Saturate.

We do have a bit of good news! We talked with the International adoption pediatrician who will be Georgia's pediatrician up in Seattle when she gets home. He is going to bat for Georgia and will advocate for her with the cardiologists! He said that he would figure out if she needs oxygen on the flight and if so exactly how to get it. He also said that he personally will work with the team at Children's to make a plan for once we get home. He said that it is still a possibility that we will have to go from the airport straight to Children's to have Georgia looked at and possibly admitted for open heart surgery...but that will be a decision that he will help us make and we will know before we leave. I have felt a bit like a crazy woman trying to advocate for Georgia in a very intense medical field armed only with what I could learn from the internet! Now the true professionals can take over :)
I had a great drive up to Seattle and back this weekend (by myself) to go and celebrate Mother's Day with my mom & sisters and then to celebrate my sweet nephew's 1st birthday. On those drives I had a lot of time to think & pray. What I realized is that this journey that we are on is at times so absurd and also deeply exhilerating. The absurdity comes from the fact that it is ALL so much bigger and out of my comfort zone than I could ever possibly handle. When I look at all of it and think of trying to do it on my own strength, there is no way I could do even a crumb of it! In the book, "If you want to walk on water, you have to get out of the boat" (I forget who the author is and cannot find the book right now but it is amazing), the author talks about the fact that when the Lord calls us to something it is typically something out of our comfort zone and usually speaks directly to our deepest fears....this is SO true of this journey for me! One of my absolute deepest fears is having one of my children hurting and not being able to comfort them. And here I sit with our little daughter halfway around the world in need of open heart surgery as soon as possible, and there is nothing I can do.
This is where the exhilerating part comes in. God does not call us to a journey where we come face to face with our fears just to taunt us, but because He wants to meet us there and to show His face. And you know what? That is absolutely true! I have a choice, and I do not always make the right one. There are days when I choose to feel that God is being cruel by witholding the path to get to Georgia quickly and on those days I can honestly hardly breathe. But then there are moments, usually little but getting bigger where I step into the promises of God. Where I remind myself of the true character of the Lord that I serve...and then I begin to understand the exhileration of this journey. You see He picked me to walk on this journey with Him, to walk on my wobbly legs next to Him...to literally be carried by Him through the valley of my fears, not so that I can be tormented but so that I can learn about His character...not that He is safe but that He is good. And you know what? When I choose to saturate myself with His promises, this journey is the most exhilerating that I have ever been on.
Blessings on you,
Shannon