{Out of the Blue} Answered Prayer

Awaiting the informal formality of finalizing Cate’s adoption, which was one of God’s best surprises. 9.20.07.

Kristen at Chasing Blue Skies is starting a new, weekly series on surprises. This week’s question is: 

How did the Lord answer a prayer for you in a way that surprised you?

While I was busy praying to get pregnant and trusting my doctor who believed medicine was only part of the equation, the One who really is in control was orchestrating a story I couldn’t see yet. An 18-year-old girl in Indiana was pregnant and praying for an answer to this surprise growing in her belly.

Before we went for what was our second visit to the reproductive endocrinologist in Nashville, Tenn., Greg and I agreed if the doctor recommended in-vitro fertilization, we would turn our attention to adoption. This seemed right for my emotions and body, the well-being of our marriage, and our finances.

So when the doctor said he thought our best chance of becoming pregnant would be in-vitro. Instead of sadness, I felt peace. It was the kind of peace of passes all understanding and I was so grateful to be experiencing that and not the emotions that mounted in the nearly two years of me praying and hoping and trying to be pregnant.

This was September 2006. We had no idea what adoption would be. I was worn out from telling doctors and nurses this infertility history with each medical step we took. I wasn’t ready to answer social workers questions that would surely come with applying to an adoption agency. So we just waited and told friends and family and doctors and lawyers of our hope to adopt.

We didn’t know yet that an 18-year-old girl was about a month into her pregnancy and her first semester of college.

Then on Christmas Eve, just three months later, my sister and her then-boyfriend-now-husband brought news better than any gift they could ever wrap in a box. They knew a girl who was looking for a couple to adopt her baby that was due in May.

After a phone conversation and some weeks of waiting, we ended up meeting this 18-year-old girl who was an answer to our prayers. I had prayed and cried and hoped and wanted to be pregnant. But, really, God knew the desire of my heart. I wanted a family. I actually didn’t care anything about being pregnant. I just thought that’s how I was “supposed” to have a family. Those years of praying were heard. I didn’t even pray the “right” words, but God still knew. And he worked while I waited. And when the time was right, God answered my prayer in a way that surprised me.

Turns out, we were an answer to this girl’s prayers too. She told us that when we looked via ultrasound at the baby growing in her belly and in our hearts in January 2007. She said it again over lunch that spring. I still tell her how grateful we are that she chose life for this baby who made me a momma.

God surprised me in one of the best ways of my life. That adoption process and the harder days of infertility leading up to it were a faith journey for me. I still like to tell the story because it’s full of God’s faithfulness and details that remind me He’s the author of stories better than any I could script.