God Answered Our Desperate Prayer

“For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the Lord. As long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord” (1 Sam. 1:27-28).

This verse hung in our empty nursery for years. We would often go into that room to pray this verse, to ask how much longer, to ask God if we were even meant to have children.

You see, we have been trying to grow our family for almost six years. A little while on our own, a little while with doctors trying to figure out a diagnosis (that was not found), and then almost three years with an adoption agency. We waited and waited and prayed with a silent response.

In January 2019, Pastor Mark challenged the congregation to pray with desperation, consistency, and confidence. So, we wrote “adoption” on a sticky note and stuck it to one of the white doors that was placed in the Sanctuary during that Sunday’s message. At Pastor Mark’s urging, we began to pray daily.

Praying with Desperation

It was a practice we hadn’t done for a while. At the beginning of our infertility/adoption journey, we did pray daily. But as the years trickled by, we prayed for it less and less till it was maybe once a week. Seeing the sticky notes in the church each Sunday as a remind, we began to once more bring this painful and sad longing to God daily. It was hard, but we trusted him with our sadness and for how he would move.

A few months later, in the beginning of April, a wonderful mutual friend suggested I call a lady who might know of a little boy who might go into adoption. I called her and found out she is a foster care parent and this little boy was indeed probably going to go into adoption. Foster care is so scary to my husband and myself, as we had a similar experience where a little five-month-old girl was going into adoption, was in our home for two weeks, and then a family member of hers decided to keep the little girl. It felt like a death of our own child the day she was removed.

Knowing something similar could happen terrified us. We promised her we would pray and we did. The Lord pressed on our hearts to say yes. As scared as we were, our trust in the Lord trumped all fear and we said yes. When we first met the sweet eleven-month old boy on April 14, we loved him instantly. We proceeded with all the foster care paperwork to quickly bring him into our home.

A few months later, this little boy bravely moved into our home and oh how we love him! We prayed over him each night, asking the Lord to allow this little boy to be forever ours.

He answered!

God Answered Our Desperate Prayer

In October, he legally went up for adoption and, praise God, we adopted our son on November 22! What’s even more amazing is that the foster parents, John and Cindy, are not only College Park Church members like ourselves, but that their sticky note of desperate prayer was for a College Park member to adopt this little boy!

As if that isn’t enough to make your heart burst with joy and gratitude, that’s not all. Let me rewind a little: In September, our son’s birth mom asked to call us. We agreed to speak with her and during the call, she told us she was pregnant and asked us to adopt this little boy as well, to keep the brothers together. Through ugly-cry sobs we said yes! We learned that she had delayed in telling us about the pregnancy—as she was living in denial—and was a mere nine weeks from her due date. So we readied our hearts and minds for this additional blessing.

On November 5, the Lord answered in a bigger way we could have ever asked in bringing our son’s biological brother into the world. He is a month old now, and we are hoping to finalize his adoption in court before the new year.

These past few months have been hard, with many unknowns. But here is what God showed me: He is bigger than the circumstance we face. The circumstance do not define God, and God will be the one to carry us over the mountain of circumstances or carry us through the trial. God graciously gave us more than we could have ever thought to pray for. In the span of a summer and early fall, we went from no children and praying in desperation to having two biological boys.

Only God. Praise his name.