We’ve all seen some version of the image – the kid that is the odd-man-out when teams are picked. It could be a backyard baseball game, a school kickball game, or any other scene where there are two sides and an odd number of people wanting to compete. Why they don’t just let one team have one more player than the other, I don’t know. If the last kid really is that bad, will he have that much of an impact on things anyway? I doubt it. But, there he is, scuffling his feet, walking away muttering to himself, team-less as the game begins.
I have never been the best athlete, but I have also never been the worst – so I don’t really know how being “unpicked” feels. We grew up in the country, with practically no one that was either my brother’s age or mine to “play” with, so games were played me vs. him or the two of us teamed up against whatever imaginary opponents we could conjure. As a side note, though I’ve never been used as a pinch runner (for some reasons 5.0 times in the 40-yd dash aren’t considered “fast”), I consider myself to have decent range for an infielder – may have to do with playing 1-on-1 baseball games with just the two of us growing up. You want to bat? Play all nine positions at once and try to catch something.
But, back on point . . . the whole concept of not being picked isn’t one I am familiar with, but by no greatness on my part.
I updated you last week that we were giving our profile to a birth mother for her perusal and her “picking” adoptive parents for her baby. This is something that will no doubt happen numerous times over the course of however long we are destined to be in this waiting room period of the process. Without boring you with too much information, the independent adoption that we are processing means that we could partner with pretty much any agency to complete our adoption. The agency that completed our home study (a necessary step to make you “legal” to adopt) keeps an online forum that allows for conversation among prospective families, and also presents the group with birth mothers from their agency or others for which they can make themselves available.
That’s pretty much what happened last week – a situation was presented that would fit what we believe we are in the category of applying for. The birth mother decided late in her pregnancy to put her child up for adoption and, according to the post, was “anxious to select a family.” She lives in Kentucky, planned on choosing a family by the end of the week, and was due to deliver by the end of October. As we reported last week, we finished our profile up quicker than we anticipated, sent in a link to the profile that would officially put our hat in the ring, and then waited.
We have only general information about this young lady that is doing the selecting. Marketing is all about knowing your target audience, and we know nothing besides young, pregnant, and female (that last one is assumed, but. . . ). While I would like to think that I can participate in a conversation with someone from just about any walk of American life, having some knowledge about who they are, where they come from, or know at least some interest of theirs is helps get a foot in the door. So, as this mother, and those that come after her, look at pictures of our crew playing ball, fishing, or riding horses, maybe they hate animals and team sports. Maybe they think a life in the country is for rednecks and hillbillies. Maybe they think my being the all-time quarterback for my kids game of tackle football on the trampoline isn’t the safest thing they’ve ever heard of. . . (surely we didn’t put anything in there about that one.) Who knows?
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| What kid wouldn’t want this life? |
We got word on Monday that the mother had selected a family from New York, and thanked everyone from our agency that showed interest in this situation. I know that this adoption thing, to many, is a business. I also know that we have been told that typical time frames for the entire process exceed a year, and sometimes go much longer than that and have been told the reasons why we might take even longer (we already have kids, we aren’t adopting internationally, we haven’t gone with one agency exclusively, etc). But, I couldn’t help but feel, for a moment, like the kid that didn’t get picked for the baseball game. I caught myself thinking – why in the world wouldn’t you want your child to join our family? Didn’t you see the pictures? We do all kinds of cool stuff – our kids have fun and get to do tons of things! Jaclyn and I are pretty cool too, dadgum it! Then another thing – New York? I felt like the guys around the campfire in the Pace Picante sauce commercial – New York City!?! Someone in Kentucky didn’t do their job raising this girl right! What in New York could possibly trump the many good, southern families that had also raised their hands as interested parties?
So, then I just had to stop and relax. Just as we had to step out in faith to even begin the process, the test is going to be maintaining faith in knowing that God already has chosen a child for us. This child may already be in a womb somewhere, or it may be much farther down the line. I don’t like the feeling of not being “picked” (how did you nerds do it all those years?), but know that isn’t what this is about. Plus, it’s a reminder that God’s timing is perfect in all that we do. We often want things in 21st century time – right now and move on to the next thing. But, to God a day is like 10,000 years, blah, blah, blah. . . . I get it.
In other words, God will take care of this entire process and it will be over. . . in just a minute.
“Now we want each of you to demonstrate the same diligence for the final realization of your hope so that you won’t become lazy but will be imitators of those who inherit the promises through faith and patience.” – Hebrews 6:11-12
Scottish Invasion 