Keeping the Faith

I have never been a very religious person.  My mom is Jewish and my dad is Episcopalian and while my siblings and I were raised with very biblical “guidelines,” like “Do unto others as you would have them do to you,” we rarely set foot in a Church or Temple or said prayers before dinner.  We celebrated holidays representing both religions and had a general understanding of the spiritual explanation behind them, but when faced with a dilemma or life changing choice, my natural inclination was not to pray to a higher power, but to reason things out or go with my gut.  Until recently, this worked for me.  I can honestly say, I have lived with no regrets and my gut has guided me down a path on which I am proud to be walking.  But sometimes, life gets too big to simply seek internal guidance.  And when this happened to me, it became clear why so many people I know are devout and have unrelenting faith that there is a higher power guiding us through life’s journey.

The miracle of producing offspring in and of itself initiated the beginnings of this new spiritual piece of me.  I mean, how can you not marvel at this miniature version of “us” and wonder how on earth the perfection of it all is possible?  But it wasn’t until we began the very different course to have a third child that spirituality became more of a necessity than a vague question mark for me. 

My pregnancies, even with a few hiccups and complications, were somewhat predictable.  I had a little daily calendar I kept at my bedside and could read all about the little life inside me – each night I’d tear off a page and announce to James, “Guess what?  Baby got earlobes today!”  But the avenue we chose to build our family this time, through international adoption, is far more unpredictable.  When we started the process, we were under the impression we would have our child within 12-18 months.  Now, over two years later, we still don’t even have a referral for a child, much less a sense of when we will travel or how much longer it will be before we enlarge our family.  We are close to a referral, of this I am fairly certain.  But it could be within hours that we get that phone call or maybe even a couple more months.  For the last two weeks, I have woken up each morning certain that today will be the day.  I have donned my “Ethiopia Mama” tee shirt thinking how perfect it would be if the call came and I was wearing it.  I have watched for signs – surely hearing the song “Africa” on the radio means the phone call will come any moment.  But the call has not come and I have successfully driven myself and probably my husband, though he is too polite to admit it, crazy. 

 
And so I have decided to let it go.  And this is where the religious piece comes in.  If I let it go, I have to leave it to someone to take care of.  There is a higher power that has orchestrated this process so far.   Though not the time frame we expected, in hindsight, I can see that the delay was for the best.  Had things happened according to plan (my plan), I think I would have missed out on our youngest daughter’s development.  She would easily have become lost in the shuffle and the chaos that is sure to surround bringing in another child from another country and all that comes with that.  She needed our attention and to be the baby for awhile.  I am so glad this was not taken away from her.  I also needed time.  There was a lot I had to learn about being a mother – not so much the occupation of being a mom, but who I am as a mom.  I needed to learn to put myself second, but not all the time.  I needed to find balance and discover an ability to let things go.  Things don’t always happen as we plan, particularly in parenthood.  Houses don’t always get cleaned promptly and temper tantrums erupt at the worst possible moments.  Kids don’t react as we would have expected and there are tears and meltdowns and sleepless nights and uneaten dinners.  But at the end of the day, it is the laughter and silly songs, and Crayola stick figures and conversations between our daughters that are nothing but love and compassion for each other that we take with us. 

So, just as I have learned to let go of my expectations of daily life as a mother, I will continue to do so as I carry on with building my family.  I will relinquish control over the situation.  Because so far, there seems to be a reason for how this all has transpired.  I look forward to the day I will see further why it has all unfolded just as it has.  Until then, the ball is out of my court.