by Janine Grant

This is a story of how the Lord has worked to change our will to conform to His.

Soon after our wedding, John and I announced - only half jokingly – that we wanted four

children, alternating sexes, starting with a boy. We say half jokingly, but we earnestly anticipated blessing of such a specific prayer.  Amazingly, by 1996, that is exactly the family we had.

In 1996, we conceived our fifth child. As expert natural family planners, we knew that conception had occurred just two days before the end of my cycle. I was shocked and ashamed. I even briefly considered abortion. It was a very fleeting thought and something of which I have since repented and something God can now use. Anyhow the Lord worked in my heart and I accepted the pregnancy and rejoiced when Niki was born.

Then, as we realized what a blessing children are, we gratefully accepted our next child, Caleb. Now we had come to the point of not just being open to more children but letting God be in control. So we had Emma and Isaac.

Then, in 2007, I miscarried. For the next 18 months, I grieved for the loss of our baby and also because it seemed the Lord had closed my womb. By this time I really had a heart for wee ones and a desire for more babies.  I prayed for the Lord take this desire from me or fulfill it - please - the pain was so great.

He did neither.

In prayer late one night, I sensed that the Lord was telling me “there are other ways to have a baby”. This was the beginning of a series of gentle encouragements He gave John and me. We received several prophecies. Some we remember as short catch phrases “a child, a child, more children”, “put your net on the other side”, “are you just going to enjoy the view or jump in?” Others were more direct: “And through your pain and darkness the Lord is doing a work that will glorify Him”.

Our first response was to apply to start fostering again. Before having our own children, we used to foster children of varying ages and for up to several months stays. Now – having probably completed our biological family – we began fostering kids younger than Isaac.

One day our eldest daughter showed me a card. Written by Steve and Emma Dunne, it said “Pregnant? Considering Abortion? Not sure what to do? Please consider adoption to a loving family.”  We wanted to hear more from these people.  So off we went, us and our four youngest children. We heard Steve speak about the unwanted and unborn.  The Lord had already turned our hearts to the unwanted with fostering. The unwanted and unborn: this really spoke to me. At last I came to understand the enormous – apparently excessive – grief I had been experiencing. What I was feeling was God's own grief. It was His grief for those babies being aborted.

In a typical year, 18,000 babies are aborted in New Zealand. Steve had had a vision of the Lord raising 18,000 families to adopt these wee ones. God was about to do something “beyond my hopes and dreams” [Eph. 3:20]. We were to be one of those families. God changed my desire for babies born to me to those He wanted to bring into His kingdom. God's ways are certainly higher than ours. He was going to use the desire He placed in me.

So the grief ended and the ministry began .The Lord gave us scriptures – Rev3:7,8 about a wide open door and 1Cor 16:9 about many adversaries.

In fostering, we became willing to take anyone permanently if God presented that. Along came a little one born the same time my baby would have been. He needed a permanent home .We made cards like Steve's and started to place them but all very low key. Then Steve asked us if we'd go on the TV documentary Close Up. National T V! Scary!  But we felt it was from the Lord and we agreed. The next day's Word for Today scripture focused on Peter jumping into the water at His Lord's prompting.  We'd done it! We'd jumped in, gone overboard for the Lord.

The Lord gave me the title From Miscarriage to Ministry. On TV they let slip our full name so there was no hiding anymore. Many people saw the news item and commented. Off they went with cards! Now our family places cards wherever we go. We've put ads in the newspaper too. In the card we ask people to consider open care of their baby rather than abortion. We also offer support to allow women to keep the baby.

Someone at our church brought a word describing us as a wedge being pushed into a tiny crack in a dam. We need to pray, to break through the darkness and claim the fruit, these lives for God. The pain of being the wedge will become lost in the dam burst of saved lives.

Please pray for us and consider: are you one of these 18,000 families too?

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