rainbows and hope

On Thursday we had one of the craziest days of weather we have had in a long time.  The entire day was on and off hail and rain and wind up to 80 kilometres an hour.  The storm had finally passed and it was time for me to drive my son to gymnastics in the town next to us.  As I drove there I realized I was driving back into the storm.  I dropped him off with more hail and thunder and went about my errands in town.  When I went to pick him up the sun was starting to shine and one of the most beautiful rainbows was in the sky.  It was amazing.  A complete full rainbow.... as I pulled back up to his gymnastics I realized that there was now a double rainbow.  I stopped the car and decided to take a picture so I could show him when he got out.  I felt such a sense of peace when I saw this rainbow, as if it was God saying to me that my kids really are coming.  When I saw the double rainbow I immediately thought "it's the twins!"  For so long now I have dreamed of these twins that I have seen at Beautiful Gate.  Anyways, it is fun to believe in signs so I decided to enjoy it for what it is worth.   After I took the photo I checked my messages and saw that someone else whose dossier is in country had talked to our agency that day and heard there was a surprise matching meeting last week and they had just received the results.  An email was to be coming out shortly after the lucky families were called.


That's when I started to really freak out.  Like THIS IS IT freaking out.  I even called my husband and told him to get ready because I really believed we could be getting the call the next day about a referral.

Part of me worried the phone call would have already happened that day and that maybe they stay at work late for this sort of thing or call people at home in the evenings so therefore it wasn't us.  There was no message on my home phone when I got home that night.  But I decided it was still possible so I went to bed with hope.  Lots and lots of hope.

The next morning I was getting the kids ready for school and made sure my cell was turned on.  As we were getting our backpacks and literally just about out the door my cell rang.  My entire body literally shook.  My heart was pounding.  No one ever calls my cell at 8 in the morning.

And it was just an electrical wholesaler for work.   Ahhh!!!  So frustrating.  I tried to calm down.  When I came home I literally started nesting almost immediately.  Cleaning, organizing, and checking emails.  Okay, who am I kidding.  I was mostly checking my emails.  By lunch my hope was fading.  I knew it wasn't us.  They would've called right away in the morning.  Disappointment again.

I sware the process for Ethiopia was much easier!  Knowing when matching meetings occur and the fact that matches are made so subjectively makes this so difficult.

Anyways, as you can already tell we received an email that afternoon from our agency saying sorry but we were not matched.  There was one match for Canada, two for Sweden and one for the US.  Overall this is actually pretty good news.  Four matches is better than it has been in the last year.  Our agency also informed us that Lesotho has now agreed to have one social worker focus completely on trying to gather and complete paperwork for children that are adoptable.  This is great news.

I'm trying to cling to hope.  I'm trying to cling to the double rainbows that I saw and the fact that they spoke to me about our adoption even before I knew that there had literally just been a meeting.  Maybe that in itself should comfort me now.  Part of me laughs at how I look for signs in everything. Like this is something that I should've given up in high school.

But another part of me feels like it is actually a wonderful way to live.  Rainbows have always been seen as a symbol of God's promise to us that he will never forsake us.  I believe this is true.  I am choosing to believe that the rainbow I saw that night was meant to encourage me to keep waiting a little bit longer.