Last week I wrote about my horrific experience on an escalator. In case you missed it or need a refresher you can catch up on my "spilt tea" by clicking here. Up to speed? Great
Last week, there was an important detail in the story I left out. I was not alone on the escalator. Little did I know, there was a man riding the escalator behind me observing me as I went through the whole experience of being stuck.
When I was freed at the last minute and exited the escalator, I heard his voice speak up behind me. "I was wondering how you were going to get out of that!" I had no idea that throughout my whole experience this gentleman had eyes on me.
As we go through life each day, I think we have the same experience. Whether we realize it or not, people have their eyes on us. People observe how we live our lives. Some want to emulate it for themselves. Others choose to judge it unfortunately. Then there are the eyes that come across us that need us.
When my husband and I were going through the adoption process, two of our matches failed before we finally got placed with a child. Sadly, both failed after the babies were born. Both birth mothers decided to parent their babies after laying eyes on them.
The first match failed after we made multiple trips to the state she was going to be born in, painted and set up our nursery, felt her kick, framed her ultrasound photos, held her, and fed her after she was born. The second baby we never saw. We never even met the birth mother, but we paid for the birth mother to live expense free for nine months, paid for three adoption agencies to be involved including a large national one, and we paid for social workers to have lunch while traveling to birth mother visits.
At the end of our second failed match we felt stuck. We had suffered financially and emotionally, but we tugged on God. We trusted. We waited. We pleaded. We cried. We finally became unstuck from the pattern of failed matches, and we freely held our baby girl immediately after birth. Eleven months later, we finalized our adoption and became a family of three.
We always knew that we wanted to do something positive with our negative experience. We wanted to find a way to glorify God in the midst of the horrific experience. So we found opportunities to help other parents riding behind us on the adoption process escalator who found themselves stuck in the same or similar failed match situation. We had long conversations, said lots of prayers, and shared in meals and coffee with others.
There are people in this world who need your help to get unstuck. They need to hear your story of how you did it. They need to know how you were trapped in sin, pain, hurt, disappointment, illness, and how you got out of it. They need to know how God has worked in your life, so they can be reminded that God is working in their own. Ask God to help you see those who you can help become unstuck, and ask God to give you the courage to respond. There is always someone nearby, watching, wondering, waiting to hear how to get unstuck.
"God isn't unjust so that he forgets your efforts and the love you have shown for his name's sake when you served and continue to serve God's holy people" ~Hebrews 6:10