On this day January 8th many, many years ago a 41 year old woman made a difficult decision to give her child up for adoption. She rushed to the hospital to give birth not knowing if she would have a girl or a boy. She had already had two sons that were much older at the time. She knew after raising them that she didn’t want to raise another child in her current situation. So after she gave birth the doctor said it was a “girl”, she quietly nodded her head to the social worker in the room and off they went. She would never hold her little girl. She would never even acknowledge that she was alive.
In the mean time a young thriving couple would make a loving decision. They too had two older boys . After years of medical problems, they would decide as a couple, that they were not done yet! Adopting a child would be next. But not just any child, they wanted a “girl”. So off to the adoption agency they would go. While meeting with a local foster family they would have many to choose from. There were many boys, some with beautiful red curly hair. To the couple this would make the best fit within the family, but they reminded themselves of what the mission was, to adopt a little girl. The couple would ask the foster family, “Where are all the little girls?” and the foster family would explain that they only had one. As the couple walked over to the playpen the husband would lean down to pick up this deep browned eyed little girl. The husband would say, yes here is our daughter we will take her home now. And home is where she would go.
She would learn a lot from her years with this family, not all of the lessons she would realize until she was much older. The ones she would learn from the most and the ones she felt loved her the most, she would lose way too early. As the little girl would grow to a teen and then into a young woman she would have many unanswered questions. She would always feel different than her family, not always quiet the same, or fully apart. She would never feel like her circle was complete, until she would meet her husband and complete a family of her own. But still in the circles that joined the families together was a kink that needed to be fixed. So the young woman, now a mother herself, would make a call that would change her life forever.
Around the age of 78, the woman who gave up the little girl would receive a phone call from her son on the anniversary of her eldest son’s death. Her son would tell her that he received a call from a stranger telling him that he had a sister. He thought this could not be possible. “What on earth is this stranger talking about?” he would say to his mother. The woman would tell him, give me the information and I will call you back. And on that day the phones would ring out, the kink in the circle would come undone.
Throughout the young woman’s life, she always had this driving force, not knowing what it was. As a wife and mother she would come to know it to be “HOPE”. This hope gave her “FAITH” and the “STRENGTH” which always seemed to give her “COURAGE” and “INSPIRATION” along her journey to God!
So today join this wife and mother in her journey of telling the world about Returning the Gift, LLC (returningthegift.com or .org or .net) and share in the information and ideas among others of faith!
