The many interruptions and unmet expectations of motherhood are an opportunity to slow down and learn to walk at God’s pace—in the good works which he has prepared for us.

When we struggle with impatience as moms, we turn to Christ as our perfect example of patience and hope.

It’s easy to tell our kids that “patience is a virtue,” but we need the work of the Holy Spirit to truly demonstrate it.

Love calls us to keep believing the best about our kids and bearing with their childish ways.

We’ve all likely registered for baby items that turned out to be non-essentials—those cute, but ultimately unhelpful, items we didn’t really need. We can do the same thing in our parenting process; what do we truly need to raise children up in the Lord?

“My good-natured and ravenous son rolls out of bed each morning chanting, ‘I want oatmeal!’ Within a minute or two, I have his bowl of morning oatmeal ready. He takes the bowl in his chubby hands and says, ‘Thank you, Mommy!’

This early morning interaction is both a sweet, steady gift and a jarring deviation from other elements of my life.

My husband and I began the adoption process when our oatmeal aficionado was barely one, when all he could shriek upon waking was ‘OHMA!’ Now his third birthday has come and gone. Now his sentences have a subject and a verb. Now he’s not a baby, nor is his older sister. There’s no baby in this house, just the distinct feeling that someone is missing.

Growing a family through adoption is not the stuff of microwaves and morning oatmeal. There are no buttons I can push, no clock that counts down the time, no quick satisfaction. Instead, there’s paperwork, and there’s waiting.

The waiting feels volatile and fruitless.

...Ultimately waiting is a crucial element for God-ordained growth. Waiting is not a forgotten, fruitless place but an intentional, ordered place to which God draws us, that we might remember him and practice our faith. It’s not a lifeless place but a place of life underground. In the waiting, below the surface, seeds are undone and roots are nourished. One day there will be fruit, but for now, there is vital work, work that cannot be microwaved.

In the seemly out-of-control waiting of the adoption process, though our hearts yearn for instant satisfaction, we must remember that God isn’t a God of instant oatmeal but the Creator of precious fruit. We must take one faithful step after the other, keeping our eyes on him like the Israelites followed the pillar of fire in the dark wilderness nights. We must be patient, knowing the true work is done underground where we can’t see, soaking up every drop of the rains that come to nourish the dry soil. We must establish our hearts by resting in who God has shown himself to be in scripture: steadfast, kind, and in control.”