I am here because two women chose life and one man chose death.

Imagine you are an unmarried woman in your mid-twenties in 1967.  You are just starting your life, maybe working at your first grown-up job, dating someone, just enjoying your life when you realize you are pregnant.  Imagine the panic you would feel, the hopelessness.  What are your options?

Would you consider an abortion?

Now imagine you are a couple that has prayed for a baby for years. You have been faithfully waiting for God to bestow the gift of a child.  You a growing weary in your waiting but someone comes to you with the opportunity to raise another’s child.

Would you consider an adoption?

I know all of these people, they are my grandparents.  two I have never met, I do not know their names, and two I love dearly.  The woman chose life and allowed my grandparents to adopt her child and complete their family.

My Pawpaw has sweet Elvis hair, right?! He is the same one I wrote about in this post. I am thankful for all of them.  I am thankful for my mother’s biological mom for living through nine months of pregnancy, staying healthy, and probably experiencing ridicule, a rude comment here, a side eye at the grocery store for not having a ring on her finger, friends or family questioning her decision.

Delivering a baby and then giving her away.

I can’t imagine her heartache or pain but she chose what was best for her child. I am thankful for my grandparents for choosing adoption, often families want to continue trying and have “one of their own”, not knowing the joy they are missing if they would give adoption a chance.

Then there are my parents.  They discovered they were pregnant with yours truly after they graduated high school.  Another heartache I cannot imagine, having your youth cut short, having to grow up (to a certain extent 😉 ), having to tell your family of your choices.  After I graduated high school and went to college I would often think to myself, “my parents had a 3-year-old by this time and I can’t even make it to class on time!” I have huge respect for my parents, they chose to do what was best for me in a different way. Rather than choosing to end a life or give me up for adoption, they chose to raise me and I am forever grateful for my life and all the fun we have had.

Then at 17, I realized how much  I really needed a man who had chosen death.  I had heard about Jesus my whole life but did not truly understand how much I needed Him until a weekend at Younglife’s Sharp Top Cove.  Recently we had revival at our church and the speaker mentioned it usually takes a crisis to come to the cross and at 17, I was definitely at a crisis.  I think the end of my favorite hymn, Come Thou Fount, describes it all.

Jesus, sought me when a stranger
Wandering from the fold of God
He, to rescue me from danger
Interposed His precious blood

Ode to grace, how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be
And let Thy goodness like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to Thee

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above

It is amazing how our choices affect others.

If my biological grandmother, whoever she is, had chosen to abort my mother how many people’s lives would be different?

Well, my sister and I would not exist, my other siblings might not exist either because not meeting my mom could have influenced my dad’s life and he might not have met their mom. Sweet AK would definitely not be here. My sister would not have had the opportunity to influence her friends lives who have come to know Jesus from her witness. And many more relationships and opportunities might be different all because of one choice 48 years ago.

What if Jesus had not chosen death?  

It is a scary thought to me and one I can’t even form the words to show my gratitude to the Father for giving up his son, not for what was best for Him but for what was best for the rest of the world so we could have a relationship with him. Jesus said,

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”  John 14:18 ESV

I am so thankful my grandparents chose adoption but I am even more thankful that Jesus chose adoption and has welcomed me into His family.

I know I don’t say it enough, but thanks Mom and Dad for choosing life, raising me, and continuing to support me on this wild ride (helmets are not provided)!

♥ Elizabeth