Dear Friends

Dear Friends,

You are on my mind today.  I was thinking of you this morning and wanted you to know.  This journey brings me in contact with some of you almost daily.  The texts, tweets, emails, Facebook messages, conversations, etc. are precious reminders to me that you are the reason He told me to tell my story.  

I want you to know that I see you out there.  

You are adopted children like me who have found your birthfamilies and some who dream of finding.  You are mothers and fathers who have adopted children. Some of you know your children's story, but some of you don't.  Many of you are scared to know.  You are birthmothers and birthfathers who gave a child to another family, and you will never know the story.  Some of you have never told a soul about giving up a baby. You carry your story secretly in your heart. You are siblings of adopted children, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. You are friends who walked with families either through giving a baby up for adoption or helped welcome an adopted one into a family.  You are families that are waiting to adopt. You are caseworkers who have seen dreams come true and hearts crushed.  

I see you.  

I want you to know that God loves you, and His eyes are on you. He has a plan for you right where you are no matter the story.  You are important to God, and He has a plan to use your story.  If you need courage, God will give it.  If you need faith, just look to Him. If you need to forgive, lay it down at His Feet. Everything you need is in Him.  He is looking at you. Won't you look to Him?  

"For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him." 2 Chronicles 16:9 NKJV

God looks right into the eyes of His children straight through to the core of their hearts and souls.  He didn't make a mistake. I promise you...

With love in Jesus,

Signs

I don't like to make mistakes.

As I read back through my previous posts, I find error after error and it bugs me.  So, I have "hired" an "editor".  The hubs has been named blog editor after unknowingly applying for the job.

He had finished reading a post a week or so ago and asked me an unusual question.  I was waiting on his post assessment and some words of encouragement, but he had only this to offer.

"Does your blog have spell check?"

Ahem... Spell check?

Why no, I haven't discovered spell check yet.  Ugghhh...he knows how I despise spelling errors. 

He asked the question so kindly and quietly, I knew he was treading lightly.  This whole writing thing, telling my adoption reunion story,  is still a tender place.  He knew to be careful, and I knew I had errors which is why I hired him on the spot.  I gave him complete permission to tell me where he saw mistakes so that I could go in and fix them. He agreed.  (I have since figured out where to find and how to use spell check, but  I can't guarantee that you won't stumble across several errors when you read.)  And while that completely bothers me, I am going to keep on writing anyway.  I see it as my ongoing lesson in humility.  As a performance driven individual, I have to keep that area in check.

I am learning too that while I try to edit out all mistakes in my writing and all the times I mess up in life, God is ultimately the Great Editor.  He's the One Who watches over me and fixes what I ruin when I allow Him to do it His Way. Even my messes bring Him Glory.  

The mess with my birthmother was a perfect opportunity for Him to do some major editing.

Losing contact with her was a death of sorts in my life.  I had worked so hard to find her.  I had climbed every mountain and fought every battle and planned and dreamed and waited.  In my mind, I had done everything right and still I'd lost her again.  God had shown me early on that I had set her up as an idol, and that was a hard pill to swallow.  I thought that was the only lesson He had to teach me, but again I was wrong.  There is always more to learn.

There had been many months of silence between us.  My birthday came during one of those months, and it was a hard day for me.  My emotions had been on a roller coaster ride, and I really wanted to get off.  The hubs and I were sitting out on the porch one evening discussing the events that had transpired between my birthmother and me.  He had been so good to support me during these months.  That night, he summed up the place I was in with one of his signature phrases.  He told me the time had come when I needed to make a decision.  I needed to "make nice or make it go away."  After feeling so out of control, his words opened my eyes to the fact that I had some control here.  I could decide. I could choose to "make nice", sweep it all under the rug and try to start over.  The other option was to close the book on her and "make it go away".  He has a knack with simple, profound phrases.  God blessed me with a smart man.

I didn't make any decisions that night sitting on the porch, but the idea that I could make one made a big impression.  I was thinking about all of this as I traveled over to my parent's house.  The kids were going to spend the weekend.  After dropping off  the kids, I  headed back home. Quiet time in the car gave me the opportunity to talk to The Lord about this decision in front of me.   I knew I could not "make nice".  I just didn't have it in me.  I am not a fake person, and a terrible liar when my heart is involved.  Those that know me well know you can see how I feel all over my face.  I would just rather tell  the truth and let the chips fall. "Making nice" was not a viable option.

The other choice, "making her go away" and totally shutting her out of my heart and moving on was not humanly possible either.  You'd have a better chance of  taking  my heart out and trying to keep me alive without it beating than remove her from me.  She's too much a part of me.

What choice did I have?

I told The Lord  the best I could do was to offer her up to Him and let go if  that is what He wanted.  I promised Him that if He ever put her back in my life, I was going to need Him to send me a sign that it was His plan.  I had made such a mess before that I didn't trust myself to go any further in a relationship with her if given the chance.

Give me a sign, Lord, please?

As I finished this prayer, my car was going over an overpass, and I saw a "sign" in the sky...a double rainbow.  The two rainbows were  touching  like the Golden Arches of a well know hamburger joint.  

I laughed out loud and said, "Okay, Lord I see this amazing rainbow...but really, I asked for a SIGN." 

As I arrived at the end of the overpass and slowed  at the red light, I glanced over my right shoulder.  There on the light pole was a rectangular, white sign with this word in black, all capital letters: REPENT.

Repent?  That's the "sign" You want me to see?

Me? Repent?  Of what???

Really, Lord?

Why do I need to repent?

Needless to say, the laughter I had engaged in moments earlier, came to a screeching halt.  I had asked for a sign, and He had supplied one, but the sign's message stung.  What on earth did I have to repent for exactly?

The meaning of repent wasn't clear to me until I shared my sign story with one of my cousins.  He and I had always been very close.  We'd been exchanging emails since I'd found my birthfamily. I had emailed him about my sign experience and was deeply troubled about it all.  I just wasn't seeing the message too clearly.   He is wise beyond his years and clued me in on the Hebrew meaning of the word.  Repent means to change one's mindset or way of thinking.  It also means to turn and go in a new direction.  With love and truth, he told me that I had been going the wrong way and thinking the wrong thoughts.

He was right.

Swallowed up by my hurt feelings and shattered dreams, I had mistakenly placed all the blame for our troubles on her.  It wasn't all hers to bear.  I was to blame, too.  Isn't that how it is in any troubled relationship?  There's always two sides to every pancake.  I had hurt her, too.  I hadn't meant to, but I did.  When your eyes are blinded by tears, you often see only your side.  I had been so focused on my pain that I didn't see my responsibility in that hurt.

 The REPENT sign was spot on.  In blindness to my fault in the relationship focusing only on my pain, I had failed to be obedient to God.  He was calling me repent of my sins and to be forgiven.  He was also calling me to forgive.  I had been trapped between my sin and my unforgiveness.  It took me several days to let this knowledge sink in.  I prayed and prayed and then I made a decision.

In my car once again, this time at the corner of a well known area in my town, I asked The Lord for forgiveness and I repented of my sin.  Also, I  forgave my birthmother as an offering to The Lord.  Through tears of freedom, I lifted her up and said, "Whatever You decide.  I will accept Your Will, Lord.  If you remove her from my life, so be it.  I will trust You no matter what.  If by some miracle, You ever send her back into my life, I will love her like You have called me to.  I repent and turn and will go wherever You lead Lord."

As I turned the corner with my car, I turned a corner in my heart.

That was on a Sunday afternoon.

The load that was lifted off of me was incredible.  I had been carrying the burden of unforgiveness like a ball and chain.  I had rationalized the ball and chain with my pain and it blinded me to my own sin.  It had only been a few months, but it was so much a part of me that I didn't even feel the weight anymore.  When I turned the corner, the lightness in my heart was palpable.  I couldn't get over how different I felt.  Jesus had freed me.

Monday came and went like any other ordinary day, but Tuesday held a surprise.  I was in the kitchen when the hubs came inside with the mail.  He held out a white envelope and said, "She wrote you a letter."

She did what?

She had written me a letter.

I couldn't believe it.  Why was she writing me?  I opened the top of the envelope ever so carefully and began to read words she'd written from her heart.  I read and cried and read and cried... Her letter was beautiful. She was reaching out and apologizing and I was stunned. One line in the letter sent chills up my spine.  She wrote, " You are everywhere I go!  There are signs of you all around me."  Signs!!! Oh, Lord... His Grace and His Mercy washed over me like a flood.  He was giving us both signs.

As I continued reading, this startling reality hit me. While I had been letting go and giving her to God, she had been penning these words.  When I was lifting her up before The Lord and giving Him control, she was folding those words into an envelope and adding a stamp. While I was giving and getting forgiveness before a Holy God, her words were literally on their way to me.

The enormity of it all took me to my knees.  The Sovereign God of the Universe had orchestrated all of this in His time.  

I was blown away...  

A couple of days later I sent her an email that ended with this sentence.  "Let's start today with a clean slate."

Forgiveness is freedom with a clean slate.Cleaning slates is some of God's best work.  When we surrender control of our lives and allow Him to edit them the way He sees fit, He does things we could have never imagined.  We don't have to choose between the limited options we see in front of us.

We can simply choose God. 

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. Isaiah 55:8

We can choose to seek Him and follow His ways instead of our own.  I am thankful that I didn't try to "make nice".  What a train wreck that would've been!  If I had chosen to "make it go away", I feel certain that her letter never would have arrived, or I would have thrown it away.  I am grateful and humbled that God in His infinite Love and long-lasting patience, He didn't give up on me.  He took the mess I had made, taught me lessons through my mistakes, and edited my story to bring Him Glory.  

One month later, the moment I had been waiting for my entire life finally happened.  I met my birthmother face to face, and the storm we were in faded away. God cleared the clouds between us and sent in a rainbow.  The rainbow is a sign of the promise God gave to never flood the earth again.  God's miracle of restoring my birthmother back into my life again was His sign to me that He can do anything.  Even when I mess it all up.

What have you messed up that you think can never be restored?   Nothing, I repeat, nothing is too messed up for God.  He can do miracles with your mess.  Let Him be your editor.  Stop trying to fix stuff on your own.  Repent if you need to.  Forgive everyone that has hurt you.  Let it all go and see what He can do. And if you need a sign???  I can tell you where to look.  Just go grab your Bible and open it up.  It's full of signs and they all point one way...to Jesus.

Get off the porch and go into The House!

Saturday night I had a dream that I don't remember.  It was one of those intense dreams that seems so real. You have a memory out there that you can feel, but you can't see. The only thing I do remember is waking up with a direction to go to the verses about Jesus healing the cripple at the Pool of Bethesda.  I woke up completely hearing the directive.  It was a command, and I knew I had to find these verses, but I didn't go there immediately.  

During church on Sunday, I tried to skim through my Bible to find this passage, but I had my "church" Bible and not my study Bible.  My church Bible is a small one I carry on Sundays that the hubs gave me.  My big study Bible is the one my daddy gave me for Christmas the year before I got married.  The reason I tell you that is...that if I'd had my big friend I could've found the passage easy.  

The little Bible was not helping me out Sunday morning between trying to pay attention to the preacher, fill in the blanks on my sheet, and find this passage.  I got frustrated and gave up.  The timing just wasn't right so I am just guessing that He hid the passage until I needed to see it.  He does that to me a LOT!  Actually He uses my weaknesses to show me stuff...either way you want to look at it.

Over the next few days, The Lord was showing me some things in my life that needed attention.  I had some fears come out of nowhere that temporarily paralyzed me.  

Have you ever had that happen?  

Has the enemy sent a thought or a feeling, something weird and crazy into your life and you were just stunned?  It happens to me from time to time, and I have learned to recognize the signs when it happens.  
The devil has tell-tale signs.  

God doesn't operate in chaos.  He is a God of order and calm in the midst of confusion.  

So, when all these crazy emotions started hitting me from nowhere, it took a minute, but I realized where they were coming from and then I knew what to do....apply scripture.  

I started praying and quoting scripture, and then I brought out the big guns.  I called in my prayer warriors to battle with me.  

I don't do that often because after many battles that I have faced in life, God has trained me to fight.  His Word is enough.  

But...sometimes you gotta have backup.  This was one of those times.  Praise God for sisters in Christ that you can trust with your private wars, and they keep it private.  Praise God for sisters in Christ who know His Word and will stop what they are doing, fall on their faces, and pray.

My prayer warriors, got your back with some powerful scriptures, know God intimately, sisters in Christ started blowing up my phone with prayers and verses.  Little did I realize that their words from The Lord and verses would be what I needed to hear before I understood the passage God had given me in my dream.  What an awesome, on-time, revelational God we serve.  Wow!  

In these next words, I am going to attempt to share with you what He showed me.  And then you will see how all this fits with the new character who came into my life and why she needed me and I needed her and how God knew all of this.

Here goes...

John 5
"Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” (John 5:1-3, 5-8 NIV)

At the pool of Bethesda there is a cripple, who has been an invalid for 38 years.  He was there lying by the pool.  This pool supposedly had healing powers as the verses say, and yet he somehow never managed to get down into those waters in front of him and get healed.  He just stayed there right beside the healing waters making excuses, getting attention, and still...crippled.

So when Jesus comes by, he doesn't recognize Christ, his reply to Jesus proves that he was full of excuses.  No motivation at all...

Jesus asked him, "Do you WANT to get well?"
He basically says, I can't .  I don't have any help.  Folks be cuttin' in line... I need somebody to do it for me.

Jesus commands him..."Get up! Pick up YOUR mat and walk."  Or...Move!!!!

Healed, but unaware of his Healer, he does as Jesus commands.  

Later Jesus comes back to find him, and the man is in the temple, the House of God,  and  Jesus says something so interesting...

"See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you."

Then when he went away he knew it was Jesus.

Okay,,,, so here's the revelation.

The place where this man was laying was a site with two twin pools covered by five colonnades.  There would have been a colonnade on each of the four sides and one between the two pools.

The word colonnade intrigued me so I looked it up.  It's a Greek word, stoa, and it means a portico, or in the KJV it's a covered porch.

This dude was laying on a porch.

The lack of healing in his life had kept him out on the porch so he never moved into the temple, God's House.  Only when he obeyed Jesus did he move into the temple.  Then he recognized his Healer.  

I LOVE porches.

Growing up, I spent countless hours on the porch of my grandparent's old clapboard house.  There with my daddy's parents, we'd just sit on the porch either in the swing or in rocking chairs.  I have beautiful memories of being in that old swing with my grandaddy.  He always wore overalls except on Sundays.  My grandmother always sat in a rocking chair.  She'd sit and fan herself to keep the bugs and heat at bay.  I have a picture hanging in our family room of my grandparents and my sister and I sitting on the steps of that porch.  There were many stories told and lessons learned on that porch.  For instance, did you know that tree sap is supposed to cure a sore throat? My grandmother was about to try out this remedy on me once, but I bolted off that porch as fast as I could go, and she wasn't able to catch me.  Hard to run in a polyester dress.

I just LOVE old people.  I really, really do.  I use the term "old people" with great respect & admiration.  In a society that values youth, the older generation gets a bad rap sometimes.  They shouldn't.  The older generation knows things that we don't.  They have vast knowledge that would benefit us greatly if we took the time to listen.  That's the beauty of a porch.  You can just sit and listen.

I would do lots of sitting and listening in the next years ahead as my birthfather finally decided that he needed to tell his mother about me.

My birth-grandmother was living in a nursing home a few miles away from my birthfather's house. He had told me about her, but said he was afraid that she wasn't strong enough to take the shock of me.  I didn't pressure him to tell her because I really had no interest at the time in adding other people to this deal.  I was struggling to emotionally handle everthing.  He was so protective of his mother that he felt she would be better to be left out of the loop.  That was fine with me.

One day we were talking on the phone and he said he had changed his mind.

Okay...

He said he had decided to tell his mother.  

I told him it was fine with me if he thought she'd be okay with the news.  I surely didn't want this little lady who was in poor physical shape to have a heart attack over news like this.  I guess over time of adjusting to my place in his life, he had decided that the risk was worth it.

So, he called her.

We always protect the ones we love.  In trying to protect them though we sometimes don't give them credit.  She may have been in terrible physical condition, but her heart, mind, and spirit were solid like steel.

When he called, he told her something big had happened.  He asked her if she remembered my birth mother.  She said yes.  Then she began to recant to him the details of everything that happened that she was involved in during this time.

Then he told her that my birthmother had given birth to a baby girl and that baby girl had found him.

When she heard the news, she heard it this way...I have a granddaughter.

She wanted to meet me immediately.

I am sure that he was concerned about all the normal worries we  face when we have big news to share, but what he never counted on was the gift he was giving her and me.

I learned later that she had gotten saved late in life after a very hard life.  She had prayed for many years for God to give her grandchildren.  It was the deepest desire of her heart.

This lady had a broken body.  She was completely crippled.  Her days were spent in her bed or a wheelchair totally dependent upon others.  She'd been in the nursing home for about 7 years or so.  Her lungs were a  mess and she used oxygen to help her breathe.  Her back was a mess, too, and she really needed surgery but the condition of her lungs prevented surgery.  Her hands were curled and frozen due to arthritis. The list goes on and on.  It was a pitiful physical outlook.  The only places she'd been in the past years were the rooms within the nursing home.

However...

Her mind and spirit were strong!  I saw this myself on the day we arranged to go and meet her.

The hubs and I picked up my birthfather and off we went to the nursing home.  I was excited to get to see this woman in the flesh.  The first image I saw of her was an oil painting hanging in my birthfather's house.  She was beautiful!  The painting showed a blonde woman with green eyes dressed up in a fancy dress. Her hair was all fixed in an up-do.  I felt a little faint the first time I saw the painting.  I have never fainted out of shock before, but something about her face nearly took me out.  When I saw her, I could see my daughter.  It took my breath away.  The eyes of a stranger held the face of my baby girl.  I was amazed that genetics actually worked.  As an adopted child you are somewhat shocked that you have DNA and it actually works.  Weird, but true.

When we arrived at the nursing home, I held my birthfather's arm as we walked in.  He had his stick, but I could see that he didn't want to use it.  We walked together inside and down the hallway to her room.  The staff had helped her get ready for this meeting. She'd had her hair and nails done.  She was waiting on us.  When he knocked and called out "Mama?", the door opened on a new chapter for me.  She was sitting in a wheelchair with a broken body, yes... But, she was not broken on the inside.  He ushered me in and presented his daughter to his mother.  Those eyes looked straight at me with such anticipation.  Her crippled arms reached out to hug me and right then I was smitten.  

I loved her immediately.

She had no expectations of me.  She only wanted to know me.  We talked and shared bits of our lives that day.  The fact that I was her one and only grandchild was not lost on her.  She wanted to know everything about me and my life.  I brought some pictures for her to have.  The way she held them was like someone had handed her the Hope Diamond.  They were precious to her.  I told her about my family and the good life I had been blessed with, and I told her about my kids.  She was very interested in meeting them, and I promised her to arrange it.

Now, even though her lungs were practically filled with fluid, this lady still insisted on smoking.  I saw firsthand that day how strong her will really was.  We wheeled her out to the courtyard which she considered "her courtyard". (She was a bit of a princess herself.)  The attendant had to make sure to unhook the oxygen so we didn't all blow up...  Then she took a few laborious drags on her cigarette.  I remember being purely astonished at the willpower it takes to smoke when you can hardly breathe.  I thought, "Man, she's a tough old bird."

During the visit, my birthfather went to the restroom which was inside her room.  As he fumbled his way to find the door right in front of him, trying to act like he could see, she watched him like a hawk.  When he closed the door behind him, she turned to me and said, "He is blind as a bat."   I busted out laughing.  Yep, she was most definitely my blood.  She called it like she saw it, didn't mince words, and meant what she said.  She went on to say she didn't understand why he tried to hide the truth.  She was his mother.  She knew him.  The love between them was so real and so obvious. 

They were two people broken deeply in different ways, but their connection to each other was sealed.

As much as I loved, I mean LOVED being in their lives, I was realizing how much I LIKED these two people.  Being with them was easy.  They accepted me for exactly who I was and wanted to move forward in a relationship right away.

Part of our growing relationship was meetings like our first one and a few phone calls along the way, but the biggest part was in letters. We would write letters to each other.  

I have a stack of letters she wrote to me and to the children, and I cannot read them without tears.  In her first letters she would apologize to me over and over for being crippled.  She would beg me to accept her as she was.  Bless her heart, she thought her physical limitations would somehow make me decide she wasn't worthy to be in my life.  She marveled too in her letters that God would love her enough to send her a  grandchild at her age.  

She wrote, "I almost gasp for breath when I think of what would have happened, what we would have missed if you had not decided to find us.  Oh, Dear God, what we would have missed. Just another one of God's blessings that we receive everyday and take for granted." 

Wise words from a crippled hand.

Inside that broken body, was a soul saved by the grace and mercy and blood of Jesus Christ.

I gasp for breath now too knowing that if I had been disobedient to God when He told me to search, that she would have suffered.  He desires to bring healing to His people.  We are His Hands and Feet on this earth and when He gives us a command, we'd best follow it.  If not, we miss the blessing and can possibly cause others to miss out too.  

She, like my birthfather, was  not in my plans.  They were in God's.

As I struggled these past weeks with the issue God was talking to me about, I  learned through scripture that He wants to take all of His Children to new levels of healing.  Of course, we won't have complete healing until we are with Him in heaven, but He wants us so close to Him that we allow Him to heal our hearts.  The deeper we allow Him in, the more He will shine His Light on areas we never considered in need of healing.  

Our healing will depend on our obedience.

When I called in the prayer warriors about my struggle, one gave me this scripture as a part of her prayers over me.

Psalm 91
"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty...."

I was crying and praying this verse aloud and began to draw on a sticky note.  I wrote the word "me"and then I drew an arc over the word me and wrote..."Under the Shelter"...  I needed a visual...   I needed to see myself under the shelter of the Most High.

I prayed...
"Lord, I want to dwell in your shelter...the shelter of God is His Temple...His House...The House of The Lord..."

And then the revelation came....

Like the crippled fellow in John 5, until sin is confessed and Jesus heals, I am just like the one laying on the porch.  When you confess your sin, and really repent and turn, and are obedient to His commands, then He Heals you of ALL YOUR INFIRMITIES and you GET UP AND WALK INTO THE HOUSE!!!

Without obedience, you will be stuck out on the porch.

And then this nugget of Truth...

Are you going to stay on the porch???
Or are you going to walk into the House???

Whooooweeee.....I don't know about you, but I ain't staying out on the porch.  I want be IN the House with The Lord.  And I am ready to hear whatever sin He sees in me that needs confessing.  I want to be completely healed.

When he told the guy at the pool of Bethesda to take up his mat, to get up and move, Jesus was making sure that the man didn't have a spot left by the pool.  He was trying to get this man to see that to move on, you need to let go of the past.  Move on and take your mat with you so there is no room for you to come back.  Stop making excuses and stop making your pain about you.  The past is keeping you stuck.  The past is stopping your healing.

The porch is great for sitting and talking, but the HOUSE?  The House is where the real action is!  Inside the Lord's House is a new level of faith and more healing.    

If God can take a child given up for adoption and give her a wonderful life and still see fit to send her back to her birth family, that's life in The House. If God can deliver me to my birthmother's doorstep when finding her should not have been possible, that's life in The House.  If God can send me to a blind man all alone and give him a daughter, that's life in The House.  If God can answer the prayers of a older, crippled lady in a nursing home by providing not only a grandchild, but three great-grandchildren, that is life in The House.  

So, let me say this loud and clear.  There is no "If God can..."  God can, and God did.

Over the next months, God moved in a mighty way in my life and their lives.  I didn't know it, but He was moving in my birthmother's life too.  The day was coming when He would ask me to obey Him in an area that I didn't want to obey.  He was calling me to forgive.  I would have to decide.  Would I stay out on the porch and hold on to my pain?  Or would I get up, forget the past, and move on?  

Cowboy Hats & Tomato Sandwiches

I am a list maker.

List making, whether in a linear form or splashed across the page like confetti thrown into the air, keeps order in my mind.  When I write out my thoughts and ideas, my things to remember, or all the stuff I have to do, a sense of order comes.  So, when I prepared to go and meet my birthfather, it only seemed natural that he would make a list too.  His list was the food list.  He wanted to have food on hand for us to enjoy a lunch together.

During one of our conversations, he'd asked me to list all my favorite foods.  We knew nothing about each other's likes and dislikes so we started off our getting acquainted with the basics.  What are your favorite foods?  What are foods you totally dislike?  Etc.

I came across one of our lists this week as I dug through a box of papers.  Throughout my journey, I kept almost every single paper that had anything to do with my search.  It got to be quite a bit of paper so I put it all inside a huge plastic tub.  Up until I started writing, I would only occasionally go into the box and sift around.

The weight of some of the papers was too heavy to process so I just contained it all until I could process it.

I carried that box into the dining room a few weeks ago and tried to sort through, but everything was all jumbled up.  There was no order to any of it.  The prospect of organizing it seemed overwhelming.  I'd taken a day off work last week to just rest in the quiet, and during this day I tackled the box.

After a few minutes of looking and assessing this overflowing box, I soon realized that the only way to make heads or tails of all this was to lay it all out on the dining table.  Time had come to unpack the box.  Being the sentimental one that I am, I had to look at everything before laying it down and spreading it all out on the table.  Pretty soon it was looking like a gigantic mess.  Many times during the unpacking, I would get bogged down by a letter or a note and the process slowed.  I had to walk away from this mess a few times just to breathe...

My husband was working in the office, and I went to tell him what I was doing.  I felt he needed a warning.  I said, "If you hear crying, don't worry about it.  You may hear laughter too.  It's cool. I am really fine."  Laughter and tears poured out as I unpacked the box of evidence.  It was all proof of the journey I had taken years ago, and it seizes me still.

I found the food list while I sorted, and laughed right out loud when I saw the menu he had planned for me.

Tomato sandwiches.

I don't know about you, but tomato sandwiches are ridiculous.  My very best friend during my growing up days, introduced me to these culinary delights.  She served me my very first tomato sandwich during one of my many visits to her house.  She lived just up the hill from me.  We'd met around age 5 when she'd come to spend some time at her grandparent's house.  Their house was behind my parent's house, too.  Boy, those were some good times.  I would wait and watch for her to show up at the fence line on the hill every summer or school holiday, and I would go running up there to meet her.  We got into all kinds of trouble together over the years.  Being a foodie, the memory of that first tomato sandwich is burned into my brain.  She'd toasted that white bread and slathered it with mayo.  The thick slices of tomato were sprinkled with salt and pepper.  Yum...  I had never had anything like it.  I feel sure I told my birthfather all about that first sandwich.  Turns out he loved them, too.  So, we added that to our list of foods we would eat in our first meal together.  Sounded pretty good to me.

I was very cavalier about going over to meet him for the first time.  My heart was still so shattered over losing contact with my birthmother, that my emotions were just worn out.  I didn't have any expectations of him either.  Since I had never really wanted to have him in my life, I guess it freed me to just do it.

The hubs had been working over in this city for quite some time, but on the day my birthfather and I arranged to meet, he wasn't going to be there.  I went to meet him by myself. I should have been more scared than I was...

It had been two months of phone calls before I went over to meet him. There had been many lists made between us.  I had an instant connection to him, and our conversations lasted hours at a time.  No telling how many hours we spent asking questions and telling our stories.

During one call he mentioned that his caregiver was concerned about all this.  She wanted him to be sure he was talking to someone who was legit.  He said she  didn't want him giving out medical information to a family that may or may not be his biological family.

Okay...

Looking back now, her motives may or may not have been pure.  Other incidents prove the latter, however God can and will sort all that out.  At the time, I was willing to entertain her "concerns".

She had suggested that we take a DNA test.  Yep, she wanted proof.  Whatever her reasons, she had somehow convinced him to mention this to me and he was all kinds of scared to tell me.  I didn't hesitate.  I told him I would be happy to take a DNA test because that would silence anybody who had "concerns".  Plus, if for some incredibly unforeseen twist, he wasn't my birthfather, better to know that right up front.  Now, I didn't doubt that he was the one.  He didn't doubt that he was the one.  We'd both seen pictures of the other.  There was no doubt.  The medical histories proved it was true.  Countless other factors proved it was true.  My birthmother KNEW it was true.

You can know what is true, and there will always be those who cast doubt.

Always.

This character who inserted herself into the story tried to cast doubt.  No matter.

When God gives you a dream and sends you on a path, don't listen to the doubters.

It was quite comical to me on many levels that I would be taking a DNA test.  I love to watch crime solving shows.  I hate the crime part and usually cover my eyes and plug up my good ear, but the investigation intrigues me.  It is so fun trying to figure out all the clues and guess who the culprit will be based on the evidence.  A DNA test was right up my alley.

I'd told my birthfather I would participate, but if he wanted the test, he would be picking up the tab.  He paid the bill happily.  Everything was arranged by him in advance.  I was given an appointment and off I went with my baby boy in tow.  He was not quite a year old yet so when the nurses at the hospital saw me at the window, they assumed it was my son that needed the test.

Ummm, no.  I know who his daddy is thank you.  I am the one needing the test.

Insert goofy, awkward smile.

My arm was fitted with a hospital bracelet.  It was ironic to me that there I stood as an adult wearing a hospital bracelet so my paternity could be discovered.  Funny... The kind  nurse lady laughed with me and swabbed my mouth.  My DNA was captured and more time waiting began.   Two weeks later, on the Friday before Father's Day, the results were in.

Congratulations...it's a girl.

No doubt about it, not that there ever was on our part, he was my birthfather.  It was a special day for both of us when the news arrived.  I may write about that day in the future.  Maybe...

Just like God put a love for tomato sandwiches into our DNA, He also gave us both the urgency to meet.  Now, with all doubters silenced, there was no reason to wait any longer and one week later I got into my car and drove northwest.

As I said earlier, I should have been more scared.  Most of the drive over, I had the expected jitters, but it wasn't until I stopped inside the city limits to grab a drink, that the enormity of what I was about to do hit me full force.  I called the hubs from the parking lot of the fast food joint to let him know I was there safely and to go over the directions once more.

I can follow directions easily, but never count on me for a sense of direction. If you do, we will wind up in Mexico probably.

With a final pep talk, I got back into my car to complete the last leg of my trip.  As I got closer to his house, my heartbeat was screaming in my ears.

This was really about to happen.

All my cavalier, nonchalant, this is no big deal, I can handle this attitude flew right out the window as I drove down the street to his house.  There it was behind a huge church in a normal, suburban neighborhood.  There was no where to park in front so I drove around back and wheeled into a spot.  I can feel in my guts the nausea that I felt when I tried to put the car in park.  I finally remembered how to drive and got the car into the correct gear and grabbed my purse.

Before getting out, I took a huge breath and looked toward the house.  The image behind the glass door outlined the silhouette of a man's face.  He was sitting by the door waiting.  It may have been fiery nerve endings that illuminated his profile, but what I saw was a black background with a glowing image.  It was like a spotlight was set on his profile so brightly that I couldn't make out any features.

I almost puked.  No lie.  I will never forget it.  Never...

I had a tough time walking to the door.  Legs of jello moved, but I know The Lord carried me from the car to the door.  Seeing a glimpse of him was too much.  He was not only waiting for me, but he was listening for me, too.  Without much sight left, he had to rely on his hearing.  He'd heard my arrival and listened to my footsteps approach.  When I stepped onto the back deck, he opened the door.

When I stepped into the little brick house and stood face to face with my birthfather, time stopped.

I am pretty sure I stopped breathing for a bit, too.

He tried to hug me, but I stopped him.

Every nerve ending in my body was surging with adrenaline and I know I would've passed out if he had touched me.  Here in front of me, stood my real, live birthfather, and I couldn't take it.  I am prone to be dramatic at times, but when I try to describe this first look, I can't find words big enough.  When I tell you that all I did was stand in his kitchen, only a few steps inside that back door for over an hour just looking at him, that is exactly how it went down.  Yes, I cried.  If you have read any of my story you know that tears are a common thread here.  I did cry some.  Mainly, though, I just looked and breathed.

It was all I could do.

My frozen feet wouldn't budge.  I had dropped my bags on the floor and simply faced him.  He stood facing me, looking hard to see me.  He was crying, too. There we stood as the minutes crawled by.

What I find amazing is that he just let me stand there.

He didn't try to change our location or convince me to move, he just let me stay right where I was until I was ready.  He knew I needed to look into the eyes of stranger until I had memorized those eyes.  He was such a gentleman to me in every way and I am so thankful.  My heart wasn't able to process this quickly so I had to just absorb it all.

When the emotions began to die down a bit, to a point where I could breathe without feeling like I needed a paper bag, we went into the den to sit.

He had so much he wanted to show me and tell me about.  I was like a sponge soaking it all in.  As we talked, we suddenly realized that we were both dressed alike.  We were both wearing black shirts with blue jeans, and black shoes.  Twins... He told me that his outfit wasn't complete until he put on his hat.  So, he went to the back bedroom to get his favorite hat to show me.  When he came out wearing his favorite cowboy hat, he was holding another one in his hand.

 "This one, baby girl", he says, "is for you."

It was his "dress" hat.  A beautiful, black cowboy hat was one of the first gifts he ever gave me.  As I took the hat from him, I automatically put it on my head and said..."Let's go see how we look."  Into the guest bathroom we went, and stood in front of the mirror just looking at ourselves.  It was weird and silly and wonderful.  It didn't take long for the laughter to ring out of both of us because THIS WAS CRAZY!!!  Oh, did we laugh at ourselves.

It was just the medicine we both needed.  The magnitude of the meeting eased and we moved from shock to joy.

I was getting to see my blood face to face.

And he was no longer alone.

The doubter came by to check on him further into our visit and for the record she was very nice to me.  He'd wanted her to come by so somebody could take our picture together.  We posed in his easy chair with me sitting on the arm.  Seemed only right to wear our matching black hats for our first official photo.

I treasure that picture.

When I look at it, like I did before writing this, I can clearly see the  happiness radiating off my face and his.

It was a day of joy.

When God knitted me together in my mother's womb, my future may have seemed on the surface uncertain.  Two words resound all throughout scripture that prove otherwise.

"But God..."

Two people, faced with a pregnancy make two different decisions.  One turns away and goes back to his life.  The other faces 9 months of carrying the weight of the baby, and a lifetime of carrying the weight of heartache.  Choosing what was best for the baby at the expense of her heart and herself, was a gift that only God can repay.  My future in the hands of a social worker may seem very uncertain.

"But God..."

God knew all this, and none of it took Him by surprise.

When others were making a list of options regarding my life, God was there writing out the ultimate list.  The creator of DNA, the One who wrote out the story from the beginning, organized every step of this life I live.  Where we see chaos, He makes order.

That chaos on my dining room table has finally shifted into organized piles.  After digging up all the papers of the past and laying them out before The Lord, He showed me how to order them all.  Yesterday, I came home from work, walked into the dining room, and within a short time, I had arranged orderly piles.  A few days ago, I wasn't able to do that, and then suddenly the order made sense.

Just that easy.

You know why?  Because Jesus makes it all make sense.

In time, everything that you and I lay out before Him, He will show us how to put it all together.  He is the Master after all.  He's been organizing us even before He strung our DNA together.  His plans and order many times don't make sense to us, but He never makes mistakes.

Never.

As I drove back home, I was both happy and sad.  I had spent an incredible day with my birthfather in the same city where my birthmother lived.  My heart was still hanging on to her even though it appeared that God had taken her out of my life.

There was still chaos.  He would soon make order.

Before that day came though, God had plans to add another unexpected character.  She wasn't supposed to be in this story at all.

"But, God..."

By the way, in case you are wondering, we never ate our tomato sandwiches. I didn't eat a thing that day.  I couldn't.  I didn't need to.  God had given me a plate piled high with joy and my heart was full.

NEW

"You EAT what you KNOW until you taste something NEW."

The family was gathered up at the bar in the kitchen inhaling, I mean enjoying, sloppy joes.  I had been chopping and sauteing for an hour to get my concoction just right.  My efforts were paying off as I stood back and watched their expressions.

Dinner was good.

As the compliments came, I commented that my dish was loaded with fresh veggies and that element combined with the sauteing made all the difference.

My middle child says..."there's veggies in here???"

LOL. Ummm...yes.   There are real live veggies in there.

We all had a chuckle, and I made an offhand remark that these sloppy joes weren't from a can.  Pre made foods of any sort are considered a slur in my kitchen. I like to cook from scratch.  You can make anything if you have onions and garlic.  They are the foods of heaven.

The hubs tells the kids that the only sloppy joes he'd ever had growing up we're from a can.  (For the record, his mom is THE most incredible cook!  Her biscuits are indescribable and her Sweet Cream cake is all kinds of worth going into a sugar coma.)

"Ewww... disgusting!", the kids all agreed.  As they were feigning shock and culinary superiority over my husband's challenging upbringing regarding sloppy joes, (while knowing full well that Nana's table is one of their favorite places in all the world to eat)....I made another quick comment.

"You EAT what you KNOW until you taste something NEW."

The words had slipped out so easily that the spiritual meaning appeared with a delay.  I knew as soon as I said it that I must write it down.

"You EAT what you KNOW until you taste something NEW."

Hmmm...

I took in the words as I wrote them on a sticky note (which is my favorite way to keep up with ideas).

In my spiritual life, God had been doing some new things.  He'd been showing me in fresh new ways to take in the Words from His book.  The Lord and I had been digging deep, and I was getting spiritual food lately that I have never tasted before.  It was new and it was good.

That phrase sparked more new spiritual food as the Holy Spirit guided me to study several chapters in Exodus.

Moses was leading the Israelites out of the slavery in Egypt. They had walked through a miracle in the parting of the Red Sea, but now they were in the Desert of Shur. (ch.15)  They had seen mighty moves of God, and yet the hunger and thirst of their physical bodies began to move them to take their eyes off Him.  They started to grumble.  So they get to Marah, the water is bitter, God does another miracle and satisfies their thirst.

I used to read this and say...dang, people.  You walked through walls of water in the Red Sea and you are still complaining?!?!

Used to...  The truth is I can't go a day without coffee.  I wouldn't have lasted a minute thirsty in a hot, arid desert.  I would've been one of the loudest fussers of the group.

Thirst is tough.

Now it has been 15 days since they came out of Egypt, Ex. 16, and real, body wracking hunger has kicked in.  Adrenaline from fleeing may have waned a bit, and now the hunger pains turned up the volume.  As we say in the south, they got hongry!

The grumbling fires up again.  They were so hungry that scripture says in verse 3 that they said they'd rather go back to full stomachs in slavery than starve to death in freedom.  No one I know has ever been that hungry.

Moses, God's man on the scene, does what he always did and cries out to The Lord, and The Lord feeds them.

4 Then the LORD said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.

5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days."

6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, "In the evening you will know that it was the LORD who brought you out of Egypt,

7 and in the morning you will see the glory of the LORD, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we, that you should grumble against us?"

8 Moses also said, "You will know that it was the LORD when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the LORD."

9 Then Moses told Aaron, "Say to the entire Israelite community, 'Come before the LORD, for he has heard your grumbling.' "

10 While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the LORD appearing in the cloud.

11 The LORD said to Moses,

12 "I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, 'At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.' "

13 That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp.

14 When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor.

15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, "It is the bread the LORD has given you to eat.

To summarize the passage above, this is what I see happened.  The Israelites were on this incredible journey of deliverance from their past of slavery.  God was leading them every step through Moses.  They had seen miracles, but they were still humans.  (hope for us all right there)  They fussed and took their eyes off of God.  (more hope) Moses continued to set the example before them of keeping your eyes on God, and God provided a table for them in the desert.

Now, the part that God revealed to me a few weeks ago focuses on the food He provided.

He sent quail to down from the sky and it "covered the camp" in the evening.  He gave them meat.  When you are hungry, physically hungry, meat would be enough to satisfy.

But God is more than enough.  He gave them a meat that they would know, and He met their physical hunger, but He gave them something else, too.

He created a NEW food.

When they woke up that next morning, a dew was on the ground.  As the heat grew in this desert place and the dew vanished, "thin flakes like frost" were left.  It was so NEW to them that they had to ask..."What is it?"
  

Moses tells them The Lord has given them bread.

The Bread of Life has given them bread.

I have to put v. 12 here a second time.

"At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God."

God told Moses to tell them they would get bellies full of meat at night, but in the morning???  In the morning, I am going to do something NEW.  I am going to FILL you with bread.  And then???  Then "you will KNOW that I Am the LORD."

Oh me... I could just have a hallelujah fit right here now.

He was saying this I think. You have been eating what you know and it is good to satisfy your needs where you are now.  But... I am taking you somewhere NEW and that NEW place in your journey is going to require some NEW food.

Glory.

"You EAT what you KNOW until you taste something NEW."

When they tasted these dew producing flakes  on the floor of the desert, they called it "manna".

16:31b."It was white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey."

My notes down in the commentary of my NIV bible say this... "No naturally occurring substance fits all the data of the text, and several factors suggest that manna was in fact the LORD's unique provision for His people in the desert.  The meaning of the Hebrew word for "manna" suggests that it was something unknown by the people at that time."

Yes, Lord.

A NEW food had appeared on the floor of the desert.

When they were empty, He had provided.

Now if they had refused to eat it because they had never seen it before or it wasn't part of their plan, they would've most likely had their hunger need met but not their soul's need.

When I left off in Light in the Darkness, my husband was on his way to meet my birthfather.  I had enough sense to know that I was still too raw emotionally to judge whether or not this man was someone I wanted in my life.  My husband is the one I trust to protect me like that so he went to my birthfather's door.

The house was brick with reddish type trim.  My birthfather was living there alone so my hubby's visit was a welcome event.  Inside the house, my husband came face to face with a man his same height who had 20 years worth of long hair, and green eyes. The air was heavy with smoke and questions.

Over the 48 hours or so since I had spoken with my birthfather, hope had begin to grow in him.

While shocked of course, he was beginning to hope that this girl who called was really his daughter.  I'd come to know his heart later on and like him, I get drawn in quickly.

Their visit was a good one.  Two grown men were sizing up the other trying get answers to questions and make sense of the situation.  I know my hubby wanted to make sure he wasn't some nut that would put me in danger. Once they both felt satisfied to some degree, they ended their meeting.

Again, another long phone call took place between the hubs and me.  He gave me his assessment of this stranger who was my birthfather.  I don't remember exactly what he said, and after all this time, neither does he.  I may have some notes somewhere, but I can't put my finger on them today. What I do remember from his summary was how sad his life sounded to me.  He didn't try to make it sound that way.  It was just the facts of his life.

Here I was living life with a beautiful family of my own.  I have a sister and her family.  I have my parents and their families full of aunts and uncles and cousins galore.  My life was full of loved ones.  The opposite was true for this man.  He never had a brother or sister.  His relationship with his dad was not a script from the Hallmark channel.  He was very close to his mom, but the physical ailments they both suffered prevented them from staying close.  He was being cared for by an ex-wife who wasn't really happy that I showed up on the scene.  He had one other friend who lived in a another town that came to visit occasionally, but mostly he just sat alone in his house.

Can you imagine that?

Day after day after day??  You are stranded all alone in your house.  You can't drive so you can't leave.  You can barely see, so you can't go for a walk.  No way out without help.

Now I am one of those types who cannot take the suffering of the discarded or mistreated or empty.  Can. not. take. it.  And I can't take hungry children either.  I don't care much about the why or if they deserve it...  I know there are all kinds of circumstances and situations, but a lonely, empty, blind man with really nobody to be IN his life to love on him?

Ummm, no...

And when you factor in that he is MY birthfather????

My flesh and blood?
My family?????
My heart could not take it.

Of course I wanted to hear all his stories and know who he was then and who was in the now, but as far as deciding whether or not he deserved to be in my life because I hadn't plannned for him???  No.

All those plans flew right off the table once his current sitatuation became clear.

I knew this was God.

Scriptures say that God told the Israelites that when they ate the bread that He would rain down from Heaven that they would "KNOW I Am the LORD."

He was telling that them something NEW was about to happen and there would be NO OTHER explanation.

Only God could send a new food down in a new form and they would have to ask..."What is it?"

Only God does stuff like that.

So this new person who had come into my life was someone that I didn't ask for, but God put him in.

As I prayed and questioned the next events, I would ask God, "What is going on? What are You doing here?"  I knew there were not good feelings between my birthmother and my birthfather.  I am thinking, "Whoa, God, what are trying to do here?  I do not want to be a part of what happened between them. That has nothing to do with me.  I just want to know them.  And God, won't bringing him in wreck what I had going with her? Yes, I know that is over God, but still... What are You doing? This makes no sense God.  This is NEW!!! I don't understand, God."

Like the Israelites, God sent a new thing in but He himself didn't give it a specific name other than bread.  They named it themselves.  The only direction He gave them was the same one He gave me...

He was telling me to trust Him.

He was saying to trust Him through the gift of the new food in their lives and the new person in mine.

And He did these new things so that neither they nor I could take any credit for what was happening.

I didn't fully understand why He brought my birthfather in until one year later.

During that year, God gave me glimpses of His plan, but not the full scope.  For the present moment, all I could know about this new man was that he existed, he had a name, and he was a new path for me to follow.  The door had closed with my birthmother so I was able to give him my full attention.

So, I did.

Later on in the week, the hubs went back to the little brick house, to deliver a few pictures to my birthfather.  Of course he wanted to see me.  He could get glimpses of images if he focused intently and moved his eyes back and forth side to side.  He told me later that I would literally be one of the last things he would see on this earth.

*tears*  

Okay...I'm back...

Pictures in his hand, focusing hard, he could see me for the first time.  When he saw me, he saw himself.  He looked into the paper eyes of a stranger and he knew it was true.

He knew.

There's one more thing that you need to know about this visit before I wind up this post.  When my birthfather greeted my husband on their 2nd visit, he wasn't the same.

The old, scraggly hair and unkempt appearance from days prior had vanished.  He had arranged to be taken to a barber shop and he got cleaned up.  Twenty years of hair...gone.  Fresh and cleaned up, in pressed nice attire, he looked like a new man.

Oh, Jesus... *tears again***

You see???

God had done something NEW in his life too!

He had a life that was empty, and now it was full.

He hadn't even laid eyes on me yet, he had only heard my voice, but he knew his life had changed.

New...

I praise You Lord for allowing me to go back and find my birthfamily! I am so thankful that I didn't turn away from the NEW.  Although it was new to me, it wasn't new to God.  This man was just another piece of my journey along the path where God was taking me.  This plan God designed for me has been in place since the foundation of the world.  This new piece was a part of the purpose He has assigned to my life.  It was His plan that I talk to and meet and invite in and accept this man.

It wasn't and isn't ever my job to evaluate and decide whether or not he was worthy.  My job was to take in what was new, and let God fill my life the way He chose.

If I had kept refused to accept this new thing, I would have missed the blessing of the next thing.

God placed this man in my life at just the right time.

When I was broken and empty, He provided a new thing.  Because it wasn't my thing, He gets the Glory.
  

If God brings something new into your life, be careful not to discard it because it you don't recognize it.

If the Israelites had only eaten the meat of the quail that they did recognize, they would have missed the bread that they didn't recognize.

When they asked Moses, "What is it?" in verses 15-16, he replied by telling them for each one to "gather as MUCH as he needs."

Oh, glory...

When God provides, He supplies as much as you NEED.

I can hardly contain myself right now.  Oh, Jesus to trust You MORE!

He gave them a new thing in the middle of a desert place and said take all you need.  He fed their stomachs and satisfied their souls in a new way so that only He would get the glory and they would KNOW that He was God.

Friend, the love and mercy and grace of God never runs out.

For His Children, He has plans designed that will bring new things into your life.  In Him, there will always be abundant provisions no matter where you are.  When you are empty, look to Him to fill you and trust Him to do it His way.

In the next post I will begin to tell about my birthfather, and I can't wait to see what God will have me write.  Until then, I have a challenge for you.

Today, this week, wherever you are at this point in your life... Keep your eyes open...God is doing something new in you.  Look for it...I dare you.  :)

Light in the Darkness

The sun kept on coming up every day after my birth mother and I stopped talking.  Broken hearts don't stop life.  The sun will rise and set each day regardless of the condition of your heart.  You can be filled with so much pain and hurt that the world seems dark and still the light of the sun breaking over the horizon will blind you.

Pain and sadness filled my heart as I faced the days with no communication. 

My heart was broken, but it needed to break.

Beth Moore said, "sometimes God has to break you so He can remake you."  I was so moved when I read her words that I wrote them in my Bible.  There was major heart repair needing to take place in my life. 

In my brokenness, God showed me a painful truth. 

I had set up an idol. 

Scriptures say "Have no other gods before Me.", but just because I haven't seen any Baal-type temples lately doesn't mean I don't have idols.  Idols come in all forms and can disguise themselves in ways that make it hard to see them for what they really are.  Idols in Old Testament days were sometimes made out of bright and shiny metals, but the glistening only hid the darkness inside.  

Idols have no light of their own.  

They only call to us with false promises based on lies and distract us with the shimmer. 
Yet, God knows how drawn we are to shiny things. 

I had built a sparkling dream of what this reunion would be like and set my birthmother up on a high place that was never meant for her.  The only high place in the life of a Christ follower is a Throne and that seat is already taken. 

When you are adopted and your birthfamily's identity is unknown, you can mentally give them a false identity based on needs within your own life.  We all have areas of our childhood that could have turned out better.  We can take these perceived missing parts, whether very real or imagined, and project these qualities onto an unknown identity.  And there you build an idol.  The idols of the OT were designed by men to meet a need among the people whereas by their own evaluation life was lacking.  I had done this very thing.  In my mind, this reunion and relationship was shining like a new dime, but before a Holy God it was sin.

When my dream seemed to have shattered, God took a piece and held it up against the Truth of His Word.  In the Light of scriptures, what He revealed was revolting. 

I had set up my birth mother as an idol in my life. 

I had placed my hope, in a relationship with her and not in God. 

In the midst of shattered dreams, God took me on a new search and rescue mission.  This one led me along a path of Truth about myself.  I know, because the Word tells me so, Psalm 56:8, that He gathered every single tear I cried.  I believe that His heart was aching as He watched me splinter apart, but He didn't stop it.  He could have.  He is God.  He didn't stop my pain because He knew it was best that I break.  He didn't leave me there.  He never leaves us there alone. 

So...where did that leave me now that my birthmother and I weren't on good terms? 

Empty. 

Empty places are beautiful places when God does the filling.

My friend Laura, the one who helped me in the final leg of my search, took it upon herself to make a phone call that would start a new chapter in my story.  She wanted so much to help me that she decided she would investigate my birthfather. 

So, she called him.

I didn't know she was going to do it.  I certainly wasn't ready for it, or so I thought.  I think she just wanted to see this story she'd been such a big part of have a happy ending.  She didn't even realize how God was using her. 

When she called me to tell all about this man she talked to on the phone, I was floored. 

While I cried over the empty place in my life, there was a man whose life was really empty.  And he was my birth father.

All alone, my birthfather was living in his parent's house.  His father had long since passed away and his mother was in a nursing home.  He had been married once, but had been divorced for years.  There were no children in his marriage. 

His life had not been an easy one.  He had faced many struggles, some of his own making, and his health bore the battle scars.  A rare illness had affected his sight in his thirties, and he was legally blind. 

When Laura called, she wanted to be sure he was the right person so she asked him many questions. He didn't shy away from answering them. Of course, he was sitting all alone in the house he grew up in almost completely in the dark. He didn't have anything else to do.  So a phone call from a total stranger was interesting until she got to the baby part.  Then he almost had a heart attack himself.  It was not at all what he expected. 

He told Laura his version of the story. He said he knew about the pregnancy, but he never knew what happened. They had not ended on good terms when she told him she was pregnant, and they never spoke again.  Bottom line, he went back to his life. 

When Laura called me to give me the run down of her conversation with him, I went into shock myself.  Yes I knew I had to have a birthfather.  Biologically it was certain, but I had put him into a box in my heart and tucked it away for another day.  As she gave me the news of her calling him, I remember shaking my head, probably rolling my eyes...yeah eye rolling happened...and thinking...what in the world am I supposed to do about him?  I am destroyed here!!!  I have lost my dream!  I am a hot, stinking mess of raw, bleeding emotions.  I can't do this!!! 

He is NOT in MY plan!

Oh, the Grace and Mercy of Jesus...

While I bled, He began to heal me. 

It wasn't getting to know my birthfather that healed me.  Make no mistake there.  My healing process began in brokenness and was completed in Jesus alone.  God led my birthfather right to my doorstep showing me first hand, close up, make no mistake about it, little girl this story is NOT about you. 

As Laura talked and I made notes, which I always do... I really began to listen from my heart.  He was so open and transparent with her about his life.  He was telling her things about his past, his mistakes, his regrets.  The honesty of his words registered in me.  He was holding nothing back.  As I write this, the notes from their conversation sit here beside me.  The notes tell of a man who had so little in his current life, but was willing to share the details of his life with a complete stranger. 

I still marvel at how much information folks gave us over the phone.

So, Laura gave me several pages of information, and then she gave me his number. 

Just like that... 

Here is his number.  He wants to talk to you. 

It was a Saturday afternoon when I dialed his number.  True to form, I didn't wait.  I just called.  I don't know what I expected from the call, but I guess when you have no expectations, it can be a good thing. 

When my first born son began to talk as a baby, his voice didn't come out like your average child.  The voice coming from this beautiful curly brown headed baby boy with huge, beautiful eyes was not what we expected.  Instead we heard a deep, raspy sound that we thought sounded a lot like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sean Connery.  I loved hearing him talk.  I still do. 

When my birthfather said hello to me that Saturday afternoon, the sound I heard over the line was the same deep, raspy sound I knew from my boy.  Just the sound of his voice, just hello, sent waves of something new rushing over me.  He wasn't in my plan.  I didn't even know if I would ever talk to him.  I can't explain why he hadn't really mattered to me. 

Oh, sweet Jesus he mattered to God.

Our first phone call was filled with factual, medical, & historical information.  He told me about his life.  He didn't tell me a drama filled tale of woe.  His story wasn't one looking for attention although he may have been that way at one time. 

He wasn't the same man that he was when I was born.

His life had begun with all kinds of privileges and opportunities, but he went down roads and made choices that he wished he could take back. 

At this point in his life, with no siblings of his own, no spouse, he was empty of family and limited with friends. 

His mother's health prevented her from leaving the nursing home.  His blindness prevented him from visiting without help, so their relationship comprised of a few phone calls. 

He told me about a rare genetic illness he had as a boy.  My son had battled this same issue.  He gave me the full medical profile, and sure enough we both shared many things. 

As I listened to him, the connection that I had turned away from and put far back in my mind, began to make contact.  This lonely, empty, funny, raspy old man was my birthfather.  Now, before you go thinking I am being disrespectful please know that "old man" is what he told me to call him.  He knew he hadn't earned to right to have any title of affection, but over the next months as we talked, he decided that "old man" was appropriate. 

We talked for a long time.  Like me, he wasn't short on words.  He had lots to say, and I sat stunned after we ended the phone call.

God had closed one door and opened another.

I couldn't begin to fathom what The Lord would do in my life over the next year.  When I thought the journey had finally ended, it had only just started.  When I thought I'd lost everything, God gave me something I didn't even ask for. 

In John chapter 8, Jesus was speaking and said, "I am the Light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the Light of Life." verse 12

Jesus never promised us we wouldn't go through dark times.  He did promise us that we would walk through them with His Light.

The sun kept on rising while I broke over losing contact with my birthmother, God allowed it so He could reveal a dark place and heal me with His Light, and He walked me through it all right to the doorstep of a man who sat each day in the darkness of blind eyes. 

Only God could orchestrate a story like this, but it shouldn't come as any surprise.  

He IS the Light of Life.

Are you going through dark times?  

Know this.. If Jesus Christ is your Savior, He is right there with you.  When times get tough and you can't see which way to go, look to Jesus.  When you feel like the broken pieces will never go back together right, look to Jesus.  When your dreams shatter, look to Jesus.  He is the Light of Life and the only One who can SEE in the dark. 

I didn't know what to say or think about all this that was going on in my life.  So I did what I do, and I sent in the hubs. 

My husband, the protector, went knocking on the door of my birthfather the next week to see  this man for himself.

And there he sat...in the dark...just like he'd said.