children of the heart

What it Means to be Loved

I’d love to talk to Mark Schultz’s wife. I probably never will, seeing he’s famous and she probably won’t even get my message, but it was worth a try to contact her through his site.

It has nothing to do with him being a famous Christian singer. It has everything to do with her heart.

Three years ago, around the same time I fully and completely surrendered to God ever having biological children by telling our RE were weren’t going to pursue IUI, my husband and I were hit with the reality that there are children who need a forever home – - and we may be the couple to give that to them.

We actually began foster training classes in the winter of 2007. Two weeks after they started, they were canceled. Everyone had dropped out, except us, and they wouldn’t run them with just one couple. I was so sad. I couldn’t even become a foster mom!

Then, I was pregnant. But that’s another story for another day.

A few months after this, I stood at my window, cradling my pregnant belly and thinking of my coming baby. Loving her. Talking to her. And thanking God for her health.

It hit me then. Not all babies are born healthy. Some are born with AIDS. Some have diseases like Progeria that will take their life early. Some get leukemia as toddlers. And some of these terminally ill babies and children are in the foster care system. I knew in that moment, I wanted to be the mom they needed as they died.

This wasn’t entirely random. I had worked as a CNA for Hospice for five years and had found my gifting – - being with people as they died.

Death to me is not creepy or scary–though it can be a painful event. It is a passage. Just as birth is. I love attending births and I am gifted at being at deaths. Both events, at opposite ends of the life spectrum, are sacred, spiritual moments in which time seems to hang in the balance for a few seconds. God has created me to be a person who has a gifting for being at both. I used to find it odd and even used to be embarrassed by it. Now, I have accepted that is who I am created to be.

Which brings me full circle to terminally ill children. I knew in my heart that Fall day, staring out the window at dying leaves drifting down, that I was supposed to be the mom terminally ill children needed as they died. I needed to give them a piece of heaven on earth before they got to heaven.

My husband got tears in his eyes when I told him what I wanted to do, was silent for a few moments, and then simply said, ” I support you in this. You’re right, these kids would need us.”

Even though we were blessed with our miracle, this desire has never left my heart. I don’t know how God is going to have it unfold for us, but I know He is. It’s simply a matter of time.

Sunday, on the radio, I heard Mark Schultz being interviewed about a song he wrote, “What it Means to be Loved”. The song came about because his wife has the same desire I do – - to give a home to dying children. The reasons Mark’s wife gave him for adopting these kind of children, were almost the exact reasons I gave my husband the day I told him about it. My heart instantly connected to hers, even though it wasn’t even her talking. I had found someone who understood!

I so long to talk to her. To ask her about her journey. Most people I have ventured to share this with act very uncomfortable and can’t imagine why in the world I would take a child into my home that will die. I don’t talk about it much. People are almost rude about it and it hurts my heart. As if my deepest heart is getting trampled on.

Others don’t know what to say. Still others tell me I have no clue what I’m asking for.

Only a very few have heard my heart and offered supportive statements.

Although I realize I may never hear from this woman, at least hearing there is another heart like mine out in the world, helps me keep dreaming my dreams and waiting for the day our forever children fill our home – -the children that will be with us briefly on earth but eternally in heaven.

What it Means to be Loved by Mark Schultz

For five months and eight days
my wife and I had waited
Gettin’ ready for our baby girl
But when he called
the doctor said
I need to see you
and could you come in soon
then something died inside of me
to sit with him and hear the tests
that said our baby may not live to be a year

then turnin’ to my wife and he said
“whata you wanna do?”
and she said…

I wanna give her the world
I wanna hold her hand
I wanna be her mom for as long as I can
and I wanna live every moment
until that day comes
I wanna show her what it means to be loved

so we spent each day,
watchin’ every minute
and prayin’ for our baby girl
and I will not forget the way I felt that moment
when she came into this world
but they took her from the room
just as soon as she was born
and watchin’ through a window I
could see her holdin’ on
when a voice inside me said…

I wanna give her the world
I wanna be her dad
I wanna hold her close for as long as I can
and I wanna live every moment until that day comes
I wanna show her what it means to be loved

I said everyday we’ve got to bring her home
she’s been out to prove the doctors wrong
oh and you should see her now she’s as pretty as her mom
and theres a boy at the front door
waiting just to take her to her high school prom…

and he wants to give her the world
wants to hold her hand
and someday she may get a wedding band
but she’s gunna live every moment until that day comes
and we’re gunna show her what it means to be loved

Oh yeah (what it means to be loved)
show her what it means to be loved
what it means to be loved

There is more than One Way to be a Mother

I have more than three children. There is more than my earthly child and there is more than my two heavenly babies.

I have children of the heart.

I have the spiritual children that I have mentored throughout the years. I take such delight in these “daughters of mine”. What wonderful young women they have grown up to be. Not because of me, but because they allowed God to shape their lives into lives of beauty. When I attend their graduations or weddings, I cry as if they were my own flesh and blood. My husband laughs at me–but then I look over and he’s all choked up himself!

Another child of my heart is a baby that never got a chance to live. A baby whom my husband and I stepped forward to take when we heard abortion was an option. For a week, everything hung in the balance and my heart fell in love. But then the mother aborted.

When she did, I felt I had lost another baby and felt that loss as keenly as I have felt my own losses. Not the same type of loss. It was different. But it was just as painful.

The day of the abortion broke me. As the afternoon appointment time drew closer, I felt like my heart was being ripped out. How I longed to give that baby a chance at a lifetime of love.

It’s amazing how quickly you can love an unborn baby. How much a part of you they can be. Someday, when we have our own place and create a little memorial garden, that baby will be one of the babies we create that garden for.

Still another baby is one that we again, stepped forward and offered to take when we heard abortion was an option.

We aren’t rich. Offering to take these babies is an act of faith. To say we’ll adopt goes beyond our realm of possibility humanly speaking. But when abortion is on the line, we will always be willing to step forward and say, “No, we will take the baby.”

In this case, the mom decided not to abort. Her and the dad were gonna work things out.

This morning I heard the baby has been born and the dad is now MIA. And the situation the baby is in, is less than good.

Of course, this is where some pro-choice people step in and say, “She should have aborted. Now look at where the baby is.”

I see it differently. I still see that baby being given a chance at life. And while that baby is not in my arms, I have interceded for that little one as I have my own daughter. This morning, when I heard DSS has been called in, my prayers were amped up and I could scarcely sit through Bible study at church because I felt I should be on my face praying for this precious baby girl.

I may never meet this little one here on earth but in my heart, she’s one of my “heart children”. I long to be her mother and have, since the moment I first began pleading for her life when I would talk to the dad on the phone and he would say he felt abortion was best. In the end however, the only role I may ever play is to be her prayer warrior and only in heaven will I meet her.

She’s not in my arms, but she is in my heart.

God is teaching me, that in light of the spiritual realm, there are more ways to be a mother than to carry a child and take them home with you. There are spiritual children and there are children that you are given as gifts to carry in your heart, surrounding them in prayer as all odds seem to be against them.

Daily, I continue to surrender to this type of motherhood, realizing with a bit more clarity each day, God has called me to this. It’s not the motherhood I would have chosen for myself – - how I envy my best friend who has six biological children — but it is motherhood none-the-less. It is a motherhood that won’t be fully realized until I get to heaven and finally gather up both my biological children and the children of my heart in my arms. Until that day, I have little pieces of my heart that I carry with me.

When I’m asked how many children I have, I respond “One“, but deep down, I know that there are actually so very many more than that.