Waiting For "Soon"

...and "soon" cannot get here soon enough!

The last twenty four months of our lives have been filled with waiting, frustration, anticipation, impatience, waiting, excitement, anxiety, waiting, sadness, excitement, waiting, grieving, celebrating and finally... waiting.

It's been a season of waiting and a season of wondering...

Two years ago we were waiting for the call. We knew it would be coming and we knew it would be soon, we knew without a doubt that God was calling us to foster care, and we wondered when... and we waited. We met with a social worker and expressed our desires and the boundaries we would set when we decided that it was time, that the Lord was leading us to re-certify our home and our family for foster care. We were frustrated and we wondered how the information we received that day could be accurate. We prayed and we waited.

Eighteen months ago we were waiting for the call. We knew it would be very soon, we had been certified for several weeks and kept our phones by our side and the volume loud. We had to say no to two boys in the first couple of weeks... We just couldn't take them in the time frame they needed care. We grieved for those boys and wondered where they would end up. We prayed for them and we prayed for whoever the precious child would be who would end up in our care... we waited in anticipation and excitement until the call came... And we said yes!

Over the next fifteen months we waited for phone calls, for judgements, for visits... we formed bonds and fell in love, not only with a sweet baby boy, but with an entire family. We celebrated victories and grieved losses, we took thousands of pictures and snuggled as much as possible, we cherished each and every moment as if it were our last. We faced our own ugliness and sought healing for our hearts that were angry and hurting, we begged God for healing in every aspect of these two families that were now intertwined through this precious baby. We waited.. and waited... and waited.......

About four months ago we were waiting for the call. We hoped it would be soon... over the last fifteen months we had learned in a great way that this boy's mama loved him so very much and wanted the very best for him. She hoped so much that she could be that, but recently had expressed the desire for him to be our son, and that she knew being an Ellzey is what would be best for him. We grieved and we celebrated simultaneously as we waited for her call and wondered what the next few days would look like for her precious heart and our future with our foster son.

She did call, we met, she hugged my neck and begged me to take care of her son. We both cried and since then, we've been waiting...

You guessed it, waiting for the call. We knew it would be soon, and yet "soon" just didn't seem soon enough. "Soon" has turned into four months. The agony of waiting for "soon" and desiring for this child to be mine today, this child who has essentially been an orphan, without legal father or mother for four months... this waiting and wondering when "soon" will be is astonishingly and unreasonably too long. It is completely absurd. This should be the easy part, but the impatience is almost too much to bear, I have sat here for months waiting in confusion, frustration, unrest and downright anger over this specific wait.. This has affected me in ways that I didn't expect. Even now, as we quickly approach the adoption of our son, God is showing me the ugliness hiding in the deepest parts of my heart. These days that I should be celebrating and counting down and enjoying who he is right now, I have wasted in frustration and anger at a system that is over-worked and under-budgeted. I have not trusted the one who set this child in our family, I have rushed Him, and He's given me nothing but grace upon grace... and I'm still learning.

Ahhh waiting... waiting has proven to be an obnoxiously purposeful part of my life's journey. Every hard, frustrating wait has been used in a beautiful way.

While I waited impatiently twenty-four months ago, God was growing a beautiful baby boy in his sweet mama's belly, and trying to get a message across to my stubborn hurry-up mentality to  s l o w  d o w n, wait, because very soon I would hold in my arms a greater gift of chunky-baby-boy than I could ever have imagined or rushed myself into.

And how very grateful I am for all the "not yet's" God threw in my path that led me to this specific boy at this specific time in my life. And soon, when he becomes my son, that date I've waited so impatiently for will be completely perfect, beautifully ordained... and perhaps it will teach me to wait with a bit more grace and trust next time.

So here I am repeating this word to myself over and over, giving it to the One who sets dates and the One who creates families, begging Him to work on my heart in a new way, on this new part of our journey... "Soon..." One day, one morning very soon. A morning that will change everything in this child's life and our lives. The date that this boy will become an Ellzey... our son. "Soon" cannot get here soon enough, friends.