And then the Son of Man, he says…

I have always been skeptical of people who routinely receive messages from God.  I’m not talking about people who “feel led” to take certain paths, or  perceive that God wants them to behave in a certain way.  No, I’m talking about people who claim to have full-on conversations with the Almighty.  Take, for example, this exchange that I had with a woman we’ll call Alice at my church last week:

Me:  Good to see you, Alice!  I haven’t seen little Charity or Grace in the carpool line lately.

Alice:  Oh, yes, the Lord told me that he wanted me to start homeschooling them. 

Me:  Really?  When did he tell you that?

Alice:  A few weeks ago.  

Me:  You mean right after tuition went up?

Alice:  What are you implying?

Me:  Oh, nothing. Did he happen to mention anything about the Powerball numbers?

Alice:  Well! Good day!

So you see, Alice and her ilk claim to receive very specific messages from God, often about subjects that I like to think are a bit too mundane for the Ruler of the Universe to be concerned about:  which city council member to vote for, what color carpet to choose, do they want fries with that?  It sometimes strikes me as, well, a bit flaky.  

Which is why I hesitate to tell you, in all seriousness, that I too have received messages from God.  Two of them, to be exact.  Unlike with my more favored friends, it wasn’t like he whispered in my ear, or sent me an e-mail.  No flashes of light, no burning shrubbery…although, come to think of it, this would be a good excuse for the blighted azaleas in our front yard.  But I will tell you, nonetheless, that I am convinced that these messages were divinely sent, as were the two children that the messages concerned.

In early 1996, Paul and I learned of a baby, still in utero, whose birthmother planned to place her for adoption.  While we were fortunate to know that, for medical reasons, adoption would be the only way we would be able to form a family, we weren’t ready to pull the trigger.  I wasn’t ready to have my world turned upside down by a 8-pound permanent houseguest.  Still, we suspected that our learning of this baby, who would be born in Louisiana in May, was more than a coincidence.  We consulted an adoption attorney, who was an adoptive mother herself.  We told Heidi our story, and how we felt we may have the inside track on this adoption, but that we were unsure if we were 100% ready to adopt this Caucasian, drug-free infant to be born to parents who met through their school’s gifted program. Heidi respectfully told us that we were freakin’ nuts. “This ship may not sail again,” were her exact words.  Still, I wanted more of a “sign.”

The Sunday following our meeting with Heidi, we went to church, and there was a visiting minister who was gifted at intercessory prayer. Following communion, he invited people who felt the particular need for prayer to come up to the altar.  It will not surprise those who know me to learn that I don’t typically–OK, ever–respond to altar calls.  I am a lifelong member of the Episcopal church, the frozen chosen. Most of us are about as comfortable with outward displays of faith as we would be breakdancing during the offertory.  But this Sunday, I was mysteriously propelled forward, and there was my equally frozen husband kneeling beside me.

What happened next was somewhat of a blur, and if Paul hadn’t been there to witness it, I would still have my doubts.  The minister lay his hands of my shoulders, and without prompting or asking what I needed prayer for, said “Dear God, I pray the words you give me to pray–a child–not knowing what they mean in this woman’s life, but that she may find peace in your plans for her life.” I was in tears, and returned to the pew knowing that I had my answer.

Five months later, we picked up our daughter Meg, 12 hours old, from a hospital in Louisiana.  What God worked in my life during those intervening five months, to prepare me for motherhood, was in itself miraculous.  I became singly focussed on this child.  I had no doubt that God had chosen us to be her parents.  We wrote frequently to her birthmother, who had received the same feeling of peace about us. Our journey to parenthood, even accompanied by four months of colic, was planned to the last detail by an expert travel agent.

About four years later we received a second message.  We had been trying to adopt a younger sibling for Meg for about a year.  We had put together a colorful scrapbook which told potential birthmothers about us, skillfully leaving out photos of my slumdog housekeeping skills and Paul’s 1970s-era wardrobe. I carried a cell phone whose sole purpose it was to receive calls from interested birthmothers.  I had fielded several inquiries, but contrary to the stereotype of infertile women desperate to adopt, none of the birthmothers I spoke with seemed like they were meant for us.  I remember one call from our incredulous agency caseworker, gently prodding me: “But ‘Janet’ really likes you.”  Although I didn’t verbalize it, or maybe even realize it, I was waiting for another sign.

Finally, in late May of 2000, the phone rang, and the stars seemed to align.  A birthmother from Texas was due in six weeks, and she liked us, and we really liked her.  And, she was expecting a boy, which was terrific, because we couldn’t see how a second girl could ever measure up to our first.  We chatted easily for an hour.  She loved this baby so much, she said, and wanted more than anything to keep him, but she knew that she wasn’t prepared to be a mother, yet.  She couldn’t provide for her son what she felt he deserved. What would I name the baby?, she wanted to know.  John Hamilton, I told her, after my father and Paul’s grandfather.  ”If I could keep him,” she said, “I’d name him Isaiah.  I love the name Isaiah.” We had our “match,” in agency-speak, and put baby preparations on the fast track.

The first order of business was to move up my tonsillectomy.  The previous two winters I had had frequent throat infections, which had made caring for a toddler difficult, much less a new infant. I scheduled the surgery for a month before the due date, calculating that this would give me plenty of time to recover. Plus, I reasoned, first babies are usually late.

Not this one.  On June 14, six days after my surgery, I was still lying in bed, occasionally coughing up blood, unable to eat solid food and unable to talk above a whisper.  My mother had moved in to run the household and care for Meg while I lay around moaning, force-feeding myself Ensure milkshakes.  At about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, the phone rang.  I waited for my mother to pick up, but she was evidently out back with Meg, so I reached across the bed and whispered “Hello” into the receiver.  It was our caseworker. Our healthy baby boy had been born, three and a half weeks early, that morning.

The gears in my brain creaked to life…I needed to call the airline, get packed, call our attorney, ask my mom to stay for a few more days… “Not so fast,” I was told. There had been a significant legal hitch which threatened to jeopardize the adoption.  And although our birthmother was sure that things would be resolved, the agency had seen countless situations like these go south, and we needed to stay put.  ”I can not advise you to come to Texas, yet.  We may need to put your portfolio back into circulation,” she said.  They didn’t want us to come to Texas and bond with this precious infant and then have to turn tail and go home empty handed.  

Ten minutes later, the phone rang again.  It was our birthmother.  ”He’s here!” she said, jubilant.  ”When can you get here?  I can’t wait for you to see him!  He is so beautiful.”  But, I rasped, the agency said… “Oh, don’t worry,” she said.  ”That’s not going to be a problem. I promise.  Please come to Texas.”

Paul came home that evening, and we built elaborate decision trees, with branches of options sprouting from a trunk of indecision.  We wanted nothing more than to fly to Houston and surround that little baby with the love we already felt so powerfully for him.  But our agency, one of the oldest and most respected in the country, was telling us no.  Wasn’t this why we had chosen them?  To protect us from the kinds of adoptions gone wrong you hear about on 20/20?  We decided to sleep on it. I took two Tylenol PM and got back into bed, my empty stomach tied in knots.

The sun shone brightly the next morning.  I opened my eyes, with a feeling of overwhelming peace and a song we often sang in church on my lips.  ”Here I am, Lord.  It is I, Lord.  I have heard you calling in the night. I will go, Lord, where you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart,” I hummed. The song of Isaiah. There it was. My sign.

We were going to Houston, even without the agency go-ahead, and despite all prudent legal advice to the contrary.  If it didn’t work out, it would be heartbreaking, but we were grown-ups, and we knew what we needed to do.

During our layover in Charlotte, I ate my first solid food in a week: strawberry frozen yogurt.  When we landed in Houston, we called the agency from bag check.  ”It’s a go!” our caseworker said.  While we were on the plane, the legal issues had untangled.  ”Come to Houston,” she said.  ”We’re one step ahead of you,” I replied, and we walked outside to hail a cab to Texas Women’s Hospsital.

John Isaiah Owens is now eight and a half years old.  

I wish I could end this by telling you that after receiving such decisive signs, my faith has grown by leaps and bounds.  Alas, no.  I have dark days, even times when I wonder if this all can be explained by coincidence. There are days when my children’s behavior would indicate that they were sent by anyone but God. I’m ashamed of my infinitely-smaller-than-a-mustard-seed faith, but I’m human. I’m reminded that even the disciples, eye-witnesses to Jesus’ miracles, abandoned him on Calvary.  

 But deep down, I know that Meg and Jack were and are intended to be our children, just as we are God’s children.  We have adopted Meg and Jack just as God has adopted us all.  And I know that in the future, during our times of greatest indecision, if we drop our pride long enough to meet him at the altar, we may hear him calling in the night.

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