I’m so excited to introduce my good friend, Nicole. As promised, here is her story and thoughts on Waiting.

  Hi! My name is Nicole. My husband, Ivan, and I have been married for 13 years and we have two biological boys, Kaden (age 8) and Ashton (age 6). We’ve lived in our small townhouse in VA since we got married and love living in town, around people, and being close to things we need (and want). I enjoy being with friends, going out for lattes, helping out in ministries, hanging out with my family, scrapbooking, reading blogs, organizing, and women’s conferences.

What are we waiting for….We are waiting for our little girl from Bulgaria to come join our family through adoption.

Here’s our story in brief: All through our dating days, after we got married, and had two children, we talked about wanting to adopt at some point. So when our youngest was 11 months old (Nov. 2011) we started the process. Seven months later (June 2012) our paperwork was done and accepted in Bulgaria. What we thought would be around a two and a half year or so, turned in to double that, and counting. This past Nov. we reached our five year mark of waiting. No, not what we expected, would choose, hoped for, or dreamed, would happen!

Jessica and I are friends and one of the areas we connect on lately, is waiting. I so wish and pray that she can have a child, whether biologically or through adoption. That would be so wonderful!

Also, I know that each of us Christians have times of waiting and that we want the Lord to do something good while we wait. In our journey I have become so aware of the fact that the Lord uses waiting VERY often in Christian’s lives (just read the Bible to see that, right?!)

I’ll be honest, when she brought up this idea of writing something for her blog on waiting and knowing it would go ‘out there’ for whomever to see, it scared me! Those that know me well know how I tend not to put real ‘vulnerable’ or personal stuff ‘for everyone out there’ to see and know, especially on social media. But after some encouragement, here goes…. For me, the first four or so years weren’t always easy and there were moments of it being hard or frustrating. But not bad in comparison to the past year, and even worse, the last 5 months. Of course that’s partly due to the simple fact that it’s been LONG. But it’s also been because there have been ‘milestones’ in that time that we keep thinking ‘surely by that event’ it will happen. It was my birthday in October and let’s just say ‘I’m not getting younger’ and my oldest son turned 8 in that month also. Then in Nov. was the 5 year mark and December was the end of the year and it was hard to not have gotten ‘the call’ in 2016. The call is when our agency says that the Bulgarian government has matched us with our girl. Then in January my youngest turned 6. All these things screamed out how long the wait has been and what is happening as we wait.

So I go up and down internally (and too often it spills out externally), sometimes a good day and then a bad one, sometimes a decent week and then a couple days of ‘bad’. Each day hoping, praying, or wishing for the call to come, because according to our agency, it should be ‘soon’. But it doesn’t/hasn’t come yet. Sometimes wondering why I should even pray because I’m praying to the One that is in charge and could make it happen now. Sometimes realizing that I have a lot to be thankful for and that I want to enjoy our guys and our family. Sometimes just grumpy and discouraged. Sometimes enjoying life and not thinking too much about it. Up and down!

So, here are some odds and end things that have spoken to me at different times in our waiting. Things God has shown through me finding it or reading it somewhere, through friends, my husband, etc. Hopefully one or more of these may speak to you as you are going through whatever you are waiting for. Verses on Waiting:

Psalm 27:13-14  I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!  Wait for the Lord; 
be strong, and let your heart take courage;  wait for the Lord!

Verses on Peace and Trust:

Col. 3:15  And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.

Isaiah 26:3  You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

Phil. 4:6-7  Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

I read this book and it was exactly what I needed. It’s called ‘Wait and See’ by Wendy Pope In it, she looks at the story of David and his time of waiting. Here are some highlights I found in the book:

“When we value the things we wait on more than we value the commands of the Lord- not to worry, to accept His peace, to live by faith- we lose sight of what’s really important: our relationship with God.

When we are waiting and wondering when things will come to pass, we should continue to do what we know to do.

Though waiting can often feel like a placeholder we impatiently long to be done with, it is beneficial. We got to know God, love Him and others more, and grow in humility and holiness. By not giving up and letting God determine the how and when, we experience divine encounters with Him we might otherwise miss.

We have to believe that despite our feelings of abandonment our wait is in the perfect and capable hands of the God who loves us very much.

We’re safer drawing close to God in a battle than being far from Him. Waiting on God isn’t wasting time; it’s training time.

God is never inactive or unresponsive. When God appears to be silent or sedentary, lean closer and press in harder, but never believe He doesn’t see or hear your cries.”

Quote: “What God does in us while we wait is as important as what it is we are waiting for.” John Ortberg

Quote: “Waiting on God is active, not passive. It involves prayer, counsel, study, patience, and Faith.” David Jeremiah

From a blog: “God wants us to be active, to be warriors in the faith. Our waiting period is time for us to learn, seek, and serve. The beauty of the wait is that we don’t just get the answer but that we get God! Get active friends!”

One thing I did and you could do it also is this. One day I looked at Bible passages on waiting and then I wrote out things to do while waiting and what happens to someone who comes through waiting.

-Nicole