Oceans Prayer: Jill Campbell’s Story
Many of you already know that Kyle and I have had a plan to adopt. That was originally my plan because I have felt the call to be an adoptive mom since I was young. I have never had the desire to have my own biological children. To some, that sounds foreign. But I felt so strongly about it that I had actually in the back of my mind felt that maybe it was God preparing me for infertility even though I am perfectly healthy. For Kyle, adoption had not really crossed his mind until we started dating. Without him knowing, I prayed for years for Kyle’s heart to be open to adopting and slowly it was. We had decided that we would blend our family with both biological and adopted children. We were to the point a few months ago where we were deciding which way to grow our family first. We had talked about it and then dropped it for a while so that we each had time to get our own thoughts and answers on it.
One Sunday, one of our awesome worship leaders at our church, introduced a new song called“Oceans (Where My Feet May Fail)” by Hillsong United. The song is a powerful prayer with the declaration of trusting God without borders and going where your feet may fail you, knowing that God will never fail you. As I heard that song, I begin to pray desperately that God give us a child, in His time, in His way. I gave up my fearful hesitations about carrying my own children and begged with God to give us the child he has created for us, no matter which way the child came to us. That whole week I prayed and listened to this song, asking God for His path. I didn’t tell Kyle about my pleading prayers, but we decided soon after that to try to start our family biologically and see where that took us. About 5 weeks after that, on a Friday, we found out we were expecting. That Sunday, we sang “Oceans” again and I found a resounding peace and joy, knowing that God had answered my prayers in a very obvious way. It’s as if God was waiting for us to give up our plans and just say I’m trusting in You.
Even though sometimes I am overwhelmed by the whole situation, I know that this is clearly God’s path for us, and I am safe in his arms.
Several people have asked us. And yes, we still plan to adopt. We both want a big family and will look to God to guide us until every child He has planned for us to love and protect comes into our home.