Rough Week and a Promise

This has been a rough week. I mean really rough. The amount of tears that have been cried this week is shocking really. :) Our adoption worker, Terri, had told us to be prepared for a 4 month wait between trip #1 and trip #2 (it’s been a little over 3 so far) however we have recently seen it happen A TON faster than that. There is a family that travelled on their first trip to Volgograd over a month after we did and they are back in Russia right now, had their court hearing today. Without seeing that I think I would be doing a lot better, but seeing how fast it COULD have happened (their agency and POA (Power of Attorney who is the person on the ground in Russia, also our representative -ours is Lena) did things a lot differently) is literally like torture. Knowing that MY baby is still sitting in an orphanage, seemingly no closer to getting home, and if the process had gone differently he could be HOME by now…

We found out today that our documents are STILL not at court. Our POA was waiting until the “good” judge was back from vacation to submit our documents to him. That’s nice and all but I would take a judge that would grill us in court over my baby waiting any longer to get home. The word as of today is that our documents will be submitted to him Monday and he typically schedules a preliminary hearing with the social worker from the orphanage, the Ministry of Education (or Department of Education, called both things, sort of the equivalent of DHR), and our POA within TWO weeks of submitting our documents to court. THEN during that preliminary hearing he will schedule a court date for us, which we have seen be about 2 weeks out, but that obviously varies. So, if the time frames stick with what our POA is telling us it could be a month before we make it back to court. My heart is just breaking the longer this takes. My baby just keeps getting older (18 months) and I know way too much about brain development/attachment/neglect/etc. due to my job. I realize that God is bigger than all of that, but knowledge is my enemy right now and I wish I didn’t know so much about adoption and the effects of all of that on the children. :)

I have definitely come completely to the end of MY rope. But, guess what? It’s not really the end…

“He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:29-31, NIV)

Oh how I need that strength only He can give. I honestly can’t explain what we’re feeling right now.

The Lord brought this song to mind this morning, oh how fitting it is (minus the sentence that says “there’s no reason worth this”…because Elijah is TOTALLY worth this). I have just been listening to it on repeat, bawling. It describes perfectly how I feel.

“Trust In Me Now” by Anthony Evans 

I know your past
The point of breaking into pieces
I know you feel
Like there’s no reason even worth this
And when you cry
The tears that fall don’t even touch your pain, no, no

Even though you feel alone
Even though your strength is gone
As your weary heart just tries to hold on
Even if your faith is lost
Even if its hard to trust
In a Lord, that would let the rain fall down
Trust in me now
Trust in me now

I can hear every prayer that goes unspoken
I feel the weight of everything that’s on your shoulders
So don’t give up
There is nothing we can’t overcome
There’s nothing we can’t overcome

Even though you feel alone
Even though your strength is gone
As your weary heart just tries to hold on
Even if your faith is lost
Even if its hard to trust
In a Lord, that would let the rain fall down
Trust in me now
Trust in me now

I can see what you can’t see
And I will hold you close to me
Through the storm until you can see the light

Even though you feel alone
Even though your strength is gone
As your weary heart just tries to hold on
Even if your faith is lost
Even if its hard to trust
In a Lord, that would let the rain fall down
Trust in me now
Trust in me now
Trust in me now
Trust in me now

You can listen to the song here.

To top it ALL off…today is our little girl’s two year Heaven birthday. Like I have mentioned before, God has orchestrated every single detail of our journey and I am so glad that our little girl is in Heaven with Jesus and we are able to adopt Elijah. He has a plan in ALL of this, I know He does, but I definitely just feel drained…emotionally and physically as well (this may be because I have ran my heart out this week…I needed the endorphins but may have done permanent damage to my body :) ).

Headed to the police department right now to redo a local police clearance form that is now expiring due to the longer than anticipated wait. Goodie. :) I hope this is the only document that we will have to redo before court…