Australia

We attended a day long class for our adoption last week, the first step in completing our home study.  It was a day full of lots of information and lots of emotion, tears, laughter, joy and fear.  We met adoptive parents and a birth mother, all of whom had so much to share.  The Executive Director of our agency shared a lovely poem with us.  I thought I would share it with you all:
..........
Adoption is a Long Journey
Different Trips to the Same Place

By Diane Annitage

Deciding to have a baby is like planning a trip to Australia.  You've heard it's a wonderful place, you've read many guidebooks and feel certain you're ready to go.  Everyone you know has traveled there by plane.  They say it can be a turbulent flight with occasional rough landings, but you can look forward to being pampered on the trip.

So you go to the airport and ask the ticket agent for a ticket to Australia.  All around you, excited people are boarding planes for Australia.  It seems there is not seat for you; you'll have to wait for the next flight.  Impatient, but anticipating a wonderful trip, you wait  -and wait - and wait.  Flights to Australia come and go.  People say silly things like, "Relax, you'll get on a flight soon."  Other people actually get on a plane and then cancel their trip, to which you cry, "It's not fair!"

After a long time the ticket agent tells you, "I'm sorry, we're not going to be able to get you on a plane to Australia.  Perhaps you should think about going by boat."

"By boat!" you say.  "Going by boat will take a very long time and it costs a great deal of money.  I really had my heart set on going by plane."  So you go home and think about not going to Australia at all.  You wonder if Australia will be as beautiful if you approach it by sea rather than air.  But you have long dreamed of this wonderful place, and finally you decide to travel by boat.

It is a long trip, many months over rough seas.  No one pampers you.  You wonder if you will ever see Australia.  Meanwhile, your friends have flown back and forth to Australia two or three more times, marveling about each trip.

Then, one glorious day, the boat docks in Australia.  It is more exquisite than you ever imagined, and the beauty is magnified by your long days at sea.  You have made many wonderful friends during your voyage, and you find yourself comparing stories with others who also traveled by sea rather than by air.

People continue to fly to Australia as often as they like, but you are able to travel only once, perhaps twice,  Some say things like, "Oh, be glad you didn't fly.  My flight was horrible; traveling by sea is so easy."

You will always wonder what it would have been like to fly to Australia.  Still, you know God blessed you with a special appreciation of Australia, and the beauty of Australia is not in the way you get there, but in the place itself.
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We've been to Australia by plane.  We absolutely cannot wait to see it again, by boat.

Comments

  1. Somehow I missed your previous elephant post. The closest I came to adoption was writing an adoption recommendation letter for a friend. Somehow her baby arrived quickly from Brazil. Her Hubby is Italian, so father and son look alike. They named him Mario and he is about nine now.

    Hoping everything goes as smoothly for you.

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  2. Great poem, I do love the metaphor. And congrats to you all!

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  3. A beautiful poem and a wonderful analogy. Good luck to you with the adoption!

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