Story of Hope: Lincoln

Our three-year-old son (Happy Birthday!) Lincoln isn’t supposed to be here. If you look at our life now you would laugh at the narrative, but Robin and I used to be the couple who couldn’t have any kids. Robin was a school teacher and I was a youth pastor. We were a good young Christian couple doing good things for good people. Life was good.

But we couldn’t have kids. Miscarriages, check. Thousands spent on fertility treatments, check. Robin had school kids getting pregnant and I had youth getting pregnant, but not us. To say it was a trying time is an understatement.

And yet, in the summer of 2011, Robin and I came full circle in our story of heartache. Looking back through our trials, we were now to the point where we were actually thankful that God allowed us to walk through what we did. Not only did it make our faith stronger, but more importantly it brought our first two sons (Zeke and Shepherd) into our life through adoption. Simply put, if we would have had kids early like all the other normal couples, those two wouldn’t be our sons, those two who mean more than life itself to us.

So in the summer of 2011, we had truly come full circle and embraced the plan and the purpose that God had for us. And then, in God’s divine plan and (I’m convinced) sense of humor, He decided to remind us that He still works miracles today. Two months later, we were pregnant with Lincoln. We kept waiting for complications. We kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it didn’t. Lincoln was born happy and healthy exactly three years ago today. His little sister was born less than two years later.

The reason I can preach hope is because I see hope every day in my family. Lincoln’s middle name is Isaac, named after the child of promise in the Old Testament born to a couple who thought their days of parenting were behind them. God has worked miracles in my life, and I know He can work miracles in yours. Don’t give up hope!