The Ghost of Jenny

Let us preface this post by affirming that we don't believe in ghosts.  At all.  (And any debate to the contrary would be met with scriptural references to man being appointed to die only once and spiritual warfare being waged all around our three-dimensional bodies and minds.)

Saving a seat for Jenny

But we have seen the ghost of Jenny in our house.  She's not a ghost in the sense that she was once here and is now gone.  Her ghost is the manifestation of our hope for her.  In much the same way that a pregnant mother can picture her life with her new baby, we can picture this tumbling happy almost-five-year old joining our family and living with us. 

Sometimes her ghost will enter a room and quietly take her place on the couch between us as we snuggle watching a movie.  Sometimes she and Vivien play tea party in the basement, or race their Little People cars down the toddler slide, or put together a puzzle. WeI've seen her sitting next to Vivien at our kitchen island, sharing a string cheese or a cup of yogurt.

Vivien could use some help from her big sister!

We can see her and she is as real to us as Vivien is.  She fits in this house.  In this family.  There's a place for her at our table and there's a bedroom for her upstairs.  We've started to get in the habit of buying two of everything, one for Vivien and one for Jenny.   

We're still waiting.  This time, we're waiting for approval from Jenny's country.  (Hopefully the government in her country is more efficient than our own.)   This stretch of waiting is by far the hardest.  There's not a single thing left for us to do to move this process along.  All of our paperwork has been turned in and now we simply wait.

This adoption journey is over a year long at this point.  Along the way, we've seen friends become pregnant, give birth, and post dozens of newborn snuggle pictures all over social media.  And we still wait.  It doesn't seem fair, and yet we know that God's timing is impeccable.  The waiting has become a daily burden, slowly stretching into weeks, months and now years.  It's hard.  It stinks.  We're awful at it. 

Waiting stinks!

But each day is a new day to trust God, to be reminded of His grace.  Each day is a day to have our hearts strengthened by His love and mercy.  Each day, we pray that we'll hear approvals from Jenny's country, that we'll be able to petition for a court date for the adoption and that we'll be given travel dates to finally meet our daughter.  And each day, God's mercies are new and this journey gets handed over to Him.