Psalm 138:8 – The Lord will perfect that which concerns me. (NKJV)

Waiting for something to be perfected is difficult at times. Adding that final brush stroke, that last piece of ribbon, the crowning flourish of artistry: why can't it be okay the way it is now — when I want it to be ready?

During an 8-year adoption struggle, I watched my daughter and her husband endure battles that would make the mightiest fall at times. Forced visitations by the court, abduction by the birth mother while they had custody, drug deals going down all around this little child while she was made to spend time with a woman she did not even know: where was the reasoning?

And yet all the time — for 8 years — God kept putting this verse in my mind. I searched my concordance, and, looking back to the original Hebrew, "perfect" broke down to this: "to take to the highest form of excellence — supreme". That's how far the case went — to the Supreme Court. And do you know what? We won. This beautiful 12-year-old child, whom we have raised since she was 18 months old, is ours.

The judge (a Christian) saw my daughter almost a year later and asked to share something with her. She said, "I know when you were going through so much during those years you must have questioned why it had to be this way. But there was a reason. If your daughter had not endured so much pain, and you had not had to watch her be pulled away forcefully to visit someone she feared, the courts would have had no evidence to sustain the claims of what was best for the child, what the child desired, and that the birth mother was unfit. It was necessary in order to complete it."

My daughter and I rejoiced when we heard that. Waiting for perfection was worth it — and there was a reason!Prayer: Lord, help us to be patient with your finishing strokes, your flourishes of grandeur that you put on to make our lives the perfection you desire them to be. Forgive us when we complain about the delay, forgetting that you see the bigger picture. Thank you for loving us so much that you want us to have only the "supreme" things in life. Amen.

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