Erin’s story shows us how sometimes our earthly relationships give us a glimpse of our relationship with God.

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My thin place is a lady named Jeanette. She carried me for 9 months, but never held me. I never laid eyes on her, but always knew about her. For 36 years we, separately, thought about each other, especially on my birthday. For 36 years I wondered what she looked like. For 36 years I hoped and prayed she had a good life and a family.

You see, 36 years ago she made a selfless decision that allowed me to have a mother AND a father. She hoped and prayed I had a good life and a family, too. God finally gave me permission to seek her out and call her.

Mary says a thin place is when God seems the closest. Jeanette’s womb was God’s workshop for nine months. I found the workshop where God created me. Knowing I am created and stitched together in Jeanette’s womb makes me feel one step away from feeling the hands of God physically touch my body. When I am with Jeanette, my thin place seems so translucent like I can almost penetrate it and step through on God’s holy ground.

Knowing the huge sacrifice she made by giving me up, helps me understand our loving Father just a tiny bit more (but not completely by any means). The moment she saw me, wet and wrapped in a blanket, drifting farther and farther away and out the hospital room door must have been how God felt as he turned his back on his Son hanging on the cross. The pain must have been almost overwhelming. The hope in the future was stronger than the pain, however, and that is the only thought that helped them not be crushed with grief.

So many blessings have come from meeting my birth mother. We both love the Lord and rely on Him in our life. Understanding has grown deeper and stronger in God’s plan for our lives.

I have learned an important truth since meeting her: even though I may look like her and have many of the same characteristics, mannerisms, aches and pains, God yearns for me to look like His son; to have the same characteristics as Jesus does, to have the same mannerisms as Jesus has, to take on the same aches and pains as Jesus took on for me.

I thank the Lord he allowed me to meet Jeanette on this side of heaven. It has made the walls between the Father and I thinner and has made me a stronger follower of Christ Jesus.