My wife, Linda, and I tried for years to conceive. Finally, at age 40, Linda got pregnant. She gave birth to a girl whom we named Holly. We loved our daughter dearly. And we wanted her to have a brother or sister to grow up with.
Conceiving again was unlikely, so we looked into adoption. A close friend who’s an obstetrician put us on a list of potential adoptive parents at our local hospital.
Linda kept Holly’s toys and clothes in hopes of having another child. But the years passed, and it didn’t happen.
Linda was browsing in a bookstore one day when a children’s poster caught her eye. Holly, six, was too old for it, but it would be perfect for a nursery. Linda put the poster in the closet with the other baby things. Maybe one day…
Early one morning, two years later, our friend, the obstetrician, called. “One of my patients, a college student, just decided to give up her baby for adoption,” he said. “She asked me to help find a good family. You were the first ones I thought of.”
On the way to the hospital, Linda said, “I know God brought us this baby for a reason, but I’m worried about our being new parents again at our age.”
I tried to reassure her. “We just have to have faith that this is right.”
At the hospital a nurse led us to a beautiful baby girl. “This is Emma,” she said. “Well, that’s our nickname for her.”
“Emma,” Linda repeated, taking the baby in her arms. “That’s beautiful. She looks like an Emma.”
Several days later we brought Emma home. We hurried to set up a nursery. I put together Holly’s old crib and Linda rummaged through the closet for the baby things she’d tucked away. Underneath a stack of clothes Linda found the poster she had bought years earlier. She unrolled it and gasped.
“What is it?” I asked. Linda pointed to the picture. It showed a mother and daughter kneeling by a bed saying their evening prayers together. Beneath it there was a caption. It read, “Emma and Mommy talk to God.”
