And Along with Entropy Came

guilt, pain, and sorrow. The perfect trifecta of failure.

Hindsight is 20/20, my mother always says, and in this case she is so very right. I know -- I knew -- God was speaking to us. I couldn't pick up a devotional or hear a sermon that didn't reiterate over and over "trust ME."  I could barely read a blog that didn't hammer home the same point. Again and again and again.

How arrogant of me, how wilfully obtuse, to say I wasn't sure what God wanted me to do. I might as well have stuck my fingers in my ears and sung 'La la la, I Can't Hear You."

Most galling, most humiliating, is that this is the second time I've done this.

But, you say, God is loving and kind, his mercies are new every morning. True dat. But I am wallowing a bit right now and not ready to cut myself any slack.  I need to really feel this; grieve it, even. I am broken right now over my sin. And I think being broken in this way is not necessarily a bad thing.  And yes, God knew how I (we) would react in this situation. This hasn't caught him off guard. Me it walloped upside the head, but God already knew about the fault lines in my character, my faith, my heart.

San Andreas, baby. So big, and so unstable.

But there is hope. It's buried right now, but I know it's there, even though I can't see it or feel it. God promises he will "redeem the years the locust has eaten." Ha (and you can make that a bitter, cynical 'ha' if you like). I thought that verse, which has been swimming around in my head for about a month now, was about adoption. Turns out it was about me.  God knew I was going to need some assurance that I am not entirely ready for the scrap heap just yet.

Will we adopt? I don't know. I am really murky on this one, mainly because I was more invested in this one particular child than I realized or wanted to admit. The question has really been "will you adopt him?" And now that door appears to be firmly shut. If you wait long enough, if you waffle and procrastinate and fail to decide, God will find someone to fulfill his purposes  in your place.  So take that, Sir Lather of Indecision - you've been punked.

So where do I go now? Nowhere. I am going to sit with my sackcloth and ashes for a while yet. For whatever reason, I have to fully experience this. Maybe it's necessary so I can die to my self-life all over again. I see now, really see with sharp, painful clarity, that this is a process I am going to struggle with until I am with Him.