In this sermon excerpt, the speaker recounts a personal family narrative that illustrates the concept of "wrestling with God." As a four‑year‑old, he and his older brother prayed fervently for a little sister, not only for themselves but to give their mother a daughter after she felt guilty about a teenage adoption she was forced to place. Their mother, haunted by the memory of giving up a baby girl for adoption, prayed for God's forgiveness and for the chance to adopt another child. The family traveled to Nicaragua, where after a lengthy adoption process they unexpectedly returned with two infant girls—one for each brother—after a hospital mother offered her baby. The story underscores themes of persistent prayer, divine provision, and the assurance of God's forgiveness, tying into a larger sermon by Pastor Darren on wrestling with God and forgiveness.
Chapters
The sermon today— does anyone know what the sermon's about? It's about wrestling. Do any of you like to wrestle? Yeah, wrestle with your brothers and sisters, kids at school. Yep, that kind of stuff. Wrestling with God. Can you imagine wrestling with God? Like, who's gonna win that? Yeah, probably God. That's right. So this story that I'm gonna tell you is about a time when I wrestled with God. I was 4 years old. I was 4 years old and I really, really, really, really, extra really, really wanted a sister. I had an older brother. I wanted a sister. And so I said, "God, can I please have a sister?" And my other brother, my older brother, he also was like, he wanted a sister too. So he was saying, "God, can I have a sister too?" So we were wrestling with God the way little kids wrestle with God. My brother's 5, I'm 4, and we're saying, "Dear Jesus, please give us, please give us a little sister." 'Cause we want a little sister so much. But the reason why we were wrestling with God about having a little sister is because we wanted our mom to have a little girl. Because she was wrestling with God about something she had done when she was a teenager. She was forced to put up a baby for adoption that she had, and it was a little girl. She wasn't supposed to know that, but when she signed the papers a year later, She saw her name, and so she knew that she had given up a little girl that God had given her. That's the way she saw it, and she thought that God will never forgive me for that. Does God forgive us? He forgives us, but she was not sure that God could forgive her for that. And so she would pray every night, dear Lord, if you can forgive me, please help me to find a little girl to adopt. The first time that she got pregnant after she got married to my dad She said, "Dear Lord, if you can forgive me, help me to have a little girl." She had my brother Ted. The next time she got pregnant, she prayed and she said, "Dear Lord, if you can forgive me for what I've done, please give me a little girl." She had me. And so even though God wasn't holding it against her, she thought that he was, and she felt like she was the worst person on earth. And so when I was 4 years old, I was praying because I was wrestling with God because I wanted a little sister because I wanted my mom to have a little girl. And so my brother and I were praying, Teddy and I were praying, and my mom was looking for a little girl to adopt because every time she got pregnant she got really sick and the doctor said you can't have any more. And so a friend of my mom said, well, we adopted ours down in Central America. If you've seen the— there's South America and there's North America, there's this little part that connects the two. Nicaragua was the country. And my mom said to my dad, Can we go? Maybe this is God answering my prayer. And my dad said, yeah, let's find out how to go. Let's go. And so they went all the way down to Nicaragua. Oh my goodness, we were praying while they were gone. Little brother, my brother Teddy and me, we're both praying, dear God, please protect mom and dad while they're in Nicaragua, and please help them to find a little girl so we can have a little sister. Amen. And every night we've said that prayer, and every night we said, please bring them home soon. And finally, it was a long time because they went down, it took them a couple weeks to do the paperwork and to find the little girl, and and everything, and then they finally came home. And when my— I don't remember who picked them up, but they— we didn't go to the airport to pick them up. They came into the house, and my dad walked into the house. He's not holding the little girl. Where's our sister? And then mom walked into the house, and she wasn't holding a little girl either. And we said, where's our sister? And mom said, well, she's very sick. And she's in hospital in Nicaragua. She was too sick to travel, and so they have to get her well first. We're going to go back down and get her in a few months. Oh, so we kept praying, dear God, please, please give us a little sister. And my mom said, dear God, please, if you could forgive me, please let this little girl come home with us. And finally, mom and dad flew back over there. They were gone for a long time again, and we were praying and praying and praying, dear God, please give us a little sister. And then they came home and Dad walked in and he had a little girl in his arms. She was only about a year and a half old. And then Mom walked in and she had a little girl in her arms and she was about 9 months old. And we said, "Wait a minute! We've been praying! Teddy's been praying, 'God, give me a little sister.' Davey's been praying, 'God, give me a little sister.'" God forgot to combine the prayers and he gave us both little sisters. What is going on? This is amazing. And my mom and dad told us the story that when they got to the hospital and our older sister, the oldest one, was well now, as they were coming out of the hospital, there was a mother standing with her little baby and she was on the foot— the stairs of the hospital, and she said in broken English because she'd only learned this one phrase, "Take my baby too. Take my baby too." And my mom said, "Oh, that's too hard. We can't do that. It's a lot of paperwork. It's a lot of work." And then she said, "Hold my baby." And so my mom takes Patia, my older sister, my oldest sister, hands it to my dad and says, "Okay, I'll hold your baby." Uh-oh. She held the baby. And then she said, "Oh, Paul, maybe could we try?" So they went back and the guy that they had done the paperwork with, he saw them coming and he's like, "Oh, not again. Yes, yes, give me the paperwork." and he just signed it all. He did not want to deal with these Americans again. And he sent them home with two little girls. And so little Davey got a little sister, little Teddy got a little sister, and my mom, who'd been praying for forgiveness, she got a double portion because God knew that he loved her so much and he wanted her to know that too. Today our sermon with Pastor Darren is about praying, wrestling with God, and it's about forgiveness. So listen well, because it's a really good story. I've already heard it on the TV. Thanks for listening. You can go back to your seats now.
