His thoughts are higher...

I've had this post half started for weeks, and haven't had time to finish it up in the thoughtful manner that it calls for. But I gave it a stab tonight because I was thinking about it again today.. It begins with an anecdote from my not-so-distant past and leads into something that's been very thought-provoking for me over the last months.

Way back when I was done with graduate school, but before Owen was born, I was a stay-at-home-wife. ;) This was because of the 50 or so people who completed graduate school with me and Matt in 2003, only 13 had found employment in the architectural field by the end of the summer. Matt was one of them. I was not. So I kept busy with my part-time job at the fabric store, and, really, I have no idea what in the world kept me busy back then. I must have been so bored! I guess that's why 2003 is when I started my sewing business! One thing I had time for was providing child care at church for a weekday morning women's bible study. One Thursday morning one of the mothers whose children I watched, but who didn't know me very well otherwise asked me pretty directly if there was anything specific she should be praying about for me. I kind of muttered about being tired, and having a lot of work to do to finish my thesis book, but nothing specific really came to mind. She said that the night before she had been praying with her daughter before bed, and I had come vividly into her mind. So she had prayed for me.

It wasn't until a few years later as she and I were talking on the phone about various other things that she mentioned that night again, adding that when I had come to her mind while praying that she had asked God what she ought to pray for, and he had told her to pray for my baby. After I hung up with her, I realized I had to go back and check my calendar (this was back when I still had space in my life to keep old calendars).

The night she had prayed for me was, as far as Matt and I can tell, the night that Owen was conceived.

It blows me away to think that God chose to direct someone who hardly knew me at the time to pray for a child that Matt and I didn't even know we had yet. From the day that he came into existence, there has been someone praying for our Owen. I think that's pretty cool.

But it's also sobering. She had no idea - hardly knew me, and certainly didn't know that I was pregnant - *I* didn't even know! But she listened and obeyed, and on days when Owen is making me wonder why I've ever thought I could be a [good] mother, I think about that - God must have some purpose for this boy! ;) And He's going to accomplish it, not me.

At various times over the last year I've been reminded of something that happened to me at some point in the first few years of our marriage (so probably in the 2002-2004 range). I distinctly heard God telling me to pray for the child I would adopt someday.

I told him that I must have heard wrong. We certainly weren't adopting any time soon - we weren't ready to start a family, Matt had NO interest in adopting, and I certainly wasn't going to adopt a child that was more than a few months old, well, maybe a year old. But that would be stretching it. So I told God that he must have meant for me to pray for the mother of the child I would adopt someday, as I was hoping that this would still be part of my future.

So I did.

And I wonder now if I missed out on the opportunity to have been praying for Krassimir since the day he was conceived. It isn't fruitful for me to wonder about the "what ifs" that may have been different had I obeyed, because there's no point in that. But looking forward, it does make me think that I'd better think twice before I tell God he's crazy. ;) There are definitely times when I'm not sure what I'm hearing from him, but there are also times when it's pretty obvious. For the times that it's obvious, it's not my place to tell the one "whose ways are higher than my ways" that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

And even though I don't have that written on a calendar somewhere that I can go back and look at, it is also a beautiful thought to me to be reminded that God knew all along that this boy was meant to be our son.

Three weeks from today and I get to hold him again!