A GIRL NAMED WHITNEY
In August 1993, a scared 16-year-old walked into a hospital in Cebu, Philippines and soon gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Later that day, she snuck out, leaving the child she’d named Whitney, behind.
This is how my life began.
After my mother abandoned me, I lived in the hospital for three months, along with six other abandoned children. Out of fear that we would be handed over to the government and become lost orphans, the nurses hid us in a closet during the week and took us home with them on the weekends. They searched the city for our parents, but never found them.
After three months, a children’s shelter discovered what was happening at the hospital and were able to get us properly into the system. When I was 14 months old, I was adopted by the Pitner family and moved to Colorado. As I grew up, I wrestled with why my birth mother abandoned me, and I couldn’t wrap my head around how a loving God would let it happen. When I turned 16—the same age that my birth mother was when she had me—I found myself looking for answers to questions I was too scared to admit to anyone, including myself. How could someone abandon their own child? What did I do to deserve to be left behind? What part of me did she not want to be associated with?
In 2015, I gave my life to Jesus and embarked on a healing journey. I discovered it no longer mattered why she abandoned me. I knew God was protecting me the entire time. It no longer mattered what could have happened if she kept me; I knew God had a plan all along.
Sometimes, we don’t understand the ways God uses to bring us into a new life. Like in John 11, Lazarus is dying, and his sisters, Mary and Martha, beg Jesus to come quickly to save him. Jesus says the illness will not lead to death. “It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Jesus waits a couple days to travel to Judea, where Lazarus is. In that time, Lazarus dies.
Four days later, Jesus stands before his tomb and tells them to roll the stone away. Martha cautions against it, but Jesus says, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” Right before he raises Lazarus from the dead, he looks up to Heaven and says, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me...”
Today, I snuggle my sweet two-year-old girl, whom I named Whitney, and I know that verse to be true. In the darkest parts of my life—in the desperation, the anger, the hurt, and the pain—God heard me. He always hears me. Nothing was too much for him, and in the end, he raised me to new life. Every day, I look at my daughter and see the glory of God through her.
I hope you, too, can find rest in the fact that there is nothing that we can say or do that will turn God away from us once we are his. He always has and always will hear us.
This is how my life began.
After my mother abandoned me, I lived in the hospital for three months, along with six other abandoned children. Out of fear that we would be handed over to the government and become lost orphans, the nurses hid us in a closet during the week and took us home with them on the weekends. They searched the city for our parents, but never found them.
After three months, a children’s shelter discovered what was happening at the hospital and were able to get us properly into the system. When I was 14 months old, I was adopted by the Pitner family and moved to Colorado. As I grew up, I wrestled with why my birth mother abandoned me, and I couldn’t wrap my head around how a loving God would let it happen. When I turned 16—the same age that my birth mother was when she had me—I found myself looking for answers to questions I was too scared to admit to anyone, including myself. How could someone abandon their own child? What did I do to deserve to be left behind? What part of me did she not want to be associated with?
In 2015, I gave my life to Jesus and embarked on a healing journey. I discovered it no longer mattered why she abandoned me. I knew God was protecting me the entire time. It no longer mattered what could have happened if she kept me; I knew God had a plan all along.
Sometimes, we don’t understand the ways God uses to bring us into a new life. Like in John 11, Lazarus is dying, and his sisters, Mary and Martha, beg Jesus to come quickly to save him. Jesus says the illness will not lead to death. “It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Jesus waits a couple days to travel to Judea, where Lazarus is. In that time, Lazarus dies.
Four days later, Jesus stands before his tomb and tells them to roll the stone away. Martha cautions against it, but Jesus says, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” Right before he raises Lazarus from the dead, he looks up to Heaven and says, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me...”
Today, I snuggle my sweet two-year-old girl, whom I named Whitney, and I know that verse to be true. In the darkest parts of my life—in the desperation, the anger, the hurt, and the pain—God heard me. He always hears me. Nothing was too much for him, and in the end, he raised me to new life. Every day, I look at my daughter and see the glory of God through her.
I hope you, too, can find rest in the fact that there is nothing that we can say or do that will turn God away from us once we are his. He always has and always will hear us.
...It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.
JOHN 11:4 (ESV)
JOHN 11:4 (ESV)
Reflect: How have you seen God breathe new life into an area you thought was dead?
