The Room That Was Ready Before She Arrived

In 2019, Marcus and Denise Thompson of Nashville spent eleven months preparing for a daughter they had never met. They painted her room soft yellow. They stacked picture books on shelves — ones about girls with brown skin and big dreams, because the agency had told them she was African American. They installed a nightlight shaped like a butterfly because her foster mother mentioned she was afraid of the dark. Marcus built a step stool so she could reach the bathroom sink. Denise learned to make mac and cheese from scratch because the caseworker said it was her favorite.

When three-year-old Amara finally walked through their front door, she froze in the hallway. Then she saw the butterfly nightlight glowing from her room and whispered, "Somebody knew I was coming."

Somebody did. And Someone always has.

The Psalmist writes that the Almighty searched us and knew us before we drew breath — that He saw our unformed bodies and wrote every day of our lives in His book before a single one came to be. Every thought anticipated. Every word known before it reaches our tongues. We were knit together with intention, not accident.