While I'm Waiting

Today's another day where my patience is running low. Scratch that--my patience is gone. I thought we'd be finding out our travel dates this week, but it could be up to another month before we know. Our LOA is currently at the US Consulate in China, waiting for a signature. After that it's passed on to China's adoption center, and from THAT point it's 3-4 weeks until we get our travel notice. The US Consulate has had our LOA for almost 3 weeks, and it's still there. Does it really take that long for someone to sign their name? Waiting to be approved as an adoptive family or to be matched with a child is one thing--it's important to make sure someone will make a good family for a particular child. But once we're determined to be suitable to adopt and we have a child waiting for us, why all this beaurocracy? It's been 5 months since we accepted Tabitha's referral, and another 1-2 months until we get her. Though not legally ours yet, she's already our daughter in our hearts, and that's 7 additional months of her life that we're missing just because of the red tape.

Another part of my discontent is that I feel like our life has been on hold for the past 20 months. We started the adoption process in December 2007. We took our time at first because we had 6 months until we'd be old enough to adopt from China. By the time our birthdays came around, we had bought land to build our new house and were trying to sell our current house. (This was supposed to be a great financial move because Heath built our house himself (thus giving us enough equity to get a loan for the land) and he would build the other one too, so we could be almost mortgage free after selling this one.) We put a bunch of stuff in storage and "staged" the house for potential buyers. We weren't upset with a few adoption things taking longer than we'd expected because we were hoping to sell the house and move before getting our homestudy done. Our last house sold the first day it was on the market, but this house was on the market for 9 months without a single offer. When we got Tabitha's referral we took our house off the market because we didn't want to delay the adoption by moving. So now we're sitting here paying interest on the land we bought, throwing away money that could've helped pay for this adoption (or a future one). Maybe we should've never bought the land, but at the time it seemed like a great idea. And I'm sure it will be great one day, but the timing stinks! We probably couldn't sell it now even if we tried. We're going to try again to sell our house as soon as we get Tabitha, but even if it sells quickly, that may not leave time for groundbreaking on the new house before winter. Which means it'll sit until spring--almost 2 years after we bought it. And Tabitha keeps adding more days to her time in the orphange and away from her family, while government employees take their good old time signing paperwork. I know I shouldn't be complaining, and I do have so much to be thankful for, but this is so frustrating!

I want to post lyrics to a song sung by John Waller. Right now, it's a goal, not a description of how I'm actually living. But if you hear it on the radio, think of me, and pray for the Lord to give me patience. Thanks.

I'm waiting
I'm waiting on You, Lord
And I am hopeful
I'm waiting on You, Lord
Though it is painful
But patiently, I will wait

I'm waiting
I'm waiting on You, Lord
And I am peaceful
I'm waiting on You, Lord
Though it's not easy
But faithfully, I will wait
Yes, I will wait

I will move ahead, bold and confident
Taking every step in obedience

While I'm waiting
I will serve You
While I'm waiting
I will worship
While I'm waiting
I will not faint
I'll be running the race
Even while I wait