It feels like we are in an eternal holding pattern with the adoption process. We are not overtly frustrated, at least not yet, but still would choose a phone call tomorrow leading to chaos over the chirping of crickets and uncertainty that we currently are experiencing. I’m not sure what is more frustrating, the (a) opportunities presented that we aren’t picked for, or (b) a complete lack in situations to think/pray about.
We went for a while just getting rejected, to the point it became commonplace. We would show interest and give permission for our profile to be shown once or twice a week, then wait on the final, negative result. Until the list of birth mothers presented at one time that I blogged about here, we were rolling through situations that we would be interested in at every turn. The only catch being that we weren’t selected for any. So that got frustrating. And we almost grew calloused to going through the motions. Or, I did at least, admittedly.
I guess it’s what you get accustomed to. As I write this week’s edition, the wind is howling outside and the weather channel has Milan pegged at 20 degrees (with a wind chill of 3). You will never find me complaining in July and August about the heat. . .if you do, remind me of nights like tonight. I hate cold. Give me a blistering hot, sticky summer day anytime over the bleak, cave-dweller-inducing misery we are currently wading through.
The original forecast for today called for 1-3 inches of snow, which has since passed north of us, sticking us with only the temperatures and wind. Which is good, because wintry precipitation paralyzes us in the south. I’ve seen pictures posted on Facebook from Middle Tennessee already with a couple of inches of snow and especially from friends farther north, like southern Illinois and Indiana, with several inches. For us – that’s a lot of snow (anything that sticks to the ground qualifies as a lot).
At Lambuth, Coach Albury was known for a lot of things. . but I won’t mention any of them here. He also had a knack for making the most geographically diversified roster in the Mid-South Conference. Just in the four short years I was there, we had players from Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Washington, Nevada, Hawaii, California, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, Canada, the Cayman Islands, and Japan (may have missed something, but this is all I can do off the top of my head). I remember we had a couple of pitchers one year from Southern Indiana (I will not mention them by name, LU peeps. . . and I use the word “pitcher” loosely). In January of that year, we got a pretty good snow, by our standards (probably 2-3 inches). It covered the campus and called off classes for a day. The night the snow came down, our first baseman Willie took off to make snow angels and play in the first snow he had ever seen, being a native Hawaiian. He did so in shorts an a t-shirt, which is a marked improvement from the “air drying” after a shower that he did either in the dorms or on road trip hotels. Never really got over that. . .
Anyway, our guys from Indiana laughed and, if an outsider were involved you would swear that they were born in the Klondike. They called our 2-3 inches a “dusting” and claimed they would’ve played games the next day. Both of those exaggerators were probably halfway right because our perspectives on the subject were much different. Here, we get excited about 2-3 inches, where they may not. But, the same experience that produced their puffed-up mockery (imagine that, from a northerner!) allowed a big, strong, home run-hitting first baseman to act like a five-year old. And the same train of thought they used has been employed tonight with some who I know have lived in Tennessee for most of their lives, but have some mild experience up north, speaking like a Himalayan sherpa about putting up with cold weather.
Where’s the connection? I don’t want to get accustomed to (in the South, we would say “get used to”) being in idle mode in the adoption process, and surely not the point that it becomes comical.
So, if you want a specific way to pray for Jaclyn and I (and the rest of our clan – Kara prays for the adoption almost every night), it’s that we treat every possible situation like the potential fourth Scott that they are. That we remind ourselves constantly of God’s perfect timing, then have the faith to wait on it. And, that both our family, our extended families, and all of our friends know that no news is really just that. . . no news.
“But they that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31 (KJV)
Scottish Invasion 