Humility…My Story of Adoption
Adoption was not something that I planned on doing to start my amazing journey of motherhood. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I never foresaw having an issue with conceiving. I thought I had everything planned out perfectly. Go to college and meet a nice guy…check (tall, dark, and handsome…triple check!) Get engaged before graduation…check! Get a teaching job right after graduation…check! Get married…check! Buy a house…check! Get a dog…check! Everything was going just as I had planned and I made sure to give God all the glory! Or…so I thought. It’s funny how easy it is to praise God when everything appears to be going your way. Then life hits, and it can hit really hard sometimes.
The next step for us in life was to have a baby. It just made sense. So we made the decision to start trying and I expected to be holding my little bundle of joy in 9 months time. The day finally came to take my first pregnancy test. I was so excited and I already had my cute little announcements all planned out. How I was going to tell Logan, our family, our friends. I was ready! 5 minutes later…negative test. I thought “okay…this is fine. It doesn’t always happen the very first try anyway. We have time!”
So month 2 came…negative. Month 3…negative. Months 4, 5, and 6? You guessed it. Negative. Fast forward to year 1…negative. Disappointment, despair, frustration, heartache, anger. Oh the anger! Why? That’s all I could ask. Then came year 2 of trying, all negative. I was so bitter. So, so bitter. Why was God blessing so many others around me with a baby? And why was he doing it right in front of me too. How many more baby showers did I have to attend and fake smile through then go home and cry after? Why God is all I could ask.
Then came the day that the Lord broke through to me. I was at my lowest of lows. Logan came into our bedroom and said, “Jenna, we are kneeling by our bed right now and praying and crying out to God.” I told him I just couldn’t. I couldn’t even talk to God because I was so angry with Him. So Logan said he would do it for me. While he prayed over us, I just wept. I wept until there was nothing left. And in that moment, God pulled away the blindfold from my eyes. He clearly showed the two of us that we were being called to adopt. So right then and there we started researching agencies and adoption. 7 months later we brought home our beautiful and perfect baby boy.
God taught me so many lessons through that trying time. It isn’t easy to have your pride broken. It isn’t easy to allow yourself to become utterly humble. It isn’t easy to let go of control. Sometimes our own plan for our life and the plan that God has for us run parallel rather than aligning in the same way. But God’s way is so much better than ours. He turned my heartache and tears into something so unbelievably beautiful. All I had to do was loosen that death grip of control. He so deeply wants to give you the desires of your heart. Let go and Let Him!
(If you are interested in adoption or have questions about the process, please feel free to message me. I would love to chat with you!)
