Pins and Needles

Our adoption journey has brought us here.

One phone call away.

One phone call will be the difference between us officially becoming a family of 6 or the agony of another setback, more delays, more unknown.

One phone call bearing news that we have officially passed court in Ethiopia will set us squarely on the path to having our little girl, who now lives in an orphanage in Africa, home with her family, our family, by Christmas (Thanksgiving, maybe even. Oh, we are daring to pray boldly)!

The only thing I can compare this to is waiting on medical test results – cancer or not? The experience that every time the phone rings your heart races and you feel simultaneous dread and excitement! Your legs cannot get you to that phone fast enough, but at the same time your hand does not want to pick it up.

But, aren’t we always just one phone call away? On any given day one phone call can come out of the blue and change the entire course of our earthly lives.

We cannot be tossed by the waves of this ever changing world – the economy is up and it’s down; you have a job, you lose a job; your kid is the teacher’s favorite, or the teacher wants to set up a conference to speak to you about your child’s behavior; he proposed or he left you; you’re going to live or you’re going to die.

The truth is that there is something bigger than all of it. Someone bigger.

For weeks in the preschool class I teach at church, our theme has been “God is BIG and He does BIG things!” As I say the word “Big” to their precious little faces I hold my arms as wide as they will stretch. Now some of the children imitate the gesture. All of the Bible stories revolve around that theme.

But, our stories, the stories of our earthly lives, shout the same message!

So, from our seat here atop the pins and needles we are choosing to trust The Author of all the stories from the beginning of time. And we are thankful that whether the phone rings or not in our ordinary home this coming week, whether it brings good news or bad when and if it rings, we already know the ending of the whole book.

“I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand upon the earth.” Job 19:25