Meet my friend Samantha. I met Sam when she and I were in a college bible study together about ten years ago but our friendship didn’t take off until 2018, when she heard through a mutual friend that we were beginning to pursue adoption. She and her husband wanted to do the same, and this began a friendship that consisted of linking arms in the lowest valleys and the highest mountaintops. She and I have been prayer warriors for each other over the past two years and I am so grateful for her testimony of increasing wisdom and faithfulness to trusting God in the midst of hardship.

One of the more agonizing aspects in the process of pursuing adoption is waiting. It is exhausting. It reveals what you truly think about God. It shows if you are trusting God at His Word or fluff you heard on a positive radio station. Sam is someone who I’ve seen keep a steady eye on her King, and never give up hope that He is gracious to her — even when He says no.

This is Sam, and this is her story of waiting.

xo,
Alexandra

It doesn’t matter what season of life we’re in, we’re always waiting on something. Right now the whole world is collectively waiting out the Corona Virus. Even outside of this global shutdown, our lives are never free from waiting. We wait to graduate, then we wait to get a good job, then we wait to get married, then we wait to start a family, then we wait for the baby to be potty trained, and on and on. Even when life happens just as it “should” (degree, job, spouse, family), the waiting is still there. I think most of us can attest to the fact that life rarely unfolds in that picture perfect way though.
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What if you’re waiting to graduate, and the scholarship doesn’t come through and you run out of money? What if you’re waiting for that perfect job and you are disappointed interview after interview? What if the right guy or girl just never seems to come along? What if pregnancy tests are negative month after month? What if you or a loved one is sick, waiting for healing, but healing never comes? What if the waiting never ends or we pray and pray and God says, “no”? Is He still sovereign, loving, and good? How can we use the seasons of waiting to learn to trust our God who is in total control of how our lives unfold? Will we thrive in hope and trust or succumb to fear and bitterness?

My most difficult season of waiting happened in 2019 when my husband and I were waiting to adopt. I wrestled with all the questions I mentioned above every day during that time. We officially started the adoption process after a long battle with recurrent miscarriage that ended in the stillbirth of our son. Our hearts were already burdened with grief when we started down the adoption road, but we were still excited and hopeful. We had always wanted to adopt, but we had planned to wait until we were more financially secure. After losing our son, we decided there wasn’t any time like the present. After all the paperwork was done and approved, the dreaded “wait” began. In adoption circles, the “adoption wait” is a term that gets used a lot. This season of waiting is famous for being especially agonizing.

Never in my life had I been so aware of my lack of control. There was absolutely nothing I could do to force a birth mother to choose our family. It was a stark reminder that God was in complete control of when (or if) we would ever get our “yes.”

“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” -Psalm 13:1

Every day I woke up and prayed this along with Psalmist, David, There was never a clear end in sight, and the wait felt especially endless because of what we had already lost. Looking back now, I love this Psalm because of David’s authenticity in his struggle.

“God welcomes our lament to help us hold on to Him. He knows that our tendency is to pretend everything is OK (while we suffocate on the inside) or to walk away from God, believing He doesn’t care. Lamenting keeps us engaged with God. When we lament, we invite God into our pain so that we can know His comfort, and others can see that our faith is real.”
-Vaneetha Risner, The Scars That Have Shaped Me

Psalm 13 taught me the importance of lamenting in a season of suffering and difficult waiting. Because David was honest with God, he was able to be honest with himself at the end of this Psalm and say, “But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me”(Psalm 13:5-6). Lament helps us let go of bitterness while we wait and pushes us into the arms of the great Comforter.

During our wait, we presented our family to several expectant mothers before we were finally chosen. Each “no” was heavy and made us wonder if we would ever hear a “yes.” I was confronted with the reality that we might never add another child to our family. Every day I had to choose between fear and trusting God and his timing and plan for our family.

I had to ask myself in those dark days of waiting, if God chooses not to give us another child…
Does He still love me?
Can I still trust Him?
Is He enough?

When I wrestled with these questions I frequently visited Psalm 84:11, “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.”

He withholds no good thing. So logically I have to believe that if He is withholding a child from me, then a child is not good for me in that moment. We can only trust God to be the judge of what is good for us if we believe that He is who he says he is. 

Thankfully there is an entire Bible full of examples of God’s faithfulness across the generations. Even going back to Psalm 13, we can see how David reminds himself that God has “dealt bountifully with him” in his own life. These passages pushed me to a posture of thankfulness, remembering God’s faithfulness in my life and the ways He has kept His promises. Does God still love me if His answer is no? All I really need to do to answer that question is take an honest look at the cross of Christ and the sacrifice made there on my behalf.

Through our struggle with miscarriage and then hearing “no” multiple times in our adoption journey, I turned to God many times and just asked, “why?” Why was He allowing this loss and heartache, not just once, but over and over?

Thankfully the Bible had answers to that too, and I was lead to two New Testament stories to help me with that question. The first was the healing of the blind man in John 9.

“As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.’”
John 9:1-3

Why did the man suffer through blindness from birth? So that the works of God might be displayed in him.

The second was the story of Lazarus. When Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick, He delayed rather than going to heal Lazarus right away. He allowed Mary and Martha to suffer the agony of their brother’s death so that a large crowd could be witness to His greatest miracle yet – raising Lazarus from the grave.

In both of these stories, God allowed incredible suffering because He could see the whole picture. He knew that the suffering of the blind man and Mary and Martha would result in their good (increased faith) and His glory. Meditating on these stories gave me renewed strength to endure through our waiting and suffering, trusting that God wouldn’t waste one moment of it but would use it to draw others to Him and form me more into the image of Christ.

Many are familiar with Romans 8:28, which says, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” But we often stop there and fail to consider the implications of verse 29 — “For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.”

God’s definition of good isn’t necessarily having our longing met or getting a “yes” answer to our prayer. What God sees as our good is looking more like His Son. Once we are willing to surrender and let go of our definition of good and rest in God’s definition, we can truly see His hand of love and faithfulness in our suffering and we can wait patiently with endurance, as we trust His plan for our lives.

​Every day we wake up in a world cursed by sin – in a world full of people waiting, longing for something more, or different, or better. We can rest in the fact that we were not meant to have our longings fully met in this life. This world is not our home, and our longings can only be completely satisfied in Christ.

When the race is complete, we will stand before the throne of Heaven with everything we have ever wanted encompassed in the person of Jesus. “2 Corinthians 4:17 says that eternal glory far outweighs our worst suffering. It’s not that temporary suffering is so small; it’s that eternal glory is so huge… ‘They all lived happily ever after’ is not merely a fairy tale. It’s the blood-bought promise of God for all who trust in the gospel” (Randy Alcorn), Blessed assurance!

Our adoption journey ended in a sweet “yes.” At the perfect time, God brought the perfect baby girl and her birth family into our lives. She is an even sweeter blessing because of the long and painful journey it took to get to her. I know for many, the waiting may never end or it may end in a painful “no.” We prayed for years that God would heal my mother from cancer, but He said “no.” I hope that during this time when we are all waiting with still so much uncertainty ahead, that we can remember God’s purpose in allowing us to wait. He is conforming each of us into the image of His Son! Even in this scary time when so much is outside of our control, He is still loving and good. He already proved His love for us by sending Jesus to the cross. May we press on through this wait, with our eyes on Heaven, enduring for His glory!

“If the Lord Jehovah makes us wait, let us do so with our whole hearts; for blessed are all they that wait for him. He is worth waiting for. The waiting itself is beneficial to us: it tries faith, exercises patience, trains submission, and endears the blessing when it comes.” -Charles Spurgeon

adoption infertility miscarriage stillbirth waiting