Weary

I am empty, thirsty, weary,
Coming back to you with empty hands.
You are waiting for me, you fill me, gently
Bring me back to you, once again.
~ "First Love"


I look back at blog posts about our adoption from a year ago and I think, "Wow. And I thought I was tired of waiting then."

I'll probably look back at this blog post in a month or two and think the same thing.

Every step of the way, the waiting gets harder. I get more and more frustrated. I feel like I'm in a pitch black room. I can't see where I'm going. I'm scared. I'm tired. I want to find light, but I can't. I'm fumbling around with my arms in front of me, trying to find something to hold on to. It's like I know that God's hand is there, but I can't feel it. I can't find it. And it scares me.

Another blogger recently did I post on our family and three others adopting from our same region. About how long we've been waiting. About how we need prayer. She said, "They are scared and weary of broken promises."

That is so true. I am so scared. I'm terrified that I can't see in front of me. I am so tired. Exhausted. Our agency has been "cautiously optimistic" about a court date for six months. Those words have literally no weight with me now because we've heard them so much. Every single week they tell us they think we'll get a court date and every single week our hopes are crushed. I don't know why I bother getting my hopes back up again every week. It hurts just as much or more every time.

I am so incredibly tired of this waiting. It scares me that I have no power. It scares me that my sister is living in an orphanage. It scares me that I have nightmares of her dying. If this is the Devil attacking, then so be it. But, I need my God. If I'm going to be attacked weekly, and even while I'm sleeping, I need Him.

I try to be so strong about it. I try to keep a good attitude. I try and tell people that God has everything under control. That God has a reason for everything. I tell them not to get discouraged, when I struggle telling myself the same exact thing.

When I do tell people how frustrated and broken and tired I am, I struggle to keep from crying.

I am asking for some immense prayer. I am asking for warrior prayer. Across the world, a little girl with Down syndrome is sitting in an orphanage waiting for a family. Pray her home.

Why Do We Not Trust Him?

It strikes me how many collective hours, collective days even, that we spend worrying. And, truthfully, none of it really matters. Drama with friends? I probably won't even be friends with these people in ten years. A bad grade on a test? Who's going to remember that even in one year?

We spend so much time fretting about things that don't matter, and it is draining our lives.

I'm in Chemistry this year (which is modern-day torture), but through the class, we've learned about how things like the air are formed, and how the things that form the air are formed, and how those things are formed. And, I think, Wow. My God made each microscopic bit of what makes up air absolutely perfect so that I could breathe it. He made it so that two elements that he created just happen to form water perfectly.

If God can do all of that, and do it so that it runs absolutely perfectly, why do I not trust Him? Why in the world would I not trust the person who could take our mess of the world and turn it into a fully-functioning machine to take care of me, his most special and intricately designed creation?

It doesn't make any sense. And I am ashamed for it. How must He feel to know that his children, His best friends, his treasures don't even trust Him to take care of them in the simplest situations? It's no wonder He doesn't give us anything big to do - we can't even trust Him with the small things. He sees us destroy ourselves trying to do things on our own, and then shove Him away when he tries to help. We are such monsters. We push away the only person who can help us because of our own selfish pride. It is disgusting.

And what's amazing is that He still loves us, even after all this. So, you have to ask yourself, Why do we not trust Him?

Photography by Tori H.