Sleepless nights

So... once again I can't sleep. I am sipping warm milk (raw and fresh from my nieces' sweet ole Jersey cow) with honey hoping that sleep comes slipping over me as my fingers fly across the keys. Once again, my head is too full, so I'm gonna empty it here. It's a rare night when sleep eludes this girl and it's been happening too often as of late. I suppose it's stress. Deep, mountain on my heart, stress.
   Tuesday, Dec. 17 we had a conference call with all the parties of the case. Four attorneys and then us. Let me explain just who is part of the case. Birth mom has an attorney representing her. Agency has an attorney representing them. We communicate with these two attorneys much, tho they are not representing us, their goal is to keep the girls with us. Then paternal grandma has an attorney representing her. Birth dad has an attorney representing him. So far we are just a party pro se (unrepresented). The talk was a lot of litigation garble with large words and demands and objections. What unnerved me was the children they referred to again and again were my little girls. MY little girls totally oblivious to the turmoil around. I can hardly bear it.
   January 30 and 31 will be the trial to address birth dad's termination of parental rights and birth mom's relinquishment of parental rights. We found out on the conference call that the judge may be addressing placement, too. And if he does address placement, we will find out where the girls will go, on Jan. 31. Suddenly we have a "maybe" date. We will need to be there. We will need to testify. Grandma will be there. Supposedly Grandma is bringing 40 witnesses. Birth mom will be there. Social workers. An attachment therapist. Six lawyers. All for the little lives of our little girls. It feels like some nightmare that I will surely wake up and say, "Whew, sure glad that dream wasn't real." But it is. However I do want to make it clear that it is NOT for sure that placement will be addressed on Jan. 30 and 31. We will be having a status conference with the judge on Mon. the 5th and should find out then. As long as you don't have a date, you can kind of push it off into the future and try to forget the litigation that's going on around you. Suddenly there is a "maybe" date and your whole world slaps you in the face and says, "Wake up. This is real." We felt that now was the time to hire our own attorney. The other attorneys whom we communicate with agreed. They gave a recommendation. We had a phone interview with Tim on Fri. the 20th. We were impressed. Let me tell you, friends, adoption attorneys are amazing (at least the ones we've worked with). They do not waste one word. They explain things simply yet thoroughly. They are professional yet compassionate. We have high respect for adoption attorneys. Tho Merlin still doesn't know what makes them so special that they can charge $250 per HOUR and he's doing great if he can make $200 in-a-day! If we can just keep the big picture in mind and remember that our money isn't ours. It's God's, for us to take care of.  If He numbers the hairs on our head, He surely knows every dollar that comes and goes. An amazing thing is we received a donation in the exact amount of Tim's retainer fee two days before it had to be sent off. And no, the donor had no idea. Yes, He knows.
   The wake-up-slaps quickly turned into a boulder on our chest and bricks in our brain. The trial is all we could think about. Many sleepless nights the last 10 days. It's too close and too real. While browsing through a store on Christmas eve the words popped out at me from a shelf "Believe With All Your Heart". Once again, Lord, I'm longing to believe, but I'm scared. I want to curl up in my turtle shell and hide. How do you believe with all your heart yet prepare yourself for the worst? I've thought about this, so I'll answer my own question. You can't. You cannot prepare yourself for the worst, so all there is left to do is believe. To believe in God. A God who makes a new star every second. A God who created the whale's song. A God so Great, so Amazing, so Big, yet so Approachable!
       It was early Christmas morning and my tears wouldn't stop. I cried into my carpenter's shoulder and begged him to pray for me. I looked up to see quiet tears slipping down his face. Somehow together thru whispered pleadings to our Maker we gained strength for the day. At the Christmas service the congregation sang Away In A Manger. It was beautiful.
         Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care,
                and take us to Heaven to live with Thee there.
Those words spoke every fiber of my aching heart. I didn't just sing them, my heart bled them.
     The questions pound at my door, screaming relentless. A little girl taken from her loving Christian home where she lived from birth to 3 yrs old and sent to live with her birth dad with a criminal record..... A little boy of 4 yrs taken from a loving Christian home where he has lived since birth and given to his birth dad with a criminal record..... Two little children taken from a loving Christian couple who longed to adopt them, to be lost in the foster system forever..... All real live stories that really happened. Why Lord? Why these innocent children taking the blows of a cruel world? Why children, Lord? Letting my children go to Heaven would be easier. At least I'd know they were with our gentle Jesus. Then... quietly under the thundering questions, under the rapids of tears, so deep and so soft, I hear Him calling. Not demanding, not reprimanding, but simply calling. Calling me to a blind Faith in Him, the Creator of the stars. I hear Him calling, but can I let go of my questions? "I need to know, Lord." "Why?" "Why do bad things happen to children?" He silently tugs again. An invitation to lie limp in His hand and blindly trust. I let go. I give my questions to Him. I give our little girls to Him. And there in my Father's hand in the midst of the fiercest storm of my life I find rest.