Adoption - I laid my arm over my deflated belly. It felt like the darkness in the room was coming from deep inside me somewhere. For hours I slept fitfully, waking from the pain in my abdomen and when my tear-soaked pillow grew cold.
In the moment I didn't regret my decision, but I knew I had chosen a life that would leave me broken and sorrowful.
I could hear her laugh even before her face appeared on the screen.
Every text, every email, every FaceTime call, every visit still makes my heart skip a beat.
For a while I barely breathed during our moments of contact, like somehow the everyday moments of life might drive away this whisper of dreamlike hope. I breathe now. I laugh. I dwell fully in each moment, for I know how many I've missed.
“To all who mourn in Israel, He will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the LORD has planted for his own glory. ”
After I chose to play my first child for adoption I could have starred in any good Lifetime movie. I spent many years mourning. I drank and sought out unhealthy relationships sure that I didn't deserve more. It would be years before I understood that my decision had the ability to bring both my daughter and I life.
On Tuesday evening I sat glued to the computer screen as my oldest daughter, my beautiful daughter God restored to our life and my heart, recounted her week's adventures in college. Our youngest two children sat on the couch with me, hanging on every word, excited to see this woman who calls them her little brother and sister. That's God.
There are so many moments we carry...as birthmothers...mothers...wives...daughters...women...that carry heartache. Moments that feel unredeemable - like our past, our sins, our shame, our aches and failures are bigger than God. But these tender places, places where we're broken open, deep and wide...these places are the places God uses for His glory.
When I chose adoption for my long-legged baby girl I thought that was the end of our relationship, that our story was over. And as long as I lived like it was over...like there was no hpe...no redemption...it was. But somewhere along the way God whispered, well maybe more like the "stage whisper" of a lion, to give it all to Him.
I didn't know what that looked like or how it would even pan out, but I tried it. I set down my broken heart at the foot of the cross and every day put one foot in front of the other to follow Jesus. It was not a short nor an easy road.
But oaks don't grow quickly...
Nineteen years later, I sit glued to the computer screen, I pack care packages for our college girl and we're planning a trip to Liberia to serve the Jesus that loves us so.
I'm still broken wide open in those places. I used to pray for healing and the ability to forget the hurts, the losses and the missed mama moments. But God isn't in the business of denial...He's in the restoration business. I no longer sing the mournful song of a woman broken and hopeless, but the joyous praise-filled song of a woman who sees God most clearly in weakness and broken places.
“Let’s not celebrate Mother’s Day as two different groups of women or with different labels....let’s celebrate as women who know what it is to be broken open and who seek to see God work in our deepest hurts and toughest choices.”