The Best Christmas Present {CA}

If you read my last post then you know that at the beginning of this week we were looking forward to getting our consulate appointment confirmed which would give us a really good idea on travel dates. Our agency said we should hear by Tuesday, but that Monday was possible so of course I was praying for Monday, but when we hadn't heard anything by 3pm Monday I had all but resigned myself to Tuesday, but God had other plans...

At about 3:30pm I received a text from a family I met on one of my adoption groups who is adopting from China using the same agency we are and had their article 5 pick up the day before us. We found each other early last week and had been enduring the long TA wait together (which helped) and had celebrated the arrival of both of our TAs together on Friday. Over the weekend we speculated about CAs and travel dates and were both praying we would hear something on Monday. We had chatted online a few times on Monday and by afternoon were both thinking it would be Tuesday. Then late Monday afternoon I get a message from her asking if 'I'd gotten my call' and saying she was a little disappointed. I immediately replied, 'no, what?!," but before she could reply my phone rang - it was our agency.

Our agency coordinator started out by telling me that she had good news and bad news which, at that point, didn't surprise me - I just didn't know what the news was, and my heart sank. The good news was that they had our confirmed CA. The bad news was that it wasn't as soon as we had all hoped. I have to admit that my excitement at having the final piece of the puzzle in place was tempered by my disappointment that we would have to wait a little longer than we had hoped.

Once I had a little distance from the disappointment I was able to celebrate how close we are now! I can actually start finalizing plans now that we have dates and if you know me at all then you know that is a huge relief to me. I also went over in  my mind all the prayers that God has answered up to this point (instead of focusing on the prayers He didn't answer in the way I wanted - which is what I did too much of during our TA wait), and I came to the conclusion that God has given us the best Christmas present we could have asked for - the dates we get the blessing and privilege of meeting our son and bringing him home!

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. ~Galatians 4:4-7

Praying you all have a blessed Christmas!