let's rewind eight years ago to 2007. i was a junior at clemson, involved with a guy named rhett who was a senior at duke. if you don't know this story, wow. it's a good one. i'm not tech savvy enough to figure out how to post a link to my post on that subject, but go back to 2009 some time. it's there. basically, i was in a relationship with this guy for over a year. we never met in person, but we sent over 800 emails and exchanged texts, letters, pictures, gifts, etc. fifty-four weeks after his very first email (on april 24th), multiple failed attempts to visit each other, a trip to kentucky to see him (which resulted in me leaving disappointed because he wasn't home), frequent emotionally intense and draining situations, and a whole lot of pining away for this guy, i found out that a dear friend of mine had been pretending to be him all along. she had sent the emails, the letters, the gifts. the pictures were of a random guy she found on the internet. i opted out of my lease for my senior year. i was looking at condos in greenville. i was looking for wedding dresses. i was 100% convinced i was going to marry this man, all the while, confiding in my very close friend (the one actually pretending to be rhett) about all the highs and lows of our relationship. there is much, much more to this story, but this is the point: i was devastated. crushed. my heart was in pieces. it took me years to recover. my heart is permanently scarred from the betrayal, humiliation, and mind-blowing heartbreak i experienced.
i somehow managed to pull myself together to start dating again in 2009. i desperately wanted to get married, but i knew that getting to that point was going to be extremely hard for me. in every relationship i was involved in, i was in a constant struggle of bliss vs. crippling fear and the desire to cut and run. my first boyfriend after rhett was an experiment in how much hurt can both of us withstand? we tormented each other because of all of our baggage. after fourteen months of up and down, back and forth, on and off, it was finally over, and i was left cleaning up the pieces. again. i had to find a new church. i had to find a new route to and from work. i had to rearrange the furniture in my house. i had to paint the walls. it was a long and painful journey to healing.
shortly after, i decided that the best band-aid for a heartbreak was a new relationship. i'm wise beyond my years, i tell ya. i call this relationship my "horrible, terrible, no good, very bad decision." this was a mistake of epic proportions. i put myself in a situation that led to me feeling cheap, used, and worthless. i wondered how in the world i'd ever get over the ever-mounting hurt brought on by my love life. how i'd ever find the right guy and get married. i followed this brilliant moment in time up with several other poor choices: namely a missionary who gave me rules for how often we could communicate and in which way, and an irish man who gave me four ducklings.
by early 2012 i had floundered my way through most of my early twenties dating and breaking up, g-chatting my best friends about my heartache, dabbling in online dating, and metaphorically throwing my hands up in the air in submission to the universe (not really - i was walking with jesus through all of this, that just sounded like a good thing to say). i had really given up on marriage. i was fairly convinced that it was going to be me, jesus and my dogs for the rest of my life.
then, at the end of march, through the death of my beloved uncle roger, god bought kenny richardson in to my life. what a story the lord wrote through my whole life to bring me to april 4, 2012 when kenny and i went on our first date. i had always heard people say "you'll know. you'll just know." i never believed it until april 4th. and then i knew. i knew that i was going to spend all of my days with kenny richardson. when i look back now, there are things that are still hard to look at, to remember. there are pages of the story that i'd like to rip up and burn. there are parts that still hurt and have left permanent marks. but i can look back and clearly see the thread that the lord was weaving throughout all of my heartbreak and all of my confusion and insecurity and fear to knit my heart to kenny's.
a thousand words later, we've finally arrived at the point of this post: adoption is HARD. this wait is like nothing i've ever experienced. i walk by a nursery everyday - an empty crib, a car seat, diapers and tiny onesies - and i ache for a baby. i sit in that nursery every single night, and i pray and i hope and i dream about the day i'm rocking my crying baby and thanking god for every single sleepless night, every negative pregnancy test, every bump in the road on this journey to become a mama. when the wait is hard, and when i don't understand WHY, and when i'm feeling frustrated and confused and sad, i'm going to look back at the "altars" throughout my life, and i'm going to remember that the lord has been faithful in so many hurts and so many waits and so many unknowns for twenty-eight years. he will be faithful still. in the old testament, after the lord would provide or deliver or perform a miracle in the favor of his children the israelites, he would command them to build an altar. the altar was to commemorate what he had accomplished on their behalf - to remind them forever that their god keeps his promises. i have traced his faithfulness throughout my life to this point. he will be faithful to the very end of the adoption journey.
i know whom i have believed in
and i'm persuaded that he is able
to keep that which i've committed
unto him against that day
(from the old hymn inspired by 2 timothy 1:12)
