Pray. Wait. Trust.

Last Friday felt like such an important day.  

We worked out all our confusion on the application to adopt our little guy, got our documents notarized, and submitted them to our agency.  Those documents then went to the adoption agency in our boy’s country and will be presented to the government.  So now we wait. We wait to see if they will approve our request.  If they will allow us to pursue his adoption.  That’s our biggest prayer right now.  And we’d love if you would join us in that prayer.    

Our boy.  Our little guy.  I’m sure you caught those words and I wanted to share our hearts on that.  

Legally, officially, according to anyone else, he is not ours yet.  But here’s the thing; in our hearts and in our minds, he already is.  He is loved, he is part of our family, he is prayed for and longed for and missed. 

Is that dangerous for our feelings?  

Yes, of course it is. 

There is no guarantee just yet that we will get to bring him home, but what kind of parents would we be if we held our love at a distance?  When our babies are born to us we love them unconditionally from the moment we know of their existence.  When our eyes see them for the first time, we are filled up with a joy and love that no one can adequately put into words.  Why should this boy be loved any different?  Is he less worthy of our complete devotion and love because of his location?  His circumstance? His disability? Our distance?  We know he exists.  We’ve seen his sweet face.  Why would we withhold our love? 

When our babies are born we do not know their personality, who they will become, what struggles they will endure, how they will swell and break our hearts…and yet no one could ever question our feelings for them. Why would we pretend this boy is less to us because he’s not in our arms yet?  Because he’s already lived a part of his life without us? 

He is our boy.  He is loved.  He is prayed for.  He is longed for.  He is missed.  

We can see him in our family, we are planning for his arrival.  We are working hard to be there for him as fast as we can.  His photo sits framed on my dresser and I speak to him every single day.   We are learning what we can to be the best parents for him.  We are living, and will continue to live, as if he is already ours because he deserves parents who love him, unconditionally, before they even know him.  He deserves a family who will do the hard work on his behalf, both now and in the future.  He is worthy of the same love every single one of God’s children are worthy of…simply because God calls him son.  

So what happens if it doesn’t work out?  We will be shattered.  We will mourn OUR loss, while still praising God for giving him a family, even if it isn’t us.   And then we will choose to love another boy –  just as hard. 

But the bigger question I think, is what if it DOES work out?  What kind of parents would we be if we withheld our love from him, for even a second, just to spare the possibility of OUR hurt feelings?  To me, that would make us undeserving of the privilege of calling him our own.  

So we will continue spending each day, moving closer to our boy, loving him, and praying for the day he’s here with us.

If you want to follow along with more frequent updates, you can see those on our Love Worthy page.