“And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.” (Ezekiel 36:26)
I kissed my husband goodbye and watched his car back down the drive. Then I headed to the living room. I was on a mission.
We had talked about adoption again that morning, not about ours but about our friends’. We were planning to pursue adoption through foster care, but they had committed to a pair of little boys with special needs in a far off country I had never visited. When they first told us about their decision, we were curious. And so we asked a lot of questions. We googled a lot of things. We watched a lot of videos on YouTube.
And then we became heart broken. We ached for these children who were tortured and murdered and shut away like criminals. We were angry at justice systems that didn’t take seriously God’s command to speak for those who can’t speak for themselves. We were determined to do something to raise awareness for those sweet souls wasting away in cribs, tied to beds, emaciated and drugged and miserable.
And then came the question. “Do you think that maybe God is calling us to adopt kids with special needs?”
It was my husband’s question. And he asked it because God was speaking to his heart.
My husband, Marc, moves slow and steady, at a predictable rate of incline. So he still had a ways up the hill. But he was starting to climb it. Me? Well, I rev high. I go a million miles an hour and then crash, slide backwards a mile or six, and then take off at a million miles an hour again. But not this time. I had my heels dug in. I wasn’t going anywhere.
See, I didn’t just have a five year plan. I had a forty-five year plan. And it didn’t involve special needs children. It did involve making cupcakes for school parties, volunteering at church, sitting front row at my boys’ sporting events, adopting a handful of adorable little girls and dressing them just like me with their hair in cute pig tails, watching all the children graduate with honors and receiving full rides to college, crying at their weddings, spoiling my grandkids, and sailing off into the sunset with my husband—just the two of us. Special needs adoption was a detour and I just didn’t do detours.
Flexibility was not my forte.
So, when he asked this question, I didn’t even pause to consider it. No way. It didn’t fit into my picture. It was not going to happen.
But you know what? That annoying little question got stuck in the soil of my mind. And like all seeds do, when watered by the life giving refreshment of the Holy Spirit, it began to grow. I did all I could to pull it out like a weed, but that seedling was stubborn. I couldn’t get rid of it no matter how hard I tried. And so, that fateful morning, I was—as I said—on a mission. I was going to try and find a special needs kid who would fit into my picture. A girl, preferably, since we only had boys, one with hair that would be easy to brush and whose smile held straight teeth—one whose demeanor was adorable and cooperative and easy going and polite. One who would, no matter her setbacks, most likely be able to live on her own one day, and possibly even get married.
That I could maybe consider.
I opened the internet on my iPad and laid down on the floor of my living room to do some searching. After signing into my friend’s blog, I found the link to the advocacy website she had mentioned and began searching for children. Nope. Nope. Nope. I kept reading and scrolling, clicking on links and looking at pictures. And not a one fit into my plan.
I was annoyed. And I was a little bit perturbed. Here I was, trying to silence this nudge in my brain, this prompting in my heart, trying to “obey God,” and He couldn’t show me one single child that fit in my picture. How fair was that? I rolled my eyes at heaven and pushed away the iPad.
And that’s when I heard Him. He didn’t speak audibly; rather, He planted His words directly into my heart, much like He’d planted Marc’s question in my mind.
Oh, my sweet child, aren’t you glad that I wasn’t so selective when I adopted you into My family?
And I wept. God was right. He loved me just how He found me – proud, selfish, angry, ignorant, and broken. He looked at me and didn’t bother looking for potential; He knew it couldn’t be found. Instead, He offered me His potential – if I would only admit my sin and ask Him to save me. Who was I to judge anyone else when I hadn’t done a thing to save myself? I prayed and asked for forgiveness. I crumpled up the mental map I had made of my future and tossed it at Jesus’ feet. I told God that, out of gratitude for His acceptance of me, I would accept anybody He wanted me to accept. And I meant it.
In that moment, God did a profound miracle in my heart.
He moved the mountain of my selfishness and calmed the waves of my fear. He led me to a threshold I never would have crossed on my own and led me straight through a door I never could have opened by myself. After drying my tears and taking a breath, I pulled the iPad back into view, and to my astonishment, there on the screen was a picture of the cutest, most adorable little girls, girls I had rejected just moments earlier. But this time it was love at second sight.
They were twins, with sandy brown hair and dark eyes and pale skin. The screen listed their “Adoption Code Names” as Nadia and Nancy. One wore pink, and the other wore green. They were perfect. I looked at their faces and felt a fierceness I hadn’t felt since meeting my boys in the hospital delivery room. I knew those girls were mine. I needed them. They were also 7, which meant they were older than both our boys. And we had heard plenty of people preach about the importance of birth order.
And their diagnosis? Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Not promising. Plenty of others had cautioned us not to touch that with a ten-foot pole. But, all of the sudden, I didn’t care. None of it mattered. Because, with my old future crumpled at Jesus’ feet, the new one I saw Him painting for me couldn’t exist without these two in it. In true Becky fashion, I had started up the special needs adoption race car and, without even bothering to buckle, I put the pedal to the metal and careened toward the top of the mountain at high speed. It’s a good thing I didn’t know how many bumps there’d be along the way.
You know how the story ends.
And, though I’m sure you have questions about how it all happened, please know that this right here—this heart work of God’s—is the most important part. When you belong to God, He truly is your Master. Everything belongs to Him—your present, your future, your dreams, your desires. And you can do things the hard way, fighting every step and pleading and bargaining and complaining and resenting and holding on to your own way—or you can get on your knees, lay it all at His feet, and realize that it’s all His anyhow. When you do that, God can give you a new heart and new eyes—eyes of gratitude, eyes that can see the abundant blessings He pours out on you daily—through nature, through relationship, through circumstance, and, yes, even through trial. And He does it all for God’s glory and because of His deep and steadfast love. For you.
My Prayer
My prayer, Friend, is that you would surrender. Embrace the peace that comes with being poor in spirit. Know what it means to have nothing except for the privilege of belonging to the One who made everything. And let Him change you, as only He can, so that you may become brand new.
Becky Collier lives in Ocala with her four teenagers, Will, Michael, Leily, and Lilly. She loves learning about God through His Word and sharing His joy with others. Becky's time as a mother and a teacher has taught her many lessons about her own relationship with Jesus, and she desires that through her stories, others will come to know Christ as they participate in His suffering and experience His power. (Philippians 3:10)