Christmas Wrap-up

“Have I not commanded you?  Be strong and courageous.  Do not be terrified.  Do not be discouraged.  For the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”  Joshua 1:9

That has been my favorite Bible verse from the time I was a teenager.  I still remember Ms. Kennedy teaching it to our church’s daycare children as part of a devotional one summer morning.  I happened to be there as a volunteer and learned it along with them as it could be sung to the tune of “Jesus Loves Me.”  Shortly thereafter, I went off on a big adventure and clung to it with all my might, and periodically it comes back to mind when I need it.

To be sure, being terrified comes as naturally to me as music ever did.  I rediscovered that old friend when we started the adoption journey with a calling, no money, and no direction.  But time in Haiti radically changed my reactions to fear, and that is not often the battle that brings me to my knees these days.

It’s the next phrase I struggle with.  “Do not be discouraged.”  I remember a sermon our pastor preached once where he said that Satan’s greatest tool was discouragement.  I’ve certainly known that to be true on more than one occasion.

I’ve intentionally filled many blog posts with upbeat, positive messages, with mere allusions to pain.  I choose not to dwell on that part of the journey.  We have been blessed over and again as we’ve pursued this calling.  But I feel it is time to address the topic of discouragement, as it has been a real part of our story, and we’re not super saints who never feel stung by it.

I have mentioned before that I feel pangs of homesickness for this child that we don’t yet know.  At certain times of the year, I can count on feeling them as our family just isn’t quite complete yet.  I usually melt down at some point while Christmas shopping as I pine for the day I will buy pink things and princess movies.  When our five year old asks about his baby sister, when he’ll meet her, and what her name is, I sometimes have to fight back tears as I don’t have any answers for him, and telling him it won’t be for a long time does nothing to answer his questions.  But the weeks leading up to Mother’s Day seems to be the time when it hits the hardest.  The longing to have all my children together is so intense I sometimes can hardly breathe.

Last year, I wasn’t expecting to dread Mother’s Day at all.  Our dossier had been sitting in line for sixteen long months and we expected it to be submitted at the beginning of May.  Instead, on April 28, I received an email from our agency telling me there was a major problem with the paperwork, and large portions needed to be redone –including updating our home study and fingerprints – which we knew would take several more months.

I was devastated.  Steve was at work at the time, having just taken over a new store, and I didn’t feel like I could call him.  I sent a flurry of frantic text messages and then called a friend who is an adoptive mom, who very kindly let me melt down in epic proportion.  She got really mad on our behalf, talked me down from near hyper ventilation, and did all she could to encourage me.

That night we had our small group – which I almost skipped because I couldn’t bear the thought of conveying this pain to all of them, but in the end we went.  At that point, we felt like we were back to square one, except that we’d worked really hard, spent a lot of people’s money, and hadn’t gotten anywhere.  We needed to decide quickly if we wanted to stick with this adoption agency, knowing that virtually everyone had closed their programs to new Haiti applications because of the back log of cases in Haiti.  If we left the agency, we’d have to pursue another country.  Neither of us felt released from our call, so flat-out quitting wasn’t an option.  Our small group friends cried with us and prayed over us, and we left, still broken, but a bit stronger.

Sunday morning was the week before Mother’s Day.  I wasn’t sure what I was feeling by then.  I fully expected to cry at some point, which I did through a good portion of the service.  I vividly remember listening to my friend sing,

“When the oceans rise, and thunders roar, I will sore with you above the storm.  Father, you are king over the flood.  I will be still and know you are God.”

I balled like a baby.  The lady next to me knew what was going on and kept me supplied with Kleenex, and I prayed silently that God would help me be still and know He was God.

After church, I came upstairs to change into comfy clothes.  Steve came up behind me and closed the door.  I had no idea he was about to say anything meaningful or profound.  I was just sitting on the edge of the bed changing my shoes.

“I don’t think we’re done with Haiti,” he said in a very soft but serious tone.

I asked what made him say that and sat speechless as he told me how he had experienced the Sunday service.

Many Sundays, we don’t sit together as he is up in the tech booth running lights, camera, or sound.  This had been one of those weeks.  While he was up there, he started smelling something unpleasant.  That is not a common thing for him as he has worked in the pet industry for long enough to be able to block out unpleasant odors.  But the smell continued.  He glanced around trying to figure out the source of it, and then it came to him…

When we traveled to Haiti, we traveled through Port au Prince, where there is a particular open-air market.  At the time we happened past it, the smells coming from it were not of tropical fruit or tasty confections.  It was dirty, hot, and stinky in a way that is unlike anywhere else we’ve ever been.

That was the smell that Steve experienced thousands of miles away in a tech booth the Sunday before Mother’s Day in 2016.  It was all he needed to confirm that we were still on the right path and God was still pointing us to Haiti.

When he told me about it, I was a little stunned.  There it was.  The gentle whisper we needed to get back up and do whatever it took to get to our child.  I quit crying and we turned our focus to pushing through the home study with as much intensity as we could.  It took another eight months for our dossier to be submitted.  And now we wait in line and pray that God will continue to strengthen us as we wait, and will keep our child in his loving care and somehow speak hope into her little heart as well that an orphanage will not be her home forever.

This Mother’s Day, please take a moment to pray for children who don’t get to celebrate with mamas.  And pray for women, who for whatever reason, don’t get to celebrate with their children.

As for the Sheltons, we’ll keep working on our puzzle fundraiser so that when we get the call telling us about our daughter, we’ll be ready to jump on a plane and go meet her.  We have a long, long way to go, but every piece that sells gives us a little more strength.  For every $5.00 donated to us through Pay Pal (paypal.me/sheltonadoption ), or directly by cash or check, we will add another piece to the puzzle we are constructing for our daughter’s room.  We’ll write the donor’s name on the back of their piece and frame the puzzle in glass so that the butterfly picture can be seen on the front, and the names of people who helped bring our child home can be read on the back.  I would love for my memory of this Mother’s Day to include placing a bunch more of those pieces.  If I can‘t hold my child, or even her picture, I can at least pray over her puzzle as a tangible reminder of God’s faithfulness as we wait.  For the Lord our God will be with us wherever we go.

“Give thanks to the Lord.  His love endures forever.”