“The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms…” Deut. 33:27a

I collapsed on the floor of the hotel room, prostrate and weeping before God in prayer. Dale and I were just about to receive an answer to twelve years of petitions before God. Wouldn’t one think that would be easy? It wasn’t.

The quest to become a mother had been difficult. For twelve years I had sought the help of doctors, undergone tests and surgeries, and taken expensive drugs with terrible side effects. Every month I had hoped to learn that I was carrying a child; every month I had been disappointed.

Dale and I were being sent by God in a different direction. The pathway to parenthood for us led through Romania. We navigated a maze of obstacles, each one overcome by prayer, and after five weeks of intense struggle we planned to adopt our five-month-old daughter the following day in a Romanian courtroom.

But I hit a wall that night which yet needed to be scaled. I realized in those emotionally-charged hours that I had not relinquished my own will—I still wanted to conceive a baby myself, and I was angry with God because that petition had not been granted.

We have often heard the saying, “When you reach the end of the rope, hang on.”  I learned through this experience that a wiser saying would be, “When you reach the end of the rope, let go.” I confessed my anger to God; He knew it anyway. I surrendered to His superior wisdom and quit struggling against His will. I let go of the baby I would never have to receive the baby He had chosen to give me. When I did, I fell right into the arms of my eternal God, who was waiting there to catch me.

A few days later, Dale and I looked into the wide, brown eyes of our new daughter with wonderment and joy. She was perfect. God had answered our prayers in His perfect way which was much better than we could have imagined. That daughter, Jana, has been a delight to me every day since; she has every quality I wanted in a child, and so many more.

Jana’s presence in my life reminds me every day of this truth: God’s ways are best. His blessings come the most fruitfully when I let go of my own desires and let Him work out His good will in my life.