While I was at the conference, I got this overwhelming desire to pray for the "to-be's" (or also "2Bs" since God has simultaneously laid it upon our hearts that He doesn't want us to stop at just one). This whole adoption journey has been a very selfish one on my part. Until now. Before I wanted to save the world through adoption. I wanted to bring babies into my home and love them and teach them about Jesus. I wanted them to know the love of a family. I selfishly wanted to hold another baby in my arms. I even went as far as yearning for midnight feedings, 3am rocking chair parties, and baby food graffiti. Then I learned that saving the baby isn't saving the world-it is just enabling it (while saving the baby and bringing them into our crazy home, and then the reality of the emotional turmoil that comes in the beautiful little package of an adopted baby hits).
God hit my heart hard on Saturday. He shook me until I awoke to the realization that if the path He seems to be laying out for us is to adopt a toddler sometime after Hunter is in kindergarten, that child is likely being conceived or born. NOW. Which means a birth mother is living in fear, anxiety, desperation, confusion, despair, and possibly not too in love with God at the moment. It means a birth family is on the brink of extinction. It means one of the 2Bs is not being nurtured in my womb but in my heart. It means right at this moment one of my 2Bs might be experiencing abuse, neglect, abandonment, or just in a horrible situation where they are not receiving unconditional love and not knowing what it feels like to be safe and know their needs are going to be met.
I'm not saying I'm a savior or that I'm a perfect mom or that I will do everything perfect for my 2Bs. It is a little more like this:
During the first week of October, I suffered inexplicable sadness for our Ethiopian kids, yet unknown to us. I couldn’t quit crying. I couldn’t stop worrying. I felt heavy and dark without knowing why. With tears burning at the slightest provocation, I threw my emotions into the Facebook ring for some backup. From adopting friends, a common thread rose up:
“God is prompting you to pray for your children for some reason. You don’t know them yet, but he knows they are yours. Intercede for them this week, then write these dates down. Once you receive your referral, check their paperwork and you might discover divine timing.”
So Brandon and I prayed desperately for our kids. Were they losing a parent? Were they suffering? Were they tender and lonely? Were they especially hopeless? Their need was unknown, but the ache was acute. So I cried the tears I just knew they were crying, and I begged Jesus to be so near, so gentle in their young, tragic lives while they waited for us, wishing a family wanted them but too afraid to hope.God is leading me to pray for the 2Bs and I can't question that. I can't look at myself as the crazy lady praying and bawling her eyes out over kids who might possibly exist or may not have even been conceived yet, kids that I have no idea who they are, what their story is, or how they will become mine. But God tells me they will. And I trust that. And I trust his urging to pray for them, their families, and their birth mothers. And so, in a few years, when they are in my arms, I might look back and realize that Aug. 20th was a big day in their story. Maybe it is the day they were born. The day they were first abandoned. The last time their birth mother held them in her arms. I don't know. But I know God is telling me to pray, and while it breaks my heart and causes me all kinds of irrational anxiety and Mama Bear worry, my 2Bs are already my babies-in my heart and in my prayers, and I'm tucking them in tight and never letting go.
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