Refining

 A few weeks ago we visited a piece of our families history and future. Why is this place of all random places so important to us? It is a place that God spoke to us so loud and so clear that it was as if for a brief moment time stood still. 

It was a spring day in 2009, Magan and I at the time have the privilege of sharing Friday's off as a family. We had been waiting to hear news of a child that would we would get the honor of bringing into our family and loving. The adoption roller coaster is so joyous and wonderful yet so painful and tragic at the same time. It is an emotional adventure but charged with closeness to God, trust, and compassion. It is the process of fusing your heart with a loving God that desires to see all children placed into a family. The waiting is a time of refining, a time of trust, a time to cry out.

At the same time we wait we are very aware that somewhere thousands of miles from where we are there is a mother making a decision that is heartbreaking. If we fail to factor that in we fail to really let orphans change our story. If we fail to yearn to understand what drives someone to make the ultimate sacrifice then we really don't know this child's story. This story is an irreconcilable paradox. It is something we carry with us as we raise our daughter.

I can remember looking out a Puget sound as the clear water was lapping against the dock. The conversation was about waiting and being refined and how it makes you a stronger person. It was about being sick to our stomachs waiting for the phone to ring for a picture of a innocent child in a world that we know nothing about, it was a wait for heaven to come crashing into earth. Earlier that day we had talked with our social worker, jokingly asking her is she wanted to join us in Seattle. Asking her if she in fact possibly had a match for our family. We were by no means serious but at the same time we knew it was only a matter of time.

On the way back to the car from our hike Magan said she was going to give up. She was tired of feeling this way, of course as a loving husband I said "there is not much you can do about it". Followed by it is all in God's hands", infinite wisdom from a clueless husband....right.

We get in the car driving towards Seattle and the phone rings. Magan says Mike is Cathy! For those who have not walked down this path it is so surreal and supernatural and wonderful that no words can do it justice. When someone tells you they have a picture of a child that is to be your child to Love to protect to pray for to stay up at night worrying about them, to tuck in at night and to have them hold your hand and look at you with unconditional love and say things like "Daddy I just love you".

Time stops, your heart leaps around inside you. Looking around for the nearest point to access email to get a glimpse of what the future holds. It is an amazing feeling one and a feeling that takes your breath away. At this very moment you could literally feel God rearranging the DNA the fabric of who you are.

We roll down the window to the stranger doing yard work. We were going to ask her to use her computer for a moment but instead asked for the address to the nearest library. She said "about 100 yards behind you". Before she could get the complete sentence out Magan yells thank you and we float over to the library. I say float because I don't remember getting to the library I just remember walking in the door looking at the bank of computers. We see an empty computer and rush to the counter asking for a guess pass.

We login to our email and look at each other with tears in our eyes. The picture begins to load on our screen and we are never the same. From that moment forward our lives on this journey have become something we never thought possible. From that moment our hearts began to fuse with hearts thousands of miles away.

Two years are about to pass from that day. It is really hard to imagine as I see this amazing little girl playing with her doll house what can happen in two years. As we wait for our second child we go back to that fire to be refined, they say waiting is the hardest part. Waiting is the part that defines you, waiting is what makes who we are. Without waiting we might never get to become the people who we are.