I wish I could say it was pure excitement from the first ring. This time around, however, "I’d questioned. And when my phone rang less than twenty-four hours from submitting our “Yes”, I wasn’t sure what to feel but numb. My fingers shook as I answered to hear the words I’d waited so long to hear: “Jamie, she chose you.”

It was November when we knew we’d heard from the Lord about adoption. June when we purchased our new home in preparation. October when we submitted our application. Then finally, it was the beginning of July 2018 when we completed our home study and handed over our profile books to the adoption agency….

Every heartbeat pulsated in my ears as I stared at the tiny infant in my arms. He was perfect. Ten tiny fingers. Ten tiny toes. Bright shining eyes and milky skin. For months I’d been plagued by doubts and worries. In some way or another, these are common to nearly every mother’s experience. For me, however, buried beneath the mountainous erosion of inner turmoil was a single fear I wrestled with day and night. No amount of words can describe how I hated my own skin for even thinking the question: Do I want my child? 

But on a warm spring morning in a hospital room, silent but for our two hearts beating, light pierced the darkened sky of my battered soul. Towers of impossibilities I’d erected in my mind melted. Healing didn’t come in an instant. But the power of darkness trembled when a single grin from my newborn baby infused purpose into this mama’s heart.