Swamped

I am drowning in kids' activities this month. This week alone, I have 7 separate scheduled activities for my children. If you add in allergy shots and a costume fitting which positively must take place, the total rises to 9.  We have had one day -- one short, blessed evening -- with no activities. That was yesterday. Today I fully anticipate some sort of implosion around 6 pm. That will be my head, caving in from all the pressure of trying to be 3 places at once.

In the midst of all this chaos -- and let me tell you, next week is looking even hairier than this one -- we are trying to pull our heads together to get this adoption ball rolling. But there is hardly a spare minute in the day to really talk about it, so I am faced with the prospect of acting unilaterally or not acting at all.

I am finding it hard (understatement) to make these decisions by myself. The two biggies we have to deal with immediately are a) which agency? and b) which special needs?

These are not small issues.

The agency decision is tough -- it's hard to get a 'feel' for an agency over the Internet or even in phone conversation with someone. I've read surveys, haunted web groups, stalked various adopter's blogs, but I still don't feel a pull toward any particular agency. Since this is kind of fundamental to the process, we kind of need to get on it.  Tim is of no help in this area at all. His response? "You've done the research, just make a decision."

Um, what?

The second big deal is going through the list of special needs we would be willing to consider. This is just daunting. There's really no other word for it. It's one thing to look at kids and another thing to look at labels. Labels are way scarier. And while it's responsible to Google these things to get a bead on what they are, the information that throws up ranges from nerve-wracking to earth-shattering, in about equal measure. It all boils down to this: nearly every need could be no big deal or a Very Big Deal Indeed. It all depends. So confronting this list of needs is a mind blower. My knee-jerk reaction is "none of them -- they're all more than I can cope with." I think about things like how well I would deal with a lot of needles and blood and procedures. Could I handle surgeries? Is it in me to deal with something long-term -- maybe forever-long-term? I just don't know.

This is where the rubber meets the road. Because living for Christ means I have to die to me. And my secret identity? -- is Much Afraid. Much Afraid doesn't think she can do anything. She has a very narrow range of what she feels she can handle and she is so busy burying her head in the sand that she can't see her savior's hand held out to her, beckoning her into the wider world (or rather, she is pretending not to see it). All Much Afraid ever wanted was to be married, to be a mom, to have a house and a little garden. She would have these things and live happily ever after, the end. But then Jesus started messing with her heart. He was so subtle about it -- a news story way back in the early '90s about abandoned babies in China; a flyer in a church bulletin about adoption in 2000; a little difficulty getting pregnant with #1 -- just enough to make adopting a definite option; a Steven Curtis Chapman concert in 2005; a giant billboard right on the way to preschool where she had to see it every single day for 8 months; sobering statistics that floated in from who-knows-where about children alone, in need of families; a little boy's face on a waiting child list a few years ago; the desperate need for families for boys just because they're boys. And now she's here, unable to turn away from the reality that is the orphan crisis, knowing that this is the path to take, but shaking in her shoes nonetheless.

The thing is, Much Afraid is still fearful. She is mostly fearful of making a mistake, especially as she begins this whole process. What if I choose the wrong agency? What if we say yes to a  need that's more than we can handle? What if we are referred a child and we don't like him? (don't judge -- just keepin' it real). What if ....what if...what if. What if God doesn't show up? What if He drops the ball on this one and we are left hanging out to dry?

Let's let God work, my husband says. Let's do this and let him bless us in ways we would never see if we didn't step out in faith.  Let's go, and let him undertake.

What this means, really, is take a step. Letting go, right now, means taking a step forward. Don't sit still, don't hide, don't choke, don't throw it into reverse.  Go forward. The hand is held out to you. Take it.

Just take it.