The Joyful Heartache of Being a (Temporary) Mom

For almost a week now I have wanted to write this post but was unable to even start it without quickly becoming overwhelmed. If I am honest with myself, there was a time where I didn't even think a post like this would exist. In the beginning, all that I hoped for was one more day. A few months later though, God quickly showed me that I was wrong; that this day would indeed come. I had no idea that it would take this long, and I couldn't have begun to imagine the faith journey it has turned out to be. When trying to a way of explaining how I feel, all I could think was: JOYFUL HEARTACHE.

She has a FAMILY!

Even now, as I type that sentence I have to pause before tears fall onto my keyboard.

You see, a few years ago God gave me a little girl. Abandoned. Terminally ill. Doctors guaranteed that she would not live to turn a year old which meant that, she had already lived more than half of her life alone, without even a name to call her own.

I remember one night, I was sitting in the hospital with her. We had already been there many times before. I held her close as she struggled for breath, and I became unglued. I lost it. The doctors had told me that she would slowly get worse and eventually she would just not recover. My fear was crippling. I lost all faith in the God who created her and started to believe in the doctors; that I would not have her for much longer. As I sat in the hospital mourning the baby in my arms, God spoke to me. I don't know if anyone has ever heard God speak to them. It's hard to explain. It is almost like He was standing right beside me in the flesh, and speaking to me just like the nurse had done moments earlier.

"Why are you mourning a living child?" He said

"God, the doctors say she'll only get worse and it is happening before my eyes. I don't want her to die!"

"She is my child, and she is a living child. Stop treating her like a dying child. I know what Doctors say, but I am her Father. I made her; perfectly. I decide when she will die and I am telling you now, this child is not dying."

Just like that, God very kindly slapped me in the face and reminded me of what it means to have faith. I knew in that moment that God was healing her, and that she would be ok.

Now years later, I am overwhelmed at the healing that has happened in this little girl... again I pause, as I fight back the tears.

She is alive and healthy. Sure she still has some "issues", but she is a living child. And SHE HAS A FAMILY!

For almost a year now we have been looking for a family. It took me months to convince everyone that she was even adoptable.

The doctors and social workers were so skeptical. They proposed her to a country. She was turned down. They had no families for a child like her. She was proposed to another country. Again, she was turned down. Rejected, unwanted, no one willing to look beyond the paper work to the God that created her. My heart ached. I knew God did not save her just so she could grow up in a home. I started to pray about adopting her myself, but again God reminded me that He was her Father and He would take care of her.

God is good.

She has a family!

I am happy, I am excited; but I am heartbroken. She is mine. God made her my daughter from the very first day. I loved her like my own, thinking I may be the only mother that she ever had; but now she has a family. I am suffering from a JOYFUL HEARTACHE.

There is a saying I heard once that goes "to have children, is to forever have your heart walking outside of your body" and it is so true. It's overwhelming. I could go on and on about how she came to us, how God has healed her, and all the other things that we have gone through together but we would be here for a very long time. So instead, I just want to say thank you. Thank you to everyone who has prayed for her. Thank you to everyone who has loved her. Thank you to everyone who has believed with me, for her healing and a forever family. Her time has come.

SHE HAS A FAMILY.

I also have one more thing to add; I guess I am having a "missing my babies" kinda day :) I just wanted to share with everyone the WONDERFUL valentine that I received from a VERY special boy in Sweden. He melts my heart! Jag alskar dig little pork chop!