The Dream

So, what do we do with our lives now? We've had our dreams but they are not coming as we expected. Do we give up? Or do we lay our lives in God's hands and see what happens? Well, for those of you who know my side of the family - you know that we are VERY superstitious. My brother is getting married in July. His fiance' was talking the other day about him marking an "X" on the windshield when he saw a black cat sitting beside the road. Not crossing the road, but just sitting beside the road. When she asked him what he was doing, he told her you could never be too cautious. And he didn't mark just one "X", he marked 2. One for himself and one for his fiance'. You always mark as many as you have in the car with you. We are one supersitious bunch. No washing clothes on New Years Day, you don't borrow someone's clothes if they are new and they haven't worn them, etc., etc., etc. But we also believe in signs from God. John was in an automobile accident in March of 1997. He should have been killed. He was hit head on, driver to driver. He lost a tooth, had stitches in his lip, and was bruised and beat up pretty good but he was alive and well. He had someone riding with him that was also fine. Amamzing intervention. But why? John questioned this for quite some time. He could not figure out why God spared his life. He didn't have kids to live for or to provide for, he was no one special to no one in particular. Except to God. John told his preacher calling not long after that. For those of you who do not know what that means - John was called by God to tell others in this life about God, his son Jesus, and what he can do for your life. John is particularly led to youth childr
en. We worked with the youth in our church for many years. After John told people about his calling, he got VERY involved with the youth. There were several that were like our own kids. We supported them just as much as they supported us.
I don't know about you, but we believe that God can speak to us in ways that leave you thinking - did I really dream that, what is that supposed to mean. John and I both had the same dream. Now this may seem silly to some of you. But wait until you hear our whole story. (It may take a while folks.) We both dreamed that we had 1 more toothbrush on the bathroom counter. On the same night. We didn't tell each other about it for several days. But when John mentioned it to me, I just sat and listened. When he got finished, I basically had chill bumps because I had dreamed the exact same thing. All of this is happening while we are looking online at the adoption process. We were trying to decide what we wanted to do about bringing a child into our home. Did we have the money? How would our family react? What kind of support would we get from church family and friends? And most importantly, where would the money come from? (This is the latter part of 2003 by this time.) We received a phone call from some friends of my mom's about some children that were about to be taken into foster care. There were 2 kids. A baby and a toddler. We couldn't believe it. It was too good to be true. We called our lawyer, asked some questions, and was told to be very leery - we were reminded that people don't just give their kids away unless it is under extreme circumstances. Call and talk to someone for ourselves. We got the name of a lady to speak with and I called her 2 days later. The children were already in foster care. There had apparently been a DFCS case against the family previously. We had to be certified foster parents before they would even talk to us about the children. Of course we were not. We were heartbroken. We had been given a picture of the kids, told about the situation and we were sure that we could make a difference in these kid's lives. We had discussed fostering and thought there was absolutely no way that we could do it. How could we take a child into our home, fall in love with it, knowing that there would be a great chance that they would go back to their biological parents or family. Then one day, I met and spoke with a lady that was at my school one afternoon. I had afternoon car duty and she had come in to pick up her children. She had a foster child with her that was absolutely adorable. Then came more questions.

Wishes and Dreams

After we had been married for about 3 years, we decided to try to start our family. We did all the necessary steps, tried and tried and nothing happened. We were very suprised. By this time, John's 2 sisters had children and neither of them had troubles starting their families. We, like everyone else, always assumed that it would happen. After many dissapointing months, finally going to the doctor, (John and I both), we learned that without intervention, we would not have children of our own. Don't ask me why - but we both agreed that if we couldn't have kids the way God intended for it to happen (without intervention from doctor's I guess you could say) that we would deal with it. And deal we did. John had a more difficult time with it than me but we dealt with it and we got through it. We had fun doing the things that we wanted to do. John races go karts and at that time, he was very serious into racing. We traveled to Tennessee many time for him to race in some big races. We took off on the weekend and went to Gatlinburg when we got the urge to. We went to the beach when we wanted. We didn't have to do anything but relax. We didn't have to change diapers, worry about where the kids were, worry about nap times, travel times, daycare expenses. Many would have thought that we had it made. But we still didn't feel complete. Our wishes and dreams were still many to come.

The Ultimate Blind Date

Yes, you read it right. A blind date. John and I met on a blind date set up by my cousin. We had our first date on February 3, 1989. We went to the movies to see Coccoon Part 2 and went to Muldoon's to eat. (For those of you who don't rembmer, Muldoon's was the restaurant where the Juvenile Court Building is now located.) We talked very little that night. When John asked me for my phone number, I teased him and told him we were too poor to have a phone. He was shocked and didn't know what to say. When I realized that he thought I was serious, I blurted it out so fast that he says he didn't know how he remembered it. But he did. When he called, we talked until the wee hours of the morning. We had so much in common that we couldn't believe. Our Grandmothers even had the same birthdays. We had the same number of siblings with almost the same number of years between them. Our parents were the same age. The same religious beliefs. We realized very soon that we were a match. John proposed Christmas of 1989 and we were married in June of 1991. So our story began.