Peaks and Valleys

Our paper did not make it to Zoya's country today.  We have been told that it may be possible to still keep our submittal date for Thursday if the paper gets there tomorrow.  It was guaranteed to get there by tomorrow at 6pm, but I don't know if that will be too late.  If it is, we will have to wait to hear another submittal date and I have no idea how soon or far out that may be.  Where is our paper? Your guess is as good as mine....it has been taking the "tour de patience" (said in a french accent).  It depareted Paris (twice now?) with the last "departure" at 2:17am our time.  I have called Fed Ex and am waiting to hear back from a "tracking agent." 

This process is tough...the red tape has gotten to me today.  This waiting makes it hard to focus on anything else.  On top of our own waiting and anxiousness, I get this question many times a day, "So when are you getting your baby?" I don't know, I wish I knew, and you can bet that when I do know, I will tell everyone I know, and probably a bunch of people I don't know too! So in this case, no news is NOT good news.  I'm trying to keep it real here so I feel the need to tell you how incredibly difficult this day and these past two weeks have been.  It is nothing you can prepare yourself for, but I know it is strengthening us and our faith.  One minute I am content in resting in God's timing and knowledge (this guy definitely knows a lot more than I do), and then the next minute I'm caught up in my plan and my desire for my timing to work out.  When I get caught up like this, it is bad.  I waste all my energy worrying about something I can't control and then I try to rationalize feeling how I'm feeling and it turns into a big ugly cycle of peaks and valleys.  I hear God speaking to me throughout the day with words like "patience" and "wait" but it is still not easy.  Sometimes I want to shout back at him, "WHY?" (Ok, sometimes I HAVE shouted back at him with WHY?)  Having faith means not knowing the "why" part of things and still moving along.  I feel like a little kid asking "why" a million times and getting a final answer of "because I said so."  And when God tells you "because I said so," theres no arguing.

This journey has been all about faith.  We haven't always understood why we were called to do this, or why things are happening as they are, and we may NEVER know some of those answers.  Having faith means it is okay to never know those answers and trusting that God has his own reasons for the way things work out.  Because this has been such a journey of complete and total "blind" faith, we have decided that Zoya's middle name will be "Faith."  We surely will never forget the walk of faith God has led us on and each time we look at Zoya we will remember all the peaks and valleys.  We will remember that even though we faced many long, uncertain, blindfolded days, we made it out on the other side and with more to love and cherish in this short life.