This song is one of my favorites, one of those that stops all conversation and gets turned up in the car. Every time I hear this song, the lyrics tighten my chest and bring tears to my eyes: these names describe a God who is so powerful and sovereign, yet still He knows my name! Praise! This week I heard a sweet little voice in the back seat, and I looked in the rear view mirror to see my five-year-old smiling back at me as he sang. That’s a sure way to melt a mama’s heart!
Until recently I didn’t fully understand the meaning of the words in this song. I would sing thinking, God is my Way Maker, so He will make things go MY WAY. He will pull off a big miracle FOR ME. What I didn’t see then, as I was wrapped up in my own desires and logical arguments against what was happening right in front of me, was that God was moving mountains for two little boys.
I am a Questioner. I love a good logic puzzle. Figuring out connections, or explaining the how’s and why’s of things feeds my soul. My nephew is like this too: we can talk for hours about how the details in the first few Harry Potter books explain things that happen in books six and seven (#potterhead). Hubby loves it when I pause a Marvel movie to spend ten minutes talking through the tiny details of the last two movies that led the tesseract to show up at this opportune moment. This endearing quality of mine might qualify me as an excellent book and movie critic, but sometimes it makes my walk with Christ challenging.
Let me tell you about a time God gave this song a whole new meaning.
Our home was ready to receive a foster placement. We had done all the logical and practical things: I had the tabs in my binder labeled, our Parent Handbook handy, and beds situated. But we were so not prepared for the emotional realities of foster care when we took in our very first placement: three-week-old twin boys who had only been out of the NICU for a few days. We immediately fell head over heels in love with these tiny brothers, and I will never regret opening our hearts so completely. They needed someone to love and care for them unconditionally, and we did that without hesitation. We navigated the court dates and legal stuff. We held their tiny hands while they fought for their lives in the PICU. We found the best childcare, therapists, and doctors who taught us about feeding tubes and and apnea monitors. We did all the right things while loving these sweet babies as our own.
However.
As much as our hearts were in the right place to love the twins, we had the wrong mindset about foster care. Assuming a “foster to adopt” mentality, and ignoring the whole notion of reunification, we set ourselves up for disastrous heartbreak. We called the babies ours, we rejoiced when we were told adoption was very likely, and we assumed God’s goodness had brought us to this place.
Well, it had! Just…maybe not in the way we thought.
When we learned that DFCS had abruptly changed the plan, that the twins would be placed with a previously unknown biological family member when we were so close to a plan for permanency, we were devastated. It was completely unexpected, the opposite of what we had been working towards, and it made absolutely no sense to us. It didn’t matter to us that the biological family were wonderful people. It didn’t matter to us that DFCS policy puts biological connections first. What mattered was our plan, and what was logical to us, and we weren’t going down without a fight.
For about two months our entire world was in limbo. We worked our way up the government chain, pleading our case with anyone who would listen. We talked to lawyers, social workers, other foster families, anyone who could give us advice or put us in touch with someone who might have the authority to overturn this decision.
Through this harrowing time it was this song spoke to me most. Throughout the day I’d sing the words over and over to remind me of the God I serve. I was encouraged that God was with me, the Light in all of this darkness! God would pull some strings for me to be their mom, because He is a Miracle Worker! That even when it all looked hopeless, God would come through for me because He is a Way Maker!
God did make a way. . . it just wasn't MY way.
I watched as the twins were adopted into their forever family a few months ago. It was a moment filled with joy and a little bit of sadness for me. I am so thankful these sweet boys are healthy, happy, and have incredibly loving, selfless parents. Even though I’ve made peace with it, I‘m not sure I will ever completely stop wishing things had turned out differently. Loving them and letting them go was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, and it broke me into a million pieces.
However.
Even though the end result wasn’t what I expected or hoped for, it had God written all over it. And in time, the words of this song took on a new, better, truer meaning:
God is a Way Maker: He used our family to make a way for the twins to be safe and loved as we stood in the gap until their forever family was ready for them.
God is a Miracle Worker: He saved the twins lives. Period. He strengthened their tiny bodies and healed them in ways the doctors just couldn’t explain.
God is a Promise Keeper: He promised that, if we trust in Him with our concerns and desires, He will guard our hearts and minds with a peace that surpasses all understanding. Friend, this peace is REAL. Yes, I was broken when it didn’t go my way, but I didn’t fall apart. God’s love and peace protected my mind from despair and knit my heart back together. Stronger. Braver. Able to shine brighter for Him.
God is a Light in the Darkness: He brought two families together in friendship and mutual love for two miracle babies. How could I come to love the ones who swooped in to take my babies away? God’s light shined brilliantly into our relationship before we even met. He compelled me to take the first step towards them even though I dug in my heels against it. He softened their hearts towards us to build and keep a connection so we didn’t lose the boys all together. He gave all of us the courage to do hard things, and He showed us the different kinds of love that can grow between people when they put God’s plan first.
(And, for the record, they didn’t really take my babies away. As much as I love the boys, they were never meant to be mine forever. The twins ended up exactly where they are supposed to be. God was working on their family at the same time He worked on us, just in different ways.)
Sometimes faith means being okay with not knowing why, and that is really hard for my Questioner self. Faith doesn’t come from getting all the answers, or from seeing the end game. God’s promise is not about making my way work. Faith is about surrendering your own desires and logical arguments – as brilliant and flawless as they may seem. Faith is trusting whole-heartedly that His way is bigger, better, and brighter than your way, especially when the way He’s making doesn’t make sense to you. God has even the tiny details in His hand, and when we wait on Him with faith we will see that He never changes.
