Magnum P.I. is finished!

Good news! Our private investigator finished his work, and I received all his documents and summary over the weekend.  After pouring over it all again and again, looking for typos, misspellings, inconsistencies, things that don't make sense....  I finally think it is ready to go.  He did a really thorough job, and I can't find anywhere that I think he could have done more.  Our case is a really straight forward one without much room for question to it.

Except for one little fact that is just a fact.

It cannot be changed, it is there and there's nothing we can do to "fix" it.  We're not ready to share the details of this, but I feel it needs to be covered by prayers.  It is something that could have been avoided if the proper care and attention had been given at the very beginning, but at this point, it is too late and we just have to roll with it. I feel very hopeful that this will be something the Embassy sees fairly often and will not pose any problem in their review of our case.  However, there is room for it to become a very large obstacle.  So please, we covet your prayers.  Our investigator will take the files Tuesday morning to the Embassy, and after that.... we wait.

And now, prepare yourself for some brutal honesty.  Some soul confessions.  Or else go back to Facebook.

These last three months have been really tough for me.  Adoption is not easy, and every one told me to get ready for an emotional roller coaster. I think at one point I thought, "I've been through three pregnancies and a miscarriage, it can't be worse than all that."  Well, it is. I had a close friend tell me once they thought they'd just adopt because they figured it would be easier than having their own kids.  I think that is hilarious at this point!  It is a difficult journey, but one if God calls you to, is so worth it...

I admit that my faith has been pushed, and stretched in this.  I haven't come through it all yet, I'm still wrestling with a lot of stuff.  I'm struggling with reconciling human error and wilfull negligence and how that fits in with God's will.  Many good hearted people, seeking to encourage us, have said that this is all part of God's "perfect timing."  Most of the time, I confess I just think, "How can that be, when it's all a result of human hands, mistakes, inaction, that should have been done so differently?" At least that's the way it seems to me right now...  maybe time will give me a new perspective.

I know all the stories where God uses bad people to accomplish His will. I know all of that. And I find myself reading them these days to encourage me that His will does prevail, no matter how corruptly humans mess it up.  I'm just at a place right now where it's hard to figure out, and I know He hasn't forgotten us, but I can't accept (at least right now) that this is pleasing to Him, and part of His perfect will...

I know and trust that it will all work together to bring her home in the end.  Because God IS the Most High God.  He called us to build our family this way, He directed us to take every step that led us to Meryn. Even though the whole experience has not been the beautiful dream I had intended or wanted, I have to believe and have to trust that He's already on the other side of this, (as a good friend said) and however it's gotten or gets messed up along the way, He can smooth it out.  He can make mountains low, He can make valleys high....  He will make our path straight.  Even if His straight is a winding road through dark forests with bends we cannot see coming. : )  He WILL be glorified in all of this in the end.

This is an often-quoted verse, but so applicable to my life today:

"Trust in the LORD and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and he will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3: 5-6

Claiming these truths, praying this today.