The Desire (15 page)

T
hanks for walking with me,” Michele said.

It was four days later, late morning on Thursday. Michele had called in to the school, but they didn't need her today. But she wasn't discouraged. She'd had a wonderful quiet time going over a chapter in the children's ministry notebook Julie had given her last Sunday. She'd been reading it every morning for the last few days and was getting a lot out of it.

“You know me,” Jean said, “always looking for an excuse to get out of the house.” They walked through a shaded park about midway between Elderberry Lane and Michele's townhome. Jean pushed little Abby in a stroller; the baby was sound asleep.

“Is my mom watching Tommy and Carly?”

“No, they're actually in this little preschool I found. Just till noon. They go three times a week.”

Michele continued down the sidewalk. “Well, the reason I wanted to see you is this notebook, the one I talked to you about on the phone. In a way, it's rocking my world.” Michele wished she had it with her so she could read some of the things she'd underlined that morning.

“Really? A children's ministry book?” Jean said. They reached a corner in the sidewalk and turned to the right.

“Let's see if I can explain it. This whole curriculum is based on four basic commands. The idea is that there are four main beliefs every Christian should know and own, and these beliefs flow out of four commands. Two of the four are about love. Love God, love others.”

“Like what Jesus called the two greatest commandments,” Jean said.

“Exactly. I've read those verses and heard teachings on them lots of times. I don't know if I'm just in a different place now or if the stuff in this notebook is just saying everything in a different way. But it feels like I'm reading something brand-new. I wanted to run it by you and see what you thought.”

Just up ahead, the trees ended and so did the shade. “Do you mind if we turn around before we reach there?” Jean said, pointing with her eyes. “I don't have any sunblock for Abby.”

“Not at all. It's starting to get pretty hot out here anyway.”

“So what about the stuff sounds new?”

“For starters, I always thought loving God and loving others were just things I was supposed to do, commands I was supposed to obey. Not that I obey them all the time, but I'm supposed to. It's my job, as a Christian, I mean.”

“And this notebook says . . . that's not true?”

“Not exactly. But it says I need God's help to love him and love others the right way. On our own, we don't have the power to pull it off. Including something as basic as loving him and others. That's what humility is all about. Being honest about our weakness and being willing to ask for God's help. Humility makes it possible for us to receive God's grace, and it's that grace that gives us the ability to love the way we're supposed to.”

They walked a few steps. Jean didn't respond. Then she finally did. “Wow.”

“I know,” Michele said. “Doesn't that change things for you? It did for me. It made me think about why I'm not such a loving person.”

“Don't say that,” Jean said. “You are too.”

“No, I'm really not. Not lately anyway. I know I'm supposed to love. And sometimes I try to be loving. But if I'm being honest, it's a lot of work. And I think, for the most part, I'm mostly focused on myself. Like this whole getting pregnant thing. I've been obsessing about this for months. Really, almost a year.”

“I wouldn't say obsessing.”

Michele stopped walking and looked at her sister-in-law and friend. “Jean . . .”

“Okay, maybe you were obsessing.”

“
Were
obsessing?”

“You're not obsessing now,” Jean said.

They started walking again. “Okay,” Michele said. “Maybe not now but every single day—sometimes every hour of every single day—until this morning. And I've been totally stressed out by it. Which is another new thing the notebook talks about. New to me, anyway.”

“It talks about stress? In a children's ministry book?”

“In the part to the parents it does. It connects loving God with living completely free of stress.”

They reached the same corner of the sidewalk as before, but this time they turned left. Jean shook her head. “Don't think I've heard that before. Go on.”

“The idea is, when we're loving God wholeheartedly—which grace helps us to do—we're finally putting him in the highest place in our hearts. He becomes the object of supreme
value. And we start looking to him to meet our deepest needs instead of to other people and other things. And he does. He's the only one who can. Our tendency is to expect things from his creation that only he can give us. When I read that, Jean, I just froze. I think I do that with Allan all the time. I think I'm doing that with this pregnancy dilemma. I've gotten to the place where I can't see myself ever being happy, not until I have a baby. And since that's not happening, and we have no idea when it will, I'm doomed to be constantly miserable. Miserable and stressed out.” She was feeling stress just repeating all this.

They came up to a bench situated midway through the park along the sidewalk. Michele sat.

“I think I do the same thing,” Jean said. “At least I used to. I still do sometimes, but I think I'm getting a little better at trusting God since our world fell apart last year. That was our overwhelming situation, kind of like you're having now with this baby thing.”

Michele was trying hard to remember something she wanted to say. “There was something else I read that got to me. I underlined it twice. What was it? It was something about what causes stress. It was really simple . . .” Then it popped into her head. “I know—the author said stress is the gap between what we expect from God's creations and what we're actually receiving. Since only God can meet our deepest needs, the more we look to people and things to satisfy us, the more gaps we'll have and the more our frustration will increase. Doesn't that seem true to you?”

“It makes total sense to me,” Jean said.

“That's how loving God with all our hearts reduces stress. The more we look to him as the only one who can make a difference, the less we look to things that can't truly help us.
The stress goes away because the gaps get closed. God fills our hearts with more love and joy and peace while we wait for our circumstances to get better. With our stress and anger no longer controlling us, we get freed up to care about others instead of always thinking about ourselves.”

Jean just looked at her a few moments.

“What?” Michele said. “What are you thinking?”

“I'm thinking . . . that's pretty profound, what you just said. I'm thinking I want to read that notebook.”

“So this kind of seems new to you too?”

“Kind of,” Jean said. “Not like it's some weird new doctrine. I just never heard it put that way before. It's so simple.”

Michele's phone rang, startling them both. Even little Abby began to stir. Michele looked at the screen. “Hmm, that's different.”

“Who is it?”

“It's Christina. She just texted me. She wants to know if we can meet this afternoon. She says she wants to talk about something pretty important.”

C
ome on in, Christina.” Michele stepped back from the doorway to let her in. “That's a cute outfit.”

Christina walked down the hall past the doorway leading into the kitchen. “Thanks. Your mom took me shopping at the Women's Resource thrift store.”

Michele closed the door and walked past Christina into the dining area. “I know where that is. I volunteered there a few months last summer.”

Christina patted her stomach. “I'm getting down to the final stage where nothing fits. I start working at the gift shop this weekend, the one where your mom works.”

“Odds-n-Ends,” Michele said.

“That's the one. Your mom thought I should have some clothes that didn't look ridiculous on me.”

Michele pointed to the dining room table. “I made us some decaf, and this is some crumb cake left over from last night. You can drink decaf, right?”

“I can. Drinking that's been one of the hardest things about being pregnant. Well, that and getting in and out of the car.”

Michele laughed.

“I miss my afternoon coffee,” Christina said. “I get so sleepy right about . . . now.”

“Do you ever take naps?”

“No. I just want this baby to come already, so I can start drinking coffee again.” She poured herself a cup. “Thanks for making it, though. That was thoughtful. And this crumb cake looks almost like the kind I used to get in New York.”

“That's real butter, in case you're wondering,” Michele said. “It's fattening, but I like putting it on the sides.”

“I won't tell if you don't,” Christina said.

After they fixed their coffee and cake, they moved into the living room. Michele couldn't tell by Christina's demeanor whether she came to talk about something positive or negative. She didn't seem tense.

Christina squirmed a few moments then seemed to find a comfortable position. She took a sip of her coffee and said, “Before I tell you why I'm here, I want you to know I haven't talked to anyone else about this, not even your mom. I know she's my counselor, or advocate, I guess they call 'em, and for the most part, she's been really helpful. But after you hear what I'm gonna say, I think you'll understand why I couldn't talk to her about this. I didn't want to put her in the middle.”

That got Michele's attention.

“I prayed a lot about this. I'm still a young Christian, but I gotta go with my instincts, what my heart's telling me to do. And I felt like I'm supposed to talk to you first, before anyone else. I'm not saying that God's saying you've got to say yes to what I'm asking. I want you to. But honestly, I really can't tell if you're supposed to say yes. I've got no instincts on that. I'm thinking, God might speak to you or maybe Allan, not to me.”

Michele took a sip of her coffee, attempting to quiet her growing tension. She wished Christina would get to the point.

“Look, I'm sorry. I'm all over the place here. I always do
that when I get nervous. You're not making me nervous. What I've got to say is making me nervous.”

Michele was getting nervous now too.

Christina reached for her crumb cake, sliced off a corner with her fork, then stopped. “What am I thinking? I can't eat. Maybe after I get done talking.”

“You mind if I do?”

“Not at all. It looks delicious, by the way.”

Michele took a bite of the crumb cake, trying to break this tension Christina had introduced into the room.

“Okay,” Christina said, “here goes. I'm at a point in my pregnancy where I have a decision to make.”

“I thought you already made that decision,” Michele said.

“No, not that one. You're right, though. I did make that decision. According to the adoption agency, though, I can change my mind whenever I want.”

“Are you thinking of changing your mind?”

“No, not at all. I don't know why I brought that up. The thing is, so far I haven't taken very much assistance from this agency. Less than a thousand dollars, I think.”

“Do you have to pay them back, whatever they give you?”

“No, I don't. They made that real clear in the beginning. In fact, if I go through everything, all the way to when the baby's born, and I change my mind, even then they'll still pay for everything. In fact, the woman at the agency said it happens to them all the time. And whenever it does, the birth mom is off the hook. Totally. She said if they made us pay the money back after we change our minds, the courts would say we only went through with the adoption because of money pressure. And that would nullify the adoption, because the decision was made under—what did she call it—
duress
.”

“I guess I see that logic,” Michele said.

“I figured out that's one of the reasons why adoptions are so expensive,” Christina said. “The adoptive couple, the ones who actually get to adopt, wind up paying for all the deals that fell through. Well,
deals
isn't the right word. But you know what I mean.”

Michele thought she did. But she still had no idea where Christina was going with all this. “If you don't mind me asking, Christina, what does all this have to do with me? I'm not really seeing—”

“You're right, I'm going into way too much detail. I'm sorry. I should have spent more time in prayer. Maybe I'd have a little more self-control right now. It's just, this is a really big thing.”

What is?!
Michele screamed inside her head.

Christina stopped, repositioned herself on the couch, took a sip of her coffee, then took a deep breath. “Okay, the thing is, like I said, I haven't taken too much money from the adoption agency. So if I quit them now, I wouldn't feel too bad. It's nothing compared to the amount of money they'd lose if I quit them after the baby was born. You know, if I changed my mind. But still—”

“Why would you think of quitting them?”

“I wouldn't, unless you said yes to what I'm about to ask. Don't give me an answer right away. I'm sure you're going to want to talk to Allan anyway, because it's such a big deal. See, what I've been praying about, what I want to ask you is . . .” Tears instantly appeared in Christina's eyes. “I was afraid this was gonna happen.”

Michele quickly got up and fetched a box of tissues from the hutch. She was dying inside.

Christina dabbed her eyes, took another deep breath. “I'll just say it. I'm wondering if you and Allan would want to
adopt my baby? After this idea came to me, I looked into it a little bit. If we didn't go through the adoption agency, we could do something they call a private adoption. The big thing with that is, it doesn't cost hardly anything compared to working with an agency. There's just the hospital bills, some lawyer fees, and that's pretty much it. I certainly wouldn't charge you anything. I wouldn't want to make a dime off this.” Christina reached for another tissue to stem the tide of a new release of tears.

Michele didn't know what to say. She hadn't expected this at all. Her initial reaction was to say “no, thank you,” right here, right now. She still had her heart set on having a baby the old-fashioned way. But she also wasn't ready to say anything now because of the new things she had been learning from the children's ministry notebook. She could tell Christina had something else to say.

“The main reason for this idea is because of my baby, and me thinking about what's best for her. This time I've spent with your family has been like a dream. I didn't even know there were families like this, not in real life. I can't think of a better set of parents than you and Allan. I would have loved to have someone like you for a mom. And if my baby could grow up here, in a place like this”—she used her hands to include the whole downstairs—“with people like you, and have grandparents like your folks, and aunts and uncles like Tom and Jean. What could be better than that? Nothing could.”

Christina stopped talking. Now she was looking at Michele's face, staring right into her eyes. Michele had no idea what kind of signals she was sending. She didn't feel anything deep or profound. Mostly she felt . . . confused. She had no idea whether this sudden development was something God was doing or just some fantasy Christina was having.

Christina reached for another tissue. “The way I feel about your family is the hardest part of this whole thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Leaving you all. I know that's what I would have to do if you said yes. It would be way too awkward for everyone if I stayed around. I read about these things they have called open adoptions, where the birth mother keeps hanging around to watch the baby grow up. That's not for me. I'd want to make a clean break, let my baby bond to her new parents, and them with her, without any interference from me. And that would mean . . .” The tears began to flow again. “No more Anderson family for me.”

Michele instantly thought about some of the things she had read that morning, about loving God and loving others. What Christina had just offered to do was a perfect example of sacrificial love, a mother's love. God's love.

Now it was her turn to reach for the tissues.