The Heart of a Mother

So I was watching a show the other day (Call the Midwife), and the story was about a young teenager who got pregnant through prostitution and lived in a Catholic Women's home during her pregnancy. After the birth, they took her baby away and gave her (the baby) up for adoption (the story is set in 1950's Britain). Months later, having nearly lost her mind from the distress of being separated from her newborn, she tries to track down the adoptive couple to take her baby back. Meanwhile, the adoptive mother is completely distraught from losing her newly adopted baby. The ending scene shows the midwife coaxing this young mother to return her baby to the adoptive family- where she is loved and cared for better than this girl is capable of. As the midwife walks out with the baby in her arms, it shows the adoptive couple with tears of joy as they are reunited with their daughter, and the young mother standing in the corner of the alleyway, shoulder shaking as she loses her daughter once more.

There are many beautiful parts of the adoption journey. A child is given a home with a loving family. Parents' arms are filled with a bundle of joy. 

But there are also the dark and painful parts of adoption. The part that leaves a birth mother with empty arms and an aching heart. There are very few instances in which this is not the case. Even mothers who voluntarily give up their baby will feel the awful ache of loss deep inside, even if it is subconscious and denied.

But as I sat thinking about this, I had a beautiful thought. In God's adoption of us as sons and daughters of His kingdom- there is NO painful loss!! There is only joyful gain of eternal inheritance and a Heavenly family.
He lifts us out of our pit into glorious victory in Christ. He takes our grief, our insecurities, our trauma and brings beautiful things out of it.

This fills me with hope. That there is adoption that doesn't involve the breaking of a heart for the sake of another. That the birth moms of our babies may experience a spiritual adoption in which their hearts are healed from sorrow of their own loss.

Thanking God today for grace and mercy that allows me and you to be His children.