Hard day into Night

As you can imagine, yesterday was a difficult day.  There was so much information to absorb all at once and most of it was not something my mind or body really wanted to absorb.  I thought about everyone involved in this mess--and I kept coming back to these kids.  And their birth families.  I know that not every adoption has been unethical, but once the waters of trust are tainted...how do you move on from there? And for those children who were truly relinquished/abandoned by their birth families...what next?  They are trapped in the same loop.  If everything that the US has documented is true, then we are right to get out, but that does NOT change what goes on there.  Many other countries will continue to adopt from VN, but will they put pressure on VN to "make it right"?  Doubtful.  I really do hope that VN does become Hague compliant in 2009 and maybe these issues will become a thing of the past.

As I said yesterday, I will continue with this adoption until all hope has been exhausted.  I don't say this lightly because I am taking a huge financial (let's not even talk about the emotional gamble that I'm taking--that far outweighs everything else because there is no fix for a broken heart) gamble.  You can ask anyone--I am not a gambler.  Because I am now DTV, my first massive chunk of fees are due.  I say massive because after paying this installment, all the money I had saved towards my China girl will be gone.  My financial cushion account--gone.

I went to bed last night thinking...do I do it or do I not?  There is no wait and see, no purgatory for this situation.  If I don't pay the fees my dossier will not be translated and if it is not translated there will be no log in date by July.  It essentially ends now.  And at some point this morning while I played my violin, I just let go and my mind relaxed and the answer became so clear.  I will do what I will always do in matters of the heart--I will go the distance.  I never want to look back on anything in my life and wonder "what if?".  I certainly never want to look back and think that of my son--what if he was as God intended and yet I got scared?  And yes, the chance is certainly there that I may lose a huge amount of money and feel the loss of a child, but at least I could look back and say I tried.   This is what faith is.  The practice of something that I can not see, can not understand.

I found this quote on a website yesterday:

What you believe you empower, whether for right or wrong, and daily you are living by faith whether you realize it or not.  Your heart cannot believe what your mind cannot conceive.

I leave you with a few some quotes that inspire hope:

To choose what is difficult all one's days, as if it were easy, that is faith.  W. H. Auden

Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.  Mary McLeod Bethune

It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living. Oliver Wendell Holmes

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.  Reinhold Niebuhr

Whoso loves, believes the impossible. Elizabeth Barrett Browing

To sit patiently with a yearning that has not yet been fulfilled, and to trust that, that fulfillment will come, is quite possibly one of the most powerful "magic skills" that human beings are capable of. It has been noted by almost every ancient wisdom tradition. Elizabeth Gilbert

Peace and good rest to all of you that are facing the same decisions.