Encouraged

Yep, after my pity party blog I wrote last time this one is about how encouraged I am.  Do I still painstakingly miss my son? Yes.  Do I still grieve over this time apart and continually pray that he will be to his forever home ASAP? Absolutely.  But let me tell you why this grief and sadness, oddly enough give me a little bit of comfort and encouragement.  It goes back to God's awesome Word and it was delivered to my ears by this great pastor I know.  You should go to this link and listen to it and tell all your friends to listen to it as well.  Be ready to be convicted and maybe, like me, a little encouraged.

www.fchope.com/resources/podcast   Click the January 8, 2012-The Movement-Series No. 14

PS if you're reading this because you're in the adoption world you should listen to the one from January 15th too.

So one morning last week I was feeling particularly sad so I went to the gym.  May sound weird but it works for me.  While I was running I listened to Jon Akin preach from Acts 7 & 8 about Stephen preaching this great sermon and the people stoning him to death.  You're already encouraged, I know :)  I came away with a few truths.
1. I am not really suffering at this moment.  Yes I am sad at times, justifiably so.  But as I was listening to this I was literally running on a treadmill.  If I was suffering I would not have been able to run on a treadmill.  (The other truths are not quite so obvious!)

2. Jesus does not promise or encourage a comfortable life.  Stephen was stoned to death because he was being obedient to what God had called him to do.  While the Bible does tell us to care for orphans and we are adopting out of obedience to what God has called us to do, it does not say adopt and the process will go smoothly and you'll have no heartache in it.  This has been an incredibly  hard journey at times, and this is the hardest part of it all.  But there is hope in the third truth.

3. The third point in the sermon was What if being like Jesus means God uses your suffering for good? While we've already concluded that I am not really suffering, if I were going to call it that there is something very good that is going to come from it.  We are being blessed with a son.  Noah is given a forever family.  And if we go beyond that I'll share something with you that happens frequently in the Jenkins family.  Frequently, Dan prays that God will use our children to take the Gospel to the nations.  Often he prays that Noah will come to know Christ and take the gospel back to Ethiopia and see his birth nation inherit eternal life.  If I'm being honest, sometimes I cringe at this prayer because I would love to grow old and have all my children and grandchildren over for dinner every Sunday.  But that's not a biblical truth.  I'm trying to be more eternally minded like my husband.  So this hard time, this crazy journey will not only bring a son into a family, it could eventually bring about people hearing about Jesus for the first time.

4.This time apart from Noah will soon end.  My sweet friend (who is this pastor's wife) told me a day or two before I listened to this sermon that next Christmas will be here before we know it and we'll look back at this time as a quick blur.  This time that I long for my son to be home is nothing compared to what we hope is an eternal impact on one little boy and all the people that he shares that with.

I'm not trying to compare my "suffering" with Stephen's suffering.  I'm convicted about wanting to be more like Jesus.  But my encouragement came in that adoption is not just about now.  Raising kids in general is not just about getting them to 18 and hoping the best.  It's about having an eternal impact on them.  I'm encouraged that this time will soon pass and Noah will be home.  I'm so thankful for the sweet Akin family and how they are such an encouragement to us and speak truth into our lives.