Hope

This weekend I went to a Waiting Families group. It is a casual meeting once a month where adopting families gather to encourage one another, ask questions, and struggle together. I didn’t necessarily want to go but I am glad I did. I think I was worried; I mean, even if you understand each other, how can the shared frustrations of waiting and other common adoption issues bring hope? Because that was what I was really after, hope.

But it was good. I did end up leaving with hope. What brought hope was not necessarily the shared frustrations of those waiting, but others there who had walked before us. In fact, I think had it just been those of us waiting, we might have left more discouraged than we came. The leaders did a good job of redirecting our focus and also encouraging us with a different perspective. Because let’s face it, you have a much difference perspective when you are in the middle of a struggle as opposed to being on the other side of it. One of the leaders repeated a phrase I had heard her say often before and am always encouraged by it. Are you ready for what this huge phrase of truth was?

“The waiting time always seems long while you are in it but it will happen.”

That simple phrase, said by a compassionate and understanding friend who has walked that same road, gave me hope. A million people who have not adopted could say this to me and I wouldn’t believe it, but I do believe her. She knows! I thought. She has been there. She has walked this road. There is something about the combination of compassion, understanding, and truth that is a balm to a hurting heart. That brings hope.

It made me think of so many other situations that need this same help. Reality is, we all need each other. We need others who have walked before us, who can remind of us truth, treat us with understanding and compassion, and yet are living examples that we will survive and we will get through whatever hard or discouraging situation is facing us. And, in the situations that God has brought us through, we need to be that to others.

I walk away with hope this weekend. Not because my circumstances changed. But because others shared their experience with me with understanding and compassion. They helped me put it in context. They gave me a fresh perspective when I was stuck in a negative one. They drew my heart not to where I was but where I would be someday. They reminded me that God was at work and one day would “show up” in a way that was tangible in this area of adoption. Isn’t that what hope is? “But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?” Romans 8:24

And that made all the difference. Thank you, Kristin.