{"id":34,"date":"2010-03-28T23:02:54","date_gmt":"2010-03-28T23:02:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/?p=34"},"modified":"2010-04-09T19:50:38","modified_gmt":"2010-04-10T02:50:38","slug":"hope-reborn-pt-2-hope-in-the-midst-of-confusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/?p=34","title":{"rendered":"Hope Reborn Pt. 2 – Hope in the Midst of Confusion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Please read Hope Reborn Pt. 1 first – this is so long, that I split it up a bit.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/em><\/p>\n

God laid her heavily on my heart one morning. I was literally physically sick with the grief that MP did not have a family and sick too, that Grace and MP did not have each other.<\/p>\n

Stephen and I talked it over and decided to petition our agency to allow us to adopt 2 within 1 year – a rule breaker for sure in this province and one that would require a special waiver from our ministry here. And then we waited to hear back from our agency, as the administrator was away at the time.<\/p>\n

A few days later, as is my morning ritual, I did my prerequisite blog drifting and landed on the RQ site (those familiar with China IA will know what I mean). And first thing I noticed was a fellow mother from Grace’s CWI who had posted MP’s info and a photo on her blog. My heart dropped about a million miles. By the time I had even looked at the forum, hundreds of people had viewed her post. One family in particular was asking their agency to view MP’s file. I sat at my computer and prayed. My prayers were two fold. One: Thank You so much for providing a way for MP. Two: Why did you bother stirring me up about this? Why God?<\/p>\n

Over the course of the next couple of days, we had numerous difficult things occur.The thoughtful, tenderhearted advocate Mom felt terrible about the controversy. For that I am so sad. I am so thankful that God moved in her spirit to step out for MP and others. She has blessed everyone in the process and I am so pleased to be called a believer with people like her to stand\u00a0alongside of – truly!<\/p>\n

Our facilitaing agency offered to go to bat for us with China, something that we are so thankful for.\u00a0 Their zeal in finding families for the children in China’s WC program has been truly inspiring.\u00a0 We got excited and then walked away from their offer, concerned that we were jumping ahead of our local agency.<\/p>\n

The family who had asked to view her file offered to back away from the pursuit of MP’s adoption for us. We declined their offer and told them to proceed. We had not heard back from our agency and we desired first of all that MP would be united wth a family. After 2 days of attempting to gain more insight into her medical condition and having the hopeful family e-mail us for personal information (which I felt very resistant to giving out until an official match had been made and now I see why), they attempted to lock her file and found that her file had already been locked!<\/p>\n

And that leads us to MP’s new family!<\/p>\n

Once I received word from both the advocating Mom and the first hopeful family that her file was already locked, I went back to the original forum where\u00a0MP’s \u00a0info had been posted and suddenly I felt I knew who they were. After following her link to\u00a0the family’s\u00a0blog, making contact with her\u00a0and reeling from the reality that our pursuit of\u00a0MP was\u00a0officially over, I randomly went to\u00a0their blog archives and picked a date. And then I threw down the gauntlet to God.<\/p>\n

“Why God? Why did you put me in the middle of all this? Grace is grieving her friend. I don’t know why I care as much as I do. Why did I feel such a hesitation with the first family? Medically they could have offered her so much. What are you doing?\u00a0 Show me that this is a family who will love her, who will understand her, who will connect the girls so they can continue their relationship.”<\/p>\n

And then He answered me in a very personal way. Out of all the posts, many many months ago, MP’s new Mama had posted a reference to a children’s book. Something so personal and meaningful to me.\u00a0 Something obscure.\u00a0 Something that only I know.\u00a0 MY FAVOURITE CHILDREN’S BOOK. And yes, I am screaming. \ud83d\ude42\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0(And in case you are wondering, the name of the book is Verdi,<\/em>\u00a0which is not exactly Green Eggs and Ham<\/em>, as far as popularity goes.)<\/h5>\n

My God is just that big. There is no coincedence with Him. He gave me a guidepost. Something to hold tight to. He did not have to answer me in any way shape or form – but He did. And in the time since, I have spent much time reading their blog. They are a fun, loving, sensitive, God loving family. MP is going to not only be loved, but she’ll have brothers and sisters (one who even shares her country of birth) and a Mom and a Dad who are delighted with their new blessing and a heritage of faith. What more could one ask for?\u00a0 Well, in retrospect, the icing on the cake is our proximity to them.\u00a0 One long day’s drive away.\u00a0 We live much, much farther from each and every one of the other girls who’ve left Grace’s orphanage and\u00a0joined their forever families.\u00a0 Only God.<\/p>\n

Now, back to Grace. The one who, in *my* world, it was all about in the first place.<\/p>\n

Grace has opened up a lot over the past few weeks. She’s seen me cry openly. She’s heard me speak even more boldy for the orphan crisis in the world. Funny how I’ve suddenly had additional opportunities to be bold.\u00a0 She has seen my heart\u00a0be truly\u00a0broken and she seems to be able to trust me with more and more of her stories and cuddles and thoughts.\u00a0 She has no idea why, but I do.\u00a0 God does.\u00a0 It is Hope Reborn.\u00a0 God opening our hearts so He can do His own special brand of heart surgery.\u00a0 Softening the clay before it (we) are molded into His image a bit more closely.\u00a0 Giving us hope in the midst of confusion.\u00a0 For my daughter.\u00a0 For me.\u00a0 And hopefully, most of all for a little girl awaiting her family in an orphanage in China.<\/p>\n

I hope to close this post, this chapter of the story once I hit publish.\u00a0 I plan on writing one more thing.\u00a0 Something to MP’s new family.\u00a0 I hope they can see God’s hand even more clearly.\u00a0 And alongside them, I will pray MP home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Please read Hope Reborn Pt. 1 first – this is so long, that I split it up a bit.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42 God laid her heavily on my heart one morning. I was literally physically sick with the grief that MP did not have a family and sick too, that Grace and MP did not have each […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[54,21,13],"tags":[5,64,6,59],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1167,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions\/1167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningtogetherathome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}