Finding Hope

He gives and takes away,
He gives and takes away,
My heart will choose to say,
Lord blessed be your name.

Loss comes in so many shapes and sizes. We lose precious items, we lose our minds, we lose our way, we lose our faith, and hardest of all, we lose one another.

This has been quite a week- one filled with a lot of loss. My aunt- a vibrant, Godly, and loving woman passed away on Wednesday morning. It was an unexpected loss and one that has left my family stunned and numb. My uncle lost his wife, my cousin lost her mom- and her children, their grandmother, my dad lost his sister, I lost an aunt, and my grandmother lost her daughter- a tragedy that no parent, no matter how old, should ever have to go through.

In our preparations for grieving this loss and celebrating my aunt’s life, my grandmother and I found ourselves sharing a common loss, for I myself lost a child this week. This morning (Friday) Billy and I received a call from our adoption agency telling us that the birthparents of our little boy had changed their mind. They said that they knew that the right choice was to place him with us, but that they were afraid that they would regret it for the rest of their lives. And there we were, like the rest of my family, left stunned and numb.

Here we are, having flown across the world, with a completed nursery sitting in our house back in Malaysia, and luggage filled with baby clothes just waiting to be placed on our precious little one. It’s almost like we were pranked in the worst way imaginable. We’re filled with so many different emotions that it is hard to even describe or identify all of them. In the past hour, our minds have raced through thoughts of anger over time and money put forth, devastation over the loss of yet another child, betrayal over a relationship with the birthparents that we had formed, horror over the embarrassment and “I told you so-s” that are sure to come, and confusion over a blessing that we were so very sure about. For those of you that know our story well, you know that James 1:12 is the verse that has been our rock throughout this entire 7 year journey. But here I am wondering, how much are we meant to “endure”.

All this, and it is two days before Christmas! Two days before the holiday that brings to mind family and joy. We have an actual funeral for my aunt on Christmas Eve, and a funeral in our hearts on Christmas day for a baby that already has a stocking on the mantle and presents under the tree. This is a Christmas that is far different than anything any of us had planned.

But perhaps when you think about the meaning of CHRISTmas and what it gives to those of us who believe, the timing seems nothing but perfect. Christmas blessed us with the birth of our Lord and Savior, a child born to die, so that we may have hope. Hope in a life better than anything we could imagine, hope in a world that so often seems so bleak, hope for the hearts of people who hurt us, and hope that we may one day be blessed with the greatest gift- a child of our own. For how can I praise God when He placed this baby in our hearts, and not continue to praise him when things didn’t go as I had expected? How can I lose hope during the season that brought about hope, and during the celebration of the very one that gave us hope?

So, here’s what we ask………….

First off- prayer. Prayer for my family, prayer for us, and more importantly, prayer for this little baby- because he needs it now more than ever. Billy and I (and we hope you, too) have been praying for him and his birthparents since day one, and we won’t stop just because of this. We know that not all of you who read this are people who pray, but we ask that if there was ever a time that you contemplated doing so- let this be it. After meeting with the birthparents, seeing where they live, and learning more about their lives, we know that this sweet little boy will have a long, tough road ahead of him. And whether he ever knows it or not, we are a part of him, and we will continue to pray for him all his life.

Second- hope. If you bought us a baby gift, don’t take it back- keep it. Keep it because you have hope that you will one day be able to give it to our baby and us. Keep it because you know that we will one day be blessed with the amazing job of being parents. Keep it because you know how important hope is, and so that the baby that we do one day end up with will know that all the people who love his/her parents so much, never lost hope that he/she would one day be placed exactly where they belong- with us.


“Blessed are those who endure with perseverance the trails laid before them..”
- James 1:12