More Delays...(SIGH!)

If I were to write a book about our adoption, I'm not sure if I would put it in the drama or the humor category.  When we started this process, we were naive.  I'm pretty sure we thought it would all just fall in place.  I mean, how hard is a home study?  You fill out paperwork, get fingerprinted and voila...you have a home study.  I did not count on how many road blocks we would encounter along the way.  I did not count on our home being ripped apart, I did not count on China making a thousand changes.  I didn't expect the million delays we've had along the way.  And while I continue to wait for a State I once worked in to extend child abuse and neglect clearance...I find that we have one more delay to add to the list.  Now, it appears that DCFS has to give a letter of approval for the training we received.  We spent an entire day in classes to receive a Hague accredited certificate for the hours needed for China.  This training is approved through China and our placement agency...but not our State agency.  So, now they are reviewing it and it may take a while before it is approved.  Our home study cannot be submitted until it is approved.

I'm going to be brutally honest.  If we didn't have a picture on our fridge right now of a special needs child from China and a letter of pre-approval from her Country...I would flush this dream down the toilet today. 

This is the most exasperating thing I've ever been a part of.  We started our paperwork in mid-December of 2010.  We are coming up on a year that we've been trying to get a finalized study.  I've prayed, cried, and asked a thousand "whys".  I'll probably never really know the reason for all of this.  Sometimes I just want to scream, "We don't even have to do this!  We could take a vacation or buy a new car."  We're doing it out of love and out of compassion and a desire to follow after God.  But, sometimes following after God is still painful.  I just wrote something for church from the perspective of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  She accepted God's plan and her part in it.  But, it still brought her great pain and discomfort.  Please hear me!  I am NOT comparing myself to Mary!  Haha.  I'm just noting that sometimes following after the heart of God is not easy...it comes with a price.  So, the question I am left with while holding this dream mere inches from the toilet is this:  How much discomfort and pain is it worth to bring an orphan home.  

The answer doesn't flow out of my mouth like it did when we first started this journey.  But, if you listen closely and stand very near, you can hear the words form..."She's worth everything."  So, the journey continues and we power on through the delays.