For those who wait

Isaiah 64:4

From of old no one has heard

or perceived by the ear,

no eye has seen a God besides you,

who acts for those who wait for him.

One of the CDs that we listen to when we're out and about in Big Blue is simply a year's worth of our church's elementary grade Sunday School memory verses set to music. It's great for the kids, yes, but it's also good for me to be hearing those things in an easy to remember fashion. I also find that it's one way that God uses to talk to me - when I surround myself with his words, the right ones jump out at the appropriate time.

We have a God who acts. One who does stuff. That makes life exciting. ;) Because if God is busy doing then I can be watching for him. He's not silent, or distant, but present and observable.

What really got me about this, though, was who he acts for - for those who wait for him. It's a theme I see repeated over and over throughout the Bible. A life lived by faith is one that requires patience, waiting. Because if we already had what we needed, or knew just how it was going to work out, we wouldn't need Him to act, would we? (Romans 8 - But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.)

There are many places in our life right now where we're waiting for God to act. I've realized that I prefer to live my life in a place where it won't be okay if He's not there, because I want to live in a place where I get to see his hand touching things all around me! 

With this school year Matt and I have figured out a way to do something we've wanted to do for years, but could never work out logistically. We've wanted to have a regular time to share with and teach our children (and hopefully learn from them as well!) about this active God we love so much. Mealtimes *seem* like a good idea because everyone's there, but anyone who's ever witnessed a mealtime at our house knows it's not really time to do much of anything important or requiring concentration on anything other than the logistics of the task at hand. Bedtime, which is a nearly two-hour long marathon of diapers and toothbrushes and various different stories being read aloud is a similarly bad time in our household. Enter "2:30 Time"!!! Our ah-ha! came when we realized that the middle of the afternoon is a perfect time to gather most of us together. The littlest ones are napping, but the little boys are off the bus by that time, the big kids aren't off with friends yet, and Daddy usually needs a break to wake him up from the monotony of sitting at his desk.

Our agenda is pretty simple - one of us shares something we've read recently in the Bible - usually it's a verse or part of a chapter from whatever we were reading the night before. Sometimes we sing a song; sometimes we have a snack. ;) (The snack is an important part!) I shared the verse from the beginning of this post during 2:30 Time last week, and we talked with the kids about all of the things we're waiting on. We need a mattress for B. We need supplies (and time!) to finish the basement bedroom. We need things yet unknown for when the girls come home, both material things like a way to safely transport T, and immaterial things, like help at home during the first period of time when T will hopefully be inpatient at Gillette to get her stabilized and to get as much initial testing out of the way as we can. How exciting to be able to share with the kids what we're waiting for, asking them to be watching with us for how God is going to act.

Earlier this week our pastor emailed us because he, a week at a time, devotes himself to praying for each family in his congregation, and this was our week, so he wanted to know if there were specific things we wanted him to be praying for. Matt laughed, because last time he asked us was right when we were in the process of deciding if we were or were not supposed to pursue adopting T. ;) Matt wrote back, laying out some general things, some specific things, and some intentionally oblique things. 

One of the specifics was related to some of my concerns about caring for T during the week we are in Sofia for the pick up trip. We plan to arrange ahead of time to have her transported directly to the children's hospital upon landing in the States so any testing that needs to be done, or any medical care she may need will be ready for her. But I need somehow to keep her alive for the week in between picking her up and getting her here! I'm not particularly concerned about the day to day process of feeding with an n-g tube, but I AM a little daunted by learning how to do it through a translator in a foreign country where I don't get a few tries with someone supervising - I've got to learn it, and then DO it, and do it correctly, right from the get-go.

Within an hour of Matt emailing our pastor back with this specific request, another mom I'm connected with via a private Facebook group (of families who've adopted from Krassi's orphanage) contacted me. She and her husband are also adopting again from the same orphanage, and are at almost the same point in the process as we are - maybe a few weeks ahead at most. She is a nurse!!! and she said she'd be willing to push off their girls' pick up trip a week or two so it would line up with our pick up trip so we would have an English speaking nurse staying in the same hotel as we are for that week in Sofia!

Waiting doesn't mean the answer will be long in coming. It might be. It doesn't have to be. Waiting simply means putting our trust in the God who acts without knowing when or how He is going to act, but knowing that He WILL act for those who wait for him, and then getting to sit back and watch it all unfold.