confession

I hesitate to write this today because I want to be positive and not complain, but this is not really a complaint -- it is more of a confession. And unlike complaints, confessions are healthy and good for community. I know how helpful it has been for me to read honest accounts of the struggles that others have had when they've gone before me on this road...

So for that reason, I confess that today was one of those hard days.

Oh, the hard days. All expectant families have them, whether 'paper-pregnant' or regular-old-pregnant. I remember the hardest days of my pregnancies being mostly in the late first trimester - the end of the beginning but not quite the beginning of the end. I was terribly sick, but what I hated more than the sickness was not knowing how long it would last. I remember honestly feeling like I would never feel good again, even though I knew how silly that was.

I think that must be exactly where we are in our adoption process. We are sick of the waiting, the not knowing, the empty mailbox... but what is harder than waiting and not knowing is not knowing how long the waiting and not knowing will last. I know the same things I knew when I was 18 weeks pregnant and still throwing up. This can't last forever. One of these days you will wake up and this stage will be over. You will laugh and say, Oh that wasn't so bad after all. Joy and peace and thanksgiving will overflow, erasing the memories of anxiety, and impatience, and doubt. But today, to be brutally honest, that knowledge doesn't help and that day seems a million miles away. "I believe! Help my unbelief."

This morning I read Psalm 3, and this verse stuck out to me: "I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me." That's all I can do. Go to bed. Pray. Wake up. Pray. Know that the Lord sustains me.