From Russia with Love By Cortney Donelson

If you follow international adoption, politics, or world news, you are aware of the immediate and devastating ruling Russia’s President Vladimir Putin imposed on the adoption of Russian children by United States’ couples. This ban, while mostly political in nature, affects thousands of orphans in Russia and many families here in the U.S. hoping to adopt them. My family is heartbroken. I posted this devotion on another blog site several months ago. In light of this ban, I want – no, need – to post it again in honor of my son, in sorrow for the children who may be left behind in Russian orphanages, and in hopes of bringing awareness to the gift of adoption. God never intended for His children to be abandoned and forgotten. I long for the day when every orphan’s crib is empty…

Romans 8:18 (NLT)

“Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later.”

Gut-wrenching pain – I know it well. If you or anyone you know has ever suffered through infertility, then you know the heartbreak that couples who are struggling with this issue experience.

My husband and I tried to have a baby for almost four years. There were scheduled “date nights” when neither one of us was really in the mood, countless injections of hormones, hot flashes, ultrasounds, pregnancy tests, ovulation kits, test tubes, medical procedures, books, new diets, tears, and yes … many prayers. Our friends didn’t know what to say to us. Our family didn’t know how to help us. It was really tough. We watched in bittersweet agony as several family members and friends became pregnant and started their families.

Every morning at 5:00 a.m. I would sit and pray in the empty room that we had designated for our nursery just pleading with God. Sometimes I yelled too. I didn’t understand any of it. I prayed continuously to get pregnant. Why was God saying “no?”

Finally, after four long years, I relented and changed the content of my prayers. My pleas to get pregnant became prayers of “Your will be done,” and “God help me accept whatever you have planned for us.” God, ease my grief! Help me live again! That is precisely when I was hit “by the 2x4.” On a 10-second walk into a restaurant, God quietly whispered in my ear, “adopt.” It was just one word. A word that previously was so painful that I refused to hear or say it out loud had become God’s answer. It was then that I released my desires and grasped onto God’s will. We signed on with an adoption agency the following week.

Seven short months later, my husband and I traveled to Rostov, Russia to bring home our little baby boy. It was our agency’s fastest adoption process in history. As our case worker explained that no couple had ever received a referral in just two days, I heard God laughing. God had to hit me with that 2x4 in His perfect timing, and I had to be obedient right there in that restaurant parking lot … or we would have missed the greatest thing in our lives. We had to trust His will rather than our own as the best course for our lives. Just writing this brings me to tears. Had I not suffered as much as I did for those four years, I never would have relinquished my plan for His plan. I never would have met the little baby waiting for me on the other side of the world … the one who has changed my world forever! God knew this as He was catching every one of my tears during that time of agony.

Romans 8:18 says, “Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later.” Our trials and those things for which we suffer now pale in comparison to what God has in store for us in the future. It may be later in our lives here on earth, or it may be that we won’t fully understand until we are in all His glory praising Him in His Kingdom of Heaven. Me? I think it is often both.

Prayer – Dear Lord, thank You for waiting patiently for me during my seasons of struggles. Thank You for listening to every cry, catching every tear, and answering every prayer. I am so grateful to have the promise of Your glory and all that You will reveal in Your time! I pray I continue to embrace my trials and know they can be blessings. You are in complete control. In Jesus’ name I pray, AMEN!

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