Spared

After a difficult struggle with infertility that involved much medical intervention, God blessed my husband and me with a beautiful daughter, for whom we are eternally grateful. Never a day goes by that we are not breathlessly aware of His amazing gift of her. When she was four years old, we returned to our physician in an attempt to conceive again. Nothing happened. More surgery, more rounds of medications, more procedures. Nothing. We decided to lay down the attempts at a biological child and pursue the miracle of adoption.

After prayerful consideration, we decided we would adopt from Russia. The Russian people had always been so intriguing to me and it just felt right. We contacted a reputable adoption agency, were quickly accepted and began the never-ending mountains of paperwork--in English and in Russian! Nothing happened. Our dossier was completed. Months passed. Nothing. A year passed. Suddenly everything felt wrong. We decided to change courses again.

We began to look into domestic adoption. We didn’t really understand why we felt the way we did. We had prayed over every step we took. We believed God lead us back to the fertility clinic, but then we believe He lead us away. We believed He lead us to pursue a Russian adoption but felt just as strongly that He was leading us to lay it down as well. Would He lead us to complete a domestic adoption or would He ask us to stop this as well?

We went through the process, filled out more mounds of paperwork and began yet another waiting process. We were assured that our profile would be quickly chosen by a birthmother and that our family would soon be complete. After another year, we were told that our documents were never even looked at by birthmothers. We were never even considered. It was then that we decided to lay down our attempts to adopt. Our family would be complete as it was. For the first time, we felt completely at peace.

Several years later, my husband was praying as he was driving to work. He wasn’t praying about having more children or adopting a child. We had resolved those issues and remained at peace about it. However, God spoke to him and he said he knew God was speaking about not giving us more children. “I’ve spared you from a greater sorrow,” God said to my husband.

We thought we wanted more children. We thought our family was not complete and we thought we knew what we needed to do. We pursued every avenue we could to bring more children into our home. God, in His wisdom and love, put up roadblocks at every turn! God spared us from a sorrow greater than not having a house full of children. True, I always thought I wanted a large family. What I didn’t want was a large family of children who would not love and serve God. Perhaps He looked down through time and eternity and saw that my children would not have served Him, so He spared me--and them--that sorrow. Perhaps my heart couldn’t take the heartbreak of miscarriage. He spared me that sorrow. I am eternally grateful for the sorrow He has spared me.

What if we had dug our heels in the mud? What if we had forced our will over His like Sarah did in the Old Testament? No longer trusting in the promises given by God, Sarah approached Abraham with her own plan and orchestrated the events that eventually lead to the birth of a child borne to Abraham and Sarah’s maid, Hagar. Oh, the chaos that ensued! The women hated each other, the mother and child were banished to the dessert and there is fighting in the Middle East to this very day because of the birth of this child, Ishmael. What if Sarah had let God work His plan in her life rather than getting ahead of Him? What if she had waited a little while longer rather than deciding she knew the future better than the One who had written her future?

You may not understand the road He leads you down. Perhaps God is sparing you from greater sorrow. You may think you know what you want and need. God knows the intricacies of your future more than you ever could. He knows what you need and knows when you need it. Even if your heart is hurting, consider that God may be sparing you from greater sorrow. Roadblocks may just be His way of loving you and sparing you from great pain. Only eternity will tell how much sorrow He has protected you from. Trust His plan and His love for you, even if His plan involves a few roadblocks and setbacks. It may just be His way of sparing you from greater sorrow.