Disappointment

I think disappointment is such a disappointing word. It serves to describe a certain mix of emotions following a moment when reality didn’t live up to your expectations. However, since it’s used to describe what is most often not a single emotion but a mix, it really falls short of its intentions. But there’s nothing I can do about that, I guess. So, I’ll try to just move on.

I’m disappointed.

At least that’s how I am choosing to describe my feelings right now. I’ve used other words over the past week. Honestly, some of them haven’t been very kind at all. One or two might cause this blog to gain a PG-13 rating. So, I’m going to ignore those other words for now and stick with this one.

So, why am I disappointed?

Last week we got our latest wait list update from our adoption agency. We’re now number 22. If you remember from a post ago, we were number 24. So, we moved 2 spaces.

“But at least you moved, right?” you say.

Yes. We moved. For that we are extremely thankful. About that we get excited. It is better than staying the same number. It is better than somehow moving backwards. But, honestly, it’s still disappointing.

Let me take a moment here to be clear. I am not disappointed in our agency, at all. I love them, and they have been extremely helpful. Anytime I have a question, concern, frustration, they are more than willing to hear it and address it, usually within a matter of hours. I truly believe they are doing everything in their power within the current process to help bring Haven home.

I’m not disappointed in Ethiopia. I’m not disappointed in America. I’m not disappointed even in this process. I’d much rather it take a long time to ensure that Haven is truly a child in need of a home and not a child that serves as a supply found to meet my demand.

I guess when it comes down to it I’m disappointed in reality.

My expectation has been a referral in 3-6 months.

My expectation has been to have Haven home not just in 2012 but in the first half of 2012.

My expectation was made based on information I was given and was not developed by some hopeful ignorance.

However, my expectation, somewhere along the way, ceased to be an expectation. It became something more concrete than that. Something I’ve been clinging to, that’s kept my spirits up as I have tried to endure the waiting for Haven.

My expectation had become my reality.

A few weeks ago I was in Ethiopia for a little over a week. The whole time I was there I was plagued by the idea of “Haven is here.” I just knew that somewhere in that country, perhaps in the city where I was, perhaps in that building I’m passing on the street, Haven was there. And it was gutwrenching and heartbreaking to think that was true and not be able to run go find him or her and hold him or her and kiss him or her and tell him or her that I was his or her dad and that I was coming to get him or her, to bring him or her home.

To get through it and deal with it, I held on even more tightly to my expected reality.

Last week I finally found myself in a mental and emotional place, mostly from continued exhaustion, where my expected reality could collide with actual reality and be shattered.

At this point the reality is that, at this rate, it could actually be 2013 before Haven is home.

Disappointment doesn’t even begin to cover it.

But there’s hope.

People in the know continue to encourage Liza and me that the reality probably won’t be that bleak. The whole process fluctuates. There are big months and small months when it comes to the number of referrals. Unfortunately, there’s been a number of small months in a row. So, I want to think that means that we’re due a big month.

But I struggle with that because I don’t want to get my expectation up again.

So, that’s not where I’m looking for my hope.

Rather, I find hope knowing that, though I believe Haven is out there and not with us, I know that there are extremely loving and caring people committed to seeing that Haven is cared for in the meantime. Ultimately, I trust that God will see that Haven is cared for in the meantime.

As a human we struggle with control.

That’s basically what sin is, our attempts to be in control instead of God.

As parents, we also want to be in control of our children. Their health. Their entertainment. Their education. Their spiritual-development. Their lives and their future.

Right now my reality forces me to not be in control. Not even of Haven. I can’t be. I have to relinquish any illusion of control that I might have built for myself, even if that was only found in thinking I could control my expectations.

God has to have control…

Of my expectation.

Of my reality.

Of my family.

Of Haven.

Of me.

Thankfully, the reality is this: He’s been in control all along.

I’ve never expected anything less.