A Pretty Cool Story

Fifty-seven years ago, a young couple desperately desired a baby. Since the wife was unable to bear a child, they made the decision to adopt, thus beginning what seemed like endless waiting before the time came when their dream would be fulfilled. One day they were out of town visiting some friends and, of course, the topic of adoption was the center of the discussion. And when their friends told them they knew a doctor who worked with parents who wanted to adopt children, they were excited and hopeful that they had found some help.  And help they most definitely found for two days later that young couple brought me home from a Galveston hospital.

Four years later that same doctor called my parents and told them he was going to deliver another baby who needed a home. I still remember the drive from Bellville to Fort Worth, Texas to pick up my sister Janie.  I remember because my daddy, oops our daddy, held her the entire way home, and I was jealous. Ironically, in an old suitcase, my mom recently found a song that a sweet friend had written for the baby shower the church gave her, and the song included a line that read, “Becky wouldn’t be jealous of the new baby.” The reality was anybody that got my Daddy’s attention besides me was in trouble, even a cute baby sister!

When our parents decided it was time to tell us we were adopted, they did everything right. I remember sitting on my bed in my little pink bedroom in the green house on Concordia Drive. I remember how special they made me feel. In fact, I ran outside later and informed the neighborhood kids their parents were stuck with them and my parents got to pick me! I also remember my mother telling me that it would probably be better if I didn’t say that to my friends.

Yesterday was my birthday, and my husband and I celebrated in Galveston, where I enjoy special status as a BOI, born on the island. Rarely does a birthday go by that I don’t tell my pretty cool story, a story that reminds me how much God is involved in the details of our lives, working a plan that goes far beyond what any of us can imagine. God put the desire for a child in the hearts of my parents, and God also gave my birth mother special courage to do what she did for without her bravery, I would not be here now. Fearfully and wonderfully made.

As I celebrated my birthday yesterday,  my pretty cool story reminded me, again, that God chose, loved, and adopted all his children. And because he did, we are all part of the greatest story ever told.  

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:13-16