and the waiting.

I've unhappily begun another semester of classes.  I am unusually annoyed to begin again.  I feel burnt out.  For nearly two years straight, I have taken classes with no traditional "summer break" in between.  During the summer I take classes.  During the fall I take classes.  During the winter and spring and then back into summer.  For two years I have done this - longer than that, really - and I admit, I am worn out.  My mind is elsewhere, and not in the material I should be studying.

Oh, but what I am studying.

Some of it is a review or enhancement of concepts I've previously studied.  And no matter what some may think of book knowledge, it is a necessary step for the application of life knowledge.  I must admit, my eyes smiled wide when I began to read the first chapter of my textbook - "Social Justice".  I nearly laughed aloud as I reacquainted myself with the questions of whether social justice is a socially constructed entity, or implicit in society.  What defines social justice?  How do societies define social justice?  The delicate balance of social justice as it relates to equality and rights, and desert and need.

I really could - honestly - write a whole lot more about this.  I won't, but I could.  I could, and I would giggle hysterically at those who flippantly decide that the world's problems as it relates to orphans are as a result of "easy to solve" poverty, or that posting photographs of children is a clear violation of rights and is therefore unjust, because...well, because they say so, that's why.  That nations in the world can immediately and without reservation change their opinions of special needs children to align more closely with our Western understanding of special needs (as valued members of society who deserve accommodation and inclusion instead of being shunned and ignored). I would giggle with my answers that came from books far more scholarly than fan fiction, and yet shake my head in sadness as I look at images of a place in so much disrepair and with so few resources that children lay in forgotten beds, waiting for the winds of change to twist them back to a more humane reality - a wind that has, thusfar, not arrived.

Collateral damage in a cause for the greater good, while adoption is tucked away as Evil and Poverty is blamed for every ill.

*sigh*

I could do this, but I won't. 

Instead, I will talk about waiting.

I have waited for so long to finish my college degree.  Right now, I am waiting to hear if I've won a scholarship for the fall.  More important than all of that, however, is the wait I have to hear about the Ministry of Justice in Bulgaria.

The worst part?

They have already met!  But I do not know the results.

The results I am praying for is the result of a referral that will then result in travel dates to meet our future son and at long last, travel to Bulgaria - a trip that I simultaneously seek and dread all at once.  It has nothing really to do with meeting this child.  It has more to do with my current daughter, the plans we will need to arrange, traveling to a nation I know little about and have never seen, and finding the funds to make it all happen comfortably and with as little trouble as possible.

Which is likely IMpossible :)

I do believe that waiting when the answers are already known to some is more frustrating than simply waiting.  Someone knows what was said in those meetings, but that information has not been relayed through all of the parties involved, and so we must wait. 

God's timing is much better and greater than my timing.  I know this, but it doesn't always make the waiting any easier. 

"Yet those who wait upon the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up like wings of eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary." Isaiah 40:31

The process of adoption will change a family.  It is working to change our family; to stretch our faith into the unseen, to teach us patience and humility, and to reap upon us great blessing.

"Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary." Galatians 6:9

Patience is built into this process, in the same way that it is built into pregnancy.  A normal, healthy pregnancy lasts about nine months.  A baby who is born too soon will die, but a baby who remains in the womb for nine very long months comes out prepared to meet the world.  (This is a generalization, but true in most cases).  Likewise, a child borne out of adoption comes into their future parent's world from a process that requires a wait - unlike pregnancy, it is not a predetermined wait - and a child who arrives too soon from that process is more likely to arrive to unprepared parents.  We must use this time to prepare for our child, and we are.  Yes, we complain about the wait, but the wait is necessary.

"For if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."  Romans 8:25.

God is with you in your frustration as you wait...as WE wait...and though our children may wait too, they do not escape the watchful eyes of our Father in heaven.  Though they may not yet be in our arms, they are in His. 

And so we wait.