Face for Grace

A little over 3 years ago, when my daughter Bayli was only 3 weeks old, my husband and I sat in church one Sunday and our pastor mentioned many times in his message about God's grace. Jason leaned over and whispered in my ear, "our next daughter will be named Grace." I agreed with a little nod in agreement...it sounded fine to me. Little did we know how much that statement would impact us 3 years down the road when, after 3 miscarriages, a year of unexplained infertility and 6 months of "medical supervision" due to complications with the last pregnancy/miscarriage would have us down on our knees and crying out to God, "Why?"! "Why would you give us prophesy and vision just to let us down and abandon us and leave us with empty hearts and empty womb? Isn't it so humbling how sometimes God has to bring us to our knees before we'll do it His way? Too bad we don't just start out on our knees...I bet we'd save ourselves some heartache.

God had been speaking to us about adoption prior to the last pregnancy/miscarriage. My heart was so torn...I was open to adoption but, to be totally honest, wasn't totally thrilled about the idea. I wanted to be pregnant again! I wanted to feel the baby move inside of me, I wanted the experience. But, God began to soften my heart even more. My sister-in-law, Cynthia, asked me repeatedly, "Do you want a pregnancy...or do you want a child." To a mother, that is hard to answer. I wanted both. Most people can have both. Why couldn't I?

In January our Pastor called a church-wide fast for 10 days. Jason and I agreed that our fast would be to seek God for direction with whether to adopt now or later and try for another pregnancy first. My heart was really leaning towards adopting later- I wanted a pregnancy. We began to fast and pray and I prayed with an urgency. I devoured my Bible and spoke to God constantly. My husband later revealed to me that he sort of gave God an ultimatum..."Ok God, you have 10 days. You better work quick." I was a little more respectful than that. All that I asked for was a burning bush. Literally. I wanted God to speak to me through a burning bush...after all, He' no respector of persons. Is this an Old Testament thing only? Isn't God the same yesterday, today and forever? Burning Bush I tell you.

The man listened...well, sort of.