Reflections on Waiting

These past few days I have certainly felt the prayers of others.  I feel like I have a little more of my sanity back and I'm able to focus on what I'm doing without checking my email every three minutes hoping to find some news from our social worker.  Thank you so much to those of you who have been praying for us.

One thing that I thought about this week is that as a parent there are so many times throughout your child's life that you will not be able to be with them, holding their hand, helping them make the tough decisions, protecting them.  When you have your kids the old fashioned way, I think those days when you are not able to be there come a little later in your child's life.  We are living through those days right now.  When you give birth to a new baby, you might make the decision to keep that baby under your own watchful care for months and months before you leave them with a baby sitter for the first time.  As the child gets older there is probably more of a sense of trusting in the Lord to watch over them while they are at school or at a friend's house.  Well, we are walking through that same kind of trusting right now.  We cannot be with Samantha right now.  I will not be by her side when she sits in kindergarten for the first time or goes on her first date or when she takes her first spin behind the wheel by herself or when she agrees to be someone's bride, but Someone else will be there with her through all of that.  From the moment of her conception, she has been in Better Hands than ours. . .God's hands.  He already has her life story written, and He has chosen me and James to walk with her through it.  She will be in HIs same hands after she is grown and James and I are no longer living.  God gives us children for a season.  They are not things to be gotten.  They are gifts that He gives us for a time.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"

even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well
Ps. 139:7-14 (NIV)