Drinking from a Fire Hose

Drinking from a fire hose. I think that’s what our home study worker must have felt like on Saturday morning. We met up for a few hours to do our individual interviews with her. I’m fairly certain that she couldn’t have guessed what was coming her way. We told her our story in the most honest and open terms that we could, because in truth it’s not our story, it’s God’s story. In telling it we get to give him the glory for what has been an amazing journey in our marriage. Over the years at different church events or camps I’ve had the chance to listen to people talk about the ways that God’s grace transformed their lives. I always felt a little twinge of jealousy listening to these stories of change – the way that God was so clearly evident in the narrative. The lie I believed at the time, was that I didn’t have the chance to experience this type of grace. After all I wasn’t involved in any number of things that I had heard people talk about over the years, I told myself.

Looking at the journey that Tara and I have been through, it is clear to me that I was wrong – way wrong. Our struggle to find oneness in marriage wasn’t something that we were up to facing on our own. We tried and it was ugly… we tried for months, for years even (the ‘years’ was me, I think Tara was busy changing already- apparently I’m the hardhead here), and we’ve got the friends and community group members who can attest to the struggle. When finally I came to the end of the line, I gave up trying. I didn’t give up – but I gave up doing it my way and I started listening… finally. The days between there and here haven’t all been glorious, many of them were painful – but I wouldn’t trade them for anything. The truth is that if Tara and I had continued to live unchanged lives, there is no chance we’d be where we’re at in our marriage, or this process moving towards adoption. Looking at our experience makes me believe it when James tells us to consider it all joy when we encounter various trials. I think that same truth applies to the ‘trials’ of adoption. It’s easy for me to allow God to become small in my life – it’s easy for me to want to write the story. So I was reminded in the process of recounting all of the things that we’ve been through over the past years to trust God – please pray for us as we try to do just that with our home study, the adoption, and our baby when the time comes.