God is not surprised by this

Here we are 7 days from travel and our little dumpling girl is hospitalized with pneumonia.

God is not surprised by this.

I have repeated "God is not surprised by this" a thousand times over the last year and it has grounded me a thousand times. I have gotten to be an expert at "self talk". Sometimes telling yourself the truth helps keep fear at bay. If I believe that God is who He says He is (and I do); if I believe that His Word is true (and I do) then I must also believe that He knows every detail of my life, our adoption, our daughter and what the next month will look like for our family. If He knows (and He does) then I have to be ok and rest with the unknown - and in adoption... there is so much unknown.

But... it was a tough day yesterday. If there was a top ten list of things you don't want to have happen a week before you travel to meet your child in a foreign country - finding out that she is in a hospital with pneumonia would be high on the list for sure. There were tears. There was fear. There were moments of despair - we are so close and she is sick and she has an even sicker heart and low oxygen levels. We could very well get on the plane in a week not knowing where she will be or how she will be when we get there. If she's still in the hospital in Beijing - we cannot visit her. We can not see her until we meet up with her and her nanny in her province in northwestern China.

We have to wait. We have to surrender. Again, and again and again.

At one point yesterday I said to my husband - "This is so hard. I thought paperwork, and fees, and dossier building was hard. That was nothing compared to this."

It's true. Adoption is not the easy route to parenthood. It's never the easy route. There is no easy route to parenthood. No one learns or grows from "easy". No one grows when everything they expect happens just the way they "knew" it would.

"Grace was supposed to have surgery in China." No she wasn't. 
"We were supposed to spend some time at New Day before Gotcha Day." No we weren't.
"We were supposed to get to know her before having custody so she would be more comfortable."
I guess not. 
"We were supposed to travel on the 23rd." Thank God we didn't - she now has time to heal. 

I can't let anyone believe that this is just one fairytale day after another. I won't. It's far from a fairytale. There are great blessings in our journey to Grace. There are countless obvious workings of God. There are really hard, scary, gut-wrenching moments, too. We have a daughter and little sister who is so loved, and is without her "mama" in a hospital. Again. We get very limited updates but we are grateful for updates at all! We have no control in her care. We have no flexibility on our itinerary in China whether she is well or not. We have zero control. 

Not everyone has a friend so faithful that cancels their day and comes to sit, pray, talk, cry, eat chocolate, and just be... I do. She came yesterday. What she said, I hope, will stay with me for a long long time: "Being so dependent on Jesus, because you really can't depend on anything else, is the best place to be." 

I can easily rely on myself and my plan and my good intentions. I do it all the time. It's only when I have no other choice do I suffer the realization that I'm not in control. It's a lesson that will continue throughout my life and the subject matter will get harder and harder - that's how we grow from what we were to what God wants us to become. I'm rejoicing that I'm not where I once was - I'm certain that God isn't nearly finished with me. If I have strength - it's because God's strength is perfect in my weakness. I ran out of my own strength long ago.

So, we believe. We have faith. We anchor to the hope we have...not just for 7 more days - but for always.

God is not surprised by this.