Bringing Me Back

I think this is about the fifth time I've tried to write this entry.  For some reason, I can't seem to get my thoughts to flow.  I think it's because I am still grappling with them, and trying to wrap my head around all of their implications.  So here is what's going down...

Today, while having lunch with a coworker, I got an email from our case worker about a baby boy.  This isn't all that uncommon.  I'm trying to build thicker skin because I found myself emotionally invested after reading the first word.  And even though in the past the answer was no (Which was the right answer for us.) it is still hard to say.  You are snuffing out the life of a dream.  Even though it lasted only moments, it was a dream none the less, and with it came hope and expectancy.  As I read over baby boy's information quickly my heart skipped a beat, several beats, and a dream was born.  Unlike its predecessors, this dream was promising...it just might work.  I forwarded the email to Shawn, and promptly texted him to check his email ASAP.  The dream lived on.  I called him, and there wasn't much to discuss, we both felt we should submit our home study.  The dream lived on.  We called our case worker and told her to submit.  She told us there wasn't a deadline or timeline that she could find in the file, but that she assumed it would be a few weeks before we heard anything.  And the dream lives on...while we wait...until it either blossoms into reality or disappears altogether.

Most of you know that this is not our first time to submit on a child.  We also submitted our home study on a little girl about  four weeks ago.  Another dream that has taken up residence in purgatory waiting for its sentence.   The hard thing is that little girl is a dream that I have had time to become quite familiar with, and have begun to hope earnestly for.   And incase you didn't know....hope is a dirty business.  It's messy and unnerving, and has the power to create and destroy.  

---Holy cow, I just got it.  Hope, when put in the wrong thing or process is messy, but when put in God it is safe.  Why?  Because he is unchanging...he will be there no matter what the answer for baby boy or little girl is...There is a purpose and plan that goes beyond their answers.  When I put my hope in the process, that is when it becomes messy, because the process can break my heart.  Geez, how's that for a little bulb coming on!  Ok...back to my post--

There are several ways this could play out:
1.  We only get baby boy.
2.  We only get little girl.
3.  We get both little girl and baby boy.  (No lie, but I like number 3.)
4.  We don't get either of them.  (My least favorite, but I trust that there is a child out there that is for us.)

It is in the mess and chaos of this whole process and all of its unknowns that I feel like God is bringing me back to Himself.  That he is trying to show me to trust him, and reminding me that he has a plan for us.  And, as of five minutes ago...that hope placed in Him, is not messy, because he will always be...no matter what our answers are for baby boy or little girl.  Today as my mind swam in the possibilities, these verses kept coming back.
Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” (NIV)
Proverbs 37:4, 7 "Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart's desires...Be still in the presences of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act."
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

So now, with properly placed hope,...we wait.