Just Like That ...

I have started and erased this post 18 times.  Words are escaping me.

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The painful reality of an adoption plan is this.  Nothing is for sure.

Somewhere, sometime, for some reason, something has gone awry with our adoption plan.

We are just days away from a due date, but we are back to the beginning.  

We were matched with a birth mom 10 weeks ago today.  But for the last several weeks, no one has been able to reach her.  Today I tried to text her cell phone and got a reply from someone else letting me know that I had the wrong number.  

The social worker has called, sent texts and letters, all with no return. This birth mom has taken herself out of the picture.  We have to assume she is making the choice to parent this child herself.  We have to assume that she is choosing a different path.

I'm a little bit broken, a little bit angry, a little bit hopeless, a little bit sad.

I'm also a little bit OK, a little bit calm, a little bit expectant, and a little bit joyful.

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That could sound totally horrible -- how can I be joyful? How can I be OK? The rug was just literally ripped out from under us!

One word.  Jesus.

I've been here.  I've walked this dark twisty rocky impossible road.  And at the end was Jesus.  He's my constant.  He's my rock.  He's my joy, my peace, my hope, my light.  I can be OK because Jesus is steadfast and is good.  I can be OK because letting go and letting Him hold me is so much better than holding onto the broken, angry, hopeless, sadness.   

It's not easy.  I still want to cry and throw things and eat my entire weight in chocolate followed by my entire weight in peanut butter.  I still want this baby to be mine.  I still ache to feel him in my arms. 

And I'm not oblivious. I know that bad days will come, that I will still feel the pain of loss.  I know that.

But I'm choosing to focus on the good.  It's good that this baby is so loved.  It's good that Jesus spared us from seeing him and holding him before this change of heart took place.  It's good that another opportunity may be just around the corner.  It's good that Kain and I have each other to lean on, to understand the bad days, and to move forward with.  It's good that we are so prepared for the next time.  It's good that there will be a next time.  

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I posted all of these verses on my last Love and Loss post.  And they still ring with truth. 

Philippians 1:6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 1: 6-7 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

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Please keep praying for us, friends.  Please pray that our dreams of being parents will be fulfilled.  That we will find the right match.  And that we will be able to hold onto joy and calm and hope and OK.