Joy

Our adoption journey to Emma was so different.  If you read our blog during that time you followed us through 18 months of waiting.  There was 6 months of paper chasing to do the dossier and then we waited.  Every day I prayed and hoped for a phone call to say we had been matched.  Twelve months of waiting and doing nothing but praying and hoping was incredibly testing on my faith.  But again and again God showed that He was with us.  So as we searched for a name for our daughter, we knew it would be Emma.  Short for Emmanuel: God with us.  It was so clear that the moment the call came, her picture showed up, she was the answer.  Less than 3 months after seeing her for the first time we had her in our arms.

Our journey to Eden began with my heart being broken open by the loss of other brave and beautiful families who adopted, only to leave hospitals with empty arms.  And I thought, We are the luckiest.  The blessed to be able to love and fight for these children.  Interestingly my desire and the first conversations Matthew and I ever had about children came after the death of our precious student in Tennessee.  I thought What a gift to love her.  What a blessing to love her the two years I got to be her teacher.  The loss, the grief, is beyond anything.  But my thought was, It is worth the risk to love.

So the process started, and we had just finished the home study when I saw Eden's picture.  An advocacy email from our adoption agency.  I sent her picture to Matthew.  By that evening we said yes.  That was in April.  Five months later here we are.  Time wise this journey is flying by compared to Emma.  If you think that makes this easier, you are wrong.  It is totally different, in a way, waiting to get to our daughter who we already know.  These five months we have had a few updates and each time she is bigger and I'm missing so much time.

Want to know what hurts?  That when we were in China getting Emma that Eden was there, already abandoned.  I wish I could have scooped her up then.

It was during our adoption with Emma that my struggle with depression and anxiety took a deep plunge.  I'd always struggled but about a year into waiting (and doing lots of counseling) I choose to begin taking medication to help.  I've never publicly shared this because there is a lot of shame in this in many Christian circles.  I'm still on it and it has helped. I do medication daily and counseling regularly.

All that to say, I find myself hearing God in the quiet.  In peace.  I don't think I have found Him in loud joy before. In anything bright...I see and hear Him in written words and the quiet of still moments.

In the last few months God has given me a new word.  Joy.

First it was my therapist, at our last session she said she wanted me to focus on studying joy and that she felt that's what God wanted for me.

Then my friend Carrie texted me, "Praying for you...Specifically you--that God would lift your countenance and fill you with JOY -- inexplicable JOY...and then you'd sing HIS praises so others would come to know Him in this time of waiting."

Then when I opened my Bible to read this morning,

Psalm 126

A song of ascents.

1 When the Lord restored the fortunes of[a] Zion,
    we were like those who dreamed.[b]
2 Our mouths were filled with laughter,
    our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
    “The Lord has done great things for them.”
3 The Lord has done great things for us,
    and we are filled with joy.

4 Restore our fortunes,[c] Lord,
    like streams in the Negev.
5 Those who sow with tears
    will reap with songs of joy.
6 Those who go out weeping,
    carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
    carrying sheaves with them.

Filled with joy.  Songs of joy.

Eden's first middle name is Joy.  I named her Joy in honor of Ivy Joy. One of the brave CHD warriors who inspired me to run in faith toward another baby.  Her second middle name is two fold.  Jia because it is her Chinese name, and Jia for Gia LilyFaith who is another of the bravest CHD warriors. 

Joy for her verse, "The LORD will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing." Isaiah 51:3

In the Happy Hour podcast with Jamie Ivey today, where Rebekah Lyons shares her struggle with depression and anxiety and how God has brought her into joy.  And then brought them to adopt their daughter, Joy.  She even referenced Psalm 126.  Today.  The same day I read it.  Joy.  Joy after weeping.  Joy after sowing with tears.

This journey hasn't felt like joy.  I knew she was so loved from the moment we said yes, but I didn't want to feel all the pain of waiting. So just as I had allowed myself to open to all the excitement and joy of her coming home then we got news that had us make the decision that only Matthew would go to China. And I wrestled with the pain. Then after adjusting to that, I allowed myself to get excited with Matthew going--and then we were told that we had been postponed another month. And I have wrestled with grief.  It is painful to  hope and hope with joy.  But God is calling me to this.

Even today when I felt God has kept speaking this word over me I haven't felt joy.  But I have heard Him, and I will hold onto this verse and the promise of joy.


I listened to this song today. Come Out of Hiding by Stephanie Gretzinger And this lyric stood out.
"Oh as you run, what hindered love, will only become part of your story. "

All this waiting and delays and waiting...it feels like it has hindered my love from Eden, but it is part of our story.  Part of this journey to Eden.  And it will also be a story of Joy.

God gave us Emma's name and it made so much sense to me at the time and still does.

I thought we gave Eden her name, but no--God did.  Her name feels like a prophecy of sorts.  A promise.  Eden Joy.  Eden restored.  Joy restored.  Today I read that God would restore double.  (Zechariah 9:12) and I am blown away.  Double.  Double.  Undeserved this restoration but such a promise to hold onto.  All this loss is not forgotten, but joy is promised -- and a double restoration.

___________________

So my dearest Eden Joy Jia...may God teach me all about Joy through your story.  Through this process.  I pray for joy for you. For joy and peace in all that is coming.  You are so loved my darling daughter.

Leaving and Staying and Leaving

I write these blogs in my head while I do dishes, drive in the car, or as I am snuggling my little ones to bed at night.

On September 4, eight days before Matthew was to leave for China we got a call from our adoption agency that the rep in China had emailed them saying the civil affairs person who was to finalize the adoption was ill and could not guarantee being well by September 16.  And with the Chinese holidays coming up in September the next earliest to go would be early October.

When I saw the number on my cell phone I thought they were calling to give the final estimates for our China travel.  We already had planes booked and I had part of the suitcase packed for Matthew.  I felt gut punched when I got the news.  I called Matthew and friends and then my mom.  And I cried and cried on the phone to her.  How could it be another problem? Another delay from getting to our girl?  It feels hard enough that we won't all go, and I have had to grieve and work through that.  And now?  Now?  More time until Matthew can go? Three more weeks until he leaves, and then two more after that until I can meet her?  Delay, delay, delay.

And I felt stuck.  In one way I wanted to scream and weep.  In another way, how dare I be so upset when I would still get to be Eden's mama, and she was still coming home.

So I went to my brother.  I always have felt he knows me better than I know myself.  I had a hard time talking about it, so I texted him.
______________
Me: Help me know how to process this. :( I want to not bottle it in but I feel like I can't keep from bottling it in.  I know it isn't death. And I feel guilty for my sadness. I feel this loss of time deeply. But feel like my grief is small compared to what other grief is out there.

Jason: I don't think you should feel guilty. Grief can't really be compared. Time is something very costly to lose. I'm sure it is already hard to have not had Eden with you since she was born, and to add even more delay is a loss. Like, if you already had her and then someone took her away from you for a month against your will, it would be kidnapping. Even knowing you'd get her back. Or if it was any of your kids. That is precious time lost. It's okay to grieve that. And as you know, to grieve not like those without hope. Jesus can make up for all the years the locust stole. He can repay a double blessing. We can lament but lament with hope.
______________

I do feel like this time was stolen.  As if my arms were reaching out to hold her and she was snatched back.

I dreamt about her for the first time in between knowing I wouldn't get to go to China and this.  I dreamt of her coming toward me, smiling, and saying Mama and hugging me.  And it felt like it was ripped away.

Maybe it sounds dramatic, but she is my daughter and every day is too long.

So I got busy rescheduling flights and waiting again for new scheduled appointments in China.  Matthew will leave get Eden October 8 (China time, Oct 7 late at night USA time).  Once the new flights were booked I grieved anew.  I had held a tiny hope that God would make a miracle way and somehow we would still get to Eden at the time we had thought.

As I type this I am aware that she would already be in Matthew's arms.

Yet.  Yet.  "And if not, He is still good."

God is still good.  I spoke the words I didn't feel but trusted and spoke the truth in scripture back to myself.  Friends prayed for me, texted me, had time to ask how I was and listen to the answer.  Patient with my stumbling for words and how to hold grief and trust/faith together.

I heard a podcast recently that said to that they hang their griefs and laments on the hook of hope.  We hope, and put all the grief on it.  That's what I've been trying to do.

And so God has been sending my stories.

Matthew has been listening to the audio book A Retrospect by J. Hudson Taylor.  This week he told me about Hudson trying to get to Canton but delay after delay kept happening.  Bad circumstances kept happening.  Things that didn't seem good at all.  Finally, when he was about to leave Shanghai he get a letter saying not to leave.  That it wasn't good for him to go Canton. In The Spiritual Secret of Hudson Taylor it says, "It was Thursday morning, October 9....all his things were on board. What could be the meaning of such tidings.... Almost dazed, it all came over him. First one check and then another: medicines destroyed, robbery and all it had entailed, visit to Ningpo, delay in getting away, tedious return journey, and not at the last moment a closed door---nothing but a closed door--Could it be that all they had looked forward was not of the Lord?  'Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it.' (Isa. 30:21).  But for the moment the path that had seemed so clear before them was lost in strange uncertainty."

Just when Hudson was to leave the way was closed.  And then he thought about all the delays and hard things that had happened and now this closed door.  "Could it be that all they had looked forward to was not of the Lord?"

This is hard for me to fathom.  Hard to see how any delay to Eden could be part of God's plan.  But I tucked this away.

Then Matthew was reading a worship story to our children.  It was about Joseph.  The way God turns evil to good.  For ourselves and others.

And yet, yet.  I couldn't get this grief from my heart.

Sunday my local adoption group gave me a beautiful shower to celebrate and welcome Eden.  Originally we planned it for when Matthew would be in China so that it would be something fun while Matthew was gone.  But God knew.  And He was planning something more important.

The shower was beautiful.  Not just in the amazing food, and decorations, but in the love I could feel and the joy of those there to celebrate Eden.  During part of the shower there was a time of prayer.  Each person in the circle prayed for specific aspects of our adoption and prayed Bible verses over our family.  It was sacred.

Here is what I didn't expect.

That night when I was putting Edmund to bed I thought about how it would be that day that Matthew would be getting Eden.  And I expected the heaviness of grief and loss to press completely over me.  But instead it was as if God was physically holding back the darkness.  It felt as if I was in deep water and knowing that when I surfaced for air I wouldn't be able to get a breath.  But when I went to breathe I found space and clean sweet air.  I knew the heaviness was above me, but I knew God was also holding it back.  Giving me peace as I waited in this space.  I know it was the prayers at the shower.  The circle of women pouring our their hearts to God on my behalf.  This is probably the most powerful way I have felt prayer.

That morning when I woke up and saw my succulents from the shower, with a prayer card I thought and felt for the first time, with a kind of peace and joy that was supernatural, that this was within God's will.  That all things are working together for God's glory.

I can conjecture a lot.  Are we delayed for safe travels?  Are we delayed for things at Matthew's school?  Are we delayed for more time with the man Matthew is doing Bible studies with?  Are we delayed for Edmund and Emma?  Are we delayed for.....  I can conjecture and I can imagine.  But I don't know.  And maybe I won't ever know.

I'm still sad.  I wish I was holding her right now.  But the prayers from Sunday held back the depression I struggle with.  I am reminded to seek God first.  And in this space God is holding for me I have found quiet joy and peace in this delay.  In this waiting I don't want to have.

A podcast I listed to today Jennifer Phillips said, "What are placing our hope in? Is our hope in a quick adoption process?  Is our hope in things going smoothly?  Is our hope in our child bonding to us immediately? Is our hope in them catching up quickly?  Is our hope in them "normal" as soon as possible?  Where is our hope?  Or is our hope in Jesus?  And what He is doing in us, and in this child?  And then trusting Him with the outcome."

So that's where I find myself.  Deeply wanting to put my hope in Jesus, even while I choose to just do it.  To put my hope in Him and not the circumstances.  My hope is in trust Him with the outcome.  None of this is bright and loud and bold.  It feels so quiet and small but so very real.  I have to be still.  I can't rush around or try to fill myself so I don't feel all this grief (which I do try to do).  I need to sit and listen.  What is He doing in me?  What is He doing for others?  This life is a tapestry and I am not the only one, but even as I am not the only one...I know He loves me.  So He speaks to me quiet and in love.  The joy is soft like a sunrise.  The peace is like the dew on a new flower.  But it is there.