Delays and lessons

 We have been at Jr. High camp all week at this wonderful little camp that is pretty much in the center of a mountain. It is one of the most beautiful places I’ve been. It was a great time for our family to get refreshed and spend time together. The people here are great and have gone out of their way to minister to us while we are here. Darryl gets to speak every night at chapel which he enjoys very much.    

  So onto the reason for the post on our adoption site. We don’t have very good cell phone reception here, actually we don’t have any reception here except an occasional spot where the phone will ring but as soon as you answer it the call is dropped. Well, on Monday I saw our adoption agency came up on my caller ID. I was so excited but of course I couldn’t get the phone to keep the call. I thought they were calling to tell us our dates for travel. I finally found one spot near the lake where if I sat on this one rock I could get 3 bars of service on Darryl’s phone. The news was definitely not what we had hoped. They were calling to tell us that USCIS (US government) needs a new form that we had already filled out because they thought we sent them a copy of an original. We did not but there is no way to prove that so we had to fill out a new form and send it to them. If I was home I could do this in 1 day and overnight it and it would actually get to the desk I need it to get to about 10 days later. BUT we weren’t home and I had no idea where the closest post office was to us or how far that was going to be to drive. I also didn’t know if there was anywhere to print the form we needed to fill out. SO this meant about another 3 weeks before we would even expect to hear a date. I spent the next hour on the verge of tears and quite honestly feeling sorry for myself. Here I was in this beautiful place with my family and I felt like on day 1 it had been ruined. It also didn’t help that I had taken Dramamine earlier. I knew with the curvy mountain roads I had to take it. So I was trying to process all of this with a VERY foggy brain.  Well I found a place to print the paper we needed and a post office about 30 minutes away. However then I remembered this paper has to go to a special address and I needed our government case workers reference number which I didn’t have. It was on a piece of paper in the mail at my house and I didn’t have enough cell service to call my mom and get what I needed. I was really starting to get discouraged. SO I tried to put it out of my head for the rest of the day. I went to bed early that night because the Dramamine was still in my system.  I slept for 12 hours that night! I decided to try for some cell service again. As I was walking around looking pretty silly with my phone in the air one of the camp staff informed they have a cell signal booster in their office and I needed to do was walk up to their offices and step inside and my phone would find a signal. That was a huge relief within minutes I had all the information I needed from my mail and the form was on it’s way to the post office with Darryl. HERE IS WHERE GOD SHOWED ME I HAVE SO LITTLE FAITH! I was doing some reading in a book called “The Mission of Motherhood” I have been reading it for a while and decided to finish it while I was here. The chapter could not have come at a better time (obviously God knew this ahead of time and planned it just for me). It was a chapter on getting your kids out in nature to truly experience what God made and to appreciate His creativity. She quoted Jeremiah 32:17 “Ah, Lord God! Behold, Thou hast made the heavens and the Earth by Thy great power and by Thine outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for Thee!” God couldn’t have hit me any harder in that moment. I just had to pray and ask for forgiveness for my unbelief. He created all the beauty around me and I was doubting his ability to get us to our little girl. These were just small steps in our journey.  He does not need me to question Him. She also points in that chapter of the book that when Job questions God about his hardships (which were way worse than my little complaints) God answers Job by pointing out that He created the Universe. He didn’t explain Himself to Job He just says (paraphrased) Hey I created the Universe I have a purpose for this.”  WOW, that is all I have to remember in times of my perceived struggles. God is God and that’s all that matters what a beautiful thing to rest in.