You adoptive moms know this feeling all too well.
The feeling of yearning, aching, longing to hold your child so far away.
They’re not just any child. They’re YOUR child. Birthed in your heart. Destined to be your child since before the foundation of the earth. You feel pregnant as you anticipate the arrival of your new blessing. The only difference is that you don’t feel the closeness of your baby move in your womb–the joy of feeling them grow bigger.
They’re so far away. You’ve never laid eyes on them. But they’re YOUR child in your heart. It amazes me how God does that.
Today my heart is aching. Wishing that the paperwork we are waiting for would just hurry on up. Promises of expedited citizenship feel like that they’re empty. Time is ticking by, and still nothing. No word that I will be granted my interview to become a citizenship soon.
We’re waiting for the one piece of paperwork–the one that will bring me so close to my citizenship, and my daughter. But each day…there’s nothing.
Just silence.
(By the way, I have received a few e-mails from people asking we what the hold up is in getting Hailee. You can read it here.)
I’m afraid. Our daughter is frail. She is so tiny. She is so weak. Can she survive another winter in a cold orphanage? She’s just barely hanging on to life. Will she make it?
I can’t even allow my heart to go there.
I’m wondering why? Why do they make it so unbelievably difficult to adopt a child? Why does every single government that you deal with just have to take their time? Don’t they know that children are waiting…and waiting and waiting? Does anybody care? Do they care that many of these children won’t make it home in time? Do they know that some will die if they are not brought home as soon as possible? Do they not know that many are suffering abuse at the hands of orphanage staff…but that a safe and sheltered place awaits them at home (if they would just get a blooming move on with things)?
Do they not know?
Do they not care?
Why is human life not treated with more urgency? Why is the process to bring orphans home not treated with absolute urgency? Why is it not a priority? These are children. Precious children. Children longing to know the love of a mommy and daddy.
But they have to wait…and wait and wait and wait.
I’m not understanding it. Today my heart is aching.
Maybe they just don’t know. Perhaps those who make decisions have never seen for themselves the places these children live in. Perhaps they have never seen the conditions they are forced to spend their days in. Perhaps it’s just ignorance. So every piece of paperwork needing to be signed off [so that adoptive parents can go to the next stage in the adoption], just gets put on the back burner on someone’s desk.
Ignorance–maybe that’s it.
It’s just not fair. It absolutely breaks my heart.
Tomorrow will, no doubt, be easier. But for today, I’m heart sore. Not understanding it all. Longing.
In the midst of it all, He reminds me that He is faithful. That this world as we know it will soon pass away. That every tear, every sorrow, every injustice will be a distant memory. Today He reminds me that some day soon there will be no orphans.
Come quickly, Lord Jesus!
