Testimony Part I

I've said it before.  I'm no one, or at least I used to be before grace washed over my obscure and cloudy existence and I became, in an instant, a princess.  The daughter of the King of kings and Lord of lords.  I have not sat down to write or share my testimony until now because I know the scarred and unsteady bricks that make up the path from "there" to "here".  As I dawdled in my office, sitting down, then standing and distracted by my own uncertainty, I came across a book that belonged to my foster parents.  It's a little hardcover devotional book titled Forget Me Not, which must be well over a hundred years old.  There is no copyright date that I can find in the pages.  On the front inside cover is a colored drawing of a basket of flowers (I'm guessing they're Forget-Me-Not's), and a verse. Commit thy way unto the Lord, and He shall bring it to pass (Psalm 36:5)

I know I'm not anything close to what I want to be in Christ, but I also know He gave me a testimony of deep and complete redemption.  I have no right to keep my story to myself.  My past does not always - or even usually - portray a life of which I am proud.  That's not the point.  I was saved from myself, and for the glory of God.  If you find that I am not the perfect example of your idea of who a Christian is, I can only reiterate that we are all saved by grace. And so my story begins on a winter day in New England, 1966...

I was the result of a botched contraceptive attempt.  My mother already had two daughters, Robyn, who was just turning 3, and Lisa, a little over a year old when she and my dad tried not to have me.  I would find out the details later in life when each of them told the story of the pregnancy that wasn't meant to be.  Mother, laughing. Dad, raging.

My parents were never married, and Robyn, Lisa and I were in a strained home environment. Both of my parents discovered shortly after my birth that they couldn't live with each other and since neither of them wanted to care for us girls on their own, they found a group home for us to live in.  My mother told me many years later that she had considered a much larger home in Massachusetts, but was wary of how all the kids were directed by bells.  Bells for rising, eating, bedtime.  She also told me that she had two requests for God when she dropped us off - keep us safe, and keep us together.  Once good-byes were said, my mother moved to Washington, DC, and we didn't really hear from her much after that.  I was eight months old the day she left.

My earliest memories were of love and laughter at the Boylston Home for Girls.  I remember being in a crib, bathing in the old claw foot bathtub, curling up in bed for nightly bedtime stories and prayers, helping whoever was baking cookies in the pantry, and racing around the three story Victorian home with my sister Lisa, in stocking feet.  And, oh, the love.  I just remember being so very, absolutely, madly in love with "Mister", who would later become my very own foster dad and renamed "Grampy".  Mister and I would drive in the car together.  He would take me to the "wholesalers", and would fill the cart up with all kinds of food for the Home.  Missus, (later my foster mother, renamed - you guessed it - "Gram") was my friend and playmate during the day, but when Mister was home, I only had eyes for him.  Meredith was there as a staff member, and she loved us all as only a mother can.  I used to hope she would sit down next to me on the couch in the TV room, because if she did, I might be able to lay my head in her lap and she might absentmindedly curl my hair around my ears as we sat together.  It was hard getting a spot next to Meredith because all the girls clamored for her.

Memories of the Home for me were warm , bundled up in childhood joy. Some girls came and went, but there was a core family of girls who were there for most of my seven years at the Home.  There were some warning signs along the way that may have cautioned an older, wiser child that things were not always going to be so easy, but in my mind I was a part of a big, happy, loving family.  The pain I had over seeing kids at church with their "real" parents, or my secret, embarrassed scribbling of Mother and Father's Day cards to Missus and Mister went away after a few hours.  The saying that we were "all family in God's eyes" seemed to overshadow the certainty in my heart that we really were, honest to goodness family.  Things were "right" until a little voice deep down told my tiny heart that it couldn't last forever.  And it didn't.

I was seven when my world came to an end.  Mister and Missus, now called Mr. and Mrs. Beal to us girls, were leaving.  I knew somewhere they had tried to prepare us for that day, but I couldn't remember them saying it would be so, well, soon.  They were saying their good-byes, and I was a brave child, not allowing myself to cry.  Mr. Beal picked me up and hugged me.  I can't remember if Mrs. Beal hugged me, but I'm sure she tenderly told me, "Love is for keeps".  Once they were out the door, I quietly crept to the Music Room and watched the car back out of the driveway.  Only then, did I begin to sob, "Mr. Beal, Mr. Beal, Mr. Beal", over and over again.  I couldn't think of any other words.  I loved Missus, but he was my hero.  I watched until they were out of sight, and my heart felt that breaking, aching, heavy wrenching that only comes when it is acutely broken. Though I never felt the loss of my own parents, the sting of this perceived "abandonment" in my immature life was the first experience of many which would begin to form a  muddy, black coating on my heart.

What I didn't know then was that God was working all things together, for my good, and for His glory.

I  just love Psalm 10:14  But You have seen, for You observe trouble and grief, to repay it by Your hand.  The helpless commits himself to You; You are the helper of the fatherless.  

This blog is titled "Healing the Locust Years" because of God's promise in Joel 2:25 "I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten..."

God has repayed my trouble and grief, and He heaps blessing upon blessing daily as He repays the years the locusts have eaten!

As I dawdled here in the office, wondering whether I should attempt to write my testimony and whether I would be able to even make sense as I try to bring glory to God, I flipped to the September 14th entry in the little Forget Me Not devotional.  It reads:  The Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded (Isaiah 50:7)
 
Dear Heavenly Father,
 You know I want to bring glory to You.  I don't know what to say, or how to say it sometimes.  Please bring blessing and hope to others who may be reading this.  You know there is so much more to write.  Please direct me in writing only what pleases You, and may I remember that even the hard things can be used greatly by You.  And oh, Lord, keep me humble!  In Jesus' name...