Miracles

This Mother's Day, I am very thankful.

I have 2 beautiful children, and they are miracles.

There was a time when I didn't think I would ever be a mom.

After we had been married for about 5 years, we were both finally done with college and it seemed like the time was "right" to start a family. But we waited, and waited, and waited, and our dreams didn't come true.

We visited doctors, had lots of tests, took lots of medications, and had lots of procedures and our dreams still didn't come true.

We started pursuing adoption. We took the classes, completed the home inspections, and made a "portfolio" of our life. But we waited, and waited, and waited, and our dreams still didn't come true.

There were many hard Mother's Days.

Days that I didn't want to be around anyone because everyone was so happy, and it seemed like everyone else was getting the family that I so desperately wanted. Everyone was having babies, adding to their families. Everyone I knew was getting to be a mom, or at least that is what it felt like.

We prayed, and prayed, and prayed for a family. And still we waited, and waited, and waited.

And then one day, we heard about a little boy that needed a family. He was 4 years old. We made a plan to meet him and some of his birth family.

Now I have to take a step back a bit...

After the years of trying to have a baby, we knew it would take a miracle for that to happen. In fact, Mike had said on multiple occasions that it would be like Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead...a complete miracle bringing life where there was no chance of life.

We had come to the point of deciding that our next "procedure" was going to be the last one. Period. We just couldn't keep going through the heartache of disappointment month after month. We couldn't afford to keep continuing with treatments. We just needed to be "done".

And so,  back to the story:

We made a plan to meet a little boy that needed a permanent home. The meeting would take place 2 weeks later.

The week in between finding out about this little boy and meeting him, early one morning I took a pregnancy test following our final "procedure. It was too early to know according to the medical professionals, but I just had to see...

So, I took the test, and the test was positive. Wait a minute, I didn't have positive pregnancy tests...ever...and I had taken lots of them.

The test was positive.

In tears I went to tell Mike, and could barely get the words out. "The test is positive." We both were in awe of this possibility. We didn't even know how to process that information.

Somehow, we pulled ourselves together. Mike headed off to work, and I sat down to eat some breakfast and read my daily devotion (part of being a type-A person...if I missed a day, it meant I would need to read twice as much the next day). I was going through a plan that involved reading through the Bible in 3 years. I opened my Bible and looked up the passage for that day. In stunned awe, I realized that the passage was the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.

Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. This was our miracle. God was clearly showing us that He was able to do great things. Miraculous things.

I called Mike on the phone and shared this unbelievable confirmation of our miracle. I was crying so hard I could hardly speak. Mike was sure something was wrong rather than the truth that things were very "right".

So...a week after that miracle, we went to meet that little boy. He was 4, with blonde hair and blue eyes, and bright eager smile, and boundless energy. He was captivating.

We realized after that meeting that if we had had a child when we first started "trying", the child would be exactly the age of this little boy. He was our second miracle in the period of 1 week.

We had prayed for 5 years for a child, and within 1 week, it seemed that God had given us 2.

The little boy came to live with us. We jumped right into parenting with a child that moved through life in a sprint.

I gave birth to our beautiful daughter. Now we had an almost 5-year-old and a newborn. It was exactly what we had prayed for. But it was hard. That little boy had lived a hard life in his short 5 years. He had experienced things that no one should experience, let alone a small child. He had a very hard time being able to trust.

Now I questioned why God would have given us a situation that was so hard. It was what we had prayed for, but now it wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to be able to parent one child. I didn't want parenting to be so hard.

God had a different plan for us though. He had given us 2 children...at basically the same time...and He expected us to trust Him. We had to trust Him to give us the strength for each day to parent the children He had given us. Our miracles.

Many years have gone by now (8 years to be exact). Life has changed a lot. We have been through many hard times and many joyous times. Now I can say that the joy has greatly outweighed the "hard", but there were times that I didn't think that was possible.

God gave us 2 miracles, and He has been faithful to help us to parent them and raise them up to hopefully be people that seek after Him throughout their lives.

I realize what gifts I have been given, and I am so thankful. I now can truly say that today I had a very happy Mother's Day!