I bought Ellie Holcomb‘s new CD, Red Sea Road for my daughter when she turned three in early March. The kids and I listened to it constantly, mostly in the car and if you happened to drive past us with binoculars you might have witnessed my failed attempts to fight back tears every time the title track, Red Sea Road came on. “So we’ll sing to our souls, we won’t burry our hope; where He leads us to go, there’s a Red Sea Road.” Ellie sings and my voice cracks halfway through and my vision gets a little blurry. Rhodes’s sweet little voice comes from the backseat, speaking as loudly as she can over the music, “Dis dee song, God will make a way when there is not a way, Momma?” Big gulp, “yes, baby girl, this is the song about how God makes a way when there is no way!”

When there is no way. How often I have felt like this is our reality in this adoption. There is no way we will raise, collect, save the amount of funds needed to bring our child home.  There is no way we will get every form filled out, have it witnessed, notarized whatever it needs, as well as the other 500 documents needed to make up our dossier to then be translated into French and sent off to Burundi where who knows when someone will look at it and decide to send us a referral. No way. But Ellie’s song isn’t over. “When we can’t see the way, He will part the waves and we’ll never walk alone down a Red Sea Road.”  I can’t see the road. But the beauty of that is I don’t have to. God made the road and it’s there. It may wind around in directions different than I expected but not different than God expected.

Proverbs 4:18 says, “But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day” (ESV). This is a glorious truth for so many reasons. Let’s start at the beginning of the verse, “the path of the righteous” who are the righteous? Those redeemed, made right in the sight of God by the blood of Christ. Here is one path that never should have existed whether it was buried under a whole ocean or not. “as it is written: None is righteous, no, not one” Romas 3:10 (ESV). But as Ellie reminds us, God is in the business of making a way when there is no way and He chose to lay out a path which His Son walked up to Calvary so we didn’t have to. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved” Ephesians 2:4-5 (ESV). And now made righteous, our path shines like the dawn displaying God’s light brighter and brighter with each step we take.

God laid out the path for our righteousness and we can step forward in confidence because when the dawn broke over the tomb on Easter morning it was gloriously empty. God knows where my child in Africa is and He has laid out a path to bring us to that little person. He’s already made a way through the biggest obstacle we will ever face: He has redeemed us and made us His own even though we were dead in our sin, running from His light. And we are not alone. “When I thought, ‘My foot slips,’ your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up” Psalm 94:18 (ESV).

I needed to write this post for myself mostly. Discouragement creeps in and leaps on me every step we take forward in this adoption process. The spiritual attack has been very real; I’m often caught off guard. I needed to collect truth to have in front of me for the next step we take in our adoption. To help me remember: God is making a way where there is no way.

As a child, there were few things more exciting to me than preparing for a family vacation.  A handful of times we went to the beach and several other times we went up to Sandusky, Ohio to visit my great-grandmother’s farm. I remember clearly the frenzied process of packing enough clothes and necessities for six people to be away from home for a whole week. It was a process, and a lot of work. I loved every minute of it. All four of us kids, carefully selected our best/favorite outfits, squishing them down into old suitcases, trying to get everything “needed” to fit. Suitcases were not only stuffed with clothes and shoes but with swimming accessories, (I had this orange face mask I thought I was incapable of swimming without for a while as a kid) and other favorite toys and stuffed animals. We certainly had no screens, TVs, tablets or phones to occupy us in the car. Instead I remember going to Wal-Mart and each of us getting a huge coloring book that included crossword puzzles, word searches and mazes. Then we had card games and other small games all carefully packed in our travel bags. We were one of those families that left at dawn the day of a big trip and I  can vividly remember the day we left for one beach trip. I woke up to the noise of my parents packing coolers in the kitchen next to my room and even though it was still dark the reality of THIS IS IT, this is THE DAY, struck me in full force and I was instantly fully awake. I had carefully laid out my “travel clothes” the night before and left them at the end of my bed on the top bunk. I had them on in 3.5 seconds despite the annoying spandex shorts which were hard to get your foot through if you didn’t point your toe down fast enough. Then I dropped down the ladder and rushed into the kitchen to “help” surveying the tiny room with satisfaction upon discovering I was the first kid up.

And now The Lord has a new journey for my family and I to prepare for. We are in the preparation stage, getting ready, doing our research and packing away things we will need.  It will be a long and at times very difficult road, but we know we won’t be alone. Jesus said, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come for you.” He came for me, bought me with his blood and has never left me alone. Now the dawn is coming and there is a child on our horizon. We’re coming for you little one. And He who gives strength to our tired feet, will never leave you alone.