Struggling

This has been a difficult week.  It feels like there are so many choices to be made and I have so little control over any of them.  It finally got to the point where I just painted our living and dining room so I could have some control over SOMETHING in my life - even if it was just a paint color.  I suppose I was surprised that I had done so well during the holiday season this year.  Last year the only things I could hear at Christmas were about the pregnant Mary and baby Jesus.  This year I was better able to focus on the real reason for the season and not focus quite so much on the adorable little ones in their sweet Christmas outfits or the way we were only filling an extra stocking for our dogs again this year.  (Not that I didn't think about those things - obviously I did because I'm writing about them here.  They just didn't impact me like they had in the past.)

Surprisingly, it's an upcoming milestone birthday that has me reeling instead.  It shouldn't make that much difference because it's only another day.  Just a number, right?  Unfortunately, that number is plastered all over fertility calendars and graphs and it's at this number that the line begins to plummet downward.  Suddenly, I lie awake at night and I can HEAR the clock ticking.  We're running out of time.  I've also been faced with the question of whether I'm "mature" recently.  This simply compounded the issue.  On one hand I want to be young and fertile with no laugh lines or gray hairs, on the other I'm ready to be a "grown-up".  I even see it when I go shopping!  I'm definitely not "Forever 21", but I'm by no means thrilled by the "Womens" department either.  I'm living in limbo-land with a yearning desire for some solid footing.

Perhaps someday soon there will be progress in one of the areas I'm wondering about.  For now, I've been convicted to get on my knees and to open up my Bible.  I certainly don't have the answers right now, but I know there is a plan for our lives that is greater than anything I could come up with on my own.  It's time to go back and claim Jeremiah 29:11 again.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans for a hope and a future."

Happy New Year!

I received a newsletter today with this poem printed on the back cover.  I thought how appropriate it is as Brandon and I enter another year of waiting and hoping that this will be the one.  We continue to have hope and as long as we've got that, I'm convinced we will be okay.  Dum spiro, spero.

As I Wait by Sara DeLong
I see you, Little One, snuggled in my dreams,
Cooing and laughing at unseen things.
Dressed in your best, you light up a room,
And I pray, harder than ever, that you will be here soon.

I feel you, Sweet Child, lying in my arms,
Knowing you’re safe from unseen harm.
I smell you, and touch you, and try to keep you safe,
As you move so slowly, out of my dreamy embrace.

Sometimes you’re a boy and sometimes a girl,
No matter, to me you are my entire world.
I look at your prepared and empty baby room,
And beg for patience, knowing it will be filled soon.

Each time I dream of you I feel closer somehow,
To knowing that it one day will be true in His power.
It’s hard to let you go from that mind altering place,
And I pray that each night I will again see your face.

I am waiting and wishing and praying each day,
That you and your birthparents are following His way,
And in time you all will know that things will be fine,
When you choose to relinquish yourself to His time.

Know that every day I pray for you all,
Asking Him to give you guidance and peace through the turmoil.
This is a life-altering decision to make,
For your future, dear baby, is what is at stake.

As I wait for the call to inform us we’re chosen,
I pray for your parents’ hearts that I know will be broken.
They are choosing the path of your future and life,
And it is filling them with dread, despair, and with strife.

I don’t know who they are, or if you are here yet,
But my prayers still go up until we all have met.
My path has been chosen. I’m waiting for you.
My Lord and my Savior will always be true.

He knows the time and day and the moment we shall meet,
And fills my cup overflowing for then we will be complete.
So while I wait for you, Dear One, I ask one simple thing,
Rest peacefully in His arms, and listen to the angels sing.

Breathe in the Holy of Holies, for He is everything,
Joy, and life, and contentment, to us all things He brings.
Know that we are waiting for you to join us soon,
Where we can be a family and happiness will bloom.