I often pray the same prayer over and over – I don’t mean it is said in tradition or just rote memorization. It is sincere; a cry from my heart. At times when I say that prayer, I wonder if I sound like a resounding “gong” – yuck.
“… two blind men sitting by the road, hearing that Jesus was passing by, cried out, ‘Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!’ The crowd sternly told them to be quiet, but they cried out all the more… moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes, and immediately they regained sight and followed Him.” Matthew 20:30-31, 34
Satan wants us to believe that God gets sick of hearing from us – just like the crowd telling the men to be quiet. The two men in these verses kept crying out – not in complaint, but in faith, believing that this man, Jesus, could and would heal them.
Yesterday morning, my prayers were similar as they have been over the past two years regarding the adoption, but my heart cried out with slightly different words (quoted from my prayer journal)…
“Father, the deepest desire of my heart is to be in Your will and Your way – so please intercede for me any prayers that I pray outside of Your will – I pray, O Lord, for HC to come home to our house quickly. May the year extension be wrong in some way! I will wait, Father, but I know You are bigger than any government…”
Just before lunch time yesterday, a call came from the agency – there had been a mistake with our paperwork. The agency in our son’s home country accidentally put the wrong date on our paperwork, so they didn’t realize they had skipped us because according to the date on the papers we should have went after the people who got selected to enter the “exit phase”!
The devastated agency employees apparently quickly got to work – repaired the mistake, and asked the government agency (who determines how many children can be released for international adoption) for an exception (which I am told they never do)… to accept HC’s paperwork even though they said they would not accept any others for months – THEY AGREED TO TAKE HIS PAPERS!!!!!!!!!
Can you believe it? They said “yes”! Do you hear what I’m saying, people?!? Our God is so good. He hears the cries of our hearts. He can soften the hearts of others. He loves our boy so deeply; His hand is over him. Wow. Actually, I mean… WOW! God has absolutely, positively KNOCKED MY SOCKS OFF!
Who needs socks in the middle of November anyway?
Note: For those of you who are wondering “so how long will it be now?”… we are probably still 6 months or so from our travel date… but at least it’s not 2016 like we thought a few days ago!!!