a word about waiting

You know what is really hard? When you've spent most of the morning crying, longing and every other form of "I want my child home yesterday" and someone with a kind but perhaps heedless smile casually says "you just need to be patient" or "you just need to wait on God's timing." Sure does hush you up pretty quickly, huh?

Don't worry, I'm not going to rant and rave. You see, it isn't that the individual is wrong in saying that (I mean, I guess sometimes people do say stupid, wrong things too..but that's another story). In this situation, though, they're right. We do need to be patient. We do need to trust God's timing. And yet, this advice usually doesn't get very far. it usually isn't very effective. And it usually doesn't feel very loving.

For many of you who walked with us during our wait for Isaiah, this won't be new news for you. The waiting was so hard. I mean haaaaaaaaaaaaard. Sometimes I felt relief from it, but a lot of times, especially in the last 5 or 6 months of the wait, it literally felt unbearable. Like I couldn't breathe, walk, sleep and certainly couldn't easily engage in conversations with friends. I was grieving. I want to say a little bit about it, because I know there are a lot of families out there waiting. longing. aching. and feeling like it is unbearable.

There are a lot of things I could say about the painful wait. True things like how the hardest days really did knit my heart closer to Isaiah's. Or like how God taught me so many rewarding lessons on faith, perseverance and patience. About how God really is good and faithful in the wait. But what I really want to write about is how we can help and support one another during the waiting (and how we can expect Jesus to help and sustain us).

I hope what I write won't feel trite or condescending to you. those kinds of comments were always the hardest for me to swallow.

There's a passage in John that tells us about the death (and miraculous resurrection) of Jesus's friend Lazarus. When Jesus arrives on the scene, Lazarus has been dead for four days. Lazarus's two sisters run to meet him, first Martha and then Mary. And they say the exact same thing. Word for word.

They both walk up to Jesus and say (perhaps with an accusatory tone, the same way I sometimes spoke to God during our wait for Isaiah) "Lord, if you had been here our brother would not have died." But though they said the exact same thing, Jesus's responses to two grieving sisters, only a few verses apart, are almost completely different.

When Martha (who was first) comes to him, Jesus sort of challenges her and says "I am the resurrection and the life." In a sermon I heard on these verses, Tim Keller says that Jesus was basically saying, "don't you know who I am?! It is never too late with me" He challenges her to put on faith. To remember Who she's talking to. To trust Him. He's essentially giving her the "God's timing is perfect" speech.

But then just two verses later, Mary says literally the exact same words to Jesus. "Lord, if you were here our brother would not have died." And what does Jesus say? "not a word. not a lecture. not advice. all he does is weep."

Why weep? Didn't Jesus, of all people, know it is going to be okay? Didn't he know, that even though he was (what at the time felt like) four days late, that God's timing is perfect? Of course he knew. He just reminded Martha of those exact things. But that doesn't take away the broken reality of the situation. That doesn't take away from the real pain of seeing his sobbing, dear friend, who loved her brother so much. He saw the brokenness and couldn't hold back his tears.

Keller says these verses point us to the reality that Jesus is equally committed to the ministry of truth and the ministry of tears. Jesus knows that a human being cannot survive without both. "Sometimes in order to grow and in order to make it, we absolutely need nothing. not a single word except for someone to sit down and weep with us...but sometimes what we need is, spiritually speaking, to be punched in the gut...But we don't need one or the other, we need them intertwined. The ministry of truth without tears is too brutal; we won't listen. And the ministry of tears without truth is too sentimental; we won't benefit."

I imagine you already see why I think this can relate to adoption. especially to the waiting part. I would suggest that the encouragement and communication we adoptive-families-in-waiting receive is sometimes tilted a little too far in the "truth without tears" camp. Obviously telling someone to be patient and wait for God's timing is not wrong and I don't want to suggest that it is! (especially via facebook and other places...It is tough to hold someone responsible for a quick comment on facebook meant to encourage us). But I do think there were a lot of times I couldn't listen during the wait. I really needed tears with truth. I was really really really really really struggling...and I needed to be dealt with extra gently for a season. Jesus knew that.

We had some good friends challenge us along the way and remind us that we were forgetting Who eventually is going to win the battle. They agreed the situation was terribly broken. They agreed that it was so hard. And they reminded us that our Savior is going to end all brokenness someday and that He knows Isaiah. That He will wipe away every tear.

But they said it after listening. After longing with us. After begging God for mercy. After crying.

If you're reading this and have friends waiting for their children, please please please be gentle, while speaking and praying truth. Treat your friends/family as though they are grieving, for in so many ways they are. Their children, who are far--way too far-- away, have been through (and are continuing to go through) really tough things. At this point every single child suffering in the world feels like their child. Isn't that beautiful? God is showing them, albeit so painfully, that we really are all brothers and sisters. And the disparity is killing them. It won't be fixed when their particular children come home. It won't be fixed until Jesus comes back. I know it isn't easy to be around folks who are so raw with emotion, I really felt like I was insane some days. But please love them gently. Please try so hard to love them.

To those of you waiting, let me encourage you that if you feel like you're consistently being given truth without tears, talk to your friends and family about it. Tell them that sometimes it is hard to only hear challenging words (as rich and true and necessary as they are) without sensing that they're meeting you in the muck. Meeting you in the brokenness that Jesus found painful enough that he wept.

Let me also caution us, that if friends are trying to meet you there, if they are broken over it with you...hear them out. ask the Spirit to help you receive comfort from the promises of God. to help you trust that Jesus is going to wipe every tear. that He's going to come back and fix it all. There were definitely times when there wasn't a right way to love me. I wouldn't be consoled and that was a terrible, lonely, sinful place.

I pray God will give you the grace you need to handle the waiting with hope, patience and grace.

(PS, ummm, how amazing is Jesus (and his Spirit) that He knows us so well as to respond to us so specifically like he did with Mary and Martha?)