"Do Not Settle"...

at church today, the sermon was on "do not settle too soon". it was really actually great timing b/c I have had a lot of thoughts lately about life, and how we hope life will go vs. how it does go.. and how, the more we try to control things, the more likely they don't work out the way we'd hoped...Jeff is amazing, and together we have worked so hard for this goal of adoption. This is not something we decided to do 2 years ago. We started 2 years ago officially identifying a country and then a few months later after lots of interviewing and research, an agency. But the truth is, this started 20 years ago when I met kids from Romania when volunteering at CHOP. for jeff and I, adoption as part of how we'd build our family TRULY was an agreed upon topic before we even had our first kiss. Yup. We agreed that we both wanted family and i said adoption was always part of my plan, and he agreed (with the contingency of "does it have to be 10 kids?" Being from a fun family of 2 kids, lots of kids is what i'd hoped for!), but we both agreed then that we wanted a family where 1 or both of us was home with the kids all the time, so we'd both work part time or something.... It was interesting how it was important to both of us to have a lot of parent/kid time.. I know, hard to believe but yes, it really was before he was smart enough to kiss me and seal the deal on us as an us.... In the years since, it has been about developing our relationship, saving to buy a home, putting Jeff and then I thru school so we'd have established, secure careers, then saving money so we can afford an adoption... perhaps we planned too much, tried to control too much.. i have wondered that..
and, I have been thinking that at 40 and 41, maybe i should start really thinking about the fact that i may never be a mom to a non-furry child, and we may never be the family we dreamed of becoming... and i need to be OK with that, too, if it happens. life can't end if we aren't successful in adoption & becoming a family. We are blessed with great jobs, and we get to work every single day with kids and their families.... But, for us, as much as we hope or want it to be, part of me has begun to think that a family may just not be what is "meant" to happen, no matter how much we control it... The adoption world has taken some very unpredictable turns, and we made decisions based on challenging information, and we can neither take it personal, nor think life is over if getting children doesn't happen for us.
Just days before this church service, our good friend, Kris, emailed me saying "I really don't believe, that if you want something bad enough, that there are signs that will say no. You may just have to work a lot harder for it. But if you have pictured yourself a mother then no one can take that away and you will be one." Kind words from a friend who knows well where we are coming from....
so, when i heard Dr. Gallaway today talk about "do not settle too soon", and went on to talk about how to get into Palestine, Abram & Herit and their families needed to leave very very fertile ground and cross a very dry, hard to live in desert... he went on to talk about the concept of settling. it was really the old morale of "when one door shuts, god opens a window" and if that window is in the back of your house and you are staring at your closed front door, then DUH on you. Do not settle go check out the windows for heavens sake.
while yes, it is important to have a mental and emotional balance that life today still has meaning even though it is not spent caring for our own child or having fun as a family of three (oh, sorry, Ashton.. I mean a family of 4)..And, while it's important to know that the future may also bring the same "no non-furry children" story, it is also important to not settle... It is important that jeff and i remember how hard we have worked, and the extent to which we have looked for our family (believe me, you would not believe the story of the last 8 months - i think about it in my head and all that has happened and i think "no, you are just making that up".. maybe someday we'll let everyone know all that has transpired..) Lots that has made me think, "maybe the signs are not pointing where we want them to.." But, it is important to not turn our back completely to the potential that there are slightly cracked windows somewhere in our home and keep up hope and find an open window. of course, now that it's winter, it might be hard to find the open window, but if we settle now for "no family", we'll never look around to see where there might be one with a slight crack and a breeze coming through...and if we do that, we may not find our way to the great fortune of some little guy who is out there waiting for us to find him..
and so, as i thought -- "well, how about that?" at least for today, that "do not settle too soon" is also a good moral for those of us trying to find our way to a family....It is not the first time a church sermon has sung to me deeply.. a late summer one talked about "putting together a new dossier to find a new shepard because the one we thought we found didn't work out".. but, today, this one was the most compelling of all, and so so very timely.... even tho it may seem we are in a total desert, or a home with tightly locked windows and doors..... this may just be our "crossing" point, and, on the other side, will find ourselves more fertile land and open windows..
do not settle.