When our daughter was born, we found out we were chosen to be her parents on a Monday evening an hour after her birth. We had very few baby items, but within two hours my twin brother, whose wife was expecting their fifth baby, dropped off all the essentials, including the car seat we would need to drive down the next day to bring her home.
For our second baby, we received the call that he was born on a Tuesday night at 9pm; not even 36 hours later we flew across the country to bring him home.
Before the birth of our third child was the longest period of preparation: 18 days. When she was born, we were at my cousin’s rehearsal dinner, and the next day we left the wedding reception to go and meet our new daughter and her birth parents.
For our fourth child, while my heart desired another baby, we had no plans to adopt again. Then one November afternoon we unexpectedly received an email about the possibility of welcoming another child, and we hurried to complete the necessary paperwork. Two weeks from opening that email our son was born, three days before Thanksgiving and a month earlier than expected. We had given away all our baby things, but my sister-in-law tracked down the necessities, some of which were our older son’s things that worked their way back to us almost three years later.
Outwardly, we seemed decidedly unprepared. When we first became parents, we did not have a car seat, or a crib, or a beautifully decorated nursery filled with carefully researched baby things. All our babies’ first outfits were hand-me-downs from cousins, friends, and strangers. The first bottle I gave my daughter outside the hospital was in the parking lot of a gas station on our three-hour drive home. My son took his first cross-country flight at 11 days old.
Yet each time God surprised us with the blessing of a baby, I had never felt more ready; for though our home might not have been prepared, our hearts were. Through our infertility journey and a long, difficult adoption process, our hearts had been formed by the Cross, emptied of our will and our plans, and radically opened to receive the gifts God had planned for us from the beginning. This cultivation of a disposition of surrender, emptiness, and receptivity within our hearts–while an agonizing process difficult to understand and appreciate back then–was the best, most fruitful preparation God could have given us.
Though excruciatingly painful at times, we learned to give God our trust, that He who created the desire would fulfill it in His time and in His way, and that He would not leave us abandoned or alone in our waiting.
Looking back, I can see infertility and the wait of the adoption process as its own Advent season, a time of waiting and darkness where God’s plan seems hidden and we grasp at hope. So much in this season can cause our hearts to feel weary while the world races to rejoice. That empty nursery upstairs can cause our hearts to ache with longing and confusion. The quiet and stillness of our home can make us resent silence, or flee from it. We can distract ourselves in this busy season with decorating and gift-buying and parties. Sensing a lack, we can focus on the wrong kind of preparation, and miss the hidden work God is doing in our hearts, the preparation He desires for us.
But if we can think of our hearts and home like the manger we intentionally keep empty during Advent, we can find hope and comfort in the truth that God longs to fill our emptiness – and that He will. If we can create silence to hear His gentle voice in the desert of our lives, we will. If we can will with all our might to replace the discouragement, despair, and distraction with wonder at what God is doing, if we can resist the urge to know or figure out what it is, we open ourselves to be surprised, as the shepherds surely were. We open ourselves to receive all the graces of this season, the good things He is preparing for us, but most profoundly, deep union with God and His will.
There is a Ring video from the night we brought our first child home in April 2020 at the height of the pandemic. About an hour before we arrived, one of my best friends is seen dropping off a gift from my women’s small group, women who had prayed, wept and worshipped with me throughout my long journey to motherhood. On the video my friend runs into my very pregnant sister-in-law at our front door. She is there dropping off baby items, food, and the most beautiful flower arrangement. Their joy and excitement is palpable. Within a week of being home, we had everything we needed. Gifts poured in from family, friends, and even strangers who had heard our story.
At a time when the world was isolated, weary and suffering, feelings my husband and I had experienced so often in the years of desiring to be parents, light came into our lives just as He promised, God’s plan was revealed, and the praise, joy and thanksgiving overflowed to more and more people for the glory of God. (2 Corinthians 4:15)
Katie and her husband live in Virginia and are the proud parents of three children all welcomed through the gift of adoption. Their first child was born on Easter Monday, the day after she wrote her Easter Prayer.
