1 month!

today i am rejoicing that we've been on the waitlist for 1 month. i know 1 month sounds a bit measly. but, in my mind, it's huge. it's 1 less month i have to wait to see my kids and know their stories.

we've kept ourselves busy this last month, so i haven't been too antsy waiting. i daydream a lot about what it will be like to get the referral call and how i will react when i first open the email containing pictures of our kids. i wonder what they'll look like, if they'll be 2 boys or 1 boy and 1 girl, how old they'll be...and what we'll finally decide to name them. i think i'll starting getting antsy when we reach that 4-6 month range (though, the wait may have gotten longer these days, so i guess we'll find out).

but i have to say -- i hope we don't miss out on the life that's happening around us while we're waiting. there are things for us to do now even as we are looking forward to our referral. i'm reminded of what james (the apostle, not the husband) says:

come now, you who say, ‘today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.’ yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. what is your life? for you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. instead you ought to say, ‘if the lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.’ as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin. (4:13-17)

and please -- be praying for our friends daniel and abby umlauf. they received a referral for their son, moses, in december, but have been unable to move forward with their adoption because of various problems in the region moses is from. my heart is so heavy for this family because i want them to be united, but what is preventing that is a bunch of red tape in ethiopia. even if you don't know them, you can pray. constantly. i think what paul meant by praying constantly for something is not even that we are requesting a certain thing 24/7, but that the person or situation or whatever is always on the lips of our heart. i find myself repeating moses' name over and over again to God, believing that christ is interceding on moses' behalf in ways that i cannot even imagine.