Pregnant: The Adoption of Megan, Segment 8

The wind of the Holy Spirit gusted. A cloud came into view. Rain. A sign of blessing. Thick with promise, this cloud swelled, puffed, and churned out mottled shades of gray and green in a sudden downpour. I flipped my umbrella over. And, the deluge of bills filled it to capacity.

I wish.

We expected a miracle from God. Hadn’t He proved to us He was able? We certainly had no other means of generating wealth for Megan’s adoption.

Four weeks passed from the day we received Megan’s photos, then another two. Nothing transpired other than we learned our daughter’s Korean name meant silver jewel.

Silver in scripture speaks of a refiner’s fire. “You have tested us O God; you have purified us like silver.” (NLT Psalm 66:10) Silver represents God’s personal shaping of His workmanship. Did you know a silversmith must tenaciously watch His creation while it’s in the fire so he doesn’t injure and damage the silver? What love.

And what of jewels? They are a picture of God’s redeemed. By grace we are transformed. Science cannot recreate a jewel. Men have tried, but only God can take something lowly in nature from the earth and transform it into a precious gem. 

But what did this knowledge have to do with us? When Megan was two months old a letter came from Holt. 

September 11, 1986:

“Ht. 23 in. Wt.14.1 lbs. Laughs with a small voice.  Eye follows a rattle, four ways.  Actively grasps a rattle. No head lag. Some weight bearing. Prone—lifts head high, chest up. **Adoptable.”

The word adoptable seared my heart. Time passed—our daughter growing while separated from us. How could I not long to be a part of her earliest moments. Being an earthling, panic tried to rise and choke me.

God gave me a scripture to rely on. “The Lord God will help me. Therefore I will not be disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know I will not be ashamed.” (NKJ) Isaiah 50:7 

“Set my face like flint. Set my face like flint. I will not be ashamed. I will not be ashamed.” Daily, I must have recited this a thousand times. But the weeks grew longer and longer.

October 18, 1986:

 “Three months old. Ht. 24 in. Wt. 13.7 lbs.  Laughs loudly. Brings hands to midline. Some weight bearing. Prone, lifts head high, chest up. **Adoptable.”

Full-fledged panic ensued. Wouldn’t Holt call at any moment and take Megan away from us? We schemed, but could not come up with the money. Then the most heart-wrenching scenario occurred. Three different sources promised the money. But over the course of that month, none could deliver.

Many well-meaning friends desired to help, but their hands were tied. My heart like a yo-yo on a string couldn’t take the strain. I felt near collapse, and Randy did. On Sunday morning, in the middle of church, a violent attack of inner ear struck and men from the church had to help my husband home. Stress related?  No doubt. But weren’t we threats to the enemy, as well? If Megan came to our home, she’d hear the gospel. 

November 15, 1986:

“Four months old. Ht. 25 in. Wt. 14.1 lbs. Makes vowel sounds. Babbles. Sits alone with two hands held forward. Rolls over both ways. Some weight bearing. Reaches out, grasps toy with one hand. **Adoptable.”

Those words. Adoptable. My first daughter? Stillborn. This one? Held at ransom halfway around the world. We fasted. We prayed. We begged God. And then—a knowing settled over me. Our refiner’s fire burned hotter, the silver molten. Our July 5^th jewel, an oriental ruby, teetered just out of our reach, and time had run out. 

***

Megan—Mighty One, Victorious Spirit

Come and let us walk in the light of the Lord. (Isaiah 2:5)

Hope—Faithful, Understanding Heart

Delight yourself also in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)

Pregnant: The Adoption of Megan, Segment 6

The adoption home study was finished. A bill arrived from Holt for four hundred and fifty dollars. My heart squeezed. This payment was time sensitive since it would cover immigration expenses. Randy and I chewed nails waiting for God to tell us what to do. The obvious? No extra money had magically appeared in our bank account.

One day passed, then another. On Sunday morning—just as I slipped one foot over the bathtub to towel off—I heard the still small voice of God speak two words inside my head. The Coin.

I pulled on my bathrobe, cinched it, and sat down on the edge of the tub. Really God? Something as important as this and You speak while I’m climbing out of the bathtub? But I knew exactly what He meant by those two targeted words.

My precious father figure—my grandfather—had died a little more than a year before and left me a single gold coin. Papaw Kirksey was a small man. Not very tall. Not wealthy. But a gentle, soft-spoken soul who loved me. I can’t tell you the hours I spent in his lap, combing his dark, wavy hair. He was a patient man. His most endearing feature? His slow and boyish grin. It was a fact, he loved children more than anything. You could see it in his sparkling baby blues when they rested on any child, but especially on my brother and me.

April 1958
This is me with Papaw eight months before my dad passed away.

Papaw owned a gas station. And his only material treasure was a coin collection he’d started when he was very young. As a five year old, he'd purchased a minuscule rawhide coin purse from the Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog where he kept his first prized possession—an Indian head nickel. Through the years, Papaw kept his coins in a dresser drawer and then a foot locker. He’d polish them, and show them to me on a regular basis. And when he was gone, each immediate family member received one of his cherished gold pieces. It was like they were holy—not meant to be spent.

September 1976
Papaw, while struggling with Parkinson's disease, walked me down the aisle to Randy.

Selling the coin would be difficult.

The next day, my husband found the local coin dealer’s number in the phone book and scribbled down the street address.

“How? How are we supposed to know what this one coin is worth, Randy? How can I give it up?"

“We’ll see… Just because he makes us an offer doesn’t mean we have to take it.”

Three blocks from the coin dealer’s home my heart raced. Two blocks… One block…

“Pull over! Pull over in that church parking lot, Randy.We have to pray, again. Family will be incensed when they find out we sold this.”

Randy parked under a tree sprouting new spring leaves and switched off the motor. He took my hand and prayed for wisdom.

When he finished, I pulled my Bible into my lap and randomly opened it to Mark 14. My gaze fell on the story of Mary, who washed the feet of Jesus with her hair. I began reading it aloud. It said people were indignant that she’d broken an expensive bottle of perfume—some sort of precious oil—and used it to wash His feet. They shouted at her. But Jesus told them to leave her alone. In the last verse of this account, Jesus said that what she’d done would be remembered and retold as a memorial to her.

I looked up into Randy’s face. “Granny Kirksey called me a week or so ago. She spent her gold coin. Did you know that?”

Randy reached over and squeezed my hand tighter. “No. Why?”

“Because Papaw's been gone more than a year, and she had no other way to pay for his headstone. She wanted him to have a memorial. Those were her exact words.”

A smile stretched across Randy’s mouth. “You know what I think this means? I think your grandfather loved children. Megan will be a living memorial in his honor. She is the only thing worth spending this coin on—ever.”

The coin dealer studied the gold piece. “I have an offer.”

My gaze flitted to my husband.We'd made a pact not to tell the man how much money we needed. Randy motioned for the man to continue. 

“I’ll not give you a penny less or a penny more than four hundred and fifty dollars.”

Listen for His whispers...

Pregnant: The Adoption of Megan, Segment 5

Everywhere I turned, God showered me with assurance about His plan for our adoption, right down to the family who moved across the street. The father of the young family was Japanese, and I gathered perspective on what it was like to be a mixed Asian family in the American South. Blended families did exist, even in our small town.

God networked behind the scenes. Families came into our lives that year who would be instrumental in Megan’s adoption: Richard and Belinda Burns, Bud and Sue Wood, and Ron and Stacy Smith.

We met Bud and Sue early that fall through our church. One evening they invited us to dinner. When we’d finished, the husbands left for a men’s prayer meeting. Sue and I curled up on the sofa to cross-stitch while our children played. I shared with Sue our plans to adopt a Korean baby. Her hoop and aida cloth dropped to her lap as her mouth fell open. I remember thinking she must not understand why we’d internationally adopt.  But before I could further explain, her eyes glistened with tears.

“All day long, God nudged me to phone you, Ann.  I couldn’t understand why, so I ignored His promptings. I feel so foolish, now.”

“Why?”

“I have a dear friend where we moved from that has a brain tumor. God kept telling me to call you and have you pray for her. Tomorrow she goes into the hospital to have surgery. Since I don’t know you well, I couldn’t understand the connection. Now? I do. My friend and her husband have four children, two biological and two adopted, one child from Japan.”

My heart clenched as faith for this woman’s healing rose in my gut. Certainly God wanted her to live and rear her children to know Him. Sue and I prayed. The next day, Sue’s friend had seventy x-rays and the doctors marveled. Not a trace of the tumor could be found.

Soon after, Bud told us he’d been adopted, and that was the special reason we’d become friends. The man thrived on every detail of Megan’s adoption and literally prayed her home.

Belinda and I became fast friends soon after I met Sue. Like Sue, I met Belinda at church. I had something special in common with her. She, the mother of boys, had a heart’s desire to have a daughter. But would her husband go for another baby in hard economic times, or would God grant the desire of her heart? We agreed to pray for one another. Her daughter, Mallory, was born on my birthday one year later. I think God smiled. Oh, and did I tell you? Turns out, Belinda’s husband, Richard, was adopted.

September 18, 1957/ September 18, 1986

A few months later, high school friends, Ron and Stacy Smith moved to our area. Ron, fresh out of medical school, opened his first practice. As we helped them move into their home, we had no idea the strong direction their lives and ours would branch and take. But one thing was sure. Ron and Stacy believed in miracles and prayerfully supported us. Stacy’s dad is Author Gilbert Morris

God brought others into our lives, for certain, extraordinary moments. Important others like Ed and LaVerne Midyett who slipped a crisp fifty dollar bill into Randy’s lapel pocket when he picked up his suit at their dry cleaners. It was January of 1986, and we were to leave bright and early the next morning for Memphis, TN and our first adoption agency interviews.

Sweating bullets, we stepped into the adoption agency office. Compact, its walls were covered in photos of Holt children with their forever families. These calmed our nerves a bit before the upcoming interrogation. How would we explain that we didn’t have a plan for coming up with our adoption monies?

The social worker rushed to greet us, and we were whisked into chairs. “I am so sorry, but before we begin, I must tell you there has been an oversight. Immigration is now requiring an extra fifty dollars, immediate payment.”

Fall 2013: Soon after Megan’s homecoming Bud and Sue Wood moved to Northwest Arkansas, Richard and Belinda Burns moved to Alaska, and Ron and Stacy Smith moved to Texas, and then Georgia. This summer the Burns returned to Arkansas, and Megan reconnected with her childhood friend, Mallory, now married and living near Houston. Richard and Belinda bought one of Megan’s paintings upon her graduation from Henderson State University this past spring, and it hangs in their living room.  Megan had no memory of Bud and Sue, but as we moved Meg to Fayetteville, AR this summer, she reconnected with the Wood family. Now Megan and I are separated by miles, but Bud and Sue are watching over her as though she were their own.

Bud and Sue Wood with Megan, June 2013

Listen For His Whispers

Pregnant: The Adoption of Megan, Segment 4

My mind worked double time to understand what God was saying through this television broadcast. Who was really killing the Hebrew children? Pharaoh was motivated by dark forces, his murder of each firstborn  child a slithering thread in a tangled satanic plot. The enemy was hard at work to butcher and cut off the seed from which Christ would eventually come.

My heart beat in rapid cadence.What about after the Christ child was born and King Herod, still bent on slaughter, set about to annihilate children? Satan was still trying to stop the righteous line and the deliverer.

Who is now that righteous line? I drummed my fingers on the coffee table.The believer. Randy. Me.
 

Like Pharaoh’s daughter, I imagined staring into the face of the child I would adopt. How was I saving her? She’d be grafted into the royal, righteous line. She’d have opportunity to one day know Jesus because together, Randy and I would shelter, protect, and teach her.

God was granting me more than the fulfillment of a personal desire. Yes, He delighted in gifting me a daughter, but He was also birthing a daughter of His own, a child after His own heart.

Panic gripped as I thought of the evil one. How might we be challenged? My attention returned to the minister on the television just as he said, “South Korean’s live day in and day out on the brink of war. Evangelism has exploded in their country. They have become earnest people of prayer.”

The host of the broadcast interrupted the minister. “America has become safe and smug. Life here is easy. Like Pharaoh’s daughter, we have ignored the abortion issue for too long. Countless babies are lost year after year at the expense of our freedom, luxury, and choice.”

Not once had it occurred to me that my daughter could be in her birth mother’s womb, or that she possibly faced danger in that hidden place. I wanted an infant more than anything, but did I dare hope? We were told our daughter could already be several months old, since she’d be younger than our youngest, and he would turn two years of age in the coming weeks.

A scripture surfaced. “Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord.” I would not be afraid, but I would fight. I’d pray fervently and often for my child, and I’d come against a spirit of abortion.

The three-year-old burst through the kitchen screen door, and it banged shut. Breathless, he pointed to the front door. “Look Mama, there’s somebody moving into that house across the street. They’s got kids.”

I slid back the living room curtain. A man with raven, black hair and almond shaped eyes stood in the yard on the south side of the street. Two small children, markedly Asian—only blond—wrapped their arms about his legs.

Listen for His Whispers

Pregnant: The Adoption of Megan, Segment 3

Randy buried his face in his hands and groaned. A hot check was not acceptable. How could we overcome this fatal financial mistake with our adoption agency?

I raised my head and grasped the receiver as the phone rang. A cheerful voice on the other end greeted me. She identified herself as a case worker with Holt Children’s Services. A cloud descended over my crushed heart.  

“We were just about to call you. We discovered this morning our check was insufficient, and we feel terrible.”

“Mrs. McCauley, people who have money are generally not the ones who adopt our children. You’d be surprised how often this happens. We’ll run the check through again. No problem.”

Stunned, I fell silent.

The following weeks we busied ourselves with the application process and its endless bundle of questions about our character. We were asked to explore our marriage, our parenting skills, and our racial prejudices. Trusting. How simple and how hard. We would need over five-thousand dollars to adopt our daughter.  God reminded us His yoke is easy and His burden light, but too often we tried to carry the load and found ourselves rushing ahead of the Lord, obsessed with every detail.

One night, drained from the paperwork’s self-examinations and written responses, Randy and I prayed. Randy felt led to read the account of baby Moses. At first this seemed trivial to us both. I pictured myself as a little girl in Sunday school class. The teacher illustrating this story with felt bulrushes added a basket of reeds to a blue board. Why would God have us read this? I’d heard this story my whole life. But when Randy read Exodus chapter two aloud, and I visualized the Hebrew woman leaving her child by the water’s edge, it hit me. Moses was an adopted child.

We had been told this child would be younger than our youngest, and Jarred was two. Was she safely being knit in her mother’s womb? Or was she a toddling one-year-old? 

The next day the squeak and groan of the backyard see-saw clashed with the boys belting out songs they learned in Children’s Church. I quietly slipped away while contemplating the story of baby Moses. When my shoe slid inside the kitchen threshold, I felt compelled to turn on a certain Christian television show. I glanced at the clock. The show was over. I believed God for a baby half-way around the world, but I wouldn’t turn on the TV? I stepped into the living room, laughing at myself, and hit the power button.

When the beam of light burst into a full screen on the set, the host of the show said they were extending their broadcast by one hour. I hunkered on the edge of the sofa. The minister they were interviewing had just returned to the states from Seoul, South Korea. A camera zoomed in, and the minister said, “God has shown me something in a new light. While in Korea, I saw Pharaoh’s daughter in my mind’s eye. She was standing at the river’s edge, Moses in her arms. Pharaoh, her father, had been murdering babies, and perhaps his daughter could no longer sit in her royal palace, oblivious to the slaughter. Perhaps she could not look into the eyes of this Hebrew child and run from the truth any longer.”

My hands trembled, and my knees knocked. The screech of the see-saw in the background faded. 

Look for Segment 4 of Megan's story in October 2013. 

Listen for His Whispers

Pregnant: Megan's Adoption Story, Segment 2

The first phone number Marsha presented led to Holt International Children’s Services in Eugene, Oregon. I’d never heard of it. When I called, they told me about their Korean adoption program. Don’t ask how I knew, but this was it. Our daughter was Korean. It matched the picture etched in my mind’s eye.  I asked for their $15 pre-application packet. They explained they’d recently opened an office in Memphis, Tennessee. The South, steeped in prejudice, had not been ready for Asian adoption until the eighties. Now they were placing children in Arkansas.

Four weeks later, Randy wrote a check to Holt International Children’s Services for the $50 application fee and sealed the envelope. He wagged it in front of my face.

“You know I respect you, Ann. But this is big. I have to juggle our money to have the fifty dollars, and I haven’t heard from God about this.”

“I don’t want something God isn’t directing. It’s scary to think of entering into something we aren’t together on. Whatever you decide, we will do.”

“Okay. Then I’m putting this envelope on top of the entertainment center, and I will pray. I’m not mailing it until I’ve heard from God, understand?”

Thankfully, I was busy with toddlers as time seemed to drag. 

Two more weeks passed, and Randy’s job out of Huntsville, Alabama phoned. They were sending him two hours away, to interview a couple interested in purchasing a line of medical vending machines. A huge investment for this couple, Randy made the appointment to see them both. He’d been trained on how important it was for the wife to be present when talking about an investment of these proportions. He couldn’t mess this up. We desperately needed him to close this sale.

Upon his arrival, he was greeted at the door by the husband. They chatted in the threshold, and found they had things in common. As they meandered through the hallway, the man told Randy his wife had taken ill just before he’d arrived. She had gone to bed.

Later, as Randy recounted this story, he told me how his heart sunk at that moment. With no wife to hear his sales pitch, chances were slim he’d close the deal. He paused where he stood, about to suggest they postpone their meeting, when the husband swept his hand through the air. Randy’s gaze followed.

“This is my wife and children.” He gestured toward a large wall portrait, and Randy stilled. The man’s wife was Asian.

Finally, Randy cleared his throat. “You’re wife is Oriental?”

“Yes. She’s Korean.”

“Korean, you say? That’s interesting. My wife and I have been praying about a Korean adoption.”

The man’s eyes lit. “My wife was adopted from Korea in the 1950’s. Her parents were neighbors with a family who adopted a little Korean boy. This boy always carried a tattered photo of his sister in his pocket. My in-laws adopted that young girl, but before the brother and sister were reunited, the neighbors moved to the East Coast. A year or so passed, and the boy’s adoptive father called and asked my in-laws if they could meet in a neighboring state. There, the man told my in-laws his wife was terminally ill. He asked if they would be willing to take the boy and adopt him as their own, reuniting him with his sister. So, my wife and her brother grew up together near here.”

Electric pulses ran Randy's arms, but before he could respond, the man shifted his stance and pinned a steady gaze on him. “My wife was adopted through Holt International Children’s Services. Have you heard of them?”

Randy sprouted wings and flew home. Needless to say, he mailed the application fee to Holt. But in spite of our vigilant watch over the bank account, the check to Holt bounced like a rubber ball. Was it possible for human error to wreck God's plan?

The third segment of Megan’s adoption story will be posted in September 2013.

Listen for His Whispers

Pregnant

Megan's Adoption Story

We were on a working vacation, Randy making sales calls while the kids and I played at lakes and parks. And, the week couldn’t have gone worse.  The one-year-old threw up in the car, every commission sale fell through, the radiator sprung a leak, and our cash was stolen at one of our last stops. I glanced back at my two young sons in their car-seats. Blissful sleep. I actually had time on my hands to worry about us. How would we buy groceries next week?

Kirk, age three on that memorable day in 1985.

Jarred, age one.

Randy drove. My gaze swiveled from the boys to out the car window and locked on the beautiful Ozark mountain range. How could I worry when looking at God’s incredible creation? The stretch of countryside awed, and the Holy Spirit rose inside me. I declined worry and chose to pray.

No sooner had I silently begun, than something strange and unusual unfolded. Something that had never happened to me before. A picture—like a photograph—appeared in front of my eyes. I shook my head, but the profile of a baby girl remained, pasted between me and the windshield.

“The two in the back seat were born of your womb, but she is born of your heart.”

Whoa… Did God just speak to me? The photo didn’t move. The car lumbered on, and Randy, lost in his own thoughts, seemed oblivious.

The child had straight, coal black hair. Her skin-tone was olive. She looked nothing like me or my family members.

“I came to give the desires of your heart, Ann. I know how much you’ve wanted a baby girl since yours was stillborn.”

An adoption, Lord? Never once had Randy and I spoken of adoption. I could still biologically have children.

“Call Marsha.”

Marsha? Why Marsha?

I waited, but God said nothing else. How did calling my old friend, Marsha, make sense? She’d lived in our neighborhood for one year, the year my firstborn was delivered stillborn. She and her deaf child, Carrie, had moved to Washington D. C. a few months later where Marsha had landed a job in speech pathology at Gallaudet.

The photo in my head faded, yet was imprinted in my memory. This would obviously be a Native American adoption or an overseas adoption. Asia perhaps? Wouldn’t a work so magnanimous as foreign adoption or Native American adoption need to be headquartered in Washington D. C.? 

I didn’t know a single person with an adopted child except for those who had done private or state adoption where the child was matched to his or her family. I didn’t know a single Native American or Asian person. Although,I had gone to school with a girl whose parents had been from China, but that had been years ago.

Then it hit me… How would I tell my husband what had just transpired? A heavy lump settled in the pit of my stomach, and a cold sweat spread across my brow. This was weird. Which meant, I was weird. I blew air from between my lips and garnered Randy’s attention.

“Uh… Something just happened.”

“What?”

“Something spiritual.”

“Like what?”

“I think I had a vision.”

His eyebrow quirked. “And?”

I spilled my guts.

When I finished, he nodded. Slowly and for quite awhile. “You know, Ann, I respect the spiritual side of you. If you say you heard God speak and saw a vision, then I believe you. We’ll see what happens.”

A tremor of excitement shot through me. I was pregnant. I was having a baby. A beautiful baby girl. God said. And, yes, though another daughter couldn’t take my first daughter’s place, I wanted a baby girl more than anything.

“Do you realize what this means, Randy? We’re having a baby!”

“Slow down… I don’t doubt you, sweetheart… But keep in mind… I haven’t had the same experience as you. All I have to go on is what you have told me. We can’t even afford a long distance phone call to Marsha.”

I smiled. The man slumped.

When we arrived home, I bustled to the bedroom telephone where in privacy I dialed Marsha’s number. Randy wrangled with the boys. The phone rang once. 

“Oh my goodness! What am I doing? Marsha’s gonna think I’ve lost my mind.” I hadn’t spoken with her in more than a year.

Too late. She answered.

I swallowed, greeted her, and began my story.

“I know God spoke to me today, Marsha, and I understand if you think I’m crazy—over-the-top crazy.”

Marsha’s warm laugh gave me hope. “Ann… If anyone else called today and told me God had spoken to them, I would’ve already hung up. But not you. Not you, my friend…”

I took the plunge. “God told me we were going to adopt a baby girl, and He told me to call you, and I don’t know why, but I know He said so, and I… well… there you have it.”

Dead silence.

I squeezed my eyes shut with the pain of being so peculiar. “You do think I’m a lunatic, don’t you?”

“No…”

Dead silence, again.

“Marsha, why was I supposed to call you?”

“Because, my husband and I have been discussing adoption for quite some time, and we’ve done all the leg work for you. Gotta a pen?”

This photo of Megan developed three years later at Christmas time, stunned me. It is strikingly similar to the picture God planted in my heart that memorable day in 1985.

The next segment of Megan's story will be in August.

Listen for His Whispers

The Gift of Avery

Linda Requard Hatcher

A bright shaft of sunlight welcomed me to the window and warmed my face. Spring blossoms peeked out of their buds. What a lovely April day. A car door slammed, and I charged to the front door and stretched it wide to catch the first glimpse of my daughter, Becky, and her husband, Ferris. And, when my daughter turned the corner of the house, my arms flew open.

“Hurry!” My feet danced in place. “I can't wait another minute.”

The flannel bundle Becky bore wriggled in her arms, and my heart did a flip flop. A sigh escaped my lips as my chest rose and fell with grandmother pride. A fifth grandchild… Avery Lynn. Hadn't I relocated near my daughter for this moment? Between a newborn and an active toddler, she needed me. After being widowed, I longed to be useful.

Avery's tiny features mirrored those of her mother's as a babe. So sweet… But when I lifted her higher and the blanket slid to her shoulders, my breath caught. Her skull was like a coconut—too small and underdeveloped. The top of her head appeared darker than her face and across her forehead ran a deep ridge.

The news hurled me onto my bed in prayer. I grabbed my Bible and thrust it open.

Oh dear Lord, what is wrong with my precious grandchild?

Craniosynostosis, a condition gripping our baby girl and challenging her future, served daunting prospects. What was craniosynostosis? Avery had no soft spot (fontanel) on her head, and the skull sutures over both her ears were fused shut.  Without surgical correction, her growing brain would have too little room to expand, risking brain damage and disfigurement.

Becky and Ferris traveled to a consultation with doctors at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. The news was heart-wrenching as the specialist described a long, extensive surgery which the baby would not be strong enough to undergo until she was ten months old. A blood transfusion from the mother would be necessary, and there would be steep risks involved in opening the cranium.

The news hurled me onto my bed in prayer. I grabbed my Bible and thrust it open.

God hear my cries for help…

My gaze fell to a verse in Proverbs 10:6 (NIV). “Blessings crown the head of the righteous.” The voice of my Father brought comfort. With this specific promise in mind, I referenced Scriptures on the word head. I combed verses, and they seemed to leap off the pages and into my believing heart.

Without surgical correction, her growing brain would have too little room to expand, risking brain damage and disfigurement.

Jesus was crucified on a hill, Golgotha, shaped and named for a skull. He was pierced in his head as His captors forced a crown of thorns to his brow. Oh, how Jesus suffered in his head! But wasn’t that the point? He suffered for my peace and for Avery’s healing. As I prayed, the Lord’s presence seemed to cloak me, and I envisioned baby girl in some sort of white turban God would provide. A turban like the Levitical priests had worn. And when I stood, the burden I carried for Avery rolled from my shoulders. God took my fear and heartache and made them His own while promising me future joy over her healing.

The first miracle came when we heard about a support group for parents of children with these birth defects. The group, National Craniofacial Association, offered testimonials from other families faced with my granddaughter’s same heartbreaking condition. Again and again, the name of a medical group in San Antonio at the university hospital drew my attention. This team was seeing great success with an endoscopic alternative to the full open dome cranial surgery. I read with keen interest about this team headed by Dr. David Jimenez, a distinguished neurosurgeon who was operating on young infants using endoscopy before the fused bones had time to harden. This endoscopy was far less intrusive to my baby’s brain.

My children and I investigated the possibility of Avery seeing this San Antonio group of specialists. With approval from my son-in-law’s insurance company, a few photos of Avery, and medical records, she had her first appointment and was approved and scheduled for this corrective procedure. How faithfully our Father God cared for Avery and our family.

We received a generous care package from Cranio Care Bears, a loving network of families with like challenges. We learned that the Cranio Facial Association would help underwrite our traveling expenses to and from the hospital, for the initial surgery and follow-up care. Friends from St Andrew's Church in Little Rock organized a garage sale to defray our expenses in going so far from home.

One of my former pastors who now leads Grace Fellowship Church in San Antonio learned of our upcoming surgery. His wonderful church folks readied meals for us and prepared to babysit Avery’s three- year- old big brother during her surgery and hospital stay. Ronald McDonald House, located near University hospital, welcomed us with little expense.

 “Blessings crown the head of the righteous.”  

On and on, provisions presented themselves as we walked out this adventure. Our own Fellowship Church in Arkadelphia encouraged us with prayers and traveling money. God blessed every detail of our Avery’s medical journey. The first time I laid eyes on my little granddaughter waves of emotion had swept me because I didn’t know how my daughter and her husband would provide for the baby’s medical needs. God astounded us.

The musical mobile above the hospital crib played a soothing tune while little Avery recuperated in the hospital. She smiled and cooed at the mobile, and I wept. Thanks to our wonderful Father's grace, Avery had a bright future and hope.

Months have passed. One-year-old Avery toddles forward, her plastic helmet sporting a red gingham bow that matches her seersucker sundress.

“Come on, baby, walk to me. You can do it.”

Thank you God, she has this sturdy headgear during this season when she daily takes falls like other children her age.

Becky strides through the door to retrieve her child.“Only three more weeks with the helmet, Mom. Can you believe it?”

“Well, yes… I can sweetheart. I saw that white turban when I first prayed for God's help, and while it was sometimes difficult hanging on to His promise, the Lord has crowned Avery's head with blessings just like He said He would.”

While I didn’t realize this would mean three different helmets during her months of cranial expansion, my grandbaby’s head is now shaped and lovely.

Sovereign Lord, my strong deliverer, you shield my head in the 
day of battle. Psalm140:7 (NIV)

 Listen for His whispers...