When I first started to blog, I had already written these accounts with devotions, But as God would direct, He led me in a very different direction. I can see now with the pandemic and where I was in my own personal faith walk, the time just wasn’t right for me to share the excerpts from “The Chosen Life.” But here we are at the start of a new year, and God has been crowding my mind with these thoughts and ideas with what I refer to as spiritual kudzu. If you have been following my blog, then you already know part of my story. The Chosen Life was initially written with someone particular in mind, but it has taken on its own dimension. My thoughts in this blog are by no means directive, conclusive, or exhaustive on the subject of adoption. Still, I hope you will be encouraged and glean the spiritual truth that lies underneath as the foundation of who I am and how I came to be the person I am today. More than that, I hope you will be able to grasp how the providence of God works in our lives and see Him as the source of all love and grace that is offered so freely to all. I hope these thoughts and reflections will be edifying and affirming. I understand the spirit of adoption, both physically and spiritually, because I have lived the life of the chosen.
In 1943, a young farm boy named Edison met a young girl named Beulah at a Sunday night church service. She got an embarrassing nosebleed, and he offered his handkerchief, which led to him walking her home. Edison told her all about his family; His father was a pastor and a farmer, and his mama, a schoolteacher. He had five siblings, one brother, and four sisters. Beulah shared she was one of 6. She had three sisters and two brothers. But her parents were separated, and she was currently staying with her daddy. Edison came from a more educated, stable family, well established, but like all folks in the post-depression south, they struggled to keep their farm going and provide for their large family. Beulah came from an Irish background, her great grandfather emigrating from Sligo county, Ireland, to eastern Kentucky. They were poorly educated coal miners who barely got by. Her father, known as Fletch McGhee made homemade whisky, liked it, and liked it almost as much as fast women. Her parents had separated many times over these issues, but her mom managed, for the most part, to keep her children together and keep them in church.
That Sunday night walk home after church turned into a romance and a marriage that lasted 63 years and ten months. At my mother’s funeral, as we turned to walk back up the main aisle from her casket placed at the front of the church, Dad turned to me and said as he wept, “She was the love of my life,” and I believed him.
At the beginning, marrying after six months of dating, which they called “courting,” they began to build a small house adjacent to Dad’s family farm. They talked, worked, and dreamed of the family they would raise in this little precious white clapboard house. But a few things would put a damper on their dreams. First, the U.S Army decided they needed Edison more than Beulah did. Ed would go to Germany and be gone for 18 months. Second, despite their plans for a family and marrying at 18, it would be 17 years before their dream of a family would be realized.
Though they both wanted children, my mom relayed later; she moved to a place of resignation long before Edison did. She said many things influenced her. First, Dr’s declaration regarding her infertility, coupled by the fact that her 2 older sisters remained childless despite their efforts to start a family. Also, my mom stated that her unstable family background influenced her thinking, and she said she arrived at a conclusion, “Surely this must be God’s will” for me not to be a mother. On the other hand, Edison was very family-oriented, and all he did was keep hoping to be a dad. Years later, after I was grown and gone, they shared that the pressure of this issue almost broke their union. The more hopeful he became, she shared, the more guilty and angry she became. She shared the guilt due to not being able to bear Ed a child and mad because she began to feel she was not enough to make him happy. This insecurity would intermittently surface through the years, even after my brother and I came into their lives. I, even now, give thanks for how God brings glory out of all of our brokenness.
They began to seek adoption with Edison wholeheartedly and Beulah guardedly, fearful of more disappointment. And alas, despite their prayers and feeling adoption was God’s will for them, they were told at 36 years of age, “You are too old to adopt.” But they continued to pray along with friends and family, feeling they had something to offer a child. Meanwhile, in the midst, my dad surrendered his life to the ministry. They both concluded, perhaps this would be their call but continued to pray that God would send them a child.
As I write these words that are sacred to my heart because they involve those I hold dearest, I am reminded of both the frailty and the perseverance of the human heart. Moreover, I am reminded of a loving God working behind the scenes as years of hoping and waiting to pass by to bring about His plan. I have the luxury and the opportunity to testify of God’s goodness because this is part of my story. When I think of the love these two young zealous sweethearts had for each other and for a life together in God, it reminds me of how stable a foundation love is. In 1 Cor.:13, we are instructed that all else will be meaningless without love. This includes acts of charity and great accomplishment. It means plans that we make in life without love are fruitless. First, a love for God that is born out of our acceptance of His love for us, and second, our love, one to another. This love chapter also reminds us, many other things will fail, but love will not.
As I begin to unfold daily the calendar of a new year, I am once again struck by the blessing of living a chosen life. In this context, I mean how blessed I am that I live a life based on the freedom I have in Christ to choose love, to choose faith, to choose hope. Though all we have is day by day, think of the potential a new year holds. When I look back at 2020, how much did my language and attitude express the peace of a “chosen life?” Or Maybe I just joined the chorus of naysayers and bad news mongers that paced the hallway of life wringing my hands like neurotic Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh. As a child of God, I am invited to adopt God’s hopeful, loving view of the folks around me. I am invited to erect a life on a firm foundation, unshakable where God’s plans for my life cannot be withheld from me no matter what is transpiring around me. This happened in the life of Ed and Beulah. Everyone keeps telling me 2021 must be better. I know not what tomorrow brings, but I know who brings tomorrow. I have seen God’s faithfulness before, and the scriptures say,
“He is faithful to a thousand generations.” We have plenty to look forward to in the life of the chosen. Join me in the vineyard again, where the 5 o’clock worker takes a look at “The Next Step.”
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