Sitting here with tears streaming this morning after watching Steven Curtis Chapman???s ???Experience the Miracle???. See here. In the background, ???When Love Takes You In??? is softly playing and I have been looking at the sweetest little children who have found their forever families. At one part during this clip, SCC said ???The moments I get the most overwhelmed with adoption is when I think that I could have missed it!???
I know EXACTLY what he means! During this Thanksgiving week we have had so much to be thankful for. It was barely one year ago (Dec 9th) when I told the Lord that I was feeling desperate for another baby and asked Him if we could please hear news of a baby before Christmas. He answered 2 hours later. Little did we know we would have Ty by January.
Ty is content as could be sitting in his bouncer and Tanner is playing with him and watching Jo Jo???s Circus. The Christmas decorations are all put up (I wanted the boys to get to enjoy them all month) and I have this feeling of blessed contentedness as I sit here typing and watching them. Have I mentioned lately that they are my treasures? The thought that I could have missed them???overwhelming is an understatement. How often in our lives do we set our mind on our goals and plans and we get so stubborn in our own assurance over how the plan plays out? This was not the plan. We were going to have a houseful of children by now and we weren???t going to have any problems getting pregnant and we most especially were not going to have multiple miscarriages???that was definitely not going to happen. The plan ???seemed??? to go awry. If I would have been able to see with ???future eyes??? though, I would have seen that my plan was very second rate compared to what God wanted.
I believe adoption brought joy and peace to us in a way that nothing else could have. The things we have learned about life and love and each other???immeasurable beauty. Infertility and the loss of babies was painful to say the least, but look at the gifts we have now! I never could have imagined that I would say infertility was one of the greatest gifts of my life and at the top of my ???I am thankful for??? list???yet it is. Over and over I have thanked God for His plan. Adoption is a miracle. A miracle for the children? Maybe???but that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about the miracle for Jim and I and for our family as a whole. When I listened to ???When Love Takes You In???, I couldn???t help but think love took ME in. I feel that adoption has done more for me than my children. It has taught me new heights and depths of love, it has taught me about what really matters, it has helped me understand spiritual adoption???why God???s plan of salvation includes adoption ??? He has adopted me as his own.
When I looked at a picture of SCC???s 3 genetic children, holding his 3 daughters from China, I couldn???t stop the tears. They understand the miracle. I am already anxious to adopt more babies. I want more time with Ty first but unless God tells us different, Jim and I do not see Ty as a lastbornJ.