“One day there was a little girl and a little boy in Ethiopia…”

Playing in the background of our home most days is the web stream from the prayer room at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. IHOP (prayer, not pancakes) has singers and musicians who participate in prayer and worship “sets” all day long, everyday. Picture a room that seats about 800 and a “band” of about 10 or 12 singing scripture and prayers. And their music is broadcast, via the internet webstream, to homes like ours all over the world.

Sounds boring … or just weird? It’s neither.

Ever have a vacation that actually served its purpose and you felt deeply rested and refreshed? Afterward, when you catch a glimpse of a photo in a magazine of that vacation spot or hear a song you first heard while there, you feel that same wave of refreshing over you? That’s IHOP for me. Some of my sweetest moments of escape with the Lord happened in that room where I was washed with the words of scripture coming from the songbirds upfront.

At IHOP, most of the 2-hour prayer sets are dedicated to worship or prayer for a certain cause. On any given day, you can join in praying for orphans, victims of sex trafficking, the poor, etc.

Eden and Caleb are very familiar with this prayer room. Because its such a staple in our home, it has become a staple in their imaginative playground. When they’re not talking on the phone (a wooden block), making pizza for Friday-night-pizza-night (the lid to a wooden children’s pot), or going for a run with their ipod (a blood-pressure cuff from their doctor kit), they are “praying in the prayer room.”

A while back, Nate was reading on the couch, and he heard this from the other room:

Eden [dressed, I'm sure, in her scrubs, Redskins' jersey, angel wings and sweat band -- because dress-up clothes are a *must* around here], holding a pretend microphone as she directed Caleb in the “prayer room”:

“One day there was a little girl and a little boy in Ethiopia. They didn’t have a mommy and daddy. But God knew they were beautiful. So, God sent a bigger man and woman to Ethiopia to be their mommy and daddy.

We want to thank you God.”

You might think those are words we’ve said to her. They were not. We have certainly prayed and thanked God with them for bringing them into our home, but we haven’t coached them to pray the reverse. Somehow, her 4-year-old mind was able to not only observe her predicament but turn it into a prayer of thanksgiving.

I sometimes just want to pinch myself. Is this real? I am crazy about them. The gift God has given us through adoption is one whose magnitude I’ve only just begun to assess. But, to think that her predeveloped mind might also be walking around this monument with some measure of gratitude seems implausible.

The prayer I pray almost daily for Eden is out of Ephesians 3:14-21. I often get stuck here: “that she would be filled with all the fullness of God.“

My little girl is emoting what her mind should be too young to comprehend.

He is responding to my prayer.

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Sara Hagerty

Sara and her husband, Nate, have been married for nine years and brought home their two children from Ethiopia last year. They recently started the adoption process for two more from Uganda! They have a heart for prayer and to see people touched by the love of Jesus. What started as a blog chronicling the ups and downs of adoption has become a passion for Sara. You can read more of her musings on orphans, walking with God through pain and perplexity . . . and spinach juice at Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet.