He Answered with a Rainstorm: Thankfullness for Family

I remember the prayers I used to say, staring out the window at the heat waves rising from the pavement.  The summer dirt opened up, parched and begging for rain.  I peered down deep and wondered if a penny dropped in the cracks would fall out in China.  I heard the grown-ups talking about failing crops, worry dripping from their voices in the hot summer sun.

And so I prayed for rain.

And when it came, torrential and thundering, I knew with a 3-year-old’s confidence that God had come to town.  Looking up at the glowing blue sky, awash in the golden light that comes after the summer rains on the Texas Plains, I knew He had heard my prayers.

It is one of my earliest memories.  And that golden-blue, after-the-rain color is still my favorite of all.

And so I boldly asked for more.  “God, since I know you are here, please bring me a brother or sister now.”

I knew with the certainty of a small child that it was only a matter of time before this next request was answered.  After all God had already come to town.

Oh, to have faith like a child.  Now I understand the grown-up things that bring doubt…  Words like infertility and adoption process.  But in those days, I only knew the faith that came with the summertime rainstorm.

And He answered me a few months later.  It came in a surprise phone call from our family doctor asking my parents if they would want to adopt a newborn baby boy.  I remember a nun in a full habit was holding him as my mom introduced us for the first time.  Looking at the tightly swaddled baby in the arms of a nun, I whispered to my mom, “I always knew that’s what angels looked like!”

There were times when I wished, like all older sisters with pesky little brothers, that God would take him back.  But deep in my heart I always knew that God had heard my prayers, and I’ve never stopped being thankful.

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Though not yet an adoptive mother, Carrie is the older sister of two adopted brothers.  Carrie and her husband live in China working with a foster home for orphans with special needs, and Carrie writes about her life and experiences at her blog Signs of Hope.