This week changed me a little. My heart is forever impacted by a true act of selfless love. The kind that you can't stop thinking about and even crying about. It's big.
There is a girl in Embrace Grace that oozes grace and love. She is a sweet 17 year old with blonde hair, huge smile and absolutely beautiful. When I first met her she had braces and not shy. She had decided on doing adoption. With being so young, in school, she felt confident that God was leading her to go this route.
Over the course of the pregnancy, she always talked about how much she loved the baby girl growing inside of her - always eager to talk about being pregnant or the baby. She always had hope for her baby's future. She even made a beautiful scrapbook and journaled throughout the pregnancy with baby photos of her and dad as well as sono photos, pregnancy pics and sweet notes, all to give to the adopted family that she had been praying to meet soon. She got signed with an agency and then met some families and found "the one." She fell in love with a family instantly - a sweet, Christian family that couldn't have kids of their own so they decided to adopt. They had prayed for years for God to give them a baby and now they were so close now having met our EG girl.
This past Thursday, she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl with beautiful dark hair and a little heart-shaped face. She was overwhelmed with love to actually finally meet her baby that had been growing inside of her. She got to spend 48 hours with the baby at the hospital before papers were to be signed. She spent every moment during the day loving and caring for the baby and then let the adoptive family have the nights. They got a hospital room right next to birth moms and stayed the night bonding and caring for the baby as well. This baby got SO much love in just 2 short days! Exactly 48 hours later, it was time for the papers to be signed. We all met at our church to have some time for birth parents and adopted parents to sign all the paperwork. After that was done we met in one of the admin rooms with close family and friends of both families. A pastor shared from his heart (in between lots of tears) of how brave and courageous he thought the birth mom was as well as how amazing the adopted family was (he was related to them). The friends and family of the adopted family all shared how much love and care this baby would be getting and that they couldn't wait to add her to their family. The friends of the birth mom and dad just shared how touched by their courage and bravery and how effected they were by their selfless act of love. The entire room was crying, touched by all the words spoken. The birth mom was holding the baby the whole time, crying, and looking into the eyes of her baby. Seriously ... amazing.
The pastor and families dedicated the baby girl to God and prayed an amazing prayer. And then there was the hand-off - from one mom to another. They hugged and cried.
I've been checking on the birth mom - she said overall she was doing good. Just has moments of crying for no reason and sometimes she can't stop. Not because she has regrets, she just misses her and wants to hold her again. She has an open adoption and will see the baby again in a few months. I think it will all get easier with time.
I feel so honored to walk this season of life with a young girl ... to hold her hand and cheer her on. I have been the one completely changed and touched.
The few times we have been able to witness this step of faith, I think about how Moses's mom must have felt when the King ordered for all the babies to be killed. She was so scared and wanted to save her baby. She looked for the perfect basket, the size of her baby and that would hold the weight and float. She kissed her baby one last time, placed her baby in a basket, prayed that God would keep her baby safe - from alligators or the enemy, and then gave that push to send him down the river. Can you imagine the courage and bravery that took? I would have been hysterical!! This act of courage and trust in God ended up changing the world. Moses ended up leading all His people to freedom. God used him BIG .... and it all goes back to one woman who made the hard choice to give up her baby.
It just puts life back into perspective. All the small, petty stuff we get upset about ... it is just silly. God called us to care for the orphans and the widows. This birth mom's story will bring so much hope to young girls finding themselves in an unplanned pregnancy.
"Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you." {James 1:27}
