“When God Made Us A Family” was written by Ryan and Shilpa, who share the personal story of adopting their son, David, through Lutheran Family Service.

Long before Shilpa and Ryan knew David, long before they knew how their family would come together, God knew.

For Shilpa, the desire to adopt began years before she and Ryan were married. As a teenager, she remembers feeling that adoption might someday be part of her life. Later, after she and Ryan married and were unable to have biological children, that desire remained.

“There were certainly questions,” Shilpa shared of those years of waiting. “But underneath those questions, there was faith. I believed that God had a plan for us.”

They had no idea just how unexpectedly that plan would unfold.

Opening Their Home And Their Hearts

As Shilpa and Ryan became involved in the pro-life movement, Shilpa began wrestling with an important question.

“I’m telling women to choose life. But what am I willing to do to help them after they choose life?”

That question eventually led the couple to foster care. Their experience taught them how deeply they could love a child, even when they didn’t know how long that child would remain in their home. Saying goodbye was painful, but Shilpa came to understand something important:

“You don’t love a child less because you know they may leave,” she said. “You simply love them.”

Looking back, Shilpa believes those experiences were preparing their hearts for what God had planned next.

“I Need To Ask You Something”

On Memorial Day weekend in 2025, the father of one of their former foster children came to their home with a question. The child’s birth mother was pregnant again. Would Shilpa and Ryan consider adopting her unborn baby?

For Shilpa, the moment was almost impossible to comprehend. Years earlier—before foster care and before any of this—she remembered having an unusual thought:

“Maybe someday a woman will come to me and ask me to take care of her child.”

At the time, Shilpa had dismissed the idea as unrealistic. Now, years later, someone was standing in her home asking that very question.

Of course, Shilpa and Ryan said yes.

But saying yes did not mean the baby would become theirs. The adoption wasn’t guaranteed. Shilpa knew from experience how painful it could be to love a child and then let go.

So they prayed—and waited.

Trusting God Through The Uncertainty

As the baby’s birth approached, Shilpa knew they needed an adoption agency to help everyone navigate the process properly and ensure that the birth mother had support as well.

Shilpa was already familiar with Lutheran Family Service (LFS) because a friend had adopted through the organization. Now, LFS would become an important part of their own adoption journey.

Through LFS, Shilpa and Ryan began working with Kari, LFS Adoption & Pregnancy Counseling Manager, Midwest Region.

“Kari was our social worker, but throughout this journey, she became so much more than simply the person handling our adoption paperwork,” Shilpa said. “She was amazing.”

Kari helped guide the family through the practical details and emotional uncertainty of the adoption process. Her support became especially important when Shilpa and Ryan learned that the birth mother wanted to consider profiles of other prospective adoptive families.

“My heart broke,” Shilpa recalled. “I had allowed myself to imagine this baby as ours. And suddenly, I might lose him before I had ever held him.”

Still, Shilpa knew the decision had to be about what was best for the baby.

“Whatever happens, this baby needs to be safe and loved,” she told Kari. “I will not stand in the middle of that.”

Ryan reminded her, “God has a plan for this unborn child.”

Together, they prayed:

“God, not our will, but Yours. Whatever You want for this child, let Your will be done.”

For Shilpa, surrender didn’t mean she stopped longing to become this baby’s mother. It meant trusting God with the outcome.

And Then There Was David

About a week later, Shilpa received a call from the baby’s birth mother. She was in the hospital, and the baby might need to be delivered early.

Then she asked:

“Are you ready?”

She had made her decision. She had chosen Shilpa and Ryan to be her baby’s parents.

On August 25, Shilpa went to the hospital. After hours of waiting, she and Ryan stepped away briefly to get food. They had barely made it to lunch when the phone rang.

The baby had been born.

David was here.

His first days weren’t easy. David spent several days in the NICU. Once again, Shilpa and Ryan found themselves doing what they had done so many times before: trusting God and waiting.

And once again, Kari was there, walking beside them through David’s birth and hospital stay, the paperwork and the months that followed.

“There are people who enter your life because they have a job to do, and then there are people whose kindness becomes part of your story,” Shilpa wrote. “For our family, Kari became part of the story.”

When God Made Them A Family

On July 1, 2026, David’s adoption was finalized. Legally, he was Shilpa and Ryan’s son. Forever.

Yet looking back, Shilpa sees that God had been building their family long before that day in the courtroom.

He was there when adoption was first placed on her heart as a teenager. He was there through the years of waiting. He was there when they opened their home through foster care and learned to love without knowing the outcome. And He was there when a question Shilpa once thought impossible was asked in her own home.

“Looking back, I realize I spent years thinking we were waiting on God,” Shilpa wrote. “But perhaps God was preparing us.”

Today, when Shilpa thinks about the story she will someday tell David, there is something she especially wants him to know:

“You were prayed for before we knew your name. We didn’t know your face. We didn’t know when you would come. We didn’t even know how you would come. But we trusted that God had a plan for our family. And He had a plan for you.”

For Shilpa and Ryan, David’s adoption is more than the story of how their son came into their lives.

It is a testimony of waiting, surrender, love and, most of all, God’s faithfulness.

Read Shilpa’s Full Story

There is much more to Shilpa and Ryan’s journey than can be shared here. In her own words, Shilpa beautifully recounts the years of waiting, the experiences that helped prepare their hearts, the unexpected circumstances that brought David into their lives and the faith that carried them through it all.

Read Shilpa’s full story, “When God Made Us a Family: The Story of How God Brought David to Us.”

Considering Adoption?

Every adoption journey is unique, but no one has to walk it alone. Lutheran Family Service is here to provide guidance, support, and compassionate care for hopeful adoptive families, expectant parents, and birth families every step of the way.

Adoption isn’t just a choice—it’s a calling, a relationship, and a powerful reflection of God’s love for us.

“He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will.” – Ephesians 1:5

Learn more about Christian adoption through Lutheran Family Service HERE.