My Hearts Desire

November 26, 1996, I lost the precious little one that I had been carrying for 5 months. We had prayed for this baby, and after many tests and the help of a fertility drug, we had finally conceived Ryan Nicolas. The night I lost him, I thought that my heart would never mend. I really can’t put into words the emptiness that I felt. I may share more about him in another post, but right now I want to share how the Lord worked through that entire experience to prepare my heart for something far greater.

In the summer of 1998, through the Lord’s divine intervention, we heard of an expecting teenage mother, who wanted to give her baby up for adoption. She was searching for God’s will , and had heard about Dustin and I from my sister, Ruth, at summer camp. She told Ruth to have me write a letter sharing a bit about our little family. At the time Grace was almost 5 and we had trusted that God would give us another child in His time. I poured my heart into the letter, stuck a picture of us in the envelope, prayed over it and then dropped it in the mail. A couple of months later I got a phone call from her youth pastor telling us, “Congratulations, she wants you to start the adoption process as soon as possible.” We had 4 months to get the adoption paperwork written up, fix up the nursery, daydream about what he or she would look like and decide what names we liked.

To make a long story short, we were able to take our new baby, David Zachary Renfro, home when he was only 7 hours old. I kept looking in the backseat and looking at his car seat, just to be sure I wasn’t dreaming. In complete awe that God would give me the desire of my heart in such a miraculous way.

David will be 10 this January. He has truly blessed our lives in so many ways. He has grown up knowing about his birth mom, Brenda, and the difficult decision that she had to make so many years ago. Lately, David has been struggling with some things at home and at school. Whenever he would get upset with me he would say that I wasn’t his real mom. These words hurt me to the core and left me seeking for God’s guidance.

David stayed home from school with a sore throat yesterday, which turned out to be such a blessing. We were able to spend some much needed “one on one” time together. I decided it was time to give him the little music box that Brenda gave us on the day he was born. She asked us to give it to David when he was old enough to appreciate it. Inside the box there was a little charm with an engraving that said, “Because I love you”. There was also a card that I had never opened, but saved for him. As he opened it, her picture fell into his lap. He had seen pictures of her before, but he stared at this one for quite a while before he read the card.

Then I pulled out a letter that I wrote for him when he was just 10 months old and read it to him.

David,
You are so special to me. God’s answer to my prayers. I may not have carried you in my womb but from the moment I heard that you existed I carried you in my heart. I counted the days till I could hold you in my arms and tell you how much I loved you.
When I first held you I was overwhelmed with how awesome God is. He knew from the moment that your little heart started beating that He was going to give you to me. As He formed your eyes He knew that one day you’d look up at me and call me “ma-ma”. When He made your little arms, He looked ahead in time as you hugged me tight and snuggled up close in my embrace, and He saw the void in my heart disappear.
You are truly a miracle, my precious baby boy. A miracle that I will love and cherish till the end of time.
Love, Mommy

Brenda and I both had no doubt that God wanted me to be his mom, and I believe that this is something that David really needed to hear.

We talked, laughed and teased each other all afternoon and I even got a big hug. He stated the fact that if we hadn't lost our baby Ryan, that we wouldn't have adopted him. I said, "I can't even imagine what my life would be like without my little David." He just smiled.

I went to bed last night thanking God for renewing our relationship and healing the hurt that we were both feeling.