You know my name, my wife's name, our jobs. You've seen pictures of us, our day-to-day life, and our big, crazy family. You know how we handle and resolve conflict, our mindset on dating and what makes a marriage work. You've seen pictures of our son's nursery, pictures of our friends, and pictures of the church where we dedicated our son to the Lord when he was barely 6 weeks old. You know so many intimate details about our life that we compiled into our profile book.
We know your name. We know the part of the country where you live. We know your medical background. We know how you describe yourself and your temperament. We know about the medical history of your family. We have not met in person, yet we share the most intimate bond imaginable. For you made the bravest choice possible and gave life to this little man who's snoozing away soundly across the hall as I write this, and in so doing, you helped bring about a family in this home.
Birth mother, on this first Thanksgiving for my family of three, I am eternally grateful for you. Yes because you gave my wife & me a son, but for so much more than that. Thank you for looking outside of what was easy, convenient, or practical and choosing a selfless act of love instead. Thank you for honoring life and for giving this chubby-cheeked boy a life, hope, and a future. Thank you for giving me and my wife the family we have prayed for for years. I cannot imagine the difficulty of your choice and the thoughts that went through your mind.
Today, as we hope to do each day, we honor you in our home. We speak with our 8-month-old openly about you and how brave, how selfless, and how bold you are. He has heard your name countless times. He has heard us pray for you by name. And I pray as he ages and especially as he approaches young adulthood, that he truly understands the impact of you on his life. We want him to know how much you have impacted his life, our lives, and the lives of generations to come with a single, selfless choice.
While we may not meet in the flesh any time in the near future, we pray that we meet on the other side of eternity. We pray for your relationship with Christ regularly, and we pray that we can share in the joy of being brothers and sisters in Christ with you. There are so many other things that I want to say, because "Thank you" just doesn't seem to be enough. But I do want you to know that we love you, we appreciate who you are, and we are always grateful for your love.
Do you ever consider the impact of a single choice on your life? And I mean truly think about the weight of how that choice could mold the rest of your life? I recently listened to a book (one which I wouldn't recommend) that looked at different versions of individuals' lives and how Version 1 of Person A's life intersecting with Version 3 of Person B's life could produce a completely different outcome than Version 2 intersected with the same Version 3. And that got my wheels spinning.
Something I don't often share is that I did not officially begin college at my alma mater. I spent the first 2.5 weeks of my college career at the rival school across town. It was essentially the antithesis of my high school experience and one I swore I didn't need repeated for the next 4 years of my life. Turns out, I was miserable and cried nearly every single day. I eventually was able to transfer to the college that helped mold me into who I am today.
I remember the day I went to buy my books at my new school. It was about 3:00 in the afternoon before a hurricane was about to blow in, and I pulled into the bookstore parking lot where I saw a high school classmate and close friend, who had no idea of my plans to transfer (remember, this was pre-facebook). She immediately began jumping around and yelling as she say my car. We hugged and laughed and cried and caught up briefly before I went to buy my books. When classes began after the storm, she introduced me to a friend of hers in our literature class who she had met during SGA activities.
That mutual friend thought I was the biggest snob on the planet, and I thought she had no goals for her life. But I was drawn to her smile, her laugh, her zeal and passion for life. Over the next 7 years, a friendship developed into something more and we eventually could no longer be "just friends." I'm sure you can guess who that friend was. What if I hadn't transferred schools? I would have missed spending life with the one who God created specifically for me. I could have potentially missed a great deal of love, laughter, and some good eats.
If you didn't know me before my wife and I were married, you are probably not aware of the other choice that impacted our life. In the early planning phases of our engagement, we originally wanted a long engagement and to be married in the late fall of 2012. But the stress and noise of wedding planning caused us to change our wedding plans to a small family ceremony in the spring. April 2012 to be exact.
If you remember the details of our adoption journey, you know that we were unable to file papers to adopt until our third anniversary. We filed them on that day; we had a great meal at home, spend the night in our pjs, and clicked submit to God's plan for our family that night. We spent the next 6 months in counseling, interviews, and home study before beginning the matching process in October 2015 (which would not have been our 3-year anniversary had we not moved the date of our wedding). We waited for 5 months which were at times excruciating and at times joyous as we savored the final days of "just us." And on our fourth anniversary, we received the summary of our little man that God had chosen for us.
What if we hadn't chosen to change our wedding date? What if we weren't in the matching phase when our son's birth mother began to make her brave choice? I know that our son would have certainly been matched and placed with a loving family who would raise him to honor and serve God. I am not saying by any means that we are the supreme parents who have ultimately done some good deed. I am saying that God wove our story together in such an intricate way that even a choice such as the university I chose to attend or the date on which my wife and I chose to marry altered the course of my life, my family's life, and essentially generations to come.
Our God is in the details. As we sang in church this morning, He will not be delayed. He sets plans into motion and weaves together the threads of our stories in such major ways before we even realize that the loom is being threaded. Today, I am thankful for the day in 2004 that brought me to my knees and caused me to change what I thought was my plan for life. I am thankful for the day when I met that girl who thought I was a snob. I am thankful for the night we sat in her apartment and felt that tug on out hearts to change our plans to His plan. And I am thankful for every day with my family of 3. This is us, and I am thankful for us.
