Though my fifty-six How can you year old adopted daughter, Robin, didn’t arrive on Mother’s Day, she is a gift that has kept on giving, lighting up my life eleven years before she was born.
I was tenyears old in South West City, Missouri. My daddy has just died at home. Our twenty-two year old minister, Wayne Earnest, and nineteen year old wife, Linda, were getting ready to move so they gave us a tiny black and white television on which I watched a beautiful Loretta Young movie.
The star had adopted some poor children.
Overcome with emotion I sat down outside on our kitchen step, facing the woods, and said to myself “that’s what I will do when I grow up! I will adopt a child!”
It was as good as done!
The thought would not leave my mind when I later went into an orphanage, as it became increasingly difficult for our mother to provide for us due to her disability.
It isn’t easy raising yourself when you are born to a mother who never matured. By the grace of God I am here because neighbors matched up my mother and father, after both of their surviving parents died in 1944 in the backwoods near Sulphur Springs, Arkansas.
When I went to the orphanage, I told only one close friend about my desire to one day adopt because I secretly wanted to be adopted myself.
That dream remained intact.
When I got married at nineteen in 1967, I had a mission to accomplish. I told my minister husband of my desire. He followed my lead.
During the last church service we attended on a Wednesday night in Coy, Arkansas, in August of 1969, Doyce Hall, a minister from Little Rock, Arkansas visited our church. He was holding his precious adopted six month old baby girl. Without hesitation I approached him and asked how he received her.
He jotted down the doctor’s name and address. The next day my husband and I called the doctor. Lo and behold, he said he thought he might have a child available for adoption. That same day we moved to Mountain View, Arkansas.
While waiting for our baby to be born, I pinched myself, to be sure I wasn’t dreaming. It seemed too good to be true!
Within three months we had our precious, two day old baby daughter, Robin, who was conceived in my heart when I was ten years old! Fifty years later, she is not only my only daughter but my best friend.
Looking back I am in awe. I ask what if Brother Hall had not visited our church that night or what if we had moved a few days earlier?
God knew what I needed most as part of His plan for my life.
Adopting Robin satisfied that yearning deep inside my heart to be adopted myself.
My life has been checkered and made complete by these breathtaking moments when God stepped out of the woodwork getting me to the right place at the right time.
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