sitting on a rocking chair

Noah is 8 months old today. He has been home with us for almost 4 months. We are waiting for the court proceedings to be done, so that he is legally ours. He feels like ours already.

We have hardly thought about it: it was just a matter of letting our lawyers work out the process.

Then yesterday the ground start to shake again.

We came across information in the newspapers that could potentially hold things up. In the worst case scenario, I thought it could hamper, even bring to a grinding halt, our legal adoption.

In the couple of hours we had to wait before we could get a hold of our lawyers, I worried, fretted, and threw the equivalent of a four-year-old's tantrum in my conversation with God. (I see a four-year-old's tantrum with more regularity than I would like, so I have a pretty good idea of what it looks like.)

Why did we come so far, if it was not going to work out? Why now, when we were so close to being done with everything? Why now, after we've had so much time with him? And if it didn't work out, how was I supposed to explain everything to the two older kids??

Those couple of hours were plenty of time for me to get scared. To feel fearful. To feel how shaky the ground was.

K finally managed to speak to our lawyers, and we were basically told that our legal adoption should not be held up at all. We continue to pray that this will not change.

When K called me to report what the lawyer had told him, I was in the middle of doing my bible study homework. After we hung up, I went back to it. This was what I went back to...

Sing, O Daughter of Zion;
shout aloud, O Israel!
Be glad and rejoice with all your heart,
O Daughter of Jerusalem!
The LORD has taken away your punishment,
he has turned back your enemy.
The LORD, the King of Israel, is with you;
never again will you fear any harm.
On that day they will say to Jerusalem,
"Do not fear, O Zion;
do not let your hands hang limp.
The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.

Zephaniah 3:14-17

The last verse has always been one of my favourites. But today, God showed me something else, something more. That last verse follows God's assurance that he is keeping me, us, safe: "Do not fear, do not let your hands go limp".

This is what Beth Moore writes: These verses beautifully illustrate that blessed moment in which God's throne becomes a rocking chair and He pulls His fretting, fearful child into His arms and says, "It's ok, I'm right here."

How those words leapt off the page.

How many times have I done this with my children: pull them to me, cuddle them, comfort them, so that in my embrace they go limp with relief.

God didn't tell us how it was all going to work out for us, for Noah, if we would have any trouble with the legal process. We still don't know; we are waiting it out.

But He did pull me into His rocking chair and quiet me with His love.

I am limp with relief.