The Ride!

I don't know if I told this story before...but it's such a good one that it bears repeating. (Is that the correct way to spell bears or is it bares....hmm...I think it might be bares but you choose the one you want!)

Anyways, the summer of 1986, hubby and I had been a foster family for about three years. We were on our holidays and we had one little boy as well as our oldest two...the little boy was quite the terror so I really don't know why we were even giving this any consideration at all...but we were young and so we did. You see, we had been approved for one foster child and if you wanted to be approved for two you had to inform 'the agency' -Children's Aid it's called in Canada.....well...we spent our whole holiday discussing this....whether it was a really good idea or not..whether we could actually 'handle' four kids...(the Lord must have been having a giggle about that since he ended up giving us nine!) On with the story,.....we decided that we would...but quite frankly,..whenever I thought about it when we returned home...I'd get cold feet...I wasn't entirely convinced that I could do it. Finally, about a month later...I know, I'm a big scaredy cat...I called. It was on a Monday...I remember it well....I talked to the social worker that we usually dealt with..she was in charge of the babies..we were approved for 0-2 years old. She said that she wouldn't have time to come out that week to do our home check for another child...it would have to be the following week. Okay, I thought...that was fine....on the Friday of the same week, I got a call from this worker......she asked if we'd be interested in having a newborn....I was very excited...who doesn't love brand new babies....I said 'YES!"....she said that she'd bring this little one out on Monday....'but' ..I said...'we haven't been approved for two yet!' The worker said that it was okay...she come out on the date scheduled to do that......then the worker said when the baby had been born.....she had been born on the very day, the Monday...that I finally got the nerve up to call the agency!!

Now, some people would call this a coincidence, a fluke....me...well, I can definitely see the Lord's hand in this whole situation...he planned it all.....and over the next number of years whenever I questioned whether we were the right mom and dad for this little one, I would remember just how the Lord brought her into our family in the first place...and I would know that it was right.

Twenty-four years ago today I made that call....two years later she became our very first child that we adopted.....the first of seven...what a ride the Lord has taken us on...but I wouldn't have missed it...I'm glad he chose us!

Happy Birthday! Lauren Kristie Victoria!!

* the pic is Lauren holding baby William last Christmas...