The Story of Jeremiah

"I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out--plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I'll listen. When you come looking for me, you'll find me. Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I'll make sure you won't be disappointed."
Jeremiah 29:11-14a - the message translation


I was diagnosed with the HIV virus at the age of 21 as a result of the choices I made in separation from God’s will. HIV was still considered terminal at the time. I thought I would never reach the age of 30 or find a woman to marry me. Even if I did marry, we wouldn’t be able to have children of our own. Needless to say, the hope meter was rather low. With the help of friends, family and God, I found strength in these words of Jeremiah. I chose to surrender and allow God to fulfill His plans for my life.

Now, twenty years later, I am 40 years old. My wife and I recently celebrated our 11th anniversary. We found ourselves faced with yet another impossibility: the prospect of having a child of our own. You would think we had learned that God could do anything when we could get out of his way. No matter how big God has been in our lives, we tend to make our lives too big for Him. This time was no different.

We had just learned that an adoption we were pursuing was not given to us. Another family had been chosen by the birth parents for their baby. Every time a possible situation ended we felt the blow, no matter how well we had guarded our hearts. Though we have never gone through a miscarriage, I imagine the weight of that grief was similar to what we were feeling. We were crushed. This time was especially sad. For the first time we were considering a boy. We had previously only been looking at girls - we thought it would be more natural for Chrystal to start off with a little ballerina. My heart leapt at the prospect of a boy:

“Wow, a little boy – I really like that idea! That would be just like God to throw us a little bonus like that.”

During a time of prayer I resolved to name our first son Jeremiah. He may have an older sister but if/when God gave us a son that would be his name. I was declaring my fight to allow God to fulfill His plans in the midst of my own doubt and fear. Jeremiah 29:11-14 has continually been a significant source of hope toward God’s plans in our lives. We have been amazed at how far God’s plans have surpassed our own.

I mentioned this while at dinner with friends. I had purposed to study this prophet who fought for the truth of God amidst insurmountable odds and was looking for the best reference material on his life. My friend really resonated with the connection I was making between my future son and God’s messenger. He later related:

“We were praying for Jeremiah. It's interesting that we were praying for Jeremiah before we actually knew he was alive or met him. We were praying about a boy for the Greer's that none of us had ever met. Dean was sharing his heart about a son and the name Jeremiah. It was really touching my heart when he was sharing.

When we dropped the Greers off at home we prayed.....it was just in my heart to do so.

I was touched earlier in the day by Luke 18: 1-8, the story of the persistent widow. I prayed and called out to the Lord and was moved in my spirit that justice would be done. That Jeremiah would be placed into the Greer home. I also prayed from Ps. 68:5-6, that it is God who is a father to the fatherless, ... and he sets the lonely in families. I prayed that justice would be served and that Jeremiah would emerge and be adopted into Dean and Chrystal's home. I thanked God for the Jeremiah that He had for them…”

As he prayed I thought to myself,

“But what if the baby God has for us to adopt is a girl?”

Even as I thought this I felt as though God replied,

“No, I have a son for you”

This happened on a Friday night. The following Sunday morning, as he told us he was going to, our Pastor preached on the “Spirit of Adoption”. He spoke of the Father’s heart for the fatherless and His desire to give good gifts to His beloved. He knew of the struggles we had experienced in our adoption process and led the church in prayer specifically for Chrystal and me. He prayed that God would quickly grant us the desires of our heart.

When we returned home that afternoon, we had an email waiting in our inbox. A baby boy had been born 10 weeks prematurely. The adoptive parents were no longer interested due to the risks involved and this baby needed to find a home. We were told the baby was in Missouri. We thought, how awesome! If this worked out we would probably only have to go to St. Louis – a three hour drive - rather than to another state, as had been the case in previous situations.

Because he was born so early he was experiencing bleeding on both sides of his brain. He was also unable to breath on his own. Initially we didn’t think of this as an option worth pursuing - it seemed as though this was an extremely risky situation and the baby may not even live. On Monday, in spite of the odds, I contacted a friend who works with preemies to get an idea of what to expect. We contacted the agency and scheduled a phone conversation with the baby’s doctor to discuss the reality of the risks involved. We were told that the baby was in a hospital right where we live - in Kansas City!

The doctor told us that it was too early to tell but the baby could be facing the following risks: blindness, deafness, mental retardation, cerebral palsy, among other things. We asked for her prognosis. She said she wasn’t certain but would expect him to end up being on the lower end of normal. We knew that this child was ours and stated our wish to pursue him.

Because of complications the state was looking to take custody until a family was found. The doctor knew that we wanted to adopt him and assured us that she would do everything she could to dissuade the state from intervening.

We switched into high gear. We met with a lawyer on Tuesday. After signing a contract with the agency we were able to go and meet this little, tiny, precious boy. He had been born a week earlier and had not had any visitors prior to our arrival. He was in an incubator with plugs and cords all over him, illuminated by blue heat lamps. His breathing was aided by oxygen tubes in his nose. We thought he looked like ET after being captured by the scientists. He was so precious, so fragile, so tiny – only 3 lbs 4.8 ozs, 13 inches long. I commented on his being a basketball player.

We went home to figure out how we were going to come up with the $10,000 we needed to cover the adoption agency expenses. Even this was a blessing from God. Because of the various complications the usual $20,000 agency fee had been reduced by half. We told the agency that we would not be able to come up with the money by the requested next day and they replied,

“Well, I know that you are supposed to be the parents and we need to expedite this, so just get it to us as soon as you can!”

We were amazed to see God’s hand move. Each step confirmed for us that this precious baby was a gift from Him to us. The birth parents signed their consent for us to adopt their baby. A court hearing to grant us legal custody was scheduled for Friday. We thought, “This is too easy, this is amazing, we are going to be parents in less than a week!” In the midst of our rejoicing, we were struck with another obstacle that threatened it all.

The day before going to court our lawyer called. He said that he had just read through our family profile for the first time and found something that concerned him – the HIV virus. Because of the Judge we were assigned, our lawyer felt we had only a 30% chance of being approved for the adoption. I got the impression that if our lawyer had known this at the beginning he probably wouldn’t have represented us. I was shocked. I knew it had been too good to be true. We had been up front with the HIV from the beginning of our adoption process and never received any indication that it would be a problem. The social worker from our agency then told us that in relation to this issue we were assigned the worst judge possible. You could hear the fear in her voice.

All at once our hopes were dashed. What had seemed to be God’s perfect gift to us was now becoming a cruel joke. How could this happen? We immediately contacted our family and friends, asking them to pray. We couldn’t do this on our own. One friend called and encouraged me,

“Don’t stay up tonight establishing your arguments for the judge or creating your defense. Go to bed focusing on worship – focus on who God is and what He is able to accomplish.”

That is what I did. As I was going to sleep I listened to a Jason Upton CD. One song’s lyrics stood out - “I don’t know what to do, but my eyes are on You.” These words became my prayer as I drifted off in peace.

The next morning we went before the judge, expecting a grueling inquisition. Everyone wore fear on their faces. We had two friends come with us to pray during the hearing. All we could do was allow it to take its course and put our faith in the Lord, not in our lawyer, the judge or the judicial system.

The whole proceeding took only about 20 minutes. Before we realized what was going on, the judge dropped the gavel and granted us custody. I couldn’t believe it. I thought to myself,

“What about all the issues he was supposed to have. What about the fight we were going to have to put up in order to defend our case. Is that it? Is it really that easy?”

Turns out the fear we faced was simply the enemy trying to rob us, yet again, of God’s perfect plan. If the judge did have a problem, we never would have known. It couldn’t have gone smoother. The woman representing the adoption agency was flabbergasted,

“That was amazing! I’ve never seen anything like it! That was definitely a God thing!”

I sent a quick text message to everyone who had been praying: “WE WON!” It reminded me of the famous front page headlines of WWII victory. It was as if we had been holding our breath all morning and suddenly all we could do was cry. We were parents. Jeremiah Michael Greer was our son. Amazing. Just like God. How could we have ever doubted? God does know what He is doing.

We first heard of Jeremiah on a Sunday after church. The following Sunday we were able to share our story with the church that had prayed for us the week before. Before sharing another friend from church got up to share an encouraging word for everyone. He spoke of II Chron. 20 – the story of Jehoshophat leading his people in battle against the ammonites. Using his greatest weapon, he led his people in worship declaring the might of the Lord and said in verse 12 “We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you!”

As he shared this I was shocked. I didn’t realize that these same words I prayed the night before going into court had been prayed so long ago by Jeshoshophat. I hadn’t realized it was taken from scripture - I thought they were just powerful Jason Upton lyrics. I was glad we didn’t know their origin. If we had, our son might have been named Jehoshophat instead of Jeremiah.

We shared our story with the church that morning and celebrated with them the glory and goodness of the Lord.

As of this writing, we have known him for 5 weeks. We expect to spend the next 4 weeks spending time with him in the hospital before we are able to bring him home. He is progressing well and the prognosis is very good in relation to his prematurity.

We thank God daily for this precious gift.

As is customary in adoption cases, we now have temporary custody for a six month period pending a routine evaluation by the adoption agency. At the end of October we will be granted permanent custody. A new birth certificate will be given to us, officially changing his birth name and listing us as the parents of Jeremiah Michael Greer.

In writing and posting this, it is our greatest desire that some may consider the plans that God has for them – however impossible they may seem – and worship Him and His ability to bring them about. Then get out of His way and allow Him to show them that nothing is impossible for Him.