A Snow Storm, a Control Freak and a GOD Who Will never stop interrupting MY plan so that I can be part of HIS.
Have you ever been in the middle of something really important and the phone rings, the child cries, the washer stops running? Have you ever wanted to throw that phone out the window, get frustrated with the child or loose it over laundry? No???? me either 😉
But seriously, When I want to get something done and someone or something gets in my way, I am not always pretty about it. But as I get older and look back over the years, more times than I can count, it was the INTERUPTION that was the point. It was the thing that happed when I was trying to do that other thing that God used to change everything.
Let me share just a few.
And that story begins in an airport in Chicago over forty years ago.
Well actually it begins in 1968 in a nursing school dorm when my mom picked up a phone call that interrupted her studying and impulsively agreed to go on a blind date with a guy who was calling for someone else. They have been married over 50 years.
But I digress…back to 1978, Airport, Chicago, snowstorm
The airport was crowded with tired, cranky people. The snow had been falling steadily for a day and many had been there for over 24 hours. It was 1978 and my father could not help but notice a group of people with diaper bags but no babies. Curiosity and boredom finally got the best of him and, as he talked to these families, he found out that they were waiting for their newly adopted children to arrive from Korea. As one day became two, my dad made lifelong friends. He took “gotcha day” pictures for all the families when their children finally arrived, and came home determined to adopt a little boy from Korea.
The moment my brother was carried off that plane and delivered into my family’s arms, I knew I was going to adopt a child one day. I was ten. Twenty years and three biological children later my husband Paul was not so sure. When my youngest turned three I started reminding him that I wanted to adopt. After about six months of not getting very far, I stopped bugging him and started praying that God would get him to do what I wanted. I even got our three kids praying. It sounded super spiritual, it wasn’t, It was manipulative and controlling. Â
As a semi recovering control freak (there should really be a 12 step program) I figured if I just prayed long enough and hard enough I could convince God how my plan was, of course, the best plan and the sooner HE got Paul on board the better off we would all be….
Two years later…in the summer of 2003, Paul’s read an article by Steven Curtis Chapman that convinced Paul to adopt. Of course, I thought it was all my prayers that did it 🙂 As we started the long “paper pregnancy” that goes along with adopting a child from China, I quickly found out that little goes as you expect it to. At every bump in the road, I fretted and worried. I tried to control every part of the process, which was impossible. I worried myself half to death over things that I had no control over. The entire process was one of letting go and trusting God, and, even though He always showed Himself faithful, I still wrestled for control.
Trying to control every penny spent added to my anxiety. We really could not afford to adopt internationally. Even now, as I look back, I have no idea how God did it! There were more miracles than I can remember. I will always be thankful for all those who gave to us sacrificially during this journey! Our oldest three children went without lessons, vacations and new clothes for three years. There were always hand-me-downs that were just the right size and style. We learned all the fun things to do close to home, I learned how to make home-made bread and shop for clearance meats at the grocery store. Old cars kept running and, when they didn’t, friends fixed them for us. God always provided, and yet I still worried, all the time, about everything. When Emma was finally placed in my arms on March 28th 2005, we were all emotionally, physically and financially spent. A second adoption was the last thing on our minds….
Over the next four years God continued to teach me to let go. Each time I fretted and grabbed for control, He showed me that HE could be trusted. Raising a child who has medical issues and spent her first 17 months in an orphanage, and three teenagers gave me lots of opportunities to practice letting go of control! But nothing prepared me for what happened in the summer of 2008. Now, before I go on I just want you to know that I get how crazy this sounds, but it happened and its part of the story, so deal.
I started dreaming about a little girl whose arms did not work right. I was pretty sure that God was telling me to adopt again, but I was much slower to think that I had all the answers now. I knew that if the dream was truly from God that HE would tell Paul same thing he told me. I went to Paul, told him about my dream and asked him to please pray that God would either take away my dreams or tell Paul it was time to adopt again. God surprised us both that day. Paul heard “I want you to adopt one more time.”
Now before I go on and you are tempted to think we have it all figured out, I need to share that our marriage was STRUGGLING. We were in counseling that was not working, we were hurting each other all the time with our personality and parenting differences, we were not on the same page about what church to go to, how to school the kids or how in the world we would fund raise for another adoption. In all honesty we still struggle, we love each other dearly but we are so very different that our marriage is a constant learning curve and conduit for spiritual growth.
any hoooo
A couple of months into our second paper pregnancy I was looking at the “waiting child” list on our adoption agency’s website and I saw a little girl named Anan whose arms looked just like the girl in my dream. I showed Paul and told him this is what our daughter’s arms were going to look like. I also told him that it could not be this little girl because she was almost nine years old, way too old for us to adopt. My plan was to adopt a little girl younger than Emma. Eight months later, when our paperwork was done, Anan was still waiting for a family. One night after Paul and I had been looking at her picture once again, he looked at me and said, “If we don’t adopt her, I don’t think anyone is going to.” She was now nine and we knew she was ours. I think Paul always knew; it just took me a while to give up my plan so that I could see HIS plan.
In the summer of 2010, two weeks before her 10th birthday, Lily Anan became a Ferrell, but ten years is a long time to live without a family. We have missed way too many birthdays and Christmases. Her first Christmas with us was the hardest. As we decorated the tree, all the other kids took out the ornaments that they had collected over the years and began hanging them on the tree, and Lily became very sad. My plan for decorating the tree was interrupted. Thankfully by now I had learned that the good stuff is often held in the interruption. I was tempted to show her the ornaments she DID have, the ones I had got for her in china, the picture ornament that i made from an orphanage picture when she was around 5, but she knew, she saw all she had missed; she grieved all she would never get back. And at that moment what she needed was a safe place to grieve.
That Christmas my mom gave her a tin with 10 ornaments in it; each one had a card with a year on it for each year she had missed. (really wish I had thought of this but then again a gift from grandma is always extra special) As we decorated the tree each year I am reminded to listen to my children’s (and my grand children’s) hearts rather than to try to fix them.Â
I still grasp for control now and again, but when I catch myself I am reminded that God has a better plan than I do. Which I know sounds like a platitude, but honesty it is what keeps me from grasping desperately at control. It is how I can rest in His grace.Â
My prayer for you dear friend is that you will be interrupted.
That you will be surprised by His grace and mercy,
That you will find the peace that comes with a life placed completely in the Fathers hands.
That you will live in the joy that comes with knowing that you are loved beyond compare.Â
Blessings to you dear friends
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When we come out on the other end of this all of us will have lost something. Many of us will lose someone. How we grieve is going to make all the difference. How we grieve will determine who we become on the other side of this. Many of us will be tempted to stay stuck in blame and anger. It is comfortable, protective, others focused. Anger protects our most tender parts…and it blocks our very best parts. This virus will have won if we let ourselves get stuck here.