Promises, promises

I have two friends who are adopting. One in state infant adoption. One international adoption from Russia. A six year old they met through FORO last summer. Both stories are incredible. Both women are blogging about their journeys here and here. I feel so privileged that they would share their stories with me (and the rest of the Internet.)

Both women have child that has been promised to them. In very different circumstances God spoke into their hearts another member of their family. And their stories speak to me. Recently one of them had a mother change her mind during the ten day waiting period that is the law in Georgia. I can't imagine. I simply cannot imagine the emotional turmoil.

I also cannot imagine going through it with the grace she is exuding. The peace and calm she uses to articulate the experience. The trust she has in the Lord. The readiness in her heart to say "I must have heard you wrong. I will follow you to the depths for my baby." I ran into her just days after she got the call. She was at a consignment sale, picking out clothes for the baby girl she knows is coming home.

I waited in line with her and she talked about the need to mourn with the Lord. To acknowledge the disappointment as she renews her strength to move forward on the path God has put her on. I was struck by this, convicted by what has not been done in my own heart.

I've blogged about it before, the promise of twins I am sitting on. The word that was spoken into my heart years before I wanted to conceive. The names given to me. The friends from afar waking in the middle of the night to pray for twins, the friend who didn't know I was pregnant asking God to open my womb and fill it with twins. But I don't know that I touched on the disappointment I felt when I saw the ultrasound. The one that announced "It's a girl!" It's one girl........hmmm. This was not what I was expecting.

To put it mildly, I freaked. And I'm not southern, so I don't put a smile on my face and let the emotions quietly rage inside. I have a good old mid-western fit and fall in it. I screamed and cried, I told God I thought He was a real a**hole. I called a few of my closest friends to tell them I could not possibly raise a girl. I wanted a girl, eventually. But this time I wanted the twins. The ones I had been telling people about, because the Holy Spirit was leading me to. People who didn't even believe in God, let alone believe that He speaks to people. And so specifically.....even some of the people at my church thought I was out of my ever loving mind! I mean, prophesied twins, boy twins at that. It's all so Old Testament, and that was a long time ago. Surely, God no longer speaks in that way.

I am hesitant to write about this because I don't want the Peanut to think she was ever anything less than completely wanted. While she wasn't the twins I was expecting (and AM expecting), she is more than I could ever ask for, and I am so glad she got here first. But I was disappointed, because I thought I had heard....I know I had heard. I just didn't  hear fully.

In the months after the peanut was born the craziest thing happened. As I understood what it meant to be a mother I realized my boys weren't with me, and I had no idea where they were. I want to adopt and am really open to the idea of an older child, sibling group, out of foster care adoption. I was terrified that the twins MY BOYS were in a home where they weren't being nurtured and loved. The comfort I received as a I sang "Jesus Loves Me" to my baby..... I clung to the line They are weak but He is strong. But I was completely unsettled, like a dog when you take away her puppies.

Until I went to my home church over the summer. And I was prayed over that God would speak clearly to me about those twin boys. And He did with one word: pregnancy. Okay, I thought maybe next time. And (in case you missed my facebook announcement) it is next time. Sooner than we had expected and interesting in timing, but none the lest perfect as a baby and God's timing always are.

But I've already cried twice over the possibility that this isn't it. Not the twins. There are just so many questions I have. If not now, then when? If this isn't it, and then we get the twins that is 4 biological children. How will there be room to adopt after that? What happens if I only have one boy? Do I name him the 3rd favorite name (which we can't agree on) because I am saving the other two for the twins. Do I name him twin one name assuming we will adopt another boy who will end up being the second twin? And the loudest in my heart.....How long Lord? How long will you make me wait for my boys? Will I be as old as Sarah, laughing at the possibility? Did I hear for future generations, what I thought was my own? Will I spend my entire life waiting on something that will never come to pass?

I haven't been dealing with these questions, with the disappointment of things not working out the way you thought they would (even though that way wasn't BAD, peanut, it was perfect). Instead I took my promise of twins and put it in the deep corner of my heart I had put my healing in and shut the door. And whether or not this is THE tine, the Lord has let me know pretty clearly that now is the time to deal with that place. And I am trying. But I am struggling with how....and I could use your help. How do you deal with promises that are in your heart.....but not yet in your life? How do you deal when you hear God incorrectly....incompletely?

The Lord has repeatedly proven He is faithful, so I need to trust Him to bring them to me. As if on cue He led me here and here, two women who heard what the Lord said about their babies.