Where We Are Now...

We have received a court update over the weekend on our status. Unfortunately, the courts had to close down a couple of days last week, postponing our date, yet again. A lot of people have been asking about when we get to travel again to go and pick up our son. The answer is, until we get court approval It is still unknown. We are basically at a stand still until court approval. Once we get court approval, the wait between court approval to second travel for Embassy has been about 6-8 weeks recently. Adoption is one of those things that the timing and the process is constantly changing, so you have to just roll with the punches. We are now readjourned for June 11. Please join with us in praying for our new court date, and if God's will, we get court clearance to call our son OURS! Pray for our judge that she looks at our case and she is satisfied with all of our documents and that the courts stay open and on schedule. pray for our agency in Ethiopia as they will be standing in on our behalf. Also, if you could please pray for Jordan and I right now and our hearts. We knew that this wait was going to be hard. I didn't know it was going to be to this degree. I am a big time reader, and have read SO many book about adoption and the process to educate myself about what to expect, but it doesn't matter how much you read, nothing can prepare you for the real thing. I know that one day this will all pass and he will be home, but I just wish my head could tell my heart. The gravity of everything is really setting in, and to tell you simply, I extremely miss my little boy and I am very sad and grieving over our separation right now. I feel like I live everyday right now, waking up and first thing checking my phone or email to hear news from our agency, and when I don't hear anything, I want to just crawl back in bed and wake up the next day to check again. Every day that passes is another day that I cant be with him and its another day that we are missing out on attaching and bonding with him. We are trying really hard to go back to normal life in Austin, but nothing is the same. I find myself looking through a different perspective now, and the transition between Ethiopia back to the US has been emotionally overwhelming for me, whether it is going grocery shopping or having a conversation. Part of me knows that eventually I will get use to everything again, but there is another part of me that doesn't want to. I don't want to get used to how complex we make our lives and how many stipulations we put on just simply loving each other. Something that I have noticed since my trip is how much personal cost and gain weighs in when it comes to our relationships with one another. We can't just simply love. Love is not complex, love doesn't have boundaries, love doesn't come with disclaimers. We are so quick to weigh in on if it's worth it to love someone as opposed to just jumping right in and loving your neighbor, no questions asked. That is the gospel, that is God, that is Jesus! One of the ways God used Ethiopia to teach me is by exposing the guilt in my own heart of how I have made loving others less about others and more about myself. One of my favorite quotes as a believer is, "we were called to love, not to be loved." Sometimes it is so much more satisfying in the here and now, to love someone and be loved in return, but I say there is so much more of a lasting joy to love somebody without caring what you will get out of it or how much you sacrifice from it. I pray that my life will reflect that for His glory, because this is what He does for me. There are no stipulations or disclaimers about His love. And isnt that the point, believers, to love like Jesus? I am at a place, right now, where I am trying to seek understanding about everything, and even though I don't feel it as strongly right now, I still know and believe that God is sovereign, this is part of our story, and He knows when and how our journey ends. He is faithful through and through and He will carry us through this difficult time. Praise God, even when we can't see it or it is very dim, his love and faithfulness is always there and it never changes based on the circumstances we are in. Thank you so much for your love and encouragement since we have been back. It is helping us get through this tough time of waiting. Please keep praying with us! "You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever." Psalm 30:11-12