The Story of My Life: The Struggle

In the last post that I wrote, I told you about how I waited to hear back from Elliott and had not heard anything. I then wrote to him asking him if he was okay.  He responded to me, and I had a few thoughts regarding that email.   You can read all of those thoughts here.

Since I now knew that his wife did not want him talking with me, I began to realize just what this could mean in my efforts to know my own truth. It may just mean that I had come this far only to know who my birth father was but not how I came to be.  

And I have to be honest, I was struggling with that realization. This is where the emotions of the heart began to collide with the logic in my head and began to spiral rapidly out of control. I would like to be able to say that I was waiting patiently on the Lord during this time, but indeed I was not. While I trusted God knowing He always has my good in mind, I also knew that sometimes that good means that I am not going to get what I want or what I am hoping for. 

My heart wanted more than anything to know.  I had come so far and learned so much. Once the door had been opened and I had been given a taste of my truth, I desired more and found the quenching of that desire bit by bit to be a sweetness that led to me to search even harder for the next means of satisfaction.

My head told me I was blessed. That in just knowing who my birth father was I had been given a gift that was more than I had ever hoped would happen. And my head was right. 

But then my heart would hurt because I couldn't understand why I would not be allowed to talk with the man who contributed half of the DNA required for me to even exist.

My head would respond and say that my heart was right, because to keep someone from talking to a genetic relation when the person making that decision was not related at all seemed wrong.

But then my head would always end up saying, she is his wife and has been for forty years.  She hold the highest role in his life and I knew that this fact trumped all. 

But what could I do about it? Nothing, but wait and pray and continue to try to calm the battle that was waging within me.

I went to the doctor that week and my blood pressure was 150 over 95. I had to begin monitoring it on a regular basis and watching my diet.

My sleep became very irregular as I would lay in bed with thoughts continuing to haunt me even in my dreams.

My relationship with my husband and family was affected as I was so overwhelmed with emotions and feelings that any little thing would seem to set me off.

I was so distracted by it all, that as I left to go pick up our exchange student up from youth group,  I backed my car out of the garage in so much of a hurry that I did not notice Steve had parked his truck in a different place.  As I turned and the front right side of my bumper thumped and screeched against the side of the truck, I screamed. I had backed out and turned so hard, that the force caused the car to get stuck. I went into the house yelling and screaming to get Steve to come help me, which he calmly did.  As he watched me leave in his truck to pick up Valeria, he said he was concerned that I was somehow going to have a mental breakdown as a result of it all. And honestly, I began to wonder that myself.

I began to realize that my struggle was with God. I believed that he had led me this far in my search, sending information or people to help me along the way at what seemed to be exactly the right times.  So it was difficult for me to think that he would just leave me hanging and shut the door so close to the finish line.

I was reminded of Romans 8:28, a favorite verse of mine. It says, "All things work together for good to them that love God...." This was the moment where my faith was really going to be put to test.  Not a faith that was saying God said all would END good, but that he said all would BE good.  I had to believe this.  If I never spoke to Elliott again and never learned the truth, it was for my good. As difficult as this realization was, I did the best I could to keep reminding myself of it.  I would like to say that all of my worry and frustration disappeared, but it didn't.  But God was using this time to continue to grow me and refine me in many ways.

I waited four days to respond to the email he had sent me. I thought that by not being in a hurry, it might give Hazel a chance to work through things.  When I wrote to Elliott, I didn't say much but assured him that my parents, and especially my Dad, knew all about my search.

He responded later that day and said that Hazel still did not think he should communicate with me.  He told me not to contact him anymore until I had heard from him. 

Then he told me to check my email on Thursday morning at 9:30 a.m.....