Reluctant Spouses: His Perfect Timing

February 21, 2017 adopting later in life, January 2017 Feature - Reluctant Spouses, reluctant husband 2 Comments

I was ready to adopt long before my husband was. More than ten years longer.

It all started when I watched a documentary about the orphans and orphanages in China. My heart broke and I immediately felt compelled to adopt a little girl from China.

My husband did not feel the same.

I honestly could not understand why he didn’t feel the same. I can say that, because of this disconnect, I felt many emotions over the years. Anger and resentment mostly. But I never gave up hope, and I continued to bring the subject up whenever I could.

We had two small boys (who are now 19 and 22), and I would bring it up around them also. Scott was content with our lives and honestly couldn’t understand why I felt so compelled to adopt. We never discussed it outside of our home, so our families and friends had no idea what was brewing just under the surface at the Mager household.

Over the years I prayed that God would change Scott’s heart or mind. Because let’s face it, one of us had to change.

In the March of 2013 several things “fell” into place.

Our son, Jacob who is soon to be 23, went to Africa his spring semester of his freshmen year of college to serve as a missionary. He would be helping a church plant, working with locals to start bible studies and work in orphanages. My sister had a beautiful baby boy on March 20th of 2013. We were visiting her and facetiming Jacob in Africa. When we got home, Scott looked at me and said, “Do you still want to adopt?”

I couldn’t believe my ears!

So, I immediately started checking into adoption agencies. We didn’t tell anyone we were looking into it, not even our boys. Adoption is one of the hardest and most rewarding thing we have ever done, there is no way I could have done it without him by my side the entire way.

When we decided on what agency, we did have a discussion with Ryan to make sure he was on board. We facetimed Jacob once a week. We were on our weekly call when he was telling us about his work in the orphanage, then he stopped, looked up at his (through the screen) and asked, “When are you going to adopt? You aren’t getting any younger you know.” We just started laughing and told him we had talked with several agencies and the ball was rolling!

Scott said that it would truly have to be by the hands of God, because we had no extra money for the adoption expenses. And man, was it ever! The entire process took around 27 months from the day we filled out the application with our agency. Some things took longer and some things happened quickly.

We got the call on President’s Day in 2015. They sent the email of her pictures…. we were in love! When we realized her birthdate, we both sat down and sobbed. You see, she was born on March 1, 2013… the month my husband asked me that one little question that changed everything.

All in God’s perfect timing.

We traveled in June 2015 and met our beautiful daughter face to face on June 8th. She became a Magers forever on June 9th when we signed the adoption papers.



She amazes us every day and she was so worth the wait!



– guest post by Denise



2 responses to “Reluctant Spouses: His Perfect Timing”

  1. Charline Bishop says:

    I love seeing the smile on Scott’s face in the pictures of him and LuLu

  2. L. B. says:

    Love your story! It took my hubby nearly 14 years before he said yes! We ended up going on and adopting three from China. Our two bio boys are now 20 and 18 and our China kids are aged 7-3. Now hubby would adopt more and I feel done.

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