One Phone Call CAN Change Everything!

As the mother of a kindergartener and preschooler, the shower was often the only moment of peace I could look forward to in a day.  That cold January morning was no different.  We had rushed home from an out-of-state holiday visit only to have a snowstorm cancel the first school day of the New Year.  I stepped in the shower at about 11:00—typical for a hunkered-down day with nothing but mommy-stuff on the agenda.  In the midst of washing my hair, my 5-year-old banged his little fist on the shower door, scaring me half to death!  “What, Honey?” I asked.  “Daddy needs to talk to you,” he said as he thrust the phone around the now half-open shower door.  “Tell him that I’ll call him back!” I panicked, trying to cover myself and imagining the wet mess I’d have to clean up if I couldn’t close the door.  He repeated my response into the phone (as if my husband hadn’t heard my screeching).  “He says he got a call from Mrs. Wagner,” said my calm little angel.  He had no idea what he had just said to me.  I didn’t bother to finish rinsing off.  I quickly turned off the shower, wrapped a towel around my wet self and took the phone from my little boy.

            You see, it had been thirty-eight years since I last spoke to “Mrs. Wagner.”  Despite my attempts to find her, I had failed.  I had hoped that she would be able to share my joy at the birth of our first child, but I ran into a wall and didn’t know how to proceed.  My parents had even tried to find her, but with no luck.  Mrs. Wagner is my birth mother and my husband knew I’d recognize the name.

            I was adopted at the age of 6 weeks by loving, godly parents. I learned of my adoption at age 3. It was a fact treated in my family with honesty, but not as anything unusual.  Both my brother and sister had arrived in our family in different ways, too.  My brother was a foster child, having chosen against adoption, and my sister was one of those happy surprises that God sometimes gives infertile couples.  My parents and I had talked and planned for the day when we would find my birth mother and thank her for the difficult choice she made on my behalf.

            Because my parents had been given a tiny bit of information explaining the reasons for her choice, I never felt abandoned.  In fact, I felt twice-loved.  The thought of being adopted into the Family of God always made perfect sense to me.  Romans 8:15 says, “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba, Father” (NASB).”  The word used here for “adoption” here is a Greek legal term that had no Hebrew equivalent.  It means “in this same spot.”  This word carries the notion that even though you were not born to the rights and privileges of sonship, you have been placed in the same spot as a son under the law.  How you arrived in the family is irrelevant.  That’s the sort of family that God gave me - physically and spiritually. 

            That was quite a day.  Before I dialed my birth mother at the number she left with my husband, I gave my mom and my sister a call.  I knew they’d want to hold me up in prayer as my life was about to change.  I also had to sit my precious little ones down and explain all of this to them.  It seemed like a lot to expect them to absorb as we sat on the stairs and talked.  The conversation was surprisingly easy.  It didn’t seem strange to them that I grew in another lady’s tummy before I went to live with Grandma and Grandpa.  My four-year-old daughter looked at me with her beautiful hazel eyes and said, “Um, Mom?  Are you my birth mother?”  “Yes, I am,” I said with an oddly steady voice.  “Okay,” she said brightly.  “I’m gonna go play.”  And with that, they both bounded off to resume what I had interrupted.

            I headed for the kitchen and picked up the phone, my hands a little shaky.  I was about to learn more about myself and my history in a single moment than I had known my entire life.  I had so many questions and so much to tell her… but I had no idea where to start.  I suddenly realized that the phone was ringing on the other end of the line.  I needn’t have worried. Over an hour later, having been given the gift of an almost-uninterrupted conversation by my little ones, I hung up.  We were all going to meet as soon as we could coordinate a time and place—my parents would want to be there, too.  I took a deep breath. My next two calls were again to my mother and sister, to fill them in. 

            I couldn’t wait to meet her in person.  Six weeks later, we all met in Dallas, Texas.  My mom was able to say in person what had been on all of our hearts from the beginning, “Thank you for the choice you made and the selfless gift that you gave.”