Where is God's Mercy?

Joe went to the orphanage today with me. He saw the baby boy I was shown yesterday. I played with the baby and Joe played with him as much as he could, but the pain was there…surrounding us like a cloak. And this poor innocent baby who is precious and cute and had we known nothing from the start would probably capture our hearts in an instant sits in the arms of a mother who desperately wants to love him and feel the joy that was hers only two days before only brought by another child. He was our child ~ Stephen ~ a blog friend wrote it in simple terms that hit home…everyone says you will just “know” and we did; we knew with every fiber of our being that Stas was our son. How do you now convince yourself otherwise? This new child is a perfect child in his own right and he is being robbed just as much as we are. I had a total of six hours to grieve and then look at other children! Six hours! My husband has had a little more, but is certainly not ready to nor have the desire to choose another child.

We do not feel like taking pictures. How is that fair to this baby. This is supposed to be a joyous event that we can recall and tell him stories of in his lifebook and recall the “moment” he was placed in our arms. What will there be to tell him now? That we chose him as an alternative and hoped for the best? That our hearts were empty and we did not have that hopeful anticipation that we experienced only a few days ago when coming to visit him? That instead of dreading the end of our brief hour and a half visit that we sighed with relief because it was all we could bear?

How can two people be expected to make such tremendous life choices under the unhealthiest conditions one can imagine. There is not a social or mental health practitioner that would tell you that what we are doing is healthy, advisable or rational. We are making life choices under stressful and grievous conditions. We are in pain, we are isolated here in an apartment halfway across the world where we spend 22 hours a day! And yet what is our alternative? Go home empty handed and try to regroup? Then what? Update our paperwork and wait for another LOI? Go through this unmerciful flight again? Joe cannot just freely up and leave his job whenever he pleases for weeks on end. Who could?

The baby took the little yellow ball that Stas loved to play with and put it in his mouth and I saw the hurt on my husband’s face. I knew what he was thinking and seeing in his mind. It was like watching a knife go through him. What wife would not give her life to take away her husband’s pain? I can only hold him and love him. He broke down and cried when we got home just thinking about that little yellow ball! He speaks freely about his feelings to me and I understand every emotion too well. He wants his son. My heart shattered as he told me today that he never experienced such joy as he did when we were visiting Stas all these days. He couldn’t wait until we got home and downloaded the pictures. We would sit here each night and look over the pictures a hundred times counting the hours until we could get back to the orphanage. That was what kept us going ~ able to endure this bleak country and this apartment, isolation and boredom.

We both wish we had some divine intervention right now. There is no crueler approach that God could have taken and the anger with my Father is deep – a rage inside and a demand for answers and justice. Why would He allow this cruelty? There is no revelation of His plan? He has forsaken us when we need Him the most. I dare challenge Him at this time, in writing and publicly, to show His hand in this ~ to show His mercy for His children. I keep thinking over and over in my mind of the passage “Behold! I am doing a new thing. Do you not perceive it?” My answer is emphatically “NO LORD ~ I do not perceive it! I do not perceive YOU! I wait upon YOU to reveal Your plan. Where is that plan for hope and a future? Have you lied to us? Have you abandoned us? Set us up for failure? Where the hell are YOU????”