Thirty Amazing Women

Dear Father God,

"I want to thank you for amazing women "

Amen

From the time I was a very little girl, I haven' t ever trusted anyone but myself. I have always been an independent. This is not something I am proud of.

To the world, being independent represents strength. Someone who stands on her own two feet is to be admired. A woman who can be a fortress of one impervious to what the world throws at her seems to be a desirable nature. But to God it represents a stubborn heart.

I have such a heart.

I don't usually allow anyone too close to me. I rarely show any emotiveness in front of others. Oh, I cry. But it is behind closed doors where no one else can see. Even in my attempts at worship, I am incredibly private only allowing myself to be free behind the veil of my walls.

The only hint of what is really happening behind this smokescreen are my two most irritating habits. The first would be my extreme fretfulness and the other my attempt at creating order through control. Sadly when asked to be described by even my closest friends....at least one of those two descriptors appear in some form or fashion.

"Your incredibly organized"
"You think out every detail"
"You are a take-charge kind of girl"
"You consider all possibilities"

Nice ways to say.....I am a control freak and a compulsive worrier.

So much for strength. That just leaves me as an independent. And that means that I am a quivering mess of frazzled nerves and buried anxiety that I have to deal with all by myself.

Tonight holds the potential for a complete meltdown. I am about to lose it. We are coming so close to our baby girl being united with our family, and we receive word that the United States government may intervene and cause disruptions to Ethiopian adoptions.

(A disruption in non-adoptive layman's terms means it is over......period. )

Tonight was not the first time that I allowed myself to fall apart in public. Well a public forum anyhow.

I have found safety in my little group of women. There are probably about thirty of us who communicate all day everyday on a continual basis. Sometimes it is for travel tips. Sometimes it is for parenting advice. And sometimes it is for either throwing or catching a life preserver in this tempestuous sea of adoption.

I needed a life preserver tonight. God knew I needed a good word. And there it was. Thirty amazing women who look to each other and cling together when a storm rolls in. Thirty women who have had to cross an entire continent with emails just to find one another. Thirty women who pull together and grab on to the boat after the keel has flipped over.

So God...tonight it is a prayer of thanksgiving from my lips. Thank you for the gift of amazing women. And thank you for helping us find one another. Without them, I would be completely adrift. Only a group such as these can understand what I am feeling tonight. And only a group such as these could hope to bring comfort. There is nothing to explain. No need to go into lengthy explanations of process just to get comfort from a friend. There was no time to call anyone else and try to explain what was going wrong. I didn't want to have to support someone else's frustration and inability to understand exactly what these things meant. These ladies already knew all that...and they too were dealing with the same pain that I am. But we have held hands across the board tonight. And we are holding one another.

Thirty amazing women. That is your gift to us. Trusting you doesn't mean it will work out OK......it just means that "we'd be held".

Father God please place your blessing upon each of us tonight. Allow us to rest in the knowledge that you are holding us and our children. We beg of you to allow us to bring these children home. Don't allow our families to be torn apart by red tape and bureaucracy. You have asked us to reach out to the orphaned and abandoned and we have heeded that call. Unite us with our children and allow us to be patient so that all is accomplished in your perfect timing. Amen