Be Enthroned

I read an article today posted by my pastor about a man who had a date with a prostitute and it reminded me of a young woman I once met. I pasted a link in the comment section of a blog post I wrote about it. All it took was a word of encouragement and I remembered how good it felt when I used to write semi-regularly.  

I’ve not walked away from God but I did walk away from writing; which I believe was something He called me to do.

And so I begin anew. The past few years have been a real experience. A lot of ups and downs.

I’ll start where I left off. 2013. I’d been found by Selah. Our families stretched to include many new extended relations. People whom I’m very pleased to say are a beautiful part of my life. We took a trip down to visit my family in MS which was memorable! We did a lot of fun things and I’m grateful for the time we’ve had to spend together. In the past few years, we’ve gotten to know each other. And I’m thankful to say that through good times and bad, we’re really family; and that isn’t something that will ever change.

I’m quite proud of my son. He’s navigated some very difficult water in the past few years. But his is a story of courage, redemption and the amazing love of our Savior. And that is a story that I hope he’s okay with me sharing one day. But for now, I’ll say that my boy is serving God and I’m so blessed by him.

And then…my Goliath.  Monkey died last year. July 3, 2016, she received a call from her Father in Heaven; and she answered…no doubt skipping and singing all the way! I miss her. It’s been the worst year of my life. But God is faithful. He used her in such a HUGE way and He still is. And that is a lot of what this will be. Me working through my grief.

I work through my grief in worship. He is worthy. He is Lord of all. And yet, I question the plans. I question the pain. The answer I keep receiving is that He is worthy and is to be enthroned upon our praises. So in my pain, I praise Him. I will tell everyone that He is the only one who is worthy.

Welcome to my personal journal. Here you will find my dreams, my thoughts, my prayers. I hope that you will join me as I pursue God.

"I love all who love me. Those who search will surely find me.”

Proverbs 8:17 NLT

Contact...

This blog entry is part 3 of a series. If you missed Part One or Part Two you can check them out so this makes sense.

 

It was a normal Friday in January. I was just working. Little did I know my entire life was about to change.The email was hidden among tons of spam in an account I rarely used. I was checking for a shipping notice. There it was. My breath caught. My heart skipped a LOT of beats. I burst into tears. Her name was in the subject line. When I opened it I read the following…

Hello,

I was born Becca Christine ___ in ___ 1987 in _____ AL. I am doing research on my family history. The name Margie Ann ___ has come up in some records. I am curious if you may be able to provide me with any information. If you can help me in any way, I would love to hear from you. If not, please disregard this email, and I apologize for taking your time. Thank you.

___

The first thing I did was check my clock. It was 12:11pm.  This was in the 12-12:30 window I have to call my husband at lunch, so I called him. We both cried. He asked what I had done and I said, “I called you!!!” We talked briefly and I replied to the email.

Hello _____

I would be happy to speak with you. My cell is ___-___-____. I look forward to hearing from you.

Ann

She called at 12:32pm. We talked for 2 hours. We cried, we laughed, and she told me she loved me. That is the thing. She loved me, she LOVES me.

My fears were washed away and I was filled with a peace I’ve never experienced before. This child I loved so dearly, completely, she loved me too. I’m so filled with gratitude to her parents. They told her that I loved her. The letter had been lost in a move but they made sure that she knew she was loved by me. They made certain she was secure in who she was and who she is in Christ. They did what I couldn’t; they raised her to be an amazing woman.

We’ve talked or texted every day since. I look forward to seeing her name on my phone. I look at her pictures and can hardly believe it’s real. It’s like a dream I’m having that is so good I’m afraid I’ll wake up and find it was only a beautiful dream. But each morning I wake and she is still really a part of my life. I feel complete now. Have you ever had an ache or pain that was there for such a long time you become accustomed to it? Then the pain is suddenly gone and the relief is overwhelming. That is the only way I can describe this feeling. I walked around for 25 years with a hole in my heart and now it’s filled.

Good bye is not forever...

This is the second installment of the blogs I'm writing about the child I had as a teenager and put up for adoption. To read the first in the series you can follow this link.

When the day came for Becca Christine to make her grand debut it was bittersweet. The nurses weren’t exactly kind after they heard I was giving Becca Christine to another family. They discouraged me from holding her and didn’t want to even allow me to see her but knowing that my time with her was extremely short I soaked her in. This child was mine for a few days, I counted her fingers and toes the same way all moms do, I kept her with me as long as I could and I memorized her little face. The way she would suck her bottom lip in when she was ready for her bottle, the way she would yawn sleepily after she burped and was ready to nap, how impossibly  light blond her hair was, her eyebrows almost invisible from the fairness of them, the weight of her in my arms. Beautiful. Perfect. Heartbreaking. But much like Hannah had promised Samuel to God, I’d promised God to give Becca Christine to the family we’d chosen and trust that He would protect her. Words cannot describe the pain of saying goodbye to this child I loved so completely. I handed her to the social worker, wrapped in the blanket I made for her, along with the letter I wrote to her explaining why I did what I did and telling her I hoped one day she’d find me.

Soon after that I had to meet with her father to sign the papers. I hoped against hope that he would change his mind when I showed him her picture. But as I have come to learn in life, you don’t always get what you want. I never saw her father after that day. I have no idea what happened to him. He left town and no one ever heard from him again. I wonder if he hurt as badly as I did…I hope not. I loved him. This was about 6 weeks after she was born. Alabama gives the birth parents 6 weeks to change their mind. I went to court and finalized the adoption.

Utter despair set in. Although I knew that she was fine, she was loved, she would have everything I couldn’t give her, I felt guilt about it. Then I felt shame. When I went home no one wanted to talked about her. No one wanted to hear me speak of how perfect she was or how much I missed her. I was told that if I just put it out of my mind the pain would go away. They were wrong. The pain just shifted from a piercing sharp pain in my chest to a dull ache in my entire being. It didn’t go away. I did stop talking about her. But I never stopped thinking about her. I’d see a blond girl with a brunette mother and my heart would clench, was it her? I’ve lived that for 25 years. All the questions that resurfaced…Did she know she was adopted? Does she know how much I love her? Does she blame me as being selfish? Did she think I gave her up easily? Did she know I agonized over it?

The guilt and shame I felt for giving her up persisted. There is a stigma I suppose to giving one’s child to another to raise. I experienced it with some of the nurses at the hospital. It reinforced those feeling. Once at a conference I opened up to someone about giving her up for adoption. It wasn’t easy bearing my soul to anyone. I was trying to comfort this woman who couldn’t have children and reassure her that there are babies for her to love, don’t give up. She accused me of being selfish and a horrible excuse of a mother. I didn’t talk about it again for a very long time. Still, wherever I went I wondered about her, prayed for her, her mother and father, brother, the man she’d eventually marry, I wanted her to have all of God’s blessings on her life.

Over the years young women who find themselves “in trouble” have made their way to my doorstep. Strange how this happens since I was never really open about what happened with us. I always counsel them to consider this; their temporary “inconvenience” isn’t worth stealing the entire life from someone else. There is someone out there who shares my DNA that is prayerfully living a good life, blessing others, making a difference in this world because I chose to give her life. Even though ending that life would have been a “quick fix” for me, it would have ended someone’s entire future and I would never have the hope of a reunion one day. I’m so grateful to say that because of the road I’ve walked others have made a choice for life and there are some beautiful children out there who are living God’s plan for them. So, I’m thankful for the tears. They were the water that grew the seeds that developed into a small ministry for unwed mothers.

As the years went by and Becca Christine turned 18, 19, 20,  I thought I was prepared for the possibility that she might find me. I wouldn’t try to find her. I didn’t want to cause her any pain. But I wanted desperately to be found. I made sure that my entire maiden name was on my facebook account so I was easily located. It was on January 11, 2013 when I just happened to check the email for my fb account (I no longer use it because of all the spam). I hadn’t checked it for weeks. On the first page of the account there was message titled, Becca Christine…

Decisions

I’m going to tell you a story. It’s a story that is true; it is part of my story. I haven’t told many people about it because it is full of pain, guilt, tears and shame. It is also full of hope, sacrifice and love. I pray God uses this story to touch your heart in some way.

It was the most agonizing decision I had ever faced. The pregnancy test was positive. Instantly, I fell in love with this life living inside me but I was just a teenager. Things weren’t “ideal”. I didn’t know what to do so I went to tell my boyfriend the news. I’d hoped he’d be happy. I’d hoped, secretly, deep down that he would say, “Marry me.” And we’d get married, have this baby and live happily ever after. That didn’t happen. I was given a choice. Keep him or keep the life inside me. This is the story of the choices I made.

When I was just a little girl I had some bad things happen to me. I’ve written about that before. Here is the  link to that entry. It’s not really central to this story except to note that the person I wrote about lived not too far from my parents home so living there was not an option. I really didn’t have many options. I hadn’t finished my education so there were no means to support the child financially; I lived not far from a dangerous man that preyed on innocent children.  As the months passed, my stomach swelled, it became painfully clear a decision needed to be reached. This child, daughter they told me, deserved to be safe, happy, safe, loved, safe, provided for in ways I was unable to do, because in many ways I was still a child myself.

I began to pray for this girl, I called her Becca Christine, and I prayed for her to have the kind of life I had not had the opportunity to have. Not that my life is bad, in retrospect, I made poor choices, had some choices made for me, and still God has worked them out just like He promises in Romans 8:28. But the life that was growing inside me was special. I couldn’t take any chances that she’d become the victim of someone else’s selfishness. Including my own.

I came to the decision that what was best for her was to be given up for adoption. As I looked into the whole adoption process I realized choosing the family for my precious angel would be much harder than I imagined. So many of them, wonderful, young couples, desperate for a child, had no other children. And as I thought of my big sister who was my defender while growing up, my confidant, my best friend, a thought was formed inside me. Becca Christine would need a sibling. I didn’t want her to be lonely. I couldn’t imagine being an only child so I couldn’t imagine it for her.

I moved to Prattville, AL and enlisted the services of Agape, a Christian crisis pregnancy/adoption center. They helped me through the pregnancy and provided a place for me to stay. They were wonderful. Never pressuring me to choose either way, just there for me, praying for me and being supportive. They came to the home where I was staying and brought piles of folders. I looked through the stacks of prospective parents and they pretty much looked the same, until one popped out to me. They had a child already. A boy, 5 years old, and I felt a nudging from God that this was the family for her. She’d have a big brother. And from how I viewed things she wouldn’t be a practice child for a couple who’d never had one and she’d have a big brother to look out for her.  The decision was made. 

Looking back 25 years from where I stand today I have one emotion that stands out from the others. Thankfulness. I'm thankful for the good decision God led me to make. I'm thankful for the good family that raised my beautiful child. I'm thankful I survived the pain to be made whole.

Pruning Makes The Fruit Easier To See

Hmmm? Really? That’s what my husband told me yesterday as I went out to pick the blackberries. “I pruned the vines, it’ll make the fruit easier to see.” This is such a truth, not only in the blackberry patch but in our spiritual growth as well. Every vine God prunes bears fruit so that it will bear more fruit (John 15:1-8) but it also makes the fruit easier to see. I had never thought of this. Last year, about this time, I was thinking about being fruitful and asked God to make me more fruitful. I recall praying that in the blackberry patch, I love praying out there. My Father and I have some good talks in the blackberry patch. I didn’t realize how much pruning He would have to do in my life to get the fruit He wanted. Pruning is painful, but necessary. This past year there has been much pruned from my life. A job I loved. People I loved. Things I loved. All of them proved to be unnecessary. Now I am stripped down and bare; like a vine in the winter. I don’t see any fruit here but I’m sure that my Father, THE Master Gardener, knows what He is doing. I trust that Spring will come and fruit will burst forth, He is faithful. And as far as the Blackberries, well, they are so much easier to pick now. And though they are almost finished I still enjoy my time in the blackberry patch as much now in August as I did in July even if it is only every other day.

Welcome to the Jungle

When you poke a wound, the wounded animal will eat you. Even if you’re poking it to discern the level of the pain to come up with a medical plan to heal the animal. Pain will always override and the animal will eat you, or at least wound you.

This is why Jesus tells us to forgive. He knew that while we were going around in His Name bringing the wounded to be healed and set free that sometimes they would turn on us. Not only that, Jesus knew that even after we were converted that there would be lingering sin in our lives that would be painful for us to live with and when confronted about it we would lash out at those who come to help us. Again, this is why forgiveness is so important. In the Gospels, Jesus taught extensively about forgiveness. He did this because He knew how key forgiveness is to living a life that is pleasing to God.

When you do something that offends someone, which reminds me about someone I need to ask forgiveness from, (did it, hope she forgives me…) as soon as you think of it. And when someone offends you then you have the choice to hold an offense against them or forgive them. Holding an offense does nothing to the person who you hold it against. It’s like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. But to forgive, it frees you from bitterness that would otherwise take root. I’ll tell you a little story.

When I was a little girl I had a man in my life who was older and he hurt me in ways that some older men hurt little girls. And he told me that it was my fault because after all, I let him do it so I must have liked it, and since I liked it that made me a bad girl. Since I was a bad girl he didn’t really want to tell my mom and dad but he would if I “made him”. You get the picture. He was a well loved member of our family who was trusted and I believed him when I was a little girl. But then I grew up and when I met Jesus Christ, He told me all about who I really am in Him, a princess, pure and whole, reserved for Him but there was a requirement from me. I had to forgive. Took me a while, but you know what? I would have never been able to write about this before I forgave him. There was too much pain. I couldn’t even speak of it without tears that flowed freely and anger that would burn in my chest. Now I feel badly for that man. He wasted his life, ruined God only knows how many children and unless he comes to know Jesus Christ he will burn in Hell. I pray he meets Jesus and finds forgiveness.  

Jesus knew that the only antidote to the pain that will eat us alive is forgiveness. That is the lesson I learned in the jungle of my childhood. I pray you never have to walk in the jungle I survived as a child, but if you find yourself in a jungle of your own remember this, forgiveness is the antidote to the pain.