and so we wait.

Three years ago, as we sat in the adoption agency filling out our initial application, we were told we’d be placed within a year to eighteen months.

I never thought I’d be writing here, three years later, as a family of two. 

Two months after that, when we completed and turned in our entire dossier, our caseworker responded that was the fastest she’d ever seen. I felt even more optimistic.

Far too optimistic to consider this current moment would ever be a part of my story. 

Still later, by the end of 2016, we completed the home study and waited on our final step before placement—a class offered once per year. We were told we’d be in the class that coming May, and then we’d be waiting to be placed; but they’d go ahead and put us on the waiting list…
It seemed so fast. It seemed so soon. 
So we left for a last trip to see our families. We took a photo; we made announcements so that it wouldn’t come as a shock if we suddenly had a child in our home.

And then more years went by, instead of weeks or months. 
I just didn’t think we’d get here. 

And I’m not always sure what to do with it. 

Honestly, the days are okay. Some days I’m broken, but most I’m okay. There is more than enough to distract me: conversations over tea, bags to be sewn, jewelry to made, bread to be baked, dinners to be eaten, English classes to be taught, games of Sorry to be played. I can talk myself through any one day. 

It’s when another month has suddenly gone by. It’s when I’m looking to another Christmas, another birthday, another year: when I thought there would be three or four of us. When I didn’t think I’d be here. 

But we are here: we’re rounding out year three of waiting, and stepping into year four. Not leaping, not holding our breath, but just stepping forward into one more day and a bit more waiting. Maybe a lot more. I don’t really know. 

I might know less now than I knew then. I’m most certainly aware of how little I know, how little I can influence. 

Two stories have been circling me, as I meditate on them. The first is from Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. 

“How long?” Sohrab asked.
“I don’t know. A while.”
Sohrab shrugged and smiled, wider this time. “I don’t mind. I can wait. It’s like the sour apples.”
“Sour apples?”
“One time, when I was really little, I climbed a tree and ate these green, sour apples. My stomach swelled and became hard like a drum, it hurt a lot. Mother said that if I’d just waited for the apples to ripen, I wouldn’t have become so sick. So now, whenever I really want something, I try to remember when she said about the apples.”

The second story is in Mark 8. Just before this, Jesus has fed the crowd of five thousand; and then he fed the crowd of four thousand. Then Jesus and the disciples get into the boat to go to another district, and the disciples have “forgotten to bring bread” and have just one loaf among them. As they are arguing over this, Jesus asks, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?”

Of course there is no coincidence that he’s just multiplied loaf after loaf of bread, as they sit arguing over one, maybe just hours later. 

But am I, too, writing about the child(ren) we are waiting to adopt, when I’ve just seen the epic moments he’s given us with the children in our community? 

I “don’t have any children, yet in spite of it all have a whole village full of children.” (Britt-Marie Was Here,Fredrik Backman) And yet God has answered prayer after prayer for them. Would I see miracle after miracle for a village of children, then turn to fret for the child(ren) we continue to wait for?

Why are you discussing this?
Do you not yet perceive or understand?
Are your hearts hardened?
Having eyes do you not see?
Having ears do you not understand? 
Do you not remember?

Do you not remember my provision for this community?
Do you not understand that I love this community of children as much as I love yours?

And so we wait, remembering what we have seen and heard.
And so we wait, for sweet apples.
And so we wait, with hope.

_________________

{Side note: I particularly love the question in Mark, Having ears do you not understand? In our community, I have two favorite lines used by parents. 1) Do you have ears?!, used when a child isn’t listening or obeying. I can hear God saying this to me in Burmese: Do you have ears?! And still you don’t hear me?!
And further straying from the point, my second favorite phrase used by parents: 2) Are you dead yet?!, used when they take a fall off a table or something scary happens, similar to when we’d scream Are you okay?! In English.}