It has been 470 days since we turned in our application for adoption.
It has been 258 days since our home study was finalized.
It has been 167 days since we officially got on the waiting list.
In case you're curious, a pregnancy is somewhere in the 270-ish day range.

I say often that there's a reason God created pregnancy to last 9 months - after that, you start going a little crazy!

Obviously, there are so many differences between adoption and pregnancy, but there are also a lot of similarities and waiting to meet your child is not different. We wait, pray for, love, and dream about Judah just like expecting mothers and fathers do!

We'd be lying if we said the wait isn't hard. It is. We dream about traveling to Ethiopia. We talk about what it will be like to meet our son for the first time. How will he react? How will we react? What will it be like to come back to America after our court date and count the days until we get to go back to bring him home? What will he look like? What will his little personality be like? What if it's years before we get matched? How old will he be when we meet him? When is his birthday? How will he adjust to being our son and living in his new home?

Yeah, the wait is hard.

But we know that God is good and faithful and His timing is always perfect.

There's a song that we've been singing at church a lot this year. We've heard it before, but it's really taken on a new meaning to us over the last few months.

The chorus goes...
Your plans are still to prosper,
You have not forgotten us
You're with us in the fire and the flood
Faithful forever, Perfect in love
You are sovereign over us

There are so many times that we feel forgotten, or at least we feel at risk of being forgotten. We're working with a government that is nine hours ahead of us on the other side of the world. Our daytime is basically their evening and nighttime. We are just one family on one waiting list, and we feel small.

I know realistically that we're not forgotten, not by Ethiopia, and most importantly, not by God.

And our future Judah is not forgotten either! Just as God knitted him together in his biological mother's womb, God will never cease to know Judah. One of our biggest prayers is that our future son feels God's arms wrapped around him from the moment he's born.

We are not forgotten. God is with us. He is faithful, perfect, and sovereign.

The first verse of the song says this...
You are working in our waiting
Sanctifying us
When beyond our understanding
You're teaching us to trust

That is our prayer, today and everyday.