Praying with expectancy, even in the harder seasons

This month has been a tough season – for all four of us. We know that trials come and go and is a part of the journey of adoption as everyone adjusts to one another, and we've had them. Our days have been up and down for five months, but this month the intensity has risen to another level. I guess we got caught off guard because our foster son had 21 days of good behavior last month so we rose the bar for expected behavior, but quickly realized he wasn't succeeding this time. We are 16 days into this month and he's only had three good days. We question our parenting again as we try to implement new styles to help a child from a hard place, but then we remember this month is a significant month for him, and realize it wasn't the right time to raise the bar. The reason? He's been in care for a year and is having anniversaries to deal with – he's grieving again and is full of deep sorrow. While the reality of his future is getting less foggy, there's still darkness to lift and healing to happen as possibility of his adoption into our family settles in. So though we may be emotionally and mentally exhausted, we recognize the new found compassion God gives us for this precious child who has suffered much. Yes he may be fighting us, but it's not about us. He's fighting all the pain he has taken in and learning how to handle it. We are here to teach him how to do that in a healthy way and surrender all of it to our sweet Lord. Thank you dear Lord for letting us be a part of this child's restoration and purposeful life you've given him, and for trusting him in our care. We are trying our best to love him where he is, trusting you with the rest.

New journeys call for new memories and we have had the joy of sharing many first experiences with our son. This month we have been able to see him try out roller skates for the first time and get lost in a corn maze with us. Soon we are taking them on a surprise trip to Disney World – and we are busting at the seams to tell them! He's also recently joined a local Cub Scouts den, and though he hasn't felt comfortable enough to join the boys in the activities, he's slowly getting there through watching them be boys together. Last night at the Cub Scouts meeting, he met two new friends, one who is a foster child himself. I am so excited he will have a friend in his den that is going through a lot of the same experiences and questions. I'm praying this will be a special friendship and bond for him. Though many painful memories may haunt him for the rest of his life, we pray that God will help him heal in a way that they hurt much less, that he can choose to be full of joy no matter what life brings him because he learns that Jesus is with him every step of the way. We pray that the new memories we share as a family will be the solid foundation he can always pull from that makes him smile and knows he is loved by many.

It may seem that we have high expectations for ourselves, for our son, and for our family. But really, we are praying with expectancy that God will remain true in His promises as He always has. We know that God can do much with even a little faith. Jesus can make a blind man see, a lame man walk, a woman clean of years of disease, a leper clean, a dead friend made alive, a cut-off ear healed, calm a raging storm, multiply the provisions we seemingly have to feed the masses, have authority over this world so that water is a solid floor under his feet, a tree made fruitful again that was once withered, and withdraw demon-possessed people out from their darkness. Jesus did these miracles by touch, through authoritative words, and many without physically being present – because He is Jesus, Lord of all. All we have to do is have faith.

Debb Marquez, a fellow adoption blogger I recently came across here, shares the difference between praying with expectations and praying with expectancy:
[The Lord] wants us to have child-like faith that He will answer ~ but He doesn’t want us to tell Him HOW or WHEN to answer our prayers! He doesn’t want us to pray with expectations of the details. He wants us to pray with excited anticipation and assurance that He will answer our heart’s cry. He just doesn’t want us to go about telling Him how to do it! {ouch!}

We have faith in God's big purposes for this child's life. After all, he is one of God's own.