Being Chased Down and Grabbed Ahold of... by God!

Note:  If you missed my earlier blog entry about DS#5 and our adoption story you might want to go back and read that one first.

I have heard about people being chased by God but I have never really felt chased down.  This story I am about to share with you is a true chase down.... by God..... of DS#5.

To set the scene.... It's a gorgeous Friday night in August.  The marching band plays the National Anthem.  The cheerleaders sing the school song.  The team is gathered waiting to storm the field.  Friday Night Lights, the real thing.  (I love football!)  I get the text.....

"I'm by the concession stand.  I'm 6'2"so I'm hard to miss.  Wearing a gray t-shirt, headed your way."

I was about to met DS#5's third grade teacher.  Let's call her A.  And sure enough, I didn't miss her.  She was tall and beautiful....  inside and out.

I knew she was coming to the game and was excited to meet her.  You see, I had been hearing about this woman for a while now.  She is pretty much DS#5's only positive memory of life before foster care.  In fact, he has said that she was "like a mother" to him for that year of his life.  He has said this a few times and it always makes me sad and thankful and scared.  Sad that he had to have a teacher "be like a mom" to him.  Thankful that this lovely young woman was willing to "be like a mom" to him.  And scared that some student may have needed this from me and I missed it.  :/

That year A. was a first year teacher.  I think she was 24 at the time.  She was a newly-wed with a new house.  Her husband was a youth minister and a high school teacher.   They had a couple of needy teenage boys (in a bad foster care situation) that stayed with them pretty much all the time.  One of them had special needs.  Her life was full of challenges.  But A. loves Jesus and because of her love of Jesus and her reliance on Him she was able to meet those challenges and fall in love with my sweet baby.

She tells me he was angry and that his home life was very difficult.  She tells me that even through his anger she could see a little boy underneath with a heart full of compassion and a need for love.  I know that little boy.... he moved in with us 4 years ago.... I'm not really sure where he went or when he left but I know this: we don't see him much anymore.  :)

She recalls that #5 was kind of a bully.  (Yep, I've met that guy too.)  But that he really wanted to have friends and that she thought he was mostly frustrated with trying to fit in. (Ummm, yep, again.)  She remembers that she would take him to the gym during recess and they would play basketball together instead of letting him go to the playground, just so he wouldn't get in trouble.  She tells me that  she never met birth mom but never heard anything good about her.  (Not a surprise to me!)  She tells me that she has been praying for my little guy ever since she had him in class and has often wondered what had happened to him.  (I have to tell you that as I proofread this it makes me chuckle at calling him "my little guy"!  He's 6'2" and 245lbs!)

A. recalls the day last spring when her school secretary came to her room and told her that a kid had called school and asked if she still taught there and then asked to speak to her.  He told the secretary that his name had changed but that he used to go by Joey.  A. knew immediately who was on the phone and made a few moments to talk to him.  He told her that she had "changed his life" and that if it was okay with her he would like to see her and he wanted to let her know that he "was okay"!  Through tears she thanked him for calling her and told him that she would love to see him again!

That afternoon he talked to his dad and later me on the phone. (I was in Pittsburgh that week with one of my research students at the International Science and Engineering Fair.)  He told us that he had contacted A. and that he really wanted to go see her again.  He told us again how important she had been to him that year.  He doesn't often share stuff about his past with us.  He has told us things but it isn't some  place he dwells a lot.  (I think because it was so bad and the now is so much better.)  But when he does tell us about his "before us" life we definitely perk up and listen.  Of course, his daddy and I told him he could go meet her.  And I breathed a little prayer that she would understand how important she was to him.  Now I understand that no prayers are wasted.... you can't waste a convo with your Heavenly Father.... but this one had been answered LONG before it ever flitted through my little brain!!  

One afternoon not long after that phone call #5 took to the road and headed to the school where A. still teaches.  She told me how as she looked at #5 she began to cry because she could see that he wasn't that angry little boy.  Through teary eyes she tells me about how she could see that he was now a  happy, healthy, strong young man.  She could tell while talking to him that he loves Jesus and that he really.  is.  okay.

While she tells me these things and other things about #5's past I cry.... several times!  (And while she is telling me these things #5 is on the field, snapping the ball, blocking, making stops, knocking the opponents down and then picking them up and patting them on the top of their helmets! playing a really nice game!  I see most of it through my tears!)

A. took a special interest in my baby boy.  She did a little more.  She cared.  She was hands and feet for a year for #5.  But it didn't stop there.  She continued to pray.  Prayer is soooo powerful.

It was just a little more than a year later, as #5 was about to start fifth grade, that A. heard that his B-mom had dropped him off at a DCFS office.  She was heart-broken for him.  As she told me about hearing this she teared up and says that she was really worried about him.  What does a Christian woman do when the worry rears it's ugly, joy-stealing, time-consuming head.....  she prays and that's exactly what A. did.   She prayed... some more.

And I am so glad that she prayed.  Because God heard those prayers.  He heard them and He answered them.  I wonder how many things were changed because of her prayers.  Did #5 have the courage to ask to talk with #2 that evening at camp because she was praying for him?  Knowing him now we know that would be somewhat uncharacteristic of him.  Was she praying for him when his first foster family decided to become foster parents?  They weren't his forever family but they played a crucially important role.  We were not ready and wouldn't have been able to take him if it had happened three years earlier.  Was she praying for him the day that #2 called me and asked me to pray for him as well because his B-mom had terminated her parental rights, the day that I kept hearing the Lord tell me "hands and feet, hands and feet"?  Was she praying when we had clear Saturdays for the foster parenting classes and there was room for us in those classes?  I feel sure that she prayed a quick foster parent license approval through the system and didn't even realize what she was praying for!!  I would bet hard-earned money (if I were a betting woman) that she was praying the day of that meeting.  The one where the case-worker supervisor wanted our process to take several months and everyone else in the room convinced her to let us move him home in two days!!!  I am absolutely certain that she has been praying at times when I have had supernatural, Holy Spirit-granted, patience or understanding or self-control in dealing with this big goofball of a teenage boy!  I wonder if she was praying for him every time he remembered her and that someone really did care about him.  Could she have been praying for him when he got the idea that he should call the school to ask if she still taught there so many years later?  A. tells me that her last school year ended very badly with her having to tell her class that one of her students had a serious form of leukemia.  Her summer was worse as she visited this student at the children's hospital and then again when he lost his battle just 6 weeks later.  She was struggling at the beginning of this school year when #5 emailed her to ask if she would attend his ballgame.  That invite was just what she needed to remind her of why she teaches.  Wonder who was praying for whom that time?  :)

Now, this blog post is titled "Being Chased Down and Grabbed Ahold of... by God" and so far it has been mostly about people praying and being willing to be used by God.  But that's how God chases us sometimes.... with other people as his feet and He often uses other peoples' hands to grad ahold of us.  I wonder how many times I have had a thought of good to be done, a thought planted by God, a thought prayed into my head by someone interceding for me or someone else, that I have dismissed.  I wonder who God was trying to chase down using me as his feet.  Who have I missed grabbing ahold of for Jesus?  Has he been trying to use someone to chase me down or grab ahold of me?  Have I run away from them and Him?

Lord, I'm sorry for not doing the good I could do.  Give me the strength to do the good you set before me.  Lord, help me to see the opportunity to be hands and feet for you.  Lord, give me another chance to chase and grab ahold of those people that I have missed my opportunity with.  Lord, put new people in my path to chase down for you, to grab ahold of for you.  Lord, don't let me run away from you!  I want to be caught and held onto tightly!  And Lord, thank you for the strength already given me and the answers to prayers already given. Father God, thank you so much for A, for her willingness to be hands and feet for you.  Thank you for putting her in #5's young life to love him before I could get there.  Lord, thank you for her tenacity in loving him even though she hadn't even seen him for nearly ten years!  Thank you, Lord, for the blessing, The. Absolute. Blessing. that it has been to parent this amazing young man.  It truly is one of the five greatest blessing of my life.  Thank you, Jesus, for your scarred hands and feet and your sacrifice... for me, for A., for #5, for all of us.

I would love to hear from you.  Please leave me a comment.

For the Lover and the Chaser of my soul and yours,    

Laurie Jo