God Redeems, Heals, and Strengthens

As women we are blessed to physically house another human being for the better part of a year. This little life cannot survive apart from the mother. Their very existence depends on her lifeblood. The two people share everything. The woman feels each move they make, and they feel hers, even hearing each other’s heartbeat. Suddenly it all changes, and as quickly as the time together started it ends. They no longer need this body to live, and she must let them go. 

At this point, it sinks in that I may never see my baby again.

Soon someone else will feed her, dry her tears, and comfort her with songs in the night. Another woman will hold her when they weep and soothe her when they experience their first heartbreak.

Very few people understand the adoption story. “She GAVE UP her baby for adoption”. GAVE UP: cease making an effort, resign oneself to failure.  For a long time, adoption was defined this way, and even today still sometimes is.

What if we traded GAVE UP with, PLACED?” She PLACED her child for adoption”?

PLACED implies a specific and purposeful action. This tiny change in verbiage would certainly change the narrative here, right?  To make a choice for adoption is a positive twist on the otherwise excruciating, grievous and wholly impossible idea that IS adoption.

The picture here is a woman forced to make a difficult decision, in a mass of heartache from childhood wounds. Instead, what I want you to see is the light at the end of the tunnel. Not all childhood scars stay red and unhealthy. Not all adoption stories end badly.

The truth is, God redeems, heals, and ultimately STRENGTHENS beyond what we can imagine.

Stories like this one have occurred many times before and will continue in the future, but THIS story, My Story needs to be told. Heartbreak can bring about misunderstood feelings and create lonely places. It can wear a person down, feeling weak and unworthy of love. Crushed spirits cause feelings of rejection, fear, and self-loathing. This can lead to generations of bitterness and anger that spring up like weeds in a garden, and if left unchecked grow and spread.

Many nights I laid alone in the quiet darkness of the maternity home, feeling as if the blackness was closing in around me. The oxygen was being pulled out of the room, suffocating, and making me feel panicked and terrified. In these moments I wanted nothing more than to escape, but instead was paralyzed by an unseen force that held me down, I was unable to move. I wanted to die, and I felt this would be the answer. In that moment, I could not take any more of this life, not another second in my own skin, and then…

HE was there.

Jesus steps in, as he always does, standing beside me girding me up by pressing his shoulder to mine so I won’t fall and giving me something solid to lean against – then and only then I remember his grace, guidance, and presence during this time of my life.   

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted-he saves those crushed in spirit” Ps. 34:18

“Near to the brokenhearted” is an understatement. Its more appropriate to say “inside” the brokenhearted. The best description I can come up with is a warm melting of the atmosphere around me, enveloping my body, mind, and spirit in a palpable calm. This presence/awareness oozed over me, my muscles relaxed, breathing stayed and my mind stopped. But most of all my tender, cracked heart was cradled in God’s unfathomable love. It was then I realized I was singing Jesus Love Me, This I Know…like a child in vacation bible school would, freely and purely without a care in the world.

These were breathtaking breakthrough moments when Jesus would come for me and show me the joy of the new life, He was creating inside of me. Singing to this innocent child, praying for their salvation and a life I would not be a part of was precious and brutal. I would struggle with the extraordinary love and bond being created and the keen awareness that she was never really mine. Ultimately, I was praying for the life I hoped she would have and the faith to trust Jesus to give that to her.

You see, I am forever her birthmother but never her mom.

How can a woman reconcile herself with this reality and not be permanently fractured? Jesus! that’s how. Like the child I bore, I too cannot survive apart from Jesus. Like Solomon having to decide the future of the surviving child for the two women, wisdom is needed. He offered the solution of cutting the child in half so each woman could be a mother. The true mother, the one who brought this life into the world steps up and says “NO! give the child to her so that he may not be harmed”. Where did her immense strength of character and unbridled love come from?

What a beautiful picture of adoption; one person longs for but does not have, while the other has, but desires the child’s welfare above all else.

The greatest strength you will ever exhibit in this life, will come when things are hardest. This power is what you must develop to survive. For me this was never truer than in my journey of adoption.

You do not realize the strength the Lord has granted you, until you must use it to lift another up to him.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” Phil. 4:13

Amy is a Jesus follower, aspiring writer, professional voice over artist, pretend painter, amateur photographer new GoGo (grandma), sister, daughter, birth mother, friend and all around goofball, and an Enneagram 4. You can connect with Amy on Instagram @amydrakewrites and at Hope Writers: https://www.hopewriters.net/usa/tulsa/writer/amy-drake

4 Comments

  1. Mary on August 17, 2022 at 11:15 am

    Awesome blog!!(. It brought tears to my eyes



    • Jodi Rosser on August 17, 2022 at 1:02 pm

      Yes, such a powerful post!



  2. Leslie Paull on August 17, 2022 at 5:50 pm

    Absolutely beautiful! I love that you are sharing your story! I’m forever grateful that adoption is what brought us together even though our journeys and story are different He knew we needed each other! ❤️



    • Jodi Rosser on August 17, 2022 at 8:18 pm

      Love that adoption brought you together!



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