While We're Waiting

This Sunday marks 5 months.

Five months we've been on the wait list to adopt a girl in the age range of 0 to 30 months from Ethiopia.

Somebody ahead of us on the list with our agency got a referral this week for a 2 year old little girl -- hurray!!!

So when will we get matched with the child who will be our daughter?

We don't know. The average wait time with our agency right now is about 8 months.

Some days the waiting is pretty easy and other days it is hard.

Especially if I let my mind wander to the likely possibility that she, the little girl who will be my daughter, is in an Ethiopian orphanage right now.

And I want her here with us instead.

But, while we're waiting (and yes, The John Waller song, "While I'm Waiting" does run through my head often) we are confident God knows what He's doing.

We began working with our agency a year ago this month. We could have had a biological child in that time, but we wouldn't trade this adoption experience for anything. God has used it to change and grow our hearts in ways we never could have imagined!

Speaking of hearts, at a recent lunch with other families who have adopted or are adopting from Ethiopia through our agency, our 3 year old made friends with a little 2 year old girl adopted from Ethiopia about a year ago. She grabbed my son's hand, and they stayed hand in hand for a good while, running around, the Ethiopian bracelet handed out at the lunch encircling her wrist. She was just as precious as she could be and seeing the two of them together absolutely melted my heart. At one point my son looked up, smiled shyly and said, "She likes me!"

When I tucked my boy into bed that night I mentioned the little girl's name and said, "You know your little sister may be kind of like her. Does that seem okay?"

He beamed and said, "Yeah".

We'll wait as long as it takes.

Psalm 68:5-6b, "A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families"

Find more Finer Things Friday here.