What I have learned in the last 10 minutes

When growing up, my brother had a few favorite things he used to say to me. I never appreciated them much, but a few of those things have some relevance now. There were times when I would say something like, "I didn't think that it would turn out that way", or something else like "I thought it wouldn't matter". Except I often didn't get the whole thing out. Pretty often I would start with, "I didn't think..." and he would sternly interrupt with "THAT'S RIGHT. YOU DIDN'T THINK." Or I would start to say, "I thought..." and he would angrily interrupt with "YOU THOUGHT, AND YOU THOUGHT WRONG." I was reminded of this in the past few minutes while praying. I made several statements to God like, "I just don't see how this helps anything." or "I just don't see how this helps her out." or "I just don't see what the point of delaying this even further is." Unlike my brother's stern interruptions, God gently interrupted me with "You're right Greg. You just don't see." He then proceeded to remind me of a few things.

Without going into details, the past two weeks have been unlike any two weeks since Elijah arrived home. It has been positively amazing. Not a day has gone by in the past two weeks that Maren and I haven't thought about the unbelievable difference in our son. I said today that it was like we had a new son. She wondered out loud if we have ever experienced him like this. I was also reminded that she and I are learning some new things about parenting an adopted child and are actively improving our skills. Neither of those things would have happened if we had been able to travel sooner. My mother-in-law wondered several weeks ago if part of the delay wasn't related to Elijah in some way and helping him get to where he needed to be. It seems that this could be spot-on.

I was also made aware in the past ten minutes that our desire to bring Sneha home sooner has some elements of selfishness interwoven into the genuine desire to start her in her family as soon as possible. These are going to be hard to tease out, but I want it to happen.

I was also reminded in the past ten minutes that even though I may not want to grow sometimes, it is for my benefit that it happens. For the 10,000th time, I am trying to allow myself to be transformed. To paraphrase a seeker of God, "Lord, I want to grow. Help my desire to stagnate."