Somewhere Between Hope and Self-Preservation...

This is where I live. This is where I have been living for almost the last three years. Finding the balance between unabashedly hoping and trusting that the Lord will grant you your heart's desire, and protecting yourself from the seemingly constant realization that His timing is seldom your own is a constant theme in my life.

Today our adoption portfolio should be reaching a social worker in Chicago who will place it in the hands of a pregnant mother. Along with our portfolio, will be the portfolios of a few equally wonderful, able, and loving wannabe adoptive parents...couples who have probably been waiting for some time now (because unlike us, they actually have their home study done!). It's fun and exciting to start discussing things like furniture, names, logistics. It's scary yet thrilling to imagine dropping everything and leaving for Chicago at a moment's notice to meet a baby that could become our daughter. But it's dangerous. Oh so dangerous.

As a couple who has endured the month-by-month agony of infertility, every fiber of our being whispers to us things like: "She won't choose you"..."Even if she chooses you, she may not like you in person"..."She'll choose you and change her mind after the baby has already been in your arms". It's terrifying. And that's where the self-preservation comes in. That's where I try to rationalize everything to death. Just. To. Protect. I feel myself building up walls. But they're only knee-high right now. Y'know, just in case I need to step over them.

Lately I have kept coming back to Exodus 14. The Israelites have left Egypt and are in the desert. They were hopeful but are now disillusioned and terrified. The Egyptians are in hot pursuit, fearing they made a grave mistake by letting the Israelites go. When the Israelites find themselves surrounded by Pharaoh and his army, Moses says in verses 13 and 14, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

The Egyptians in this story are my deepest fears and doubts. Moses represents our friends and family who have so graciously been walking alongside us in the desert. And the LORD...well, He is the LORD. The unchanging Yahweh. The One who keeps His promises and fights for His people. May we be still and trust that He will fight for us as we cross the Red Sea and beyond. Whenever that may be...



Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. During the last watch of the night the LORD looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. He jammed the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, “Let’s get away from the Israelites! The LORD is fighting for them against Egypt.”
-Exodus 14:21-25