Growing up, I had five strong desires: to be a wife and a mom, to have twins (after all, they run in my family), to homeschool my children, and to have an orphanage.
My plan: College. Married by age 27. Babies shortly thereafter (total of 12 children, including twins). Homeschooling. Orphanage.
Back in the 1960s, young girls’ aspirations to be a wife and mom were common. Unfortunately for my generation, it was a decade when our society started to contend with an emerging movement that sought to stamp out traditional girlhood plans.
My dream to have an orphanage was planted within me in that same decade at the age of 7. I awoke from a Sunday-afternoon nap remembering a literal dream so vivid and detailed that it is forever etched in my memory. There was a forest clearing with multiple teepees scattered about and children of various colors running around playing hide-and-seek among the teepees. From that day forward, it was settled in my mind. I shared the dream with my mom. I had no idea the significance of each detail.
One day, as a pre-teen girl, I told my big sister (older by 8 years) that I wanted to be a wife and a mom and have supper on the table when my husband came home. We were standing in the hallway of our home and she shook me by the shoulders as she declared, “You don’t have to be a wife and mom. You can be more than that.” Shortly thereafter, she moved out to follow her own long-held dream to become a nurse.
Bam. The first seeds of doubt were sown.
In my early teen years, I bought a record entitled I Am Woman by Helen Reddy and played that dumb thing over and over. My dreams took more hits.
In my late teens, I spent 4 months in Costa Rica on a study-service trimester through my college. I secured a volunteer role at an orphanage and the dream of caring for the orphan was revived, in spite of all the doubts that assailed it.
Just before leaving Costa Rica, I wrote in my journal, “I now know what God wants me to do with the rest of my life.” I closed the book, packed it in my suitcase, and headed back to the States.
More time passed. I doubted who I was, what I wanted, and my value to anyone. I allowed myself to walk further away from God, my faith, my family, and my dreams.
The decade of my 20s is a blur of rebellion against God and His plan of salvation through Jesus’ sinless life, death, and resurrection. I doubted His sovereignty and rejected any choice that resembled stability and a good-girl image. I was on a detailed mission to torpedo my life and to prove to God that I knew I was destined for hell.
By the grace and mercy of the same God at whom I’d shaken my fist repeatedly for 10 years, I lived through my 20s. Even so, surviving came with a high price… leaving significant emotional scars and well-guarded secrets.
During the decade of my 30s, I completed my undergraduate and graduate degrees and constructed a professional career that yielded a lucrative, corporate fast-track lifestyle that was 100% dissatisfying.
I timidly entered a time of soul searching. I reached out to the God of my youth. In some ways, this decade was filled with a new kind of fast-track masquerading as a slow boat to China. Fast because I felt as if I could barely keep up with God as He led me down paths of confession, repentance, and surrender, and slow because I didn’t know where we were going!
While packing for a move from one part of the state to another, I discovered the box containing my Costa Rica journal. Thumbing through it brought a wave of fond memories, but I was unprepared to read my closing remark about my time volunteering at the orphanage.
Really? “I now know what God wants me to do with the rest of my life.”
My feelings were a jumble of contradictions. I couldn’t believe I had written those words and I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten them.
I sat on the garage floor and cried as I reflected on how far I’d run away from that dream and away from the One who had sown it within me.
Whether or not the decade was a fast track or a slow boat, I am certain God was ushering me on a path designed for purposes that seemed to be a mixed bag of clarity for me.
I grew steadily in confidence that my Almighty God and Savior Jesus was and is my Shelter and Strength from before the day I was born.
One afternoon while in my early 30s, I purchased a greeting card that read, “On the day you were adopted, all the stars of the universe danced.” I knew one day I would adopt. Purchasing the card and writing the date on the back of the card would be proof to my future children that adoption was always Plan A rather than a fall-back plan for any other reason. (Almost 10 years later to the month, I adopted my first son!)
As my 30s drew to a close, I finished up my MBA and was in training to become a foster parent. This decision seemed to be a natural progression toward my long-held dream to have an orphanage.
When I told my mom about my plan to become a foster parent, she easily recalled the dream that I’d shared with her many years ago. Mom was always concerned for my well being, so knowing this was a long-held dream and not just a passing fancy comforted her. What an amazing thought that not only was my dream a gift from God to me, but also to my mom.
During my foster parent journey, I fostered 25 babies and toddlers.
Some wee ones came and left.
Some came, left, came back, and left again.
Some babies came and stayed as God began to assemble my family.
The life of a foster parent is a treacherously amazing journey. Doing so as a single woman means unique struggles that I mercifully couldn’t have imagined when I began the journey. Doing so without family nearby to offer emotional and physical support means having to ask and receive help and frequently meant being turned away upon asking. (Who knew that being a single foster parent was often akin to being a leper?)
In my 40s, I adopted two babies. I loved being their mom and hated dropping them off at daycare. I loved nurturing them and hated being torn between a career and the children of my heart. I agonized over the juxtaposed roles. Year after year, I begged God to allow me to be home with my children.
Miraculously, by the time my oldest son was ready for kindergarten, I saw God open wide the door for me – a single momma – to be a stay-at-home, homeschooling momma.
God leads. I follow. Simple. –ish.
In my 50s, I adopted four more babies. If you do the math, that means 6 babies stayed and 19 came and left. I was stunned, amazed, and filled with joy that God would grant to me one child, let alone six children!
Life as a single momma keeps teaching me that God has a plan. People often say to me that I chose to be a single mom. Hmm… insofar as I choose to follow wherever God leads, I suppose so, but not because I choose to be single. There’s a difference.
My last two foster placements came to us on Christmas night of 2012. They were teeny, tiny 2 day-olds with thick black hair.
Christmas!! What an amazing day on which to receive newborns! The calm that descended upon our home that evening and into the coming months was nothing short of God’s divine grace being poured out over our home. We enjoyed those sweeties with every fiber of our family, but we also held them loosely, knowing that the case plan was reunification and they would leave us someday soon.
When people asked whether I would adopt them if given the opportunity, I quickly answered with a firm ‘no’ because… well… I am single and I have adopted four children already.
As time when by and the babies’ case plan was still family reunification, the Lord reminded me that He is more than capable of saying ‘no’ – after all, He had already said ‘no’ to 19 other babies and toddlers placed with me. What He required of me was to walk with Him step-by-step without knowing, or trying to control, the future and certainly I must stop answering people with the answer I thought they expected of me.
Heeding this correction from the Lord, whenever asked if I hoped to adopt these new babies, I answered, “We love them and I want what God wants. If He opens the door to adopt them, I will walk through that door.” Shortly thereafter, the babies’ case plan began to unravel and it was clear that reunification with either biological parent was impossible.
Bit-by-bit, some very difficult doors opened easily and miraculously for me to adopt the babies. I never doubted God’s ability to sustain me even though many around me audibly expressed their own doubts.
Adoption finalization
June, 2014
The babies’ adoption finalization hearing was held just before they turned 18 months old. Over 65 friends crowded into the courtroom that day, followed by a blow-out party to celebrate what God had done.
Adoption Finalization
June, 2104
After the adoption one evening, when all my precious children were in bed and I had time to prop up my feet and reflect on the past 18 months, I was caught off guard by a flash of memory.
How could it be that in the past 18 months, I never once thought about a very specific prayer request from my youth?
That long-ago plea of my heart never entered my mind – not even once. But on this quiet night, with my home and heart full, the Lord reminded me of a request that I had stopped praying for following my hysterectomy at 40 years old.
What?! What had He done here?? How had I missed it until that moment? From as far back as I could remember until my hysterectomy, I had asked God for twins – after all, they run in my family, remember? The thing is, following my hysterectomy it was painfully obvious to me that this long-held dream would not come to pass.
(Are you laughing yet? Maybe crying? I know I did both that night.)
God had a plan. A plan different than mine. A plan better than mine. A plan to demonstrate that He is able to do more than we can ask or imagine.
God granted to me my life-long request exactly 15 years after I stopped asking.
The babies I adopted in June, 2014 are twin girls who began their life with us when they were 2 days old on a quiet Christmas night.
God said yes to my childhood plea for twins!
Amazing story, right? Well, all of my children’s stories and the specific way in which God affirmed each adoption, are amazingly miraculous.
Indeed, over the decades of my life, God has graciously demonstrated that His plan was always to forgive and redeem my sin and lead me on an amazing, treacherous, joy-filled, purposeful, miraculous journey.
And on this journey, I’ve learned that it is impossible to live a dull, uneventful life if one walks by faith in Jesus.
I have also learned that God never (EVER) needs a Plan B.
What others might see as impossible, God declares possible. This is one of the many ways that His majesty is put on display and amazingly it is for our ultimate good.
God’s Plan A for my life carries the mark of His grace, mercy, and sovereignty over all things.
By God’s grace, mercy, sovereign rule, and loving hand the ethnic heritages represented in my family include Irish, Latino, African, and three different Native American tribes. My colorful family is one more piece of evidence that the dream I had when I was 7 years old was a gift from God.
I often hear people say, “God showed up.” I shake my head in disagreement.
God never shows up. He is always here. Omnipresent. Always.
Every detail is in His hands and there is no place safer or sweeter for me and my children to be.
Seeds of Faith
“…for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.” Matthew 17:20
“Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the LORD your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6
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