A PREGNANCY OF THE HEART

Nicol has been in love with Jesus Christ for 31 years, and married to her best friend and love of her life Thomas Crickett for 8 glorious years that haven’t come without their trials and hardships. A mother for 5 years to the best two children in the whole world, Nicol, has experienced the great lows of infertility, financial ruin, death of parents, her husband going through heart failure resulting in receiving a pace maker, to awesome highs, the highest of which is the adoption of her two children. She is blessed to have a family full of color and difference. To date they have adopted two children from South Africa, Noa-Joy their daughter who is African and is six years old, and their son Elijah who is 3 years old and is of mixed race, with many more still in their hearts.

With the sense of wonder of what finding your purpose can do for you, she moved with her family from South Africa to the UK in 2010 where they hold creative workshops and are in the process of starting a church and a creative college to help people find their purpose so they to can set the world on fire.

“ Not flesh of my flesh or bone of my bone,

But still miraculously my own.

Never forget not for a minute it was not under my

Heart you grew but in it.”

Before we adopted I can remember the struggles of longing for a child of my own, not understanding how I was going to get through all of this and feeling so desperate. I began to search for answers from My God who I love and depend on for everything. It was out of this that He answered me with the scripture from Isaiah 58 – I was to become a repairer of broken walls. I felt like my oversized heart had found what it was made for and I was filled with joy. From this scripture our process of adoption began. It was not an easy road we traveled; it was filled with a lot of uncertainty and fear of the unknown. Hence more searching continued with God and His wonderful scriptures and it is what led me  to where I am today. It gave me strength to carry on, the hope to know that God was in control when I was not. But the most important answer I received was that I was a partner in this process-- I held a vital role. I was not waiting to be a mother. No, I was a mother already and I had things to do. He turned my mourning into joy and my prayer is that you too can be encouraged and strengthened in your journey with God and your process of adoption.

I found that in the Bible, the heart is the center of man, wherein is found his fullest being. It is in the heart that all our thoughts and desires have their origin. When God speaks to us, He speaks to our hearts. It is in this place where God whispers "Adoption"; it is here where God in His infinite wisdom plants the seed and here where we must nurture the seed until fruition.

No Ordinary Love:

This is no ordinary love which we had embarked upon. It is a wonderful blessing straight from heaven and it is heaven who guided us through the how and when, with its' full protection. 

This extraordinary love is a pregnancy of the heart, where you choose to partner with Heaven, uniting your heart with the heart of Jesus. For the heart of the Father is that all may know the love of God, and to know Him as father. It is in the heart of God to adopt-- we know this because He firsts adopts us and then He asks us to become just like Him, to love our neighbor as ourselves. He asked me to love His child, one He chose to give me as my very own.

Conception Took Place in Our Hearts:

Since we now knew that conception had taken place in our hearts when we chose to adopt we could only think of our process to adopt from now on as a heart pregnancy between our heavenly father and us. 

Tears fill my eyes every time I think upon these heavenly thoughts. I am always overwhelmed by the awesome love of my Father for me. I am overwhelmed by His choice of me to mother these heaven-sent children. Where the world says I cannot be a mother, my God says I can.  I am overwhelmed by the grace of God who equips me to lead this wonderfully privileged life and I am filled with His glory as my heart swells with His goodness in my life. I glow, for my heart is pregnant.

It is no wonder that God is deeply concerned with our Hearts for out of it overflows life.

Partnership Begins:

One of the most wonderful things I found out while searching for answers for adoption was that this all-powerful, all-knowing King-of-all-Kings God chooses to partner with me in every detail of my life! He is intimately concerned with all my wants and needs, and having a child is no exception. I learnt that in this partnership, as with any other, there are things I need to do and there are things He must do. I found out that it was not my job to worry about if He had done His things. No, it was my job to do all that was asked of me and my most important part to play in this partnership was to choose to trust in Him and His ways. To trust that in His time He would finish the work He started when He whispered adoption into my heart.

This was a wonderful truth for me to grasp-- that my heart was in partnership with God and it was the place where my child would be held. I was not alone. From a place of feeling completely out of control I suddenly became a doing partner. I felt free and equipped to start my journey as a mother, who now has had two successful heart pregnancies.

Proverbs 4:23

"Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life."

Interior Design:

I knew that with my heart at the center of this decision to adopt, I needed to guard my heart for out of it new life was coming. I could not afford to have certain hurts or offenses inside my heart any longer. The scriptures say in Proverbs 14:30, "A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones." I knew that this was how God chose to give me my baby-- I had settled on that. So I no longer needed to be envious of how other people received theirs. I knew I wanted peace to rule my heart and my baby’s new home. So I chose the shade of peace to color the walls and fill the room and threw out envy. It was so last season and it would not do anymore! I kept telling myself my heart was getting ready for a new arrival. It was okay to feel uncomfortable and scared of the unknown, even a little emotional at times. But I kept encouraging myself to push forward and fill my heart with good things for myself and my child who was growing inside of my heart. For the scriptures say in Luke 6:45

"The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart." 

Thinking of my heart as a place I was housing my child gave me power to choose what it was going to look like.

I could choose empty battered and bruised OR I could partner with my heavenly father who is Unconditional Love and allow Him to fill my heart with shades of love, peace and joy.

For me this was a better look. I chose the heart filled with love, peace and joy and over time, along with the faithfulness of God, I allowed Him to heal my heart. It started looking and feeling more like a place I was proud for my child to grow in.