The We Factor

One early morning this week I walked into a dark quiet room to give my patient her pain medication, she turned to look at me and said "you are going to be such a blessing to your baby."  She nearly had a sobbing nurse standing in her room at 5 am.  It was from God's heart to her lips, words that drove directly to the inner most parts of my heart.  A piece of encouragement that fit perfectly into the gaping hole just it's size in my chest.  I needed that more than she could have ever known. 
Getting off of my shift after another long night I was in the break room when one of our doctors came in.  He quietly asked how things were going with our adoption.  Who am I that someone should take the time to think about me and encourage me?  This doctor who I respect very much is watching out for me.  He thinks enough of me to take time out of his insane schedule to help find the missing piece to our family. 
I am not an island. You are not an island.   We are not meant to do life by ourselves.  I have learned this lesson over and over again through the waiting more than at any other time in my life.  I have never needed people to walk beside me more, and in the times where I have felt like the deserted Island God has placed some beautiful strangers in my life.  It never fails that when I need encouragement God will use someone I least expect to offer it. 
There is a nurse practitioner at work who I have met maybe 2 times, and she has heard that we are adopting. Now when I see her she asks how we are doing and tells me she has been praying for me and how encouraged she is by our story. 
I was looking at baby furniture the other night,  late at night at work online, and without saying a word a bunch of my co-workers asked to see, they ood and ahhed and made me feel like I was going to burst with happiness.  It was one of my rare feeling like an expectant mommy moments.  I have received so much kindness from unexpected places.  People I barely know reading my blog and encouraging me. 
I mentioned in my previous blog that being in this time of waiting has been uncomfortable for me.  I don't know if I should set up a nursery, or wait till we get the call.  I don't know if I should register, or if people will find that silly.  I don't know when to have a shower, or what to tell people when they ask what we need.  I don't know how to wait for an indefinite time period- the type A in me is cringing at the thought.  At times I don't know how to relate to those around me.  How do I explain why we are adopting, or that we really DO want to talk about our adoption. 
What I do know is that we cannot get through this without the body of Christ.  1 Corinthians 12:12
" The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ."  So we may be an arm in the body, but it takes the other arm to form an embrace and bring comfort.   I could not be more thankful that at the times I truly need an embrace I have people in my life who offer to be the other half.  They hold me up and offer me hope.  From a girl in my youth group who cannot wait to help babysit, to a friend who wants to help me decorate the nursery, and my parents who talk about how excited they are non stop I could not be more involved in the body.  Without We there is no me, I could not make it.  Thank you to all of those people in my life who hold me up and keep me going.  I will never be able to express in words what you mean to me.