Scripture Reading:
PROVERBS 2
We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
ROMANS 8:28
CINDY HENNING WAS ONLY SIXTEEN when she got the shattering news: she was pregnant. She’d been warned against dating the college boy, but things had gotten out of hand. When she called him, he said, “Get an abortion. Otherwise, don’t call me again.”
Cindy never did.
When she was four months pregnant, she determined to keep the baby. The life inside her was her very own child. Finally, unable to hide the truth any longer, she told her parents. But despite Cindy’s tears and protests, there was no way they would allow her to raise the baby.
After a few days, Cindy realized she was too young to move out on her own or care for a baby. Without her parents’ support, she could do nothing but follow their orders. When she realized she would hand her child to another woman, the tears flowed.
“Please, God, whatever happens to my baby, help us find our way back together.”
Her parents sent her to live with friends three states away. The months passed quickly. At her seven-month appointment she found out the baby was a girl. She called her “Baby Girl” and often prayed over her.
Every moment of her daughter’s birth happened in a strange sort of slow motion, the images sharp, pressing into her mind in a way she would remember forever—March 13, 1983. After the baby’s first cries, for the sweetest minutes she’d ever known, she cradled her child to her chest, looking at her, seeing past her eyes to the toddler and little girl and teenager her baby would one day become. She drank in the full sensation.
The infant’s eyes were open, and they seemed to be asking her the question that would long haunt her. Why? Why would you give me away?
“Cindy?” The social worker stepped into the room. “It’s time.”
The adoption was closed, so Cindy wouldn’t meet her baby’s new parents. She drew in the faint sweet smell of her daughter, the warm weight of her against her chest. Then she kissed her daughter’s cheek and whispered, “I love you, Baby Girl.” Then she looked at the woman and out came the greatest lie she’d ever spoken: “I’m ready.”
The ache was immediate and constant. Long after Cindy returned home, she missed her daughter with an intensity that frightened her.
Five years later she fell in love with a man who was everything her first boyfriend hadn’t been—honest, faithful, and driven to make a life for himself through both integrity and character. Two years later they married. From the beginning she told him about the baby girl and how badly she wanted to meet her someday.
“I’ll pray about it,” her husband said. “One day you’ll find her if that’s God’s plan.”
The years went by and Cindy and her husband had three daughters—each one a bittersweet reminder of all Cindy had lost with her first child. More time passed and Cindy never stopped believing that somehow, someway, God would answer her prayer even though the adoption paperwork remained closed.
One afternoon after a morning in which her firstborn girl was heavy on her heart, Cindy headed to a parent-teacher conference with Mrs. Barnett, her youngest daughter’s fifth-grade teacher. Mrs. Barnett had just explained that a new student teacher would be with them the rest of the year when the classroom door opened and a beautiful young woman walked in. Cindy looked at her, and everything seemed to freeze.
Cindy stood slowly, her eyes locked on the young woman. Everything about her was as familiar as the faces around her dinner table each night. Cindy said the only thing she could think to say: “Were you adopted?”
The subtle confusion in the woman’s eyes cleared instantly. Her mouth hung open for a few seconds and slowly, she nodded. “Yes. I was born March 13, 1983.”
A cry came from Cindy’s mouth. “I think… I think you’re my daughter.”
The young woman didn’t speak. Certainty shone in her expression and rather than compare notes, she came to Cindy and the two fell into each other’s arms. It was an embrace that erased the years in a single moment, one that convinced Cindy she was on holy ground because this was a miracle like no other.
“Baby Girl,” Cindy whispered. “I prayed for you every day.”
“I’m Anna.” Tears glistened in her eyes. “And I’ve had the most wonderful life. I’ve prayed for this, too. So that I could thank you in person for what you did.”
The conference forgotten, Cindy and Anna caught up on the twenty-two years they’d been apart. Anna explained that she had been raised by a loving family who had prayed that Anna would meet her birth mother one day.
Anna took Cindy’s hand. “I always believed that somehow we’d meet. Because I was afraid you might’ve regretted giving me up.” She looked deeper into Cindy’s eyes. “And I never wanted that. Not when God allowed me the greatest life with my adopted parents.”
Cindy held her daughter again and allowed herself to cry, not for the years she’d lost, but for the perfect way God had worked everything out.
“Can I ask you something?” Anna stepped back.
“Yes. Ask anything.”
“I’d like to meet my other sisters.”
With that another certainty grew in Cindy’s heart. She would never again wonder about her daughter or where she was or how her life was going. Because forever more she would be a part of her life.
And that was the greatest miracle of all.
Look at the nations and watch—and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.
HABAKKUK 1:5