This story isn’t about me.  It isn’t even about my children.  

This story is about God being who He says He is and doing what He says He will do.

When I was eleven, my mother went to bed one day and didn’t get up again for five years.  No one could figure out what was wrong.  She saw specialist after specialist.  She tried diets and supplements.  She was seriously ill, and there seemed to be nothing we could do.

I began to read medical journals to see if there was something I could find to help her.  I became obsessed with finding as much information as I could.  I never did find a cure for my mother, but I did become very familiar with medical terminology and various diseases and treatments.

When I was fourteen years old, God placed a call for adoption on my heart.  One Friday, I attended a concert where the singer was discussing adopting his children.  The next day, I received a Christian magazine in the mail.  The cover story of that magazine was about a girl and her adoption.  That Sunday in church, we had a guest speaker.  He spoke about — you guessed it — his adoption.  I knew God had adoption in mind for my life.  I thought that probably meant going to a foreign country and starting an orphanage, but as an adult that never seemed to work into God’s plan for me.  The Lord just kept reminding me that if He called me to this, He would make it so.

On my first date with my husband, I told him that adoption was going to be part of my story.  To my surprise, he shared that he had two older siblings who had been adopted.  He felt adoption was part of his story as well.

After a few years of struggling with miscarriage and infertility, we decided to begin the adoption process.  God spoke to us specifically about foster care, so we signed up to be foster parents with Oklahoma Department of Human Services.  When we arrived at the DHS office to speak with our worker (following our training and home study approval), a woman sat in the chair next to me.  

“Are you adopting?” she asked.

I told her that we hoped to adopt, and that’s when she sat a tiny baby in my lap!

She told us that the little one I was holding had some medical needs and not many people would even consider taking her in- would I consider it?

By the time our worker came out to meet us, we had requested to be that tiny girl’s foster parents.

Amyra needed lots of care.  She had tubes and wires and machines hooked to her at all times.  She has had nine surgeries and many challenges.  We were told that she would never walk or talk or care for herself.  We were told that she most likely had brain damage from all the times she was deprived of oxygen.  They said repeatedly that we should not get our hopes up.  Amyra had been born at only 25 weeks.

After many months, the courts decided that we could adopt Amyra.  The adoption worker came to our home with disclosure paperwork.  If you have never heard of that, it is when they share all information about the child and family that they have before the adoption proceeds.  The worker seemed to be warning us that adopting Amyra was not something we should try to do.

I looked right in her eyes and said, “Nothing in those papers is going to change the fact that I love her, and she is my child.”

In that instant, the Holy Spirit whispered so sweetly to me, “Mindy, that’s what I think about you.  On paper, you are a mess!  There are so many things ‘wrong’.  But I have loved you with an everlasting love, and nothing anyone ever says about you will change the fact that you are My child.” (Jeremiah 31:3)

That was the first time I knew just a little of how God looked at me.

We did adopt Amyra, and she achieved milestone after milestone while her doctors looked on in awe.  When she was three, her doctor told her she was amazing.  Amyra said, “No.  GOD is amazing.”

Our little family thought we had found our purpose!  We were going to care for children who were medically fragile and had special needs.  We promptly began searching for the next child we could help.

But one adoption fell through — and then another and another — until we had walked through six failed adoptions.  And the week of that last failed adoption, my mother passed away at the age of fifty-five after an eight year battle with dementia.

I sat down that day to pray, and I said, “Ok, God.  I guess you only get so many miracles.  We have seen so many.  Maybe we have hit our limit.  It’s ok.  It is enough.”

We started the process again, deciding not to adopt — it was too painful.  We told the social workers that we would foster children, but we would not try to adopt again.

That’s when we got a phone call about a little boy — who could not be fostered, only adopted.

They told us he had severe needs. They didn’t know if we should take it on, but he needed a home. Would we go meet him?

We agreed to meet him at the home of his emergency foster parents.

When we walked in the door, I asked Amyra to stand near me.  The foster parents startled at the sound of her name, and the father walked quickly from the room.  He returned with a photo and asked, “Is this your Amyra?”

You see, these foster parents had been asked to take Amyra before we met her.  They had several other children with special needs in their home and felt that they could not care for her as she deserved.  So, they took her picture, and for five years had been praying for her — my daughter.  As we stood there in amazement, I again heard the Holy Spirit whisper “See?  I really do work all things for the good of those who love Me and are called to My purpose.  Reading the medical journals?  For the children I knew were coming.  Failed adoptions?  To get you in this place for this child at this moment.  Your husbands siblings that were adopted, that he never met?  To call him also.  ALL THINGS, Mindy.”

We did meet the little boy who needed so much care, and now he is our son Hudson. When I think about our meeting, I am always reminded that our obedience may just be the answer to someone else’s prayers.

Hudson’s life has not gone like Amyra’s.  Hudson currently has nineteen diagnoses that require some complex routines and medications.  He is having his nineteenth surgery this week.  Healing for Hudson has not been instantaneous.  Instead, God has reminded us that each breath and moment is a gift from Him and that this journey has never been just about healing of the body.  God is healing our hearts and teaching us to trust him moment by moment.

We have now been privileged to have 15 medically fragile children with special needs in our home over the last ten years.  We have adopted three of these precious little ones, and we are in the process of adopting one more.

When I am asked to tell our story, I always remind folks that I can only tell our family’s part in the story.  This is God’s story — and you have a part in it to tell, too.

We aren’t all called to foster or adopt, but we are all called to help.  You can offer respite for these families.  You could bring meals.  You can pray.  You can simply sit with the mamas and daddies who need to talk to someone in their struggles.

You can love.

What’s your part in the story?

Mindy Cariker Wiggins has authored three books about how God uses the everyday, ordinary things in our lives to teach, lead, and guide us. To get your copies, use the links below: