Article December 29, 2003 Issue

Getting ready for Mark

By Patti Waterson

IT was 1986 and my husband, Claire, and I had what we thought was the perfect family. We were living in St. Louis, Missouri, and had our little girl and little boy. We didn't see how life could get any better. But I was jolted out of thinking about my own little world of happy children with two loving parents at home, when I read a series of articles in The Christian Science Monitor about the plight of children around the world. The series included stories of children who were homeless, orphaned, and exploited. These stories moved me so deeply that I felt impelled to really pray for these children and about the terrible circumstances they were facing.

As I prayed over the next few months, I found that I was searching for a tangible way that we could do something for these children. It came to me that perhaps we could take a homeless or orphaned child into our home. For a while, I kept this idea to myself as I continued to pray about it. Before long, I felt comfortable about talking with my husband about adopting a child. He was open to the idea, and together we agreed just to keep praying to be led to what the right situation for us would be.

At some point during those months, a great feeling of peace came to me that God, our divine Father-Mother, was caring completely for our family, in whatever form that would take. I knew that the answer was with God. We didn't yet feel we needed to look into adoption agencies or any other resource. Rather, we would just let God show us what to do at the right time. I guess, in a way, these months were a preparation time for our family as we waited for whatever God was going to bring us.

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