So, I am sure you have heard about my beautiful daughter. Her name is Cathy. She is 25 years old and she is the most amazing woman in the world. Of course, I am extraordinarily biased….she IS my daughter after all.
I don’t know HOW you met her but let me tell you the story about how I met her. It is a most unexpected story, if I do say so myself.
It was a God-cident or God-endipity or God-tuitous. What I mean is God was all over our meeting, it wasn’t just by chance.
We had recently started attending a new church and on one of the first Sunday’s there this adorable (remember, I am biased) curly haired young lady stands up and says that she is so grateful to God that her boyfriend is now her fiance and they are engaged.
I thought, “Awe, so cute. Young love.”
I had no idea….
So Doug. You know Doug, that guy Cathy posts about on insta on #MCM ALL the time ;)? Well that’s the guy that asked Cathy to marry him. He also started volunteering in the youth group at that time and I got to know him there. Little did I know….
Well, Doug eventually asked if he could start discipling my son Ben. My husband and I talked and we agreed. They started meeting for lunch, dinner, coffee, etc to talk about faith and scripture. I still really didn’t know Cathy at this time.
I talked to her a few time, nothing to deep. I was a mom of two boys and I didn’t want her to think that I might mother her. I also didn’t really think she would want or need to have me around. She was a young engaged woman at the time and I was sure she had plenty of amazing friends her own age to hang out with aside from me (a married mother of two).
Then we got invited to the wedding!
I was a.) thrilled that they thought that much of our family to include us & b.) excited to attend a wedding in Prince William Forest Park (how romantic!).
I was asked to do little things to help out before the wedding but I didn’t think much of it.
Actually, at the wedding there is a photo of Doug & I but not any of Cathy & I OR any picture of anyone else in our family!
They went on their honeymoon and they returned.
AND that’s when I got to know Cathy a little better.
Almost a year after they got married it was Mother’s Day. My mother is never gone on Mother’s Day, but this year she so happened to be gone to visit her mother. So, I invited Cathy & Doug, as well as, another family over to celebrate it with us. That was the night for me. I realized that Cathy was my daughter.
I jokingly said, “You know the math works…”
She looked a little puzzled.
I said, “If I had a daughter at 18 and decided to give her up for adoption she would be your age.”
She smiled.
I added, “For the record, if I had a beautiful little girl like you come into my life when I was 18 I never would have let you go. So let’s just say you can call me mom if you want.”
Shortly after that they moved. This wasn’t a surprise. It was a good thing for them. I missed them.
We talked, we social media’ed, we texted.
And then…
I got a phone call. This was the one that change the whole trajectory of our relationship. It catapulted into to one of trust and mother daughter secrets. It morphed into one of simple “I Love You” text’s when nothing else needed to be said.
It became the thing that she (and I) needed most. A life line of hope and security.
She asked me to pray about being her mother & my husband being her father. She also asked that we ask our friends to pray about it. We did.
And here we are a family. A mom, a dad, a daughter, & 2 sons. All perfect. All according to God’s plan. All mine to pray for every single night.
All of the events in the story above are little, tiny events. When I look back none of them are out of the ordinary at all, in fact they are very, very ordinary. However, all together they make an incredibly unexpected story of a family that needed just one more member to be complete
I will be blogging for Cathy the next few weeks while she is in an out-patient facility. This story is just the beginning of what our relationship is like and how, though several hundred miles away, I (and the rest of our family) can support her. (Notice there is no prepositional phrase after that? That’s important!)
Blessings, caregivers, comfort, Faith, family, Grace, healing, hope, invisible illness, Life, love, patience