Walking The Walk

“Faith isn’t the ability to believe long and far into the misty future. It’s simply taking God at His Word and taking the next step.”  ~ Joni Erickson Tada 

We were stressed.  Since we started the adoption process, I watched the number on the scales climb higher and higher with each passing week.  I needed to do something about it.  Scott was with me and we decided one night shortly after we submitted our letter of intent to adopt boy number 2, that we needed to go for a walk and release some of the stress building up inside!

"How do you feel about taking a longer route?"  Scott asked.

We had nowhere to be.

"Sure." I agreed.  "I could use a longer walk tonight."

So we went a different direction, not realizing just how far out we were really going.  The beginning of the walk, the distance didn't seem to matter.  We talked about the adoption: How taking in two boys with special needs and very little English speaking skills was going to change our lives. 

We homeschool our four younger children.  How could I possibly continue to do that AND take these boys to all their appointments?

Would we homeschool them as well?  Would we send them to public school?  

Would they feel rejected if we kept some of the kids home and sent them to public schools so that they could have access to all the resources the schools had to offer?

Would our youngest be able to adjust if we sent all the kids to public school?  Would she resent us for adopting these boys and completely disrupting her little world?  It was already going to be hard enough on her, since she was the baby, to have to give up some mommy and daddy time.  But to tell her we weren't going to homeschool her anymore when she absolutely knew without a shadow of a doubt that she wants to homeschool?  

Then we had concerns about our trip to China.  This trip will be the longest time period our children will ever be separated from us.  The thought of leaving them for more than two weeks makes my heart freeze in my chest.  I find it hard to catch my breath when I think about all of the things that could happen to them while I am half way around the world.  I mentioned I was stressed, but stress does not quite cover the anxiety that hit, especially in the middle of the night.  

Yes, walking is good for the soul, the body, the mind, and the spirit.

As we walked, I learned that Scott was thinking many of the same things I was.  

Who is going to watch our kids?  Who will help them feel the safest and most secure while we are away?  Who do we feel comfortable leaving our kids with for such a long time?  

All these questions were asked and the complications and dilemmas we knew we needed to face came up several times as we walked.  The first hour of our walk flew by quickly as we tried to think of solutions.  I threw out answers and Scott challenged it.  Scott threw out ideas and I didn't like them.

We took a mental break as we realized just how far we were from the house.  

It was kind of funny, really.  We'd driven this way many times, yet it never quite felt this far driving. Our feet hurt and we knew we had another thirty minutes or so before we were going to make it home.  On top of that, it was starting to get dark.  We were walking on a path along a busy road, which didn't bother me.  But the mention of snakes did!  As the cars drove by with their headlights on, I scanned the grassy areas and pathway ahead of me, making sure I wasn't walking straight into the fangs of a creepy crawly snake.  I've had a lot of dreams about snakes over the last six months or so, I didn't want any of those dreams to come true!

As we made a turn down a less busy neighborhood road with a little more lighting, I relaxed a little. We walked and walked some more, talking about life and more about the adoption.   We were getting closer to the house, but I felt less relaxed.  The more we talked, the more heated the conversation got. Scott brought the reality home when he said, "There is no way we can homeschool our kids and these boys, get them to their appointments, and continue to function in a normal way, especially the first year.  Somebody is going to get behind in their education.  We will be overwhelmed.  I just don't see us functioning this way.  What are we going to do?"

On top of that, we still hadn't figured out who was going to watch our kids for the two plus weeks.  We went back and forth, getting more and more worked up, our voices tense, our conversation, while not angry with each other, getting a little more frustrated with every sentence we spoke.  

Then suddenly, Scott stopped me.  

"Wait.  Where are we?"  He asked.  Then, "Did we just pass our street?"  

I looked around, then started to laugh.  We'd gotten so worked up about all of the details that we walked right past our street and down another ten minutes.  We turned around, still discussing our worries for the future, but careful to turn down our street once we approached it.

In retrospect, I see now how worrying about all the details caused us to miss our way.  How many times that happens in life!  We walk in the present, yet get so caught up on the details of the future that we miss the very path right in front of us.  

By the time we made it back home, we still didn't have all the answers.  Instead, we had sore feet and a bunch of kids who still needed to be told to get ready for bed.  But for some reason we weren't as heated.  Maybe the nearly two hour walk took it out of us.  Maybe I just knew that we would figure it out when we needed to.  

Either way, that night we literally walked the blind walk of faith.  In the darkness, we couldn't see how we were going to work it all out, but we did the only thing we knew to do.  Our only move in that moment was to keep moving on the path that would lead us to our destination.  The journey was long, weary, and a little bit scary, but the path was already paved before us and when we missed our turn, we were able to correct it.  

That has been the prayer in my heart since then:  That if we just keep moving forward, the path will be paved before us.  The answers didn't magically appear to us that night, but as we continued in the adoption process, some really cool things began to unfold...