Almost Time

This month marks two years since we made the decision to adopt from China and began working on the process. I've basically seen 3 Mother's Days come and go thinking with each one, "next year we'll have our daughter". Like many adoptive parents stuck in the inevitable "wait period" of adoption, one begins to think, "will this ever really happen?" as days turn to months, seasons pass, months begin to turn to years, and the waiting process slows for reasons unclear to you and reasons well beyond your control.

This past winter seemed like an eternity for me, many cold dreary days, with little hint that spring would be coming. But spring did arrive, none too late, fulfilling all the promises that it brings.

On the other side of the world, across a vast ocean, a daughter waits for us. This wait will pass, like the seasons; and, in time, the sun will shine; she will be home.


Just across the sea on this world so round
the sun's shining hot right now.
And even though the winter still surrounds this town
I can still feel that sun somehow.

Chorus
When I know that my sun will shine just as sure as this world can spin,I can hold on fine, cause it almost time, for that sun to come 'round again.

So I'll walk beside the sea on this frozen ground
where there once was a warm weather crowd.
Even though that summer's been a long time gone,
I can still feel that sun somehow.

Chorus
When your love grows cold and your heart grows dark
and the blame seems to fall on you.
Well look how seasons must change and don't think it so strange
that your love goes in circles too.

And just know that your sun will shine just as sure as this world can spin,
and I know you'll find, that it's almost time, for that love to come 'round again.
We can hold on fine, cause it almost time, for that love to come 'round again.

Almost Time, David Wilcox

photo: Nick Langor

Walking: During the Wait

Walking...such a simple thing, yet with profound effects. It's a catalyst for thought, creativity, reflection, fellowship, and relaxation. Walking is helping get me through this wait.

"For I believe that climate does thus react on man, -- as there is something in the mountain air that feeds the spirit and inspires. Will not man grow to greater perfection intellectually as well as physically under these influences? Or is it unimportant how many foggy days there are in his life? I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal as our sky, -- our understanding more comprehensive and broader, like our plains, -- our intellect generally on a grander scale, like our thunder and lightning, our rivers and mountains and forests, -- and our hearts shall even correspond in breadth and depth and grandeur to our inland seas. Perchance there will appear to the traveler something, he knows not what, of joyous and serene, in our very faces. Else to what end does the world go on and why was America discovered." -- Walking, Henry D. Thoreau

Day by Day -- Living in the Present

"Above all, we can not afford NOT to live in the present. He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moments of the passing life in remembering the past." - Henry David Thoreau from his essay on Walking.

I "second" that thought, Mr. Thoreau, and I'd also like to further add that he is blessed that loses no moments of the passing life in dwelling on the FUTURE. During this wait, it is so very easy to let thoughts of the future steal the very blessings and small joys that each day unfolds. Though the wait is long, I am learning that I must live out today fully. Be present in the present. All of our tomorrows will have our attention when they too become our "todays" but for now they are merely our "tomorrows". I don't want to look back on this time of waiting as just a blur. I want to see it for what it clearly is -- a gift from God; a season of fostering faith; a time to enjoy the stillness of the morning; an opportunity to nurture the talents and interests that God has sown in me; a chance to learn how to slow my pace and be renewed daily; a time to be hopeful in the unwrapped gifts of tomorrow.

I'll grant you, this lesson is not an easy one. I have to constantly remind myself, almost to the point of tying a string around my finger. I'm making a list, though, of what living in the present means to me. It includes simple things such as reading, writing a lifebook, researching, baking, gardening, volunteering, praying and such. It's a gentle reminder to continue to focus on today's gifts and to be hopeful for tomorrow's.

So my fellow adoptive friends, our babies await us. Soon will be the day that we will be united. But for now, let's live in the present.