Monday musings which didn't get completed until Tuesday!

I want to write about fun stuff...Oklahoma Thunder NBA  basketball victories, a totally awesome overnight dinner and basketball game date with my husband on Saturday  after an incredibly full and busy last two weeks , I want to write about new kittens, and singing  "GOD OF WONDERS BEYOND OUR GALAXY" with little Bright when he was still here. I want to, but what smacked me in the face this morning overrides all of that. Our Department of State issued a new Liberia  update today http://adoption.state.gov/news/liberia.html which restates that there will be no  more adoptions processed in Liberia and no visas issued by the USDOS Consulate office in Monrovia. While various agency folks are sending a variety of messages to waiting families, the most honest message being sent is really "If you have been waiting for a referral or have been matched with a child and have been waiting a long time  for good news, it is time for you to contact the home office to discuss 'other plans'  "  The door we have been suspecting for a long time was a closed door no longer is at the end of a dark, winding hallway. We are standing at the door and it is closed. It is  not the answer to our prayers that we wanted, but we prayed for God to show us His path. Junior and Diamoh will forever be the children of our hearts  but not the children of our home. We faced that same heart/home issue with our Cambodian children some years back,  but God moved mountains and they were allowed to come home. The day  that I laid down my MAMMA HEART DESIRES  at Jesus' feet over Cambodia's suspension situation gave me the spiritual resources to once more lay down what God had put in my mamma heart  for Liberia and the children we met and spent time with there as well. There is still  some speculation  and expectation that the Special Needs children of Liberia will be allowed to be adopted, but the DOS  update from the Liberian government does not address the matter. None of the 3 or 4 updates  from Liberia to the US have made any mention of Special Needs exemptions, despite the Liberian president saying in November that she would do so. Not one Special Needs child has come home from Liberia since she made that statement . Will Daniel with untreated hydrocephaly ..........ever come home? Will T. the 7 year old with Cerebral palsy whose family has waited more than 2 years for him, or B, an almost 1 year  old with major cleft palate issues? We have no idea, but we have a  loving God , Who , somehow has a plan that glorifies Himself in this  time which to our human understanding seems  so very tragic. I trust Him,  He has proven to me so many times that it is  "SO SWEET TO TRUST IN JESUS, JUST TO TAKE HIM AT HIS WORD JUST TO REST UPON HIS PROMISE JUST TO KNOW 'THUS SAYETH THE LORD'  " and to go elsewhere in my thinking would be to deny my Lord, and all that I know He has done up to this point. I can't explain the events of the past two years as they relate to Smith Soup, Junior , Diamoh, Daniel , and Liberia. I can only pray that our love of them sticks in their minds somehow as real, that they do not perceive that we abandonded them, that the orphanage staff will simply but honestly explain that the country of Liberia is trying to make better adoption laws and everyone has to wait on those people and those new rules.I want my children to know that a lack of permission is the culprit and that we did NOT quit on them. For anyone to allude to these children or flat out tell any of these children that their American families  decided they didn't "want them any more"  would be one more criminal act. I actually did read  last week the words of someone who did say this and I was so angry at the "spin" of those words.  I pray that perhaps out of this prolonged suspension the birth parents of our children will return for them and make a new start. Adoption is  and can be a wonderful thing, but if children can be reunified with bio families, and encouraged and helped to stay intact, that is a better thing. IF God uses this suspension to renew hope for birth families who gave up children out of desperation or  a thought of a better chance for their child in America over being in their own family, so much the better. I know that is the "ideal" and will not be the case for all of the orphaned children of any country, but it is my prayer nonetheless.  Adoption is a tool of God without a doubt. I pray often that adoption be what God intended it to be and not the ugly, dishonest, divisive mess that it has become in so many places . When a country does not value its children, it is not going to place priority on clean , ethical adoption practices. When that presents as the case, it is not valiant to keep fighting that govenment, it is "beating at windwmills "  and you know what I mean by that if you have ever seen or read "Man of LaMancha". This Liberian suspension has a lot of people blaming other people. All that serves no purpose. New laws need to be written realistically and implemented quickly. There are far too many true orphans in Liberia who need laws which will enable them to be  safely adopted  if there is no other possible  viable option for them. For those of us who are not able to complete adoptions any more and for those children, I grieve. Being the eternal optimist that I am, I have hope for the future that one day adoptions will re-start and many chidlren will be welcomed into loving forever families. Right now I am also sad that for us: the Smiths at Calico Acres and the Coopers who never quite got to become official Smiths. Smith Soup  will forever  have some missing ingredients........... very lightly stated  its like a note on the side of a recipe in a cookbook,,"ingredients unavailable"...........the "recipe" has been forever chaged from what we thought it would be. And the other thing that I see is that we have a prayer committment that can not be allowed to go "out of sight, out of mind" regardless of whom else God may bring into our family. Junior and Diamoh will be the Smiths who are absent; they did not cease to exist. 
The words of the song  "Unfailing Love are flooding my mind....
."Your Unfailing Love "by Reuben Morgan
"When the darkness fills my senses
When my blindness keeps me from your touch
Jesus come
When my burden keeps me doubting
When my memories take the place of you
Jesus come
And I'll follow you there
To the place where we meet
And I'll lay down my pride
As you search me again
Your unfailing love, your unfailing love
Your unfailing love........... over me again."
Praying this  over Junior and Diamoh: God's unfailing love  all around them, in and though them, regardless of what anythng looks like.......singing it to them over the miles. Jesus come!