Challenges

Life is full of challenges.

I just read an article that was sharing the importance of living in the now, not waiting for the next thing.  I feel that I have savored the seasons in my life most of the time.  Just not the tough seasons.  Those ones I want to pass quickly.

I think of Josh's last year here at home.  EVERY SINGLE THING would get me choked up or in a full fledged cry.  Knowing there were so many "lasts" that year was so hard for me.  But now that he is at college, I really do have so much peace.  Don't get me wrong.  I miss him incredibly.  (I do have a bit of jealousy when my fellow freshman college parents are getting to visit their kids and it has now been over three months since I last saw my son.)  And knowing the wait til I see him again is long.  But, I am peaceful in this season for him.  I am thankful for the way that the Lord is taking care of him even better than I ever could.  I am thankful that he is blessed to attend such an amazing school.

Back to challenges.  Yesterday I met with someone who wants to adopt.  I feel I have become an adoption advocate.  Because every child deserves a mom and dad.  A children's home, no matter how amazingly it is run, is never the ideal in a person's life.  But adoption is challenging.  Sometimes the hard days outweigh the good days.  But you also begin to savor the easy days.  The Happy days.  And our eyes must not get caught up in the here and now, but the goal.  We must lay down of ourselves, over and over.  And we must ask our first children in the home to lay down of themselves too.  And we must never give up.  It is not an option.  People looking into adoption must count the cost before beginning the journey.

I picked up a book yesterday about the Twenty things adoptees wish their adoptive parents knew.  I have literally only read the dedication...But she is standing over her adoptive parent's graves, thanking them.  Thanking them for loving her when she was unlovable.  Pouring into her when she seemed unreceptive.  That she was thankful for everything they had done.  Every time they had fought for her. 

Adoption is one of the most challenging things I feel I have done.  And now, here we are in the middle of it again.  But when I look to the future, when I see God's bigger picture, and I am reminded that this is the season He has put our family in...it is not so hard:)

What season are you in?  Are you allowing God to mold you or becoming resentful?