what {wait} looks like today...

Let all that I am wait quietly before God,
for my hope is in him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress where I will not be shaken.
My victory and honor come from God alone.
He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me.

O my people, trust in him at all times.

Pour out your heart to him,

for God is our refuge.
{Psalm 62:5-8}

Today marks the end of Month #60.  Five years. That's a LOT of one-lined pregnancy tests, a LOT of tears, a LOT of complaining, a LOT of baby shower gifts for other people, a LOT of asking God "Why?", a lot of daily decisions to trust Him no matter what or how long...

When we decided to move our family, that decision also meant that our adoption process would be stopped.  We knew we would have to settle here first (who knows how long that will really take) and then start the process all over again.  I cannot explain it, so I won't try, but all I can say is that deciding to trust God, to go where He was leading us, to wait LONGER, has been a decision enveloped by a peace I cannot describe.

When I explain the grief of infertility to people who, God bless them, just have no clue.... I draw a bit of a parallel to the grief my sister-in-law is feeling with my brother, her husband, deployed to Afghanistan.  It's lonely.  No one really understands what it's really like.  People sympathize and don't want to see you hurt so they say things to either change the subject or that they hope will make you feel better because they don't know what do do with your pain.  It would be so much easier for them if we could just trust Jesus and get over it already.  But, what is so hard to describe is that this kind of grief just doesn't fit into a neat little box, or a book, or a blog post.  My brother is very much alive, on a very important mission, but he is not in her arms.  So, she grieves, but not as one who has no hope.

To draw a parallel, I am very much alive, very blessed indeed with the best husband on the planet, a fantastic family, the greatest friends.... but God created the deepest most feminine part of my being to nurture and to be someone's mother.  Those whose wombs are threadless (see Psalm 139:13), know the visceral aching.  So, I grieve, but not as one who has no hope.

All this to say that today, as I mark the end of Month #60, I praise God for blessing me with His peace, that surpasses all understanding.  I cannot explain it, other than I believe it is the result of a daily decision and surrender and soul-deep unconditional trust that God knows the best path for our family.  

I'm so grateful to be a part of a group of women who are studying the Bible together by going through Priscilla Shirer's One in a Million study.  Last night on the video in Session Two, she quoted Charles Spurgeon who said that "The Wilderness is the Cambridge and Oxford of God's Kingdom."  She reminds us that when God leads us through our wilderness, that its those challenges we face which allows potential to raise up in us that we didn't know we even had.  At the end of the book of Job, he says "I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees you."  

That is the best way to explain the peace I have this day.  That my eyes see Jesus.... and that I know He sees me.  He has been, He is, He will be with me in this wilderness.  My prayers have been, are, and will be for God to give us a child, but the ultimate purpose of those prayers is to bring this stubborn Irish girl running to the arms of Jesus with a heart surrendered to Him, His timing, and His perfect plan for this family.

To make a long post even longer, I'm ending with a poem entitled "Wait", by Russel Kelfer (emphasis mine) and a promise to those of you who read this, and are in your own Wilderness, that I am praying for you ~ thanking God that He is with you in your Wilderness and praying that He will let you know that He sees you.

Wait by Russell Kelfer Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried; Quietly, patiently, lovingly, God replied. I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate . . . And the Master so gently said, "Wait."  "Wait? you say wait?" my indignant reply. "Lord, I need answers, I need to know why! Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard? By faith I have asked, and I'm claiming your Word.  "My future and all to which I relate Hangs in the balance, and you tell me to wait? I'm needing a 'yes', a go-ahead sign, Or even a 'no' to which I can resign.  "You promised, dear Lord, that if we believe, We need but to ask, and we shall receive. And Lord I've been asking, and this is my cry: I'm weary of asking! I need a reply."  Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate, As my Master replied again, "Wait." So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut, And grumbled to God, "So, I'm waiting for what?"  He seemed then to kneel, and His eyes met with mine . . . and He tenderly said, "I could give you a sign. I could shake the heavens and darken the sun. I could raise the dead and cause mountains to run. "I could give all you seek and pleased you would be. You'd have what you want, but you wouldn't know Me. You'd not know the depth of my love for each saint. You'd not know the power that I give to the faint. "You'd not learn to see through clouds of despair; You'd not learn to trust just by knowing I'm there. You'd not know the joy of resting in Me When darkness and silence are all you can see. "You'd never experience the fullness of love When the peace of My spirit descends like a dove. You would know that I give, and I save, for a start, But you'd not know the depth of the beat of My heart. "The glow of my comfort late into the night, The faith that I give when you walk without sight. The depth that's beyond getting just what you ask From an infinite God who makes what you have last. "You'd never know, should your pain quickly flee, What it means that My grace is sufficient for thee. Yes, your dearest dreams overnight would come true, But, oh, the loss, if you missed what I'm doing in you. "So, be silent, my child, and in time you will see That the greatest of gifts is to truly know me. And though oft My answers seem terribly late, My most precious answer of all is still . . . Wait."

© 1980 Russell Kelfer. All rights reserved.

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