Draw Me Close – the Journey to Emma

Our adoption story still amazes me to this day.  Mike and I have been together since 1988.  We were juniors in high school and even talked of adoption back then.  We married in 1994 and started having children several years later.  By 2002, God had blessed us with 3 wonderful boys.  Adoption was always on my heart and I never could let it go.  Our pastor once said that if something stays on your heart for a long time, you can guarantee that it is God speaking to you.  I was convinced that adoption was for us.  Even though Mike always agreed it would be neat to do, he never thought I would really take that next step.  After some convincing, he finally agreed to let me look into it.  This mini project consumed my every thought and second of each day.  Just 5 days after looking into it, I watched a 5 minute homecoming video on an adoption website.  I sobbed through the whole thing.  The background music of the video clip was the song “Draw Me Close.† I knew Mike would cave after seeing this video clip – but he didn’t.  We did however sing that song all weekend long.  By Saturday night, I had talked about adoption one too many times and Mike threw his arms up in the air and said “you have to stop talking about this.  You’re pushing me further from wanting to do this.  You’re driving me crazy!!  Just stop!† I looked right at him and said “Fine, if they play that song tomorrow at church then you’ll just have to submit to the idea that we’re going to go get our little girl.† We got up the next morning – got all five of us ready for the 8:30 service and were getting ready to sit down in the pew when Mike whispered to me from a few seats down “Jenny!† He was pointing to the bulletin and I knew exactly what he was pointing to and my stomach did a complete flip.  Sure enough…..Draw Me Close was the 4th song being played that day at church.  Our pastor prayed after the song was over and I could hear Mike crying 4 chairs over. The sermon that day, oddly enough, was about adopting children into God’s family. We were dumbfounded and as we walked out of church that day Mike looked straight up and said “I hear you loud and clear!†