As we look forward to celebrating Mother’s Day this week, I would like to share with you how I became a mother through adoption, and the hope God gave me as we waited for our forever family to begin. God knows the way I take, even when I can’t see where I’m going.
2MefromHim Devotional
“But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold.”Job 23:10
Five years of wanting a baby, four years of testing and treatments and still no baby. My questions to God and the desire for a child grew stronger all the time. No matter what the doctor did, I was not going to have children and so we began adoption proceedings.
One of my dearest friends called me, struggling with the timing of her pregnancy. I know the answer I gave came from the Holy Spirit and not myself. “God could easily have given me the baby. He wants you to be pregnant as much as He wants me not to.”
When her baby was born, they recognized him as the gift God intended. Nineteen months after beginning the adoption process, I went shopping for a baby gift for yet another friend. I had prayed to have one baby before she had two. Later, I realized that our son is three days older than her daughter, though we didn’t get him until he was three weeks old.
The light on the answering machine was flashing when I returned from shopping and I called my husband. “Honey,” he said, “the agency called. You’re going to be a mother tomorrow!”
Less than twenty-four hours later we stood in the tiny chapel at the agency as they laid a beautiful baby boy in my arms. In that instant I knew that we waited because our baby hadn’t been born yet. This was the answer to our prayers—the child intended by God from the beginning of time to be ours.
We learned many valuable lessons; God’s comfort is always there and once we have received it, we are to comfort others. God’s timing perfectly teaches what He wants us to learn. His ways are far above anything we can understand, but they are always for our benefit and His glory.
God knows the way He causes us to take may not be of our choosing, but we become more like Him as we follow it. He knows that the road is often painful, but the testing purifies us just as fire brings the impurities out of gold and makes it shine.
© Copyright Norma Gail Thurston Holtman, April 21, 2011
Revised May 19, 2011
About the author:
Norma Gail’s contemporary Christian romance, Land of My Dreams, released in 2014. She is a Bible study leader, and writes devotionals for ChristianDevotions.us, StitchesthruTime blog, and “The Secret Place.” She belongs to American Christian Fiction Writers, Romance Writers of America, and the New Mexico Christian Novelists. She is married and has two adult children.
Connect with Norma:
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorNormaGail
https://plus.google.com/b/102717101441594679714/+Normagail/about/p/pub
http://pinterest.com/normagailth/boards/
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7874459.Norma_Gail
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/norma-gail-thurston-holtman/42/71a/3b2
https://twitter.com/Norma_Gail
Book Links:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Land-My-Dreams-Norma-Gail/dp/1941103170/ or
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/land-of-my-dreams-norma-gail/1119606864 ?ean=9781941103173
Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas Bookstore: http://store.lpcbooks.com/product/land-of-my-dreams/
4 Comments
Love the verse you chose, Norma Gail. I don’t think I’ve ever meditated on it. Your story is so sweet. Thank you for helping with perspective, as Mother’s Day approaches. So many need to hear a story like yours.
Thank you, Bonnie! It is one of my most treasured memories. My kids are such blessings! I cannot imagine life without them!
Wow, what a testimony! Thank you so much for reading it, you must have such a humble heart to see goods timing in all situations. I’m sure that you are a wonderful mum.
Thanks for your encouraging comments!