But God... Part 3

(This story is the third of three, exploring why God allows circumstances and events to happen.)

Why Didn’t She Want Me?

When our older son, adopted when he was five-days-old, was around eight years old, he and the son of my dearest friend were outside playing.  Suddenly, he came tearing into the house and stood in front of me, as he uttered the words I had dreaded hearing for more than eight years:  “Mom, Lee said you’re not my real mother.”

As my heart sank to my feet, I cried out, silently, to the Lord for help.  Our son knew he was adopted.  It is a part of the fabric of his testimony.  Our younger son, on occasion, asked why he couldn’t be adopted, too.  However, neither of them had ever equated it in any way with my being a “real mommy” or not.  I tried to still the pounding in my mind, listening to the Holy Spirit and choosing each word very carefully.

As I struggled to answer our son’s question, I said, “Son, it depends on what you mean by ‘real mom.’ If you mean did I carry you inside of me, no.  I was broken inside, and another precious woman carried you inside of her for nine months.  However, God expects much more from a mother than only carrying a baby inside.  I couldn’t carry you inside of me, but I have always loved you.  I have stayed up with you all night when you were sick.  I have taught you what you need to be learning.  I have disciplined you when you needed it, and I have taught you about Jesus.  I would even give my life for you.  I have always tried to be a ‘real mom’ in that way.”

Listening, intently, our son looked up at me and asked one of those questions of all questions, “Why didn’t the woman who carried me inside of her want me?”

In my personal quiet time, I had been studying one of my favorite passages in all of God’s Word, Psalm 139.  O, Lord.  You have searched me.  You know when I sit down, when I stand up, and you understand my very thoughts.  You encircle me, you are behind me, before me, and beneath me…  If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there, your hand leads me and your right hand holds me.

Quietly, I began to hear the rest of that chapter in my heart and I knew how to answer our son.  I reached for my Bible, held it up, and asked our son, “What is this book?”  He answered, “It’s God’s Word.” I asked, “Do you believe it,”  “Yes,” he responded.

I turned to Psalm 139 and begin reading to him from verse 13 through verse 16:  For you have possessed everything about me in my mother’s womb… I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works…  Nothing about me was hidden from you, and you saw everything about me before it ever was.  You wrote down all of my days and everything about me before they ever were.  (Paraphrased)

As I paused, I asked our son, “Do you understand what this is saying?”

As understanding dawned upon his face, he said, “God wrote down everything in His book about me before I ever was?”

“Yes,” I said, “and when it came down to parents, God wrote down two moms and two dads.  He wrote down your precious birth parents, who gave you a physical life.  Then, he looked across eternity and your personality, and He said, ‘Now, that boy is going to need someone who will love him with hard-headed determination, just like he is strong-willed, and He wrote down my name and your dad’s name.”

Scott said, with acceptance in his voice, “So, you have always been my mom.”

Joyously, I replied, “Yes, Sweetheart, and you have always been our son.”

As he turned to run back outside, he looked back and said, “Good thing she didn’t try to keep me, huh?  You would have had to come looking for me.”

As he returned, happily, to playing, I was reminded of Romans 8:14-15 and its wonderful promise to those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and have experienced the amazing grace of the spirit of adoption.  I have been adopted into the family of believers, and, as the mother of both an adopted child and a birth child, I can tell you that in my heart, there is no distinction.  I love them both with all of my heart and would, indeed, be willing to die for each of them.  Yet, God loved me enough to allow His only begotten Son to die for me that the cost of my adoption might be paid.  How precious it is to be a child of the King, an heir of the Father, and a joint-heir of Jesus Christ.

You, too, are a wanted child.  Have you accepted the gift of belonging from your Heavenly Father?

© 2010 Gerry Sisk

(04/21/10)