when life is messy

Some posts you don't want to write.

This is one of them.

There is no easy way to write this but we received a text late tonight from our birth mom that she has changed her mind and now wants to keep her baby boy.

We have spent some time on the phone with caseworkers from our agency - to say we are all shocked by this is an understatement.

Alot has happened in 24 hours that none of us foresaw and we are trying to absorb, regroup and understand where we go from here.

There is alot of unknown still truthfully.

There is still a question mark if this is final . .. which I will admit is scary for me to write as well.  To leave the door open to hope seems so vulnerable right now as we just try to wrap our minds and hearts around the words we read and its implications for our family.

I will just be bold and say it would be a miraculous answer to prayer if this baby boy could still be our son for so many reasons.

This is what we will not do - we will not rob birth mom of her choice.  Our hearts are broken and break further when I think of three little girls upstairs who went to bed prepared to send us off tomorrow to meet their baby brother.  But  I can't be a mother to those three precious girls and not empathize with all this birth mom has to be experiences and processing during some extremely stressful situations in her life.

There is nothing easy about adoption.  It is beautiful and glorious . . .yet it is full of heart break and loss.  And tonight, we are having to experience that loss in a way we never hoped or prayed.  I have to think and trust that God is going to use this, in some way, at some time, for His glory.  It is all I can cling to right now as we head to bed with so many questions.

Maybe we should have waited for more answers to these questions before we shared. But truthfully, I couldn't bear to start the day with so many hoping and praying alongside of us and believing we were getting on a plane.  You all have held us up more beautifully than I could have ever imagined this past week.

As of right now, we have canceled our immediate travel arrangements and are in holding to see what the next 72 hours holds.  We lean on your prayers and your grace as we sit here in this limbo.

As I head up to bed, I am clinging to words that I shared in passing with a friend I encountered yesterday.  As she sweetly shared how she has been praying and praying for us and would continue to, I told her how much we have been held by those prayers.  Then I said words that I am praying I will not forget.

I told her that part of the peace God has given us to this point has been that even with an uncertain future, we know without a doubt that we are where He asked us to be.   Those are hard words to type right now as the tears stream down.

We are clinging to that tonight.  Falling before Jesus with that tonight.  And trusting that He see a story we don't see fully yet. . . and that our hearts, and our girls hearts, are still safely in His hands.

Thanks for how much each of you has been Jesus to us these past weeks with your words and prayers.