Memorial Box Monday- The Dream...

   Oh it is good to be back writing! I feel like I have this backlog of things that I want to write down but life has been so very busy that I have not had time! We had vacation Bible school at our church last week and I got to be the Preschool storyteller....is was so fun and such an honor to be a part of. We had 228 kids there and the absolutely stunning part....89 kids prayed to give their lives to follow Jesus. That is beyond words incredible and I would gladly sing the same song over and over, jump around like a crazy person and tell the same story again and again just to be a part of something so great.

    This story today is one that some of you may know and one of the biggest miracles in my life. I do not know how I have not thought of telling it until now. I was reminded of it a few minutes ago while tucking Georgia in for her nap (more on that soon).
     This story began one exhausted evening while all was dark and quiet. We had moved to a house in the country just six weeks after Parker was born. For those that do not know, we adopted Ravenna (at 12 months old) from China, came home and a few months later had our son Parker. So life was full of newborn care, toddler care and we both fell into bed weary beyond belief at night. Our nights were short as Parker would be up on average 10 times a night. He had reflux and I needed to pump and bottle feed to help him keep his food down, but Ravenna was afraid of the pump so I literally pumped every two hours throughout the night to have enough for the nest day (I know...in retrospect it would have made more sense to get her used to the darned thing but hey....we were new parents and life was a bit muddled). All of this added up to us swearing that we were done adding to our family. I even told Doug (when discussing getting a cat) that we woudl not add anything else that pooped to our family for years! Our boat felt pretty rocked and we were hanging on for dear life!

    So on this on this very quiet night, leaves rustling in the giant maples trees outside, I was sleeping like a rock. Those of you who know me know that when I do wake up, it is in a fog and it is best to give me a good long while to become truly awake before talking to me. Well, at 2am, something happened. I was awakened by a voice, an audible, clear as day voice. I was wide awake and had a vivid picture in my mind. It was of Ravenna holding Parker's hand (they wer both older and walking!) and he was holding the hand of a little dark hair girl. In the picture they were walking away, sunshine dappiling on their shoulders. The voice I heard said just one thing, "PRAY." I knelt by the bed and prayed, prayed for this little girl with my heart burning inside me, with an urgency that was overwhelming. I did not know who this little girl was or why God asked me to pray but I knew she must need it so I prayed until I felt like I was released to go back to sleep.

     That picture lingered in my mind all day and I prayed for the child. As I pushed my two kids in the stroller, dappled in sunshine, I prayed some more. I wondered with God about who she could be and why I needed to pray. I have had God put different people on my heart/mind to pray for before and found out later that they had been in a crisis. So I assumed that this little girl was in some sort of danger and needed prayer.
I also assumed that it would be a one time thing...
    Until it happened again, and again, and again. The same voice saying, "PRAY", the same picture of my two children holding the hand of this dark haired little girl. I prayed hard, I wrestled with what this all meant. Who was this little girl? Why did God have me praying for her? Was He trying to tell me something? Maybe He was showing me a bigger heart for orphans and I would do some sort of job with that as the kids got older? Maybe I was supposed to advocate for this child somehow? This could not be our child could it???? Again the picture would come and I would pray and wonder more and more what it all meant. For months I mulled this all over in my heart.
    Finally I talked with Doug about it. He had the same response, it could not be our child, we were done addind to our family right? We talked and prayed and prayed some more. We talked with our pastor who encouraged us to keep praying. We prayed and prayed and prayed...Finally one hot day in August we came to the conclusion that God was calling us to adopt again, that the little girl in the picture was our little girl. We called our pastor and he confirmed that He thought God was telling us that He had another child for us.

"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you."

John 14:18

     That little girl is sleeping sweetly in her bed right now. She was in danger and in deep need of prayer. Looking back...that dream happened just as she was being conceived, the 2nd conversation with our pastor? It was the week she was born. Our little girl's heart condition formed in the first months of life...and God had already begun writing her into our hearts. She may not have had parents arms holding her from the beginning but she did have her parents prayers.

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb."

Psalm 139:13

     The thing that reminded me? Today as I was tucking her in she kept looking at me with a big smile and saying, "Georgia's Mama!" she would hug me with all her might, pat my back and then look me in the eyes and again say, "Georgia's Mama!" Over and over again she would call me into the room just for hugs and to tell me that I was her Mama just as the Lord over and over again had whispered the very same thing...

and we are blessed beyond belief that His plans were different than ours...

    " God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing..."

Psalm 68:6

If you would like to learn more about Memorial Box Monday

By clicking on the picture above.

I am putting a copy of that picture of the three kids in our Memorial Box with a label saying "PRAY" on it...