A Needed Reminder...

This morning my mind was racing with all the things that have transpired over the past few days and all the things still unknown about our travel dates.  When will we travel and more importantly right now, when will I even find out when we're traveling.  Watching our perfectly formed travel plans disentegrate right before my very eyes leaves me feeling frustrated, powerless, and hurting for our little girl who is most likely back at the orphanage and missing her foster family. 


I have trouble seeing "the good" here, but this morning, in His mercy, He reminded me that He's the one calling the shots.  Not the civil affairs office.  Not the Consulate. Him.    

Case in point:  I was thinking back to Monday, the day we received our original confirmed Consulate appointment.  That was to be the last piece of the puzzle.  With that set, we were 99.99999999% sure of when we needed to leave.  Monday evening we searched all the travel sites for the best airfares that would get us to Guangzhou without too much pain and suffering.

Finally, we found one that was doable and attempted to purchase the tickets.  Five one way, six back.  However, when we went to enter all our info, the site was requesting our passport numbers.  Fine for us, but we don't have Lily's passport.  We tried a number of different ways, all to no avail.  I even sent out a plea for help to different message boards we belong to.  Everyone who responded had either used an agent or did it on their own with no trouble.  No one remembered needing to provide their child's passport number.

We finally gave up. The next morning, while making some calls to figure out how to buy the tickets,  I learned the civil affairs office in Lily's province was closed the day we were to meet her.  That closing meant there was no way all our ducks would be in a row before our scheduled Consulate appointment.  Our "perfect" travel dates went up in smoke.

Yet this morning, for the first time, I realized what a blessing it was that we weren't able to purchase those tickets when we tried.  Do you know how much a round trip ticket to China is going for right now?  Let me tell you, it's a chunk o' change.  Multiplied by six?  Ouch.  I can't imagine the hassle we would have endured trying to change them.  Worse yet, we may end up using a different airline altogether depending on when we leave. What a nightmare that would have been.

Over and over again He has shown Himself to be all over this adoption.  Sometimes He closes doors and sometimes He blows them wide open.  But all the time, all the time, He is good. 

And it is on Him that we wait and in Him we place our trust, so that in this and all things, He might be praised.

We're coming soon, Lily...