I’ve shared bits and pieces of our adoption story with you already, so I won’t bore you with more of the details now. But I will say this: I was called to leave my entire world behind, including my wonderfully awesome and amazing husband and two daughters, to take a one way ticket to Africa when I was at my weakest. I felt weak emotionally, physically, and mentally. But what scared me most was that I felt weak spiritually. I can’t even begin to tell you how this baffled me. Why, I wondered, in all these years of waiting, does it have to be NOW?
But then I got it.
My time alone in Africa was ridiculously beautiful in so many ways, but it was quite possibly the hardest thing I have ever done. I wrestled like never before. I cried buckets of tears for so many reasons, but through it all, I learned a valuable lesson. It’s okay to be weak. Weakness draws us to our ultimate source of strength. And it is in Him alone that we find true strength.
We were never created to do it all or to be it all but were created to know the One who holds all things together. The One who is ALL.
I came home from Africa broken, elated and blessed beyond words, but broken. And for the first time, I just sat in it. I wasn’t trying to make it go away, and I wasn’t scared of it because I think I knew for the first time that I had been broken for a reason. And there I found strength. True strength. I learned I didn’t need to be strong because He was. He is my strength and my shield (Psalm 28:7).
