Eagerly Expecting

By Christy Neueman

The wait had begun. We had completed a mountain of paperwork, attended all the classes, met repeatedly with our adoption specialist, finalized our Home Study, and our home was completely baby-proofed from top to bottom. We were finally, officially on the wait list to adopt a child.

My husband and I were eagerly expecting "the call" that would change our lives forever. We were awaiting God's answer to our prayers for the child we had prayed for endlessly over the years. And I yearned to echo hannah's words from 1 Sam 1:27, where she says, "I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him."

Do you remember that famous line from the ketchup commercial that said, "The taste that's worth the wait"? Carly Simon's song "Anticipation" is what brought this well-know saying to life.

Anticipation is the perfect word to express exactly what I felt during my wait. i could almost taste the sweet blessing of motherhood. I imagined holding my precious baby in my arms and finally humming all those unsung lullabies.

Looking back, some days I honestly doubted my journey would ever end ... and then other days, it felt like the end of my adoption journey was as close as the heart beating within my chest.

Regardless of my fickle emotions, God was teaching me how to wait in hopeful anticipation -- and the verses from Romans 8:23, 25 came alive to me in a whole new way: "Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies ... But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."

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