Delays and Holding Patterns

    In my line of work, flying airplanes, delays and "holds" are a daily occurrence.  Some you become aware of during preflight planning, others can appear without warning.  Both have a habit of creating a lot of frustration, anger, and high levels of stress.  Weather, maintenance issues and scheduling can take a simple flight and turn it into an absolute mess.  I am finding out that apparently the adoption process can do the same thing.
   We have just entered into the paperwork blizzard and I'm already going cross eyed and straining my memory to fill in the blanks.  Fill out a couple of forms, triple check them for mistakes, put them in the mail, stress out about IF you possibly missed something, and wait and wait and wait some more.  Till the next set of forms arrive and repeat.  I remind myself:  we're only just getting started....
   A self-induced hold showed up completely by me and then I subjected my wife to it.  You see, I was all about adoption in theory, but when it came right down to it, the actual adopting part freaked me out.  Questions such as: "Can I provide for another child?  Am I really willing to upset my comfy little life?  Why is my wife insisting that I pray about this? We just gave money to an orphanage."  Around and around I went.  I really wrestled with how adoption would be deliberately upsetting my life.  In the 9 years we've been married there have been 10 career changes, 8 of them mine. Only 2 of these were voluntary.  So coming from a decently unstable job/economic background, finances weigh pretty heavy on my mind.  I used that to delay my decision about adoption.  However, God didn't think that was a very good argument.  He finally got through my thick head when my wife asked me if I trusted Him to provide for us.  My instinctive reaction to the question was, "Yes, of course."  She then proceeded to run through multiple examples of how God had taken care of and provided for us during some very hard times.  I agreed, but it was only because I couldn't argue with the facts.  After that "fun" talk, I had a hard time sleeping because I really saw that my trust in God was very shallow in spite of all the evidence.
   Life happens.  Jobs, kids, home upkeep, projects, family time, illness, even vacations have a habit of making life's clock speed up.  Where can I find the time to go through the adoption process?  Yep, just entered another delay.  I figured if I kept this up God would leave me alone.  Nice idea... if by nice I mean delusional and ridiculous.  I amaze myself with the incredible silliness that my little mind comes up with.
   It has taken awhile for me to realize that this "walk by faith not by sight" thing is much broader and deeper than I previously understood it to be.  There will be delays.  Sometimes I will be in a holding pattern, waiting.  Some delays will be because of me, some will not.  I need to trust Him more to mitigate the self-induced holds/delays and learn to rest in Him during the others.  The doors will open when He allows them to and not before.