How One Birth Mother Found Strength
The other day, I started looking through my pictures on Shutterfly from a time before my son. The way I dressed. The way that I carried myself. The wayward look on my face. It seems so obvious now. I just looked… so… lost.. Incomplete. I closed down the browser and saw my favorite picture of my son and I from the hospital staring back at me. Smiling, I recalled some lessons that I learned in those 3 days.
Day One: I looked at my little man for the first time. He was placed in my arms and I cried. Waiting for the dream to end. He was perfect. This sweet little lamb in my arms. And I sat in awe of the wonder that me, Mikayla Ryan the wayward sheep, was chosen to bring this wonderful little guy into the world. Then I realized, he wasn’t the lamb. He was an emissary from The Shepherd. He was a mini shepherd sent to bring me back. I was the one that He had come to get and bring back into the fold. (The thing that I find very poignant about this metaphor for my life is that he was born in an intermountain hospital, so this little shepherd did journey into the mountains to get that lost sheep.)
Days Two and Three: The second day in the hospital was my personal Gethsemane. I cherished every moment. And tried to sear his image into my mind. The way he smelled. The full head of black hair. The cute little wrinkle in his right ear. The way that he would move his arms out and clasp onto me. Hugging me close. As I wished for these things, I found myself dwelling on those moments when I would have to put him in the car seat and he would go home with someone else. All I would have to show for this journey over the last eight and a half months was a tear stained face and a scar. My heart started to break. My soul started shattering. I wished that the minutes would slow down so that I would never have to give him to his adopted mom. On the third day, with the impending exchange coming. I thought about this verse, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. I was worth enough for someone to go through this pain. God placed his Son in an adoption plan with Mary and Joseph so that we could get back to heaven. So that we could return.
I closed the folder on my computer containing the pictures of my son, and got up. Holding my head a little higher. Waiting for the challenges that the rest of the day would bring. Knowing that I was loved and that I am a big, tough girl and that I may not be there yet, but I am getting there.
-Mikayla Ryan