened to drive me from Him in the past is driving me now deeper into love, deeper into hope, deeper into faith. But only because of His leading. I'm just following His cues. I don't know what changed, but I like it!