I never knew it would be like this!
I was musing the other day on how much this adoption journey is like going to 6 Flags Grand Adventure and getting on the biggest rollercoaster. From the ground it looks like a nearly impossible ride. Way too high, way too risky, way too....frightening? Or maybe just way too emotional. Definitely way too expensive!I remember how it was when I was a junior high youth leader during my final year of college. One of my main jobs, next to serving and eating pizza, was to take 30 junior high kids to 6 Flags Magic Mountain, Knotts Berry Farm, and Disneyland. It was not too tough of a job...most of the time. However, I once found myself in the line of one of the highest roller coaster rides...the kind of ride that takes you up to a very high place and then drops you. At the end of the ride they lay you on your back facing straight up. It was one of the times when I wished I could be anywhere else besides where I happened to be. The last thing I wanted to do was to go on that ride! Surrounded by a bunch of squirrely junior highers, I jokingly (but in all seriousness!) cried out loud to the God who could save me. When it was my turn to get on the ride, the employee in charge of the ride grabbed his microphone and apologized that they were shutting it down for maintenance. Whew!
I am thinking that adoption can be like that ride. Click...click...click! There is much effort to get up the hills in this journey. Homestudy....filling out forms....more paperwork...filling out grant applications....fundraising.....click, click, click. There is a point in the process where you reach a peak. Everytime your profile is presented, it is like a peak in a rollercoaster. You sit at the top and realize, "Wow, this could be it..." and then you sit and wait. Sometimes they announce over the loudspeaker, "We apologize, but you need to get off right now, this ride is being closed for maintenance." You climbed to the top only to get off and start the ride all over again. After climbing to the top and getting off, believe me, your heart NEEDS some MAINTENANCE!
One day, I truly believe we will be climbing up that roller coaster once again....click, click, click....and we will reach the top...again. Then we'll sit and wait. We'll scan the horizen and see the amazing view. We'll realize how very high up we really are. Then, all of the sudden something will give. Whosh! There WILL BE a day when we feel the track give way and instead of hearing clicks, we will grab ahold of the sides and hold on for all we are worth. I have heard from those who have been to the top and finished the ride that it truly is wild ride! Just like that ride I avoided in my days as a youth leader, I know the ride will lay me on my back and cause me to look straight up. I know I will be looking nowhere else.
"This I declare about the LORD: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; he is my God, and I trust him." Pslam 92:1
