Isn’t the Light OK?

But if I say, “I will not men­tion him or speak any more in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of hold­ing it in; indeed, I cannot.

Jere­miah 20:9

It’s strange to be actively ignor­ing what you feel to be the source of your cre­ativ­ity and very life. It’s the rea­son I reg­is­tered for FAWM almost a month ago and have yet to even attempt writ­ing a song. It’s the rea­son I’ve blogged very lit­tle over the past few weeks. It’s the rea­son I’ve been able to do very lit­tle actual work when I’m at work lately. It’s a lame excuse, but I’m stick­ing by it for now.

I sup­pose some expla­na­tion is in order. Sadly, there’s no appro­pri­ate Tom Petty song that springs to mind right now to help explain things.

When last we left the adop­tion story, we had come to the con­clu­sion that China wasn’t going to hap­pen, and had con­tacted our adop­tion agency about their Ethiopia pro­gram. They were going to find out if we were eli­gi­ble and get back to us. In the mean­time, we both got sick (and are still fight­ing a cough that won’t go away) and kind of let things get away from us. A few weeks later, we still hadn’t heard from the agency, so we emailed them yet again to get an update.

Appar­ently, we’re not eli­gi­ble for any of their pro­grams now, since none of their coun­tries accept adop­tive cou­ples where at least one par­ent is on anti­de­pres­sant med­ica­tion. This, along with our sub-$80,000 net worth and a few other things, had been the deal-breaker for China.

So, it may be pos­si­ble for us to adopt, but not from either of the two coun­tries we felt any sort of call­ing to. And not through the agency we really liked. We’re now faced with the thought that maybe none of this was divinely moti­vated at all. Maybe we just spir­i­tu­al­ized our own long­ings for a fam­ily. Per­haps this whole ordeal has been of our own doing.

Ulti­mately, I think we both know every­thing will be OK. It’s not a death sen­tence, it doesn’t mean we can’t get a child some other way. It’s hard, though, spend­ing almost two years with a spe­cific vision of your future, only to have to let it go because of some for­eign government’s rule. And for that, it’s been hard to have any­thing to do with God lately. I know even­tu­ally it will pass, and nei­ther one of us can really give up what we believe in — like the pas­sage from Jere­miah I quoted above, I often feel like I wish I could give in and just fol­low Richard Dawkins or some­thing, but some­thing within keeps me com­ing back to what I know as the source.

So I remain between worlds. Not quite ready to give it all up, but not ready to let go and fall back into the arms of divine prov­i­dence yet.

most nights were crys­tal clear but tonite its like it’s stuck between stations…

- The Hold Steady, “Stuck Between Sta­tions”

Pop­u­lar­ity: 29% [?]

This entry was posted Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 at 7:07 pm. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.