Free-falling
Falling into the will of God takes guts and grit we don’t have. Of course we’re nervous. We can’t handle this alone. And that’s precisely the point.
SHANNAN MARTIN
When I was young I spent a short season as a Camp Fire Girl. Like Girl Scouts, we earned badges and did all sorts of volunteer work and community service in hopes of growing into women who led well and cared about the community around us. One project, though, felt confusing to me as a young girl, with emotions swirling around my heart that I had never faced before. We were to plant a tree in honor of someone we went to school with who had recently died in a fire.
This sweet elementary-age girl had lived in an apartment near our neighborhood grocery store. Because it was on a busy street in an area we frequented, we passed the building often. I remember seeing the charred, blackened section a few floors up—the place that was supposed to give her shelter and safety ended up being a place of destruction and bereavement because she couldn’t jump.
I think of her often, that little girl. I don’t remember her name or what grade she had been in, but I like to think that even though her life was cut short, it had significant purpose. Why? Because she reminds me daily that I cannot live in fear. There are times when I need to jump.
There are times when challenges and dreams and great purposes require us to leap in order to realize them, just as you must leap from the window to escape a burning building. You have to. But you are scared and you are standing on the windowsill, tightly gripping its sides. Your feet feel glued to the wooden frame beneath you. You’re afraid the leap might be more of a fall, landing right on your face. You’re more fearful of what might happen when you let go and step into the unknown than the inevitable if you don’t.
And then you realize the time has come. There’s no turning back. You either jump, or you don’t. There is no option for both or neither; you must choose one.
Years later, when adoption was clearly something God was laying on my heart and Ben’s, we knew our decision needed to be evidenced in action. We knew that even though jumping felt scary, we were confident it was necessary and purposeful. So we made our choice—we released our grip of the windowsill and … just … jumped.
After years of growing in our relationship with Christ independently and then as a unified couple, and after deep down knowing Ben and I would adopt, God whispered to our hearts, It’s time. All the years leading to this very moment He was patiently preparing us. We were completely and utterly thrilled. And also completely and utterly terrified.
We knew we wanted to adopt from Africa; that part was never in question. But then we began to research what countries were open and which we qualified for. Countries open for adoption have differing regulations on who can adopt: how long you’ve been married, how old you are, and how many other children you have, among other qualifications. After initially daydreaming about bringing in children from many places around the globe, having a sort of United Nations within the walls of our home, we laughed at the absurdity of having so many kids (sweet, sweet irony).
Instead, we decided we’d immerse ourselves and pour into one country and culture. Feeling incapable to do this well in the rare chance we brought home more than one child, we desired to make provisions and plan for the what-ifs. We wanted to dig deep and shunned the idea of bringing a child home and washing their birth country off them. It was important to us that we teach all our children about the holidays and history, the food and people of the country we would be forever tied to. As we learned more and more about each country, Ben and I fell head over heels for Ethiopia. Without a doubt, this was the country God was leading us to.
And thus commenced the craziness.
After what seemed like thousands of hours of working on it, we submitted our paperwork in the spring and learned new things about ourselves within that process. One form in particular asked what we would and would not accept in a referral (child).
Were we okay with skin discoloration? How about a cleft lip? What about a missing finger, hand, or limb? Or what about blindness, or a child who is deaf? It covered everything you could ever think of and about a million things you never have.
Ben and I deeply struggled over those pages. Each description was a child. A real child who was waiting for a family. Each no felt like saying, “Nope. we don’t want you, we want someone else.” Oh, how we agonized over that list. We prayed and prayed over each and every yes and no that we checked. Yes, we’d accept minor health issues; no, we weren’t prepared for severe special needs.
The big thing we kept coming back to was that we would love and cherish that child with special needs, whether they had a blood disease, were autistic, or had Down syndrome. Of course we would. But it would likely prevent us from adopting any more children because we’d want to make sure we were taking the necessary time and dedication for surgeries, therapy, and general loving-on-by-mom-and-dad time while still being a good mom and dad for our biological boys.
We poured over and prayed through this agonizing list, feeling as if our very hearts were being audited. But our heavenly Father used every conversation that flowed from the difficult questions as the beginning of a continued calling. With it came a spark, an idea. From it grew a desire as God prepared us to adopt more than this one child.
After all our i’s were dotted and t’s were crossed, on to the infant waiting list we went. The days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months and my heart began to ache. Really, really ache.
Some callings have a start date that we can see, that we can manage and assess. Like pregnancy, for example. A woman knows she’ll be pregnant for fortyish weeks and then—Boom! Her life changes forever and she becomes a woman whose heart walks around outside her body. The same is true with going to college and various other things where we can prepare for certain seasons to change.
The planner in all of us loves the ability to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and we desire to view it with such clarity and detail that we could make a paper chain, like a kindergartener would in preparation for Christmas to begin. Who wouldn’t like to rip a construction-paper link off each day as a countdown? Better believe I’m raising my hand here.
Oftentimes, though, we’re in a huge valley called Wait. We have no idea when our season will change or if our calling will come to fruition.
We made that initial jump only to wait. And wait. Then wait some more.
And that’s when it got hard.
So what do we do in this time of wait? How do we trust God knows what He’s doing when it kind of feels as if He’s forgotten all about us?
All through the Bible God gives us examples of His goodness and perfect timing. He doesn’t step away for a moment, nor is He too busy helping someone else. His omnipresence ensures that He is with us during every moment of every day; in fact, He even promises it in Matthew 28:20 (ESV), saying, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Not “I’m with you sometimes,” “I’m with you most of the time,” or “I’m with you when I’m not busy doing other things.” He’s with us always. Every single moment of good, bad, ugly, and in the mundane waiting period.
Here’s the thing, though: God uses these waiting times because we have something to learn from them.
During this time, I clung to Hannah’s story found in 1 Samuel. She struggled with infertility for years. So long, in fact, that her husband, who loved her dearly, felt the need to marry a second wife in order to continue his family line. In biblical times, a life of infertility was a devastation. Not just emotionally like it is today, but it bore deep shame and even put the husband and wife’s future at risk because without children to care for them, they would likely be forced into destitution as they grew older.
Every year Hannah, her husband, and his other wife, Peninnah, would travel to Shiloh and give their yearly sacrifice to the Lord for Passover. And every year at that temple Hannah would be overcome with grief as she poured her heart out to God, telling Him that if He gave her a child, she would give back her child to Him in thanks for His goodness.
This happened year after year after year.
It’s significant that we learn that “she continued praying before the LORD” (1 Samuel 1:12 ESV). This wasn’t a quick little prayer she shot up while doing the dishes or while sitting in traffic. This was a repeated request bathed in hot tears. There was probably ugly crying going on much of the time she prayed about it. Year after year she laid her request at His feet, and she did it while living authentically.
It’s okay to be upset or angry. God understands that valleys and plains are often difficult seasons to live in, especially when we don’t know how long the season will last. He can handle our grief and frustration just as He handled Hannah’s. God isn’t spiteful; He doesn’t become enraged when we tell Him we’re struggling with a season we’re in or something we’re experiencing. Our God is a kind, loving, and patient God. If your child came to you saying he was wrestling and having a difficult time with a decision you made that affected his life, how would you react? Would your face turn red and eyes burn in fury? Of course not! You would sit and listen as your beloved child poured his heart out, and though his words may not change the outcome, you’d remind him how much you love and adore him, and assure him that there is purpose behind every decision you make. The same is with God.
Perhaps you have an unfulfilled dream, something you’ve been praying years for that just hasn’t come to pass. Something deep down in your soul that has yet to happen and it’s crushing you so fully that like Hannah, so desperate for a child, there are times you can’t even eat (1 Samuel 1:7). Your heart is so heavy that there are times you can hardly handle life.
That’s the season Hannah was in within the beginning pages of 1 Samuel. It’s where she lived for longer than she’d like to admit and it was tearing her apart. And yet she never gave up hope. She never lost faith that God is good.
When we cannot see God’s timetable, that is when faith steps in. Do we have faith enough to believe He is actually doing things behind the scenes? How much waiting is too much? When is too long? A month? A year? A decade?
It’s like praying at mile marker one and lifting up our request at each mile, not realizing at mile marker 103 He’s going to fulfill our request. We’re ready. Our heart and character are ready. The circumstances of it all are in alignment with His will.
But what if we give up at mile marker 102? What then? Will we think God is not good because He didn’t give us what our heart was exploding over?
Never give up praying. But we also must never give up our time in God’s Word, the Bible. Just today I was scrolling through Instagram and came upon a beautiful reminder from one of my favorite Bible Divers (men and women who deeply study the Bible), Beth Moore. She said, “You and I can’t fulfill our calling without being in the Scriptures.”10
Hannah prayed and bared her heart to the Lord at the temple. She didn’t have access to the Scriptures like we do today, so she went to the place where she knew she could find Him, and yet God had heard her every year whether in the temple or at home. He had been by her side during every tear shed. And finally, when the timing was in alignment with His will, the prophet Eli confirmed her dream was coming true. The Lord had blessed the immovability of her faith and ended her season of wait as He opened her womb.
But what happens if we let go of the windowsill and rather than free-falling to safety, we feel like the firefighters who are holding the big round pillow/trampoline, like in a black-and-white movie, will miss us and we land flat on our faces?
What about that girl from your Bible study group who has been on the waiting list to adopt for five years, only to get word that the country they have been trying to adopt from has nearly closed its doors on international adoptions?
What about the family in your neighborhood who moved across the country and bought a new house only to find the husband laid off a few months later?
What about a friend who moved to Uganda for a ministry that suddenly closed its doors?
What about my uncle who, after having a seizure while driving on the freeway, discovered not only that he has brain cancer but that without a miracle sent straight from heaven, he will live only one to two more years? He and my aunt have eleven children (mostly adopted through foster care) and currently have two still in the home.
All this seems unfair. Devastatingly unfair.
Don’t get me wrong, I think God is good and faithful … but there are certainly times where it doesn’t feel like He is, since we only see the falling part and not the position we will be in when we land.
Jeremiah 29:11 (ESV) says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” This is a popular verse. It is quoted frequently. It’s written on coffee mugs, canvases, and sports gear. It’s highlighted three times over in my own Bible. We think we’re being good Christians when we have it memorized and use it to encourage people around us when they’re in a rough or confusing season.
But here’s the thing … it doesn’t mean what we think it means.
We often forget that though the Bible is for us, it’s not about us. God didn’t ask the prophet Jeremiah to place that verse in the Bible to help you feel better after your date with that guy from your apartment building goes south or the job you were perfect for didn’t pan out.
When read in context, we see this passage isn’t written to those of us cozily sitting in Starbucks with an iced two-pump nonfat caramel macchiato in our hands, but rather to the wounded hearts of the Israelites who lived in captivity in Babylon. God was with His people and had a plan—yes, of course He was and He did—but at the same time, God allowed the Jews to be conquered and forced into exile.
If you think about it, this means that God allowed His people to be taken away from their land and their homes. No longer were they able to worship at the temple, which was at the center of their religion and culture. Instead, the Israelites became aliens in Babylon, whose king demanded they worship the Babylonians’ god or be burned alive.
When we open our Bibles and leaf back a chapter, reading Jeremiah 28 and the entirety of 29, we’ll learn some very important details: God’s people disobeyed Him in every possible way. They exchanged Him for evil gods and chose cannibalism and the worship of demons over bowing to the One True God. As a direct result of that disobedience, God allowed them to be forced into exile, marching them eight hundred miles away from home and into a pagan land.
Jeremiah and a false prophet (someone who claims to hear from God, but is a deceiver and spreads lies) named Hananiah were in conversation when Hananiah made a bold statement: God would restore Israel within two years. He would restore their land, their possessions, their livelihood, and the tens of thousands of Israelites forced into slavery would be brought home … all within this two-year timetable.
Jeremiah responded to the man with discernment, saying, “Amen! May the LORD do so! May the LORD fulfill the words you have prophesied,” (Jeremiah 28:6 NIV) and as the Lord continued to reveal the truth to Jeremiah, Jeremiah confronted the false prophet with a message from God Himself: “Listen, Hananiah, the LORD has not sent you, and you have made this people trust in a lie” (Jeremiah 28:15 ESV).
Entering into chapter 29, Jeremiah further shares God’s heart with His people:
“Build houses and make yourselves at home.
“Put in gardens and eat what grows in that country.
“Marry and have children. Encourage your children to marry and have children so that you’ll thrive in that country and not waste away.
“Make yourselves at home there and work for the country’s welfare.
“Pray for Babylon’s well-being. If things go well for Babylon, things will go well for you.”
Jeremiah 29:5–7 MSG
Essentially what he was saying is, “Thrive there and pray for those around you.”
Today we’re bombarded with our current version of Hananiah telling us the same thing: life will work out; all will be well. Prosperity and success are coming; we just need to claim our victory. We recite our watered-down version of Jeremiah 29:11 and desire joy, though we want it without having to go into exile to receive it. We want a relationship with Christ, but we aren’t willing to take the time out of our busy schedules to be with Him. We choose things over God, just as the Israelites did all those years ago.
What we must remember is that how we handle hardship and interruptions will impact our future. We need to recognize what determines our joy. God allows things to happen so we can learn from them, and even in those hard seasons, His desire is that we thrive. Free-falling may not always feel free, but rather disorderly and turbulent, and yet He patiently and calmly waits to catch us.
The true explanation of this passage is that God most certainly had a plan and it would be carried out, though it would not look anything like the Israelites thought it should. Their pain meant something. As they learned to thrive, God would fully restore and reestablish them.
We form a depth and confidence of trust in our heavenly Father when we are forced to cling to Him through pain. As our need for Him intensifies, He promises to bring us out of the pain and confusion, establishing a future for us.
You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.
Jeremiah 29:13–14 ESV
Finally, after what felt like forever, we got an e-mail from the director of our agency. The e-mail was filled with a medical report and a dozen photos of an adorable one-year-old little boy. We were next in line for a child, and the e-mail asked if we were interested in accepting his referral. Is this HIM? Is this our son? I thought to myself as Ben and I scrolled through the photos. He was on the upper end of the age we were hoping for, and though our boys are so crazy fun, I was yearning for a daughter.
We prayed over this baby boy, we prayed for our family, we prayed for wisdom, and we didn’t feel like he was ours.
Ben called the director of our agency and asked if she knew who was next in line if we didn’t accept his referral. She assured Ben that the family after us was amazing and lovely. “And,” she said, “they have been praying for a one-year-old baby boy.”
With this joy-filled confirmation and knowledge that our no meant another family would be reaping the blessing of answered prayers, we felt confident in our decision to hand the referral over to this loving and waiting family.
As the seasons changed with the newness that parenthood brings, we pushed away feelings of stagnation and remained in a time of wait, falling into His arms as we decided to thrive in the interim.
Then, one morning in August, giddy to be on vacation in San Diego with Ben’s family, I tied my shoes in preparation for a run on my favorite beach with my dear friend Andrea. Looking forward to hearing the sound of the surf crashing onto the sand as we half-jogged, half-conversed deeply about life, I glanced at my e-mail before heading out the door.
Heart pounding wildly, I recognized our director’s name in my in-box. Calling Ben to come in from the other room, we opened it to find the e-mail was introducing us to a baby girl. My breath was stolen from within me as we once again scrolled through a multitude of photos and read the medical report (miniscule though it was) for this tiny baby who was only a couple weeks old.
I knew the moment I saw the first grainy photo that she was our daughter.
That run on the beach became one of the sweetest moments of my life as Andrea and I giggled and laughed and screamed the whole way down the boardwalk and back. Then the realization came that we had more waiting to do. I felt God’s comfort as my thoughts drifted back to when we first felt Him prompting us toward adoption, toward the calling He was placing upon our lives.
Once again, there was preparation in the wait. I prayed I’d have the patience to wait well since I acknowledged the fact that just because we now had a baby we were pursuing, it didn’t mean we got to jump on the next Ethiopia Airlines flight and bring her home. Months and months of waiting ensued as paperwork was submitted in this beautiful (yet very slooooow) third-world country.
Through our excitement, we were very conscious of a dark shadow looming over the calendar. In October, Ethiopia’s government shuts down for their rainy season. In fact, people kept telling us that basically the whole country shuts down as torrential rain falls every day and overwhelms the roads, the homes built of tarps and corrugated metal, and the markets shaded by thin woven fabric. The capital, Addis Ababa, has many paved streets and highways, but even in this big, thriving city there are many dirt or cobblestone roads that become a big stretch of muck and make traveling and living (more) difficult.
We knew that if paperwork didn’t clear before the date in October, we would have to wait many additional months to first visit, then bring home our daughter. During this time praying without ceasing took on a whole new meaning for me. We prayed fervently and jumped once again while fiercely trusting that God would catch us in His strong arms.
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 ESV