Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Liberation from Life on Pause

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you know that my husband and I are in the adoption process. It can feel stressful at times, but what I didn't realize until lately is that while I don't always feel stressed about it, I am stressed about it. That stress is taking its toll.

The stress is a quiet kind of stress. It's not big and it doesn't come at you all at once. Instead, it's quiet and constant. For example, we are trying to tuck away every penny we can find for our adoption. We've been doing that for nearly 2 years now. Think about how many times a day you make a purchase or a money decision. Each time we do, in the back of our minds we are asking ourselves questions like,
  • Do we really need this?
  • Is this the best price we can get?
  • Do we have the money in our account right now?
  • What will this do to our adoption savings?
Those little reminders when we use money remind us of the adoption, but not necessarily the smiling faces and tiny hands we will someday hold. It reminds of saving, of scraping, of squirreling away extra funds and wondering if it's ever enough.

We have reminders of our adoption when we see families pushing strollers through the mall, or moms taking kids out of their car seats at the grocery store. When we see friends' children it reminds us of our little ones out there somewhere. We don't know when they'll join us, and each day we wait is another day that separates them in age from our friends' children. I always dreamed of my friends and I pushing our strollers together, or our children having sleepovers together. At the rate we're going compared to some of our friends, I think their children will be babysitting ours!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that each day is a readjustment. Each day is a question mark with the future being an even bigger one. We hesitate to plan and we hesitate to spend because we don't know when we'll get THE phone call.

All of this came to a breaking point a few weeks ago when we learned that there's a very good chance our children won't be in our home anytime in 2011. What a blow. We were feeling certain we would be celebrating Christmas with them in 2011. Now who knows when we will meet them. It's hard. And we're tired of life being hard.

SO, guess what? We planned a vacation. That's right. We are spending money we "should" be saving, and we are going out of state. What better way to make an adoption happen? I figure we'll get a call that we need to be in Ethiopia when we are supposed to be on vacation. Oh yeah, did I mention we purposely did not get traveler's insurance? I feel rebellious.

Planning this vacation has liberated me. I was putting my life on pause. I didn't mean to but it just happened. I was waiting for these twins to come and feeling like I was holding my breath until they did.

No more.

Get ready, I'm hitting the PLAY button!

3 comments:

  1. We can't WAIT for you to get that call, either... but so glad you can enjoy a vacation just the two of you before you do.

    Just thinking of you as I read some verses in Romans where it talks about waiting patiently for our adoption by God (our salvation & redemption). Just as you wait so patiently for those beautiful children, and as we wait patiently for our redemption, it will ALL be worth it. God is working in your waiting. Praying that it comes sooner than we think, even so! Can't wait!!!

    Love you guys!

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  2. I am so glad you are doing this. You deserve it, and I my heart is happy that you have found release in this!

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  3. I think God often uses reverse psychology, so just when you have come to grips with nothing happening, everything happens. I hope you have a fantastic vacation (interrupted by an important phone call of course) and that you are amazed by the ways God surprises you along the way!

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