This message was sent to me from a fellow blogger.  Her words of “What Adoption Means to Me” cut right to my heart.  It was as if I was reading my own story; similar in our journeys, despair, and revelation of a mighty God.

I love adoption stories.  I just love them.

You can read more from Amanda on her blog, FrommyplantoHis.

“When I think of adoption the first thing that comes to my mind is redemption. I know when I say that, some people’s first thought is going to jump towards the biblical analogy of God adopting us as heirs. Yes, that form of redemption plays a part in my response, but it goes so much deeper for me. It is redemption of faith, hope, and love.

When I found out our last attempt at fertility treatment ended in failure, it felt as if a nuclear bomb had gone off in my life. Our next step was a hysterectomy, leaving me forever barren. Everything that I had ever hoped, dreamed and desperately prayed for was gone. I no longer knew who I was with the future I’d envisioned shattered. My life was a wasteland. I wept from a place I did not even know existed.

I had prayed many, many times for pregnancy. I knew God was capable of providing an affirmative answer to my pleas. I knew he was capable of miracles and I believed that if I kept praying long enough, eventually I would get mine. I had placed all of my trust in God to provide what I had longed for since I was a little girl.

When that prayer was answered with a resounding “No,” I lost a lot of my faith in God. I lost my faith in praying. I wondered aloud, “What is the point of praying if God was going to do His will anyhow?” I had no idea how I was ever supposed to hope again if my dreams were hopeless. For a time, Satan began to convince me that I was not worthy of God answering my prayers and that was why God did not provide me a miracle.

For two years after my hysterectomy, I fumbled through life, veering wildly between life plans. Some days I would dream of adoption, some days I wondered about becoming Foster Parents, other days I was set that we were going to be a “Complete as Two” couple and I would return to school to begin a lifelong career.

My relationship with God struggled. I was angry, at times like a toddler throwing a tantrum because I did not get “my way.” I wrestled with placing my hopes in Him. I had been raised to believe that prayer was the answer and I wanted to believe that, but a part of me feared what would happen to my Christianity altogether if I put my trust back in him and was again met with broken dreams.

My prayers remained shallow, terrified to rely on Him for any of the major desires of my life. My biggest dream had been denied. I searched for what His will really was for my life. Nothing ever really felt right except my dreams of motherhood, but all I could see was that I was forever barren and adoption seemed like a pipe dream. Time and time again I prayed for God to remove my desire to become a mom if that was not his will for my life.

We decided that I would at least finish up my bachelor’s degree, which would take about two years and then we would figure out where to go from there. I submitted my application and less than a week later, God made his will known.

We received a phone call out of the blue by a minister we knew wondering if we had interest in adoption. We had always been transparent about our struggles through infertility, so he was aware of our situation. He had a woman contact their church looking for someone to place her unborn child with.

It has always amazed me how clearly God can speak. After spending a couple of years wandering and wondering what I was supposed to do with my life, making hollow plans just trying on new identities now that motherhood seemed unlikely, suddenly, it was all laid out in front of us.

That first match ended in a late-term loss. The mother decided to parent in the end. We were devastated, but could no longer deny that this was the path that God wanted us on.

Picking up the pieces, we were matched again six weeks later to a young woman who would go on to become our son’s birthmother.

Describing the moment we met our son makes me tear up every time. There he lay on the warmer, no more than an hour old. The light the shined down on him might as well have been a light shining straight from Heaven.

God looked at us and said, “Him. He is your son. Everything that you have been through was for him. He was waiting for you all along.”

We still had the legal hurdles to get through, but from the moment I met him it was as if my soul recognized him as my son.

When we adopted our son, it was as if every twist and turn, every heartache and sadness suddenly made sense. God had in mind who He needed me to become. Prior to infertility, I was pretty independent and prideful. I talked the talk and walked the walk, but I lacked a sincere dependence on God.

God removed the one thing that mattered most to me and brought me to my knees, both in the sense brokenness and desperate prayers.  I learned what it was to rely on Him. He was the only one that could redeem the amount of pain that I was in. And redeem He did!

Sometimes I wish away the scars of our journey, but now I know that they are a reminder that God fought for my love and for my life. As Hebrews 12:7-11 talks of, He disciplined me as a father does to his Children. He did not deem me unworthy of His love as Satan attempted to convince me. To the contrary, God found me worthy enough to move through my life in a profound way, showing me that He wanted to fight for me as a father who loves his daughter.

We have since been blessed with a daughter. When I hold those children, I am humbly grateful for the journey God has given us. During the heartache, I could never have envisioned a life so full of love. I have been blessed beyond measure to have the privilege of raising these children and even more so, to experience God’s love so convincingly!”