Take Heart!

I think the frustration of waiting is starting to set in for a lot of the adoptive parents in my online group. They have gotten a little testy with each other more recently. Thankfully, our moderator knew when to step in, before any feelings got seriously hurt or anything. By the way, Alana, if you read this, you do an awesome job with the two groups that I belong to. Reading some of the posts, though, got to be too depressing for me and I found myself skipping or skimming a lot of them. That kind of glumness hung with me for a few days though even when I wasn't conscious of it. Until my own personal Moderator stepped in.

I attend Bill Driscoll's Sunday morning Bible class when I'm not teaching the 1st and 2nd graders at our congregation. Bill always brings out points that I wouldn't have thought of. I also like it because practically everyone in there is my age or older. I've always preferred being in classes with older people because I feel that they are the ones I can truly learn from. In classes where everyone is my age and has the same experiences, I have always felt that it is pretty much the blind leading the blind. We can talk about things but the discussion tends to go in circles. Sometimes you just really need someone who has been there, done that, lived through it, and wears the T-shirt. Oops. Sorry. Stepping off my soap box now.

Anyhow, Bill was talking about the story of the men who let their paralyzed friend down through the roof so Jesus could heal him. The thing that struck me -- and I personally think God set it up -- was when Bill called our attention to the very first thing Jesus said to the man. It wasn't what you might automatically think. It was 'take heart.' In just about every version, it was some form of 'be encouraged.' Bill pointed out that when we have Jesus, we always have hope and not just the hope of heaven, but hope period. I've heard that before but its never occurred to me that it might mean we should not be discouraged about anything. He even suggested that it might be sinful to let yourself be down in the dumps because of a situation (setting aside, of course, those who have clinical depression).

The adoption isn't the only place I need to do that, but what a great place to start. I know and have known that God knows exactly which little girl is going to join our family whether she is just born, in the womb, and not yet even alive. He still knows and He's going to place her into our family because she's the perfect one to be in our family. When I remind myself of that, I feel kind of silly getting discouraged about the wait. How awesome is it that He loves us that much! I'm going to try a little harder to 'take heart.' How come they don't make a bumper sticker that says that?