"Wait" does not equal "waste"

It has been a difficult 6 weeks, to say the least. We went from the incredible high of receiving, and accepting, our referral to an incredible low whereby our process was put on an indefinite hold. During the past six weeks I have cried buckets of tears, had plenty of heart-to-hearts with the Almighty as well as my dear husband and a couple dear friends who have graciously put up with me and spent countless hours on the internet (thank God for google).

It is super easy for me to view periods of life when God says "wait" as wasted time. Take for instance this season. In my humanness I think that any day we are not with our adopted child is a wasted day, for him as well as for Mark, me, Markus and Halle Joy. I think that any day we are not seeing progress toward bringing him home is wasted time. However, if there is anything that our gracious and patient Father has been teaching me during this season is that nothing is wasted in His perfect plan. We are promised in Romans that He "works all things for the good of those that love Him" (Rom 8:28). If I truly believe that, then I must claim that He is working all things through this difficult season for the good of the Wilkenings. But the fact remains that although nothing is wasted in God's economy, the CHOICE still falls on me to not only believe that but to apply that marvelous truth to my current situation.

It is in this daily, sometimes hourly, choosing that I find God doing a mighty work in me. I have always been tenderhearted, emotional if you will, when it comes to the plight of the orphan, the poor, the oppressed. During this season as we wait for our adopted child to come home, God has taken my tenderheart and broken it time and time again as He feeds my mind and my heart with stories and images of the broken around the world. Those that have no voice. I have found myself on my knees over and over again, crying out on behalf of those around the world who are currently starving, being beaten, sold in the sex trade as children, dreaming of mommies and daddies who will never come for them... the list goes on. God has taken my "emotional" heart and made me realize that those emotions that are stirred in me when I see the plight of the oppressed are a direct result of the way He has wired me. I cannot help but think that if I currently had three children under foot it would be quite difficult for God to be revealing the things He is revealing to me. As much as it pains me to not have our boy home- and to have no earthly idea when that will even be a possibility- I am choosing to rejoice and grow and learn in this season of wait. And I am so eager to see what God is going to do with the knowlegde that He seems to be unceasingly filling me with! My heart resonates with David in this season as I "wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord" (Ps 27:14) and I choose to allow God to work in me what is pleasing to Him that I may "be an imitator of God... and live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Eph 5:1-2). That at the end of this season I may be better equipped to love and serve my family, my community and the world however He calls me.

So I wait. And as I wait, I continue to humbly ask for your prayers. That God would continue to reveal Himself in mighty ways to Mark and I. That He would continue to care for and provide for the child we so desperately want to bring home while he is away from us. That He would bless those currently caring for him. That we would daily choose to abide in Christ, "so that (His) joy may be in (us) and that (our) joy may be complete" (John 15:11).