I had no idea it’s been since July since I’ve posted! It’s been quite the change with school starting and my little one in kindergarten. I’ve had lots of blog post ideas but it’s been hard to get them out because of time and honestly, it’s just been a hard season.
We’re in the adoption process for baby #2 and this journey has been a long one that seems filled with one delay or setback after another. You name it, it’s happened. Despite the delays, God has proven Himself faithful time and time again. The most recent setback came with updating our homestudy. We found that we wouldn’t be able to use the same social worker who did our update and it would require switching to a different agency. It’s a long story but we ended up having to start entirely over with our new agency, which includes more expense and delays us being able to present to any potential adoption situations until everything is current. Last week was not a good week but God reminded me of how He speaks to us through other believers and our circumstances.
My husband and I have some dear friends, E and A, who have also adopted. A little backstory on how God ordains friendships. Nearly 10 years ago, I spoke at a church about adoption and foster care. E and A were there that Sunday. Fast forward a few years later and I’m attending church with my now husband and we end up in the same Sunday School class as E and A. She remembered hearing me speak years earlier. They were so supportive of our adoption journey and little did we know that at the time God was working in their hearts about adoption. We brought our son home and then 2 years later, they bring home their precious little boy. A and I have walked through some of the highest of highs and lowest of lows together with adoption.
I was talking with her last week about all that had been happening with our adoption. Well, talking and I was mostly crying. She was silent for a minute and then she said, “ I remember sitting across from someone in Starbucks when I had hit the wall with our adoption. She looked at me and told me that it was quite possible that our baby had not even been conceived yet and that God’s timing is perfect. I didn’t want to hear that at all but it was spoken from a place of great love and truth. So I’m turning the table and speaking those words to you. Maybe your baby isn’t even conceived yet.” I choked back the tears as I vividly remember that night at Starbucks. I was in awe that God would use the words that I spoke to someone to later comfort me.
I was reminded of 2 Corinthians 1: 3-7 (NIV): Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
God never wastes a hurt. He is the ultimate Comforter. He comforts us so that we can share the comfort that we’ve experience with others who need it. A and I had both experienced deep heartache and suffering. However we weren’t alone in our suffering. Not only was God with us in our pain, but He gave us the gift of each other. We were both able to help each other because one of us had walked aside the other and vice versa. I was able to give her hope because I had experienced first hand God moving mountains and seen how perfect His timing was. She was able to give me the same hope because she had walked the same road. We were never meant to walk life alone.