Deep Calls To Deep

Life can be dull, monotone, and tedious. Until the depth of our need touches the depth of God's supply.

Kara Lea Kennedy

Photo by Artem Kovalev on Unsplash

“Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls.” —Ps. 42:7 NIV

As I sat rocking my newborn daughter and listening to the rhythmic creak of the springs on my rocker, I heard another sound. A baby crying upstairs. When I stood to go get her, I realized I was already holding the baby, and she was asleep. I returned to my chair and thought nothing more of it.

A couple days later, it happened again. Another audible cry, another realization that my baby was asleep in my arms.

The third time it happened, everything in me stopped. Maybe this was coming from a deep place, a place beyond myself.

“What is this, Lord?”

“Another baby her age. Pray.”

From that moment, I began the journey of looking for the child that belonged to the cry.

Shortly thereafter, we moved to South Korea for David’s one-year assignment with the Air Force. While there, the base chaplains occasionally set up visits to the local orphanages. Though I kept my eyes open for the child, all I seemed to encounter were closed doors. Literally. We spent time with the older children, but every time I tried to see the younger ones, I heard the same pronouncement: “No visitors with babies.” Still, I looked, because I had heard him cry.

When I told David I wanted to become certified for foster care as soon as we arrived stateside, he questioned jumping through legal hoops and parenting classes when he was already a father of three. As if anything about this faith journey had been routine, I told him, “Well, that’s not how it works. God isn’t just going to drop a kid in our laps.”

Much like the baby’s cry I’d heard, those words reverberated across my soul. I felt a holy “hush” fall over my mouth. The impression was clear—my job was to look for him, because I had heard him cry. Nothing about this was going to be normal.

A few weeks later, we began unpacking our household goods at our new base in South Carolina. I had just put the double stroller in the garage and carried a bag of 18-24 month boy clothes to the attic. Then I sat resting in my rocking chair. As the familiar creak of springs greeted me, I heard a text message come through my phone. It was a prayer request from my sister (who knew nothing about the mysterious cry)--there was a child, my daughter’s age, who urgently needed a home.

Our boy was found.

August 3rd will mark our seventh year with the child God dropped in our laps. He loves to hear the story of how I heard him and looked for him. As we have worked through the days where attachment, trust, and security are a struggle for him, we can always go back and remember the sounds and impressions I heard. It has helped him understand that he was loved, valued, and pursued, long before he was physically seen by me. In those times when he still struggles to believe that he can trust (and they are frequent), he finds solace in those words.

“I heard you cry.”