I recently met with a couple who had been through a heart-breaking experience with adopting their daughter and as our meeting was ending, I simply said, “I hope we can help this time around be a bit less stressful” and he commented immediately, “Hope is not a strategy”. That remark has stuck with me, caused me to answer some questions for myself, and has truthfully marked me.Is Hope a strategy? I believe cancer patients would tell you “YES”. I believe any person staring at an uncertain future due to health issues would say “YES”. I would say that parents raising children in today’s world would say “YES”. And……I would say a family in search of their little one through the means of adoption would most definitely say “YES”. Hope is a strategy – it’s not a cop-out for a lack of effort, it’s not a pie in the sky word that sounds fluffy and pretty; I believe it is an essential piece to this adoption journey.
Job 6:8 says, “Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant what I hope for”.
What is Hope? Is it faith? Is it a longing for what is desired? Is it a verb or a noun – something you have or something you do? I think it’s both.
After all the other tasks are complete(the strategy if you will) – the homestudy, the profile, the doctor’s appointments, the paperwork, the gathering of documents, the explaining for the 100th time the what and why of adoption to friends and family who possess a lack of empathy – when it’s all said and done, what’s left? I believe without having and doing HOPE, there is nothing.
In conversations with our clients – I see it daily. Some have Hope, some are actively hoping and some have given up Hope. Empty! Done! Tired! Then what? Trust me when I say adoption is challenging. After going through years of infertility…I can say adoption is just as hard if not harder. Adoption is emotional, it’s draining, it’s a topic that can be viewed through the eyes of HOPE or not.
And that my friend – is what makes the difference.
In the business world a growth strategy involves more than simply envisioning long-term success. If you don’t have a tangible plan, you are destined to fail. This is true in adoption as well – AIS provides the plan. The step-by-step strategy for your families’ growth. What do businesses do when they want to grow and they aren’t sure how? They look to businesses that are in the place they want to be and emulate what they do.
At AIS, one can look at any one of our team members and their success in building their family through adoption, emulate that plan, and then ride the journey with HOPE.
As I have thought about our client’s comment to me over the last few weeks, I am more convinced than ever that HOPE is a strategy.
Through all of it – our 6 ½ years of infertility, our journey to get to adoption and then our failed adoption – there was always HOPE. That the simple truth of Job 6:8 would ring true for us. That somewhere, at some time there was a little one that was thought of, and brought into this world for ME. For our lives – to love, cherish and to pass on HOPE.