Shared Joy is Ours

I learned this fact in a whole new way this week. One of the couples we have met through our adoption agency and have become friends with had a sweet baby girl placed in their family this weekend. It was strange for me; for the first time in a long while my joy for this family wasn’t coupled with jealousy or any bittersweet sentiment. It was really just joy. It’s a strange feeling really. Not having joy in it of itself; surprisingly I’m still a pretty joyful person, but this kind of shared joy I’m experiencing…I haven’t felt this way for awhile. Of course I’ve been happy for people as they’ve welcomed their own little wonders, but naturally it was not without the sting of my own reality.
So here I am in the same situation, but now for some reason I really am just happy. The sting’s not there. Perhaps it because I know this family has struggled, lost in similar ways and as I mentioned before know “this pain.” I’ve known couples that struggled with infertility for years and then were able to conceive and those were certainly joyful celebrations as well; but this is different. I think I am just so happy to see this sweet couple finally have their hearts desire, a child in their home to love and raise as their own. After all, isn’t that what all waiting families want? Just to be a family.
It’s hard to be in this place of waiting, but I’m watching first hand and I see that there is in fact a light at the end of this tunnel, a child at the end of this wait. It can, and will happen. I think that’s what helps me have true shared joy. We shared in our pain, shared in our struggles, in the wait, and now we can share in the joy. And I am sure, when it is our turn, when that new happy family is us, the shared joy will be reciprocal.