Fear Is Not Of God, And Yet...

Last night I was sitting on the couch reading through some blogs and came upon a converstion regarding the 'rumour's, which have now become a proposal, of changing the restrictions with regard to family size if you want to adopt from Ethiopia. Namely, if you have more than five kids you won't be able to adopt.

And I suddenly was washed with this fear. I am afraid. I suppose this has come over me because of my friend facing the chance of losing her girls. Her situation sure looked like a God ordained one! I mean, she needed money to adopt the unexpected older sister, and it arrived - all $8000, in the mail! Does that not make you believe that God is behind it? But now she is facing such uncertainty and heartache.

It now makes me fear. It makes me wonder if all my 'signs and wonders' were just coincidences!! I know I can share this because those of you who are Christian will understand an attack of the enemy - he will attack when you are low! And those of you who aren't Christian... oh well, I hope you can understand anyway!

I went to bed last night so afraid. Afraid of losing our girls. I know we don't even have a referral yet, but our hearts are *so* in Africa! I thought about it. If the restrictions change I do not know if we have the strength of heart to apply to another country. And even if we did there aren't many countries that really apply to our situation (a large family). The only one might be Liberia, and they are having real problems and it doesn't seem like a safe financial and emotional situation. Plus we have already invested $5000 and can't get that back. Plus by the time things possibly change for the worse, we will have already sent in many more thousands of dollars and that probably won't be refundable (from any of the agencies!) So we will no longer have the money to adopt.

My sleep last night was dreadful! No other word for it. It was filled with fear and horrible images and racing to catch airplanes and all kinds of stressful feelings. I know it is a result of my feelings. This morning when I awoke I needed some words of encouragement. I read my devotions and one fell open to this:

Never Be Afraid!

"Don't be afraid, for I have ransomed you;
I have called you by name; you are mine.
When you go through deep waters
and great trouble,
I WILL BE WITH YOU.
When you go through rivers of difficulty,
you will not drown!
When you walk through the fire of oppression,
you will not be burned up-
the flames will not consume you

For I am the Lord your God, your Savior...
you are precious to me and honored,
and I love you.

Don't be afraid, for I am with you.

Isaiah 43: 1-5

I still feel like crying and that is unusual for me. It is so hard. There is no 'when we can be certain date', as there are a number of dates to wait for. For starters, we do not even know when this proposal is going to be presented to the powers that be! If I could rest that it was 12 months that would make me feel better. I have heard rumours that it will go into effect after the courts reopen at the beginning of October, though our agency says 6-12 months. The last time I heard rumours they were true and our agency was wrong!!!

We have to wait til probably the end of November for our dossier to go to Ethiopia and be approved by the Ministry of Women's Affairs. Is it safe at that point? You might think so, but noone knows!

Then we have to wait for a referral - that could take 6-9 months (or longer) and by then the proposal will have surely been heard and maybe passed! And will they then look at files in waiting and say some of them no longer qualify!!??? Or will they let them through as 'in the works.'

After that we have to wait for the court date, which would be about another 4-12 weeks, where the girls would become ours. And only then would we be safe!

The only thing I can do from now til we finalize an adoption is 'TRUST' and believe me with all the things that have happened to me, I feel God is in this. But then again what if they were all coincidences!

Last night, it crossed my mind that if we changed our request to one little girl of 0-12 months, or even two little girls *any age* - we would get through *so much faster*, but then my heart is just not in that!!! My hearts cry is to see a little girl playing with Austin - *he so* wants a sister and he would be satisfied with a little one, but he will be 10 before this is completed. I want a sister that he can communicate and play games with. It is just something in my heart!

I do not feel a release to change our referral ages or the number of children we are requesting.

Please pray that this overwhelming sense of foreboding would go away.