At the end of 2018, Joshua and I made the decision to begin the process to adopt again. When we finalized the adoption of our daughters in 2014, we knew that we wanted to one day come back and adopt an older child, because those were the waiting that struggled the most to find homes. Joshua and I went on a walk this last Fall and talked about this dream, discussed when we would try to make it a reality, and decided that now was the best time (our girls were doing well, we felt settled, and we wanted Gabriel, who is in 10th grade, to have the opportunity to live with his new sibling). We told our families, filled out the unending paperwork, sat through 30 hours of training (again!), and expectantly prayed for our new child. In January, we turned in our final paperwork, and the very week that happened, our life exploded. I won’t go into detail about all that has happened, because most of it is not mine to share, but it has been a year of utter and complete discouragement. Joshua and I are as emotionally and physically tired as we have been in a very, very long time. I have struggled with my health. Other family members have struggled, as well. My home has not been a place of rest. Friends are hurting with the deepest of hurts, and I have struggled in anxiousness on their behalf. I have been told regularly that my voice and my mission for the hurting child is not good enough, and that I am the most unworthy of voices. I feel defeated. I feel like I don’t have a right to speak out. I have struggled to sleep at night, and I have struggled to have the motivation to accomplish anything. The discouragement has come at such regular intervals and in such intensity that I am confident that my family is under spiritual attack. I want to quit. And, yet, I know that the enemy only attacks those who are doing things worth attacking. I know that it is only when we are living missionally and when we are on the verge of something amazing, that the enemy wants to knock you down. But, I, also, know that in Christ we are more than conquerors. I know that He who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it. Adoption may not happen for us again, but I know that God has not called me to stop fighting. I know that I am being called deeper in, and I know that Waiting Children are worth fighting for. They are truly worth every cost. I look at my beautiful little girls and wonder what their lives would be like without ministries like The CALL (who trained us to be a foster and adoptive family) and Project Zero (who inspired us to adopt). I look at my boys and wonder what their lives would be like without a family, if their faces were on the waiting list (because who wants teen boys?). My four children deserve all that I have and all that I am, and, yet, so do those children who have no family and no prospects of a family. I cannot stop fighting, and I cannot stop encouraging those around me to stop fighting. I am discouraged, but I am not done.
Please consider a gift to The Walk for the Waiting to support The CALL (who trains, supports and recruits foster and adoptive families), Project Zero (who raises awareness for waiting kids and provides hope and encouragement for them while they wait), and Immerse Arkansas (who works with the teens aging out of foster care). Donate today:
www.walkforthewaiting.org/juliehurlburt
Romans 8:31-39 ”
What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[a]No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[b]neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
blessedarethosethatmourn 