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.