A Glimpse of God's Grace

Many moon ago, when I was in high school, I was mentored by a wonderful woman.  She was "older than me", just out of college, and as far as I was concerned right about just about everything.  (as I type this I realize that I am now older than she was at this time.  Wow.  Where does the time go)

Anyway, she was, and remains, a wonderful strong Christian woman.  She taught me much during our times together about God, and what His grace means. About how I can ask God for anything, because He alone is bigger than anything.  About how I can always ALWAYS rely on Him.   In the years since I have continued to learn these lessons from her, even though we don't see each other on a regular basis.  She was and remains a positive influence in my life.

Back in the day we would usually meet once a week or so and would go for coffee, just a drive or shopping. She would ask me about my week, what I was learning through my devotions and basically help shape who I was learning to become.  During this time, the group Audio Adrenaline released the song "Big House".  I loved this song.  I dearly loved this song.  And my mentor had a cassette tape (yes, I am dating myself here) with this song on it. As cool as I already thought she was, this boosted her up a few notches.  I nearly drove her crazy with my requests to hear this song.  Again, in her loving way, she showed me Grace in allowing me to repeadedly play this song - then rewind the cassette, and listen again.  In fact, it became a joke of ours.  When she left for a 2 year mission trip she 'willed' the cassette to me and I beleive that I cried in my car the day the tape broke. 

Fast forward to the present.  As you may be aware, we adopted our son nearly a year ago.  Something that I prayed for since the begining of our journey was that somehow, some way, I would see just a glimpse of myself in him.  I cannot biologically call him mine, I cannot claim to have given him "my eyes" or "my nose" - but I just wanted something that I could say - "That's me.  All the way".  (Correct me if I am wrong, but I think a lot of adoptive parents seek this.) Something that I knew God could reveal to me, as a private message just to me, that He hears every single one of our prayers, even the silly little ones that in the grand scheme of life are insignificant-  and cares about them. 

Today I had that moment.  Buddy and I were driving home from an errand and I had the radio on.  One guess as to what song came on - yep "Big House" by Audio A.  And he loved it.  He sang in his own way the whole time, and clapped, and laughed the whole song.  This made me laugh, and made me think of my mentor.  Then the song ended.  My sweet Buddy started asking for "Mo" (read: More)
and using his sign language for please.  With all I am, I wished I had that song on a CD in the car for him.  He emphatically wanted to hear "Mo" of it. Over and over he would say "Mo" and sign. He was crushed that I could not comply.

This, my friends, was truly "from me".  So I stopped and thanked God for answering that silly little prayer of mine in such a fantastic way all the while marveling in how He chooses to reveal is grace to us.