"Do you trust me?"

This is a personal, spiritual post. If you don't feel like reading it, I won't be offended. Just being vulnerable and sharing my heart...

"Do you trust me?" the Lord asked me.

"Yes, of course," I said.

"DO you trust me?" the Lord asked again.

"Yes, I do," I said.

"Do you TRUST me?" the Lord asked the third time.

"Umm...umm...yes, I do Lord," I said, although somewhat hesitantly, not sure why we were having this conversation.  I found out later.

I had this "conversation" with the Lord yesterday afternoon when I laid down for a rare nap on the couch. The baby was still asleep in her carseat from our field trip and the other kids were outside playing. It was short lived, but long enough for me to clear my mind and pray and listen to the gentle whispers of my loving Father in my heart. (I did get about 10 minutes of sleep in too.)

Not long after this, I received a call back from USCIS. I had called and left a message in the morning asking who my officer handling my I-600A application was. (Remember the I-600A leads to the I-171H approval, which is the last piece of paperwork we need to get submitted before Elijah's country shuts down for 3 months over the winter.) I wanted to find out what we were looking at for processing times and see if I could get an earlier fingerprinting appt. Well...as it turns out, we don't have an officer assigned to our case yet! To say I was disappointed was an understatement. I was so choked up on the phone I could hardly say thank you and good-bye. So, I let myself have a good cry...in fact, it was so good my eyelids are still puffy tonight. LOL You see, when we get our fingerprints done on the 4th, if no one has even looked at our file yet, we are looking at weeks for approval. The nice USCIS lady on the phone was very apologetic and explained they are still backlogged from bringing in the files from the field offices. (This change was supposed to "streamline" the process and it happened in April...need I say more.) In order to expedite for medical reasons, they need documentation from the doctor in country. She said I should call back in a few weeks as we are still "in queue" to be assigned. We don't have weeks if we are going to try and get submitted by the end of November. Our dossier needs to be in the mail by the first week in Nov to allow time for translation and the I-171H takes about 7-10 days to arrive AFTER approval.

Over and over last night (and today) I was thinking about this conversation. It has brought me a tremendous amount of comfort.

"Do you trust me?" Yes, Lord, I do. Lord, I fully admit that is a struggle for me. I want Elijah home ASAP, but I know YOU have a plan. Your timing is perfect. You know what the future holds for us and for Elijah. You have ordained and called us to this adoption and you love us so much that you want nothing but the best for us. Help us to trust in that. Lord, you know every detail about Elijah and this adoption. We ask that you to continue to protect him with your mighty hand. Please give us peace and the ability to rest in You. We turn it all over to you. Lord, we do ask in the powerful name of Jesus that you expedite this paperwork.  We know and believe you can move paper mountains!  Thank you, Jesus!

By the way, I will continue to do everything humanly possible to get this approval in time so we can be submitted by the end of November. I've contacted our congressman's office for help in expediting our case. Still waiting for a response...Please pray they will be favorable to helping us.