Is that you, God?

One of the most unexpected blessings of being intricately involved in foster care and adoption is the way it challenges my faith. It's been the ultimate conversation starter between God and myself.

Conversations that are really just made up of me asking hard questions and not getting them answered.

-I know you are sovereign in Heaven Lord, but do you have full authority back here on Earth too? 

-If so why does Jesus teach us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven?

-Can you see what's happening to these innocent kids? Why does it happen to them and not mine?

-Do you know how broken the system can be? The one that is supposed to help, but instead it hurts them more. Do you see that too?

-Was adoption your plan all along for these children? Why even place them in that drug filled womb? And why place another and then another?

-I can't tell you how many times I've heard "It will all happen in God's timing," but sometimes I wonder if you are yelling from above "What are you doing?!?! Get a move on. You know that I am a God of the broken and the oppressed. Why are you waiting for me when I have put you there for a reason. Fight for those kids. I'm not your genie. What do you think your job on earth is anyway?"

-And right now all I keep asking is "Is that you, God?" 

I find it really easy to see God's plan and timing in hindsight and really difficult to see it playing out in real time. 

This week I am hyperaware of all the events of real time. The basic rhythm of being foster parents is you wait and wait and wait and wait and wait some more with no real certainty of the future because you are not the one in charge and you don't get to make the plans. Then one day it's finally your turn to sit before the decision maker and you wait with anticipation for someone else to tell you what will be happening to your family. 

Our appointment with the decision maker is happening this week. 

Only one person knows what will happen, and that person is not me.

This week may be a goodbye to two of my favorite little people. Or it may be a first nudge towards a new forever family. Or it may be no decision at all... just more waiting. 

I can't help but think of the bizarre coincidental way we fell in love with a one year old girl and her two year old brother...especially when we had our minds set on elementary aged boys and our hearts falling in love with elementary aged boys and our adoption book written for elementary aged boys and our house prepared for elementary aged boys. 

I don't know why it happened like that. And when something happens that I don't know how to explain with human words and understanding it always makes me wonder, 

"Is that you, God?'