Miracles

      Parenthood is an amazing miraculous adventure.  It is a road riddled with twists, turns, and unexpected bumps.  It is also a journey filled with wonder, grace, and joy. 

     Pat and I never intended to have six children.  It just sort of happened, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.  Our first three sons arrived the conventional way.  Our next three children arrived through the miracle of adoption.  

     My boys were in their early teens when Pat and I became foster parents.  One beautiful June evening, a social worker called us to ask if we would open our home to a three year old girl and an eight month old boy, both of whom had chicken pox.  A few hours later, Patty arrived clutching a much loved doll.  She had big brown eyes and a fearful, beautiful smile.  Anthony was placed in my arms.  He snuggled right into my heart.  A few years later a judge made official the adoption that took place in our hearts that night.  We had four sons and one daughter.

     Shortly after Patty and Anthony’s adoption, we learned that their birth mother was expecting.  We agreed to that baby, too.  My boys wondered who would have to share their room.  Patty and I wondered if it would be another boy or if Patty would have to share her princess status.  My husband wondered if we were nuts.  When we received the phone call that a baby boy had arrived; I laughed and said, “We needed another one of those.”  We picked Connor up from the hospital when he was three days old.  He is now a boisterous ten year old.

    Adoptive parents never really know for sure exactly what we are getting into, but birth parents don’t either.  There are days in the lives of any parent when you want to tear your hair out and cry, “This is not what I signed up for!”  At one time we had three children in college and one in day care.  Consider that I have been picking up Lego’s for 28 years.  I have slept in hospital beds with my arms wrapped around a sick child.  I’ve worried when they’ve come home late.  I’ve attended countless parent teacher conferences and holiday performances.  I’ve overseen enough homework assignments to fill a library.  I have refused to get a tatoo.  I’ve lent my son an earring.  I’ve been blessed with tadpoles and dandelions crushed in chubby fists.  Our children, all of them, have enriched our lives far beyond what anyone could have told us.

     Our lives have been changed by adoption, but they are not only about adoption.  Our lives are about family.  

Psalm 68:4-6

 Sing to God, sing in praise of his name,
   extol him who rides on the clouds
   rejoice before him—his name is the LORD.
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
   is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families,

   

Has your life been changed by the miracle of adoption?