10 months

today marks 10 months that we've been on the waitlist for a referral. i'm beginning to feel hopeful that we will get our referral in the next couple of months. last year about this time, we were rushing around getting things notarized for our dossier and saving the last chunk of money we needed to send everything. it's hard not to look back and think that if i'd only gotten a certain paper signed earlier or if we'd been able to save the money just a little quicker, maybe we'd have a referral by now. but it's frivolous thinking, because i really believe God chose two specific children for us at the beginning of time and everything that has happened (or not happened) is leading us to those children.

i think that [our children being chosen for us since the beginning] is the concept most difficult to explain to others about adoption. and yet, it's the concept that really holds this whole thing together. my mom called me yesterday to ask if i'd watched a video that's circulating in blogland. she said, "i really think it explains to people why you are adopting." so i watched the video and was blown away. literally, i was doing those heaving cries that made jamie worry i was going to stop breathing. one particular part pierced my heart, because it's exactly what i'm trying to explain.

eric ludy, the preacher in the video, said he encountered a 4-year-old boy on the streets of liberia. the boy was orphaned, starving, and probably homeless. ludy said he was awakened in the middle of the night by the voice of God asking him, "what if that boy was hudson [ludy's son]?" and ludy realized that if that little boy was his son, nothing could get in the way of him getting to him. and as i was watching the video, i could only think to myself "that is my son." my son has been orphaned and is physically without a family. my son might be malnourished. my son doesn't have a home yet. my son might be sick. my son is probably lonely, scared, and sad.

my children are not just some random orphans in africa. they aren't a charity case, a nice project, or a humanitarian endeavor. they are my children. and when you see it from that vantage point, it should make sense why i would do any number of seemingly crazy, unsafe, and inconvenient things for them. so often i bemoan when people act like i'm not a mom, but i think it's even more frustrating when people don't act like our kids are really our kids, and prefer, instead, to keep treating them as perpetual orphans. it's like people assume just because our kids will have spent time in an orphange, it must be OK for them to stay there longer than they have to because it might be unsafe for me to be in ethiopia. when people question my decisions regarding our kids in this way, i always want to ask them what they would do in my position if it were their kid.

please watch the video.