Mountains and Valleys

Mountains and valleys are both beautiful places.

On the mountaintop you can see what seems like the whole world laid out before you and the possibilities are endless. If you are on a mountaintop, you most likely have just climbed that mountain and the adrenaline is making you feel like you can conquer anything that comes your way. Nothing can shake you. The sun is shining on your face and for a moment you can almost reach out and touch heaven. Nothing is impossible on a mountaintop.

In a valley, however, you have a very limited view. You can only see the mountain in front of you and without the right perspective, it can feel isolated in a valley. When the sun goes down behind a mountain, it gets cold in a valley. And you might even begin to wonder and hope for what lies over that mountain in front of you. 

But if you take a step back, you will see the beauty, the awe and the grandeur of that mountain. You will feel how small you are against a mighty Creator and find yourself in the perfect place of humility to truly receive His grace and joy. With the right perspective.

We are blessed to live in a place where we get to experience these differences between mountains and valleys in a very real way. And it brings new insight to the circumstances in our lives that we classify as mountain or valley circumstances. I am reminded of the familiar passage in Ps. 23 where David sings to us about our Shepherd who makes us lay down in green pastures and leads us beside still waters. That sounds so peaceful and refreshing, right? But let's think about it. We often separate the part of this same passage that talks about walking through the valley of death from this first part of peaceful still waters and green pastures. But it's actually the same place. You will never find still waters on a mountaintop. Water on a mountain will always be moving. Will you find green pastures on a mountaintop? This beautiful place with green pastures and still waters that refreshes our souls, is in the valley of death!

Perspective.

When we began this process, we hit the ground running. We received our home study packet on Oct. 8 and we got to work, sending in paperwork the very next day. By November 24, we had all of our paperwork turned in, minus our health checks and we had approval to wait for a little while to do those so they didn't expire. We were feeling really good about things and even though we have to wait until Justin's 30th birthday on April 1 to turn in our paperwork to China, we knew we needed that extra time to apply for grants and get our account with the adoption agency in good standing before we can submit those papers anyway. We had heard of so many people with so many bumps in the road in a never-ending paper chase, but we had also heard of people that just zipped and flew right through the process with little to no snags at all. We were really praying for the second option. 

But once we turned the paperwork in, the waiting started. The first wait was really out of anyone's control because it was the holidays and things slow down drastically around the holidays anyway. Our sweet case worker actually traveled to our house on New Years Day and did our home study in two days. But then somewhere between the time of her sending in her first draft and today, time seemed to stop. We have been waiting for a long time to see a final copy of our home study, and our case worker has been emailing every day trying to find out why it has taken so long. And we are excited to say that the final hard copy was placed in the mail yesterday and should be on it's way to the next step very soon.

Before I go further I want to say that things could be WAY worse. The other day we read about a lady whose paperwork had been destroyed in the mail. Like completely destroyed, illegible, couldn't even tell which document was which. It could be way worse. And we still have many opportunities for it to get worse. So I am very grateful. But still a little frustrated.

We are still waiting to actually receive a copy of the home study in our inbox, so that we can begin applying for grants. We received our next bill last week and we need to have $9,000 in about one month, so that we can hopefully meet our goal of sending our papers off around April 1, so we don't have to make this sweet little boy wait any longer than he has to. We are ready for him to come home!! Most grant agencies take longer than that to process applications, with many of them only awarding grants every quarter. So we are praying hard for God to lead us to the exact grants that He wants us to apply for. If you would like to donate to our adoption fund, you can click  HERE  to find out how. Please pray with us for these next few steps.

1. Mailing application for US Immigration approval for us to adopt.

2. Fingerprint appointment at US Consulate.

3. $6,000 due to continue to the next step of compiling our Dossier documents.

4. $3,100 due to authenticate and process those documents and send them to China.

In all of this, we are praying for the grace to see the beauty in the valleys of life and allow our Shepherd to refresh our souls in the way that only He can. Thank you Lord for still waters.