by Amy Newmark
They dragged their feet through the doorway into the attorney’s office. The heavy oak door clicked shut behind them. I stayed in the waiting room with the little girls, afraid that Ted and Myra’s anger would cause them to storm out without signing the papers. Had I pushed too hard?
At first, the voices from inside the office sounded soft. I relaxed a little. Then angry protests filtered into the waiting area. Expletives. I glanced nervously at the three-year-old. She sat next to me and ripped pages out of a magazine, turned upside down. The baby slept in my arms.
A strong female voice, one that overrode the invectives, spoke from behind the office door. “You’re both going to prison. The state, not your mother, is taking your children away from you. Your children will end up in foster care with no guarantee of staying together.” There was a long pause. A strangled sound. Was someone weeping? “That’s a fact. You can either deal with the state, or you can deal with your mother. What’s it going to be?”
Silence. What was happening? I looked again at the three-year-old, still tearing pages apart. What was taking so long? The baby slept. And I wept.
The door opened and Myra and Ted stumbled out. They’d signed the papers.
A week later Myra began to serve a reduced sentence in a women’s correctional facility.
With no time to adjust, Ken and I went from being empty nesters to having a house full of diapers and baby food. Our family room became a playroom. A highchair and booster seat were fixtures at our table. Toys cluttered the floor, locks were affixed to cabinet doors and plastic plugs pushed into electrical outlets.
Three months later, Ted entered a detox program. Myra completed her sentence and wanted the same hospitalization detox program as Ted. But she was denied, then unexpectedly accepted, as though overruled by a higher authority.
After Myra completed detoxification, she and Ted joined an intensive twelve-week outpatient recovery program. During a weekend visit, Myra asked if she and I could talk privately. We headed outside for a walk. The winter chill crept under my jacket. I shuddered and quickened my pace. Myra strode beside me, giving no indication that the temperature had dipped into the mid-twenties.
“I’m going to change, Mom. I mean it. This time I really mean it.”
I nodded. I’d lost count of how many times she’d said that. I remained skeptical.
The recovery program was an experiment. Fifteen addicts took the challenge to get clean and sober.
“The counselors in our program warned us that couples don’t make it if they stay together.” Myra’s breath steamed against the cold as she talked. “One always pulls the other down. So I told Ted, if he uses, I’m leaving him. Recovery is the only thing that matters right now.”
“I want more than anything for you to stay in recovery and live a purposeful life. Then we’ll celebrate your girls going back to you.”
Privately, I prayed. I begged. I pleaded with God for Myra and Ted’s recoveries from addiction.
Out of the fifteen clients in the intensive recovery program, three made it. Four committed suicide. Most went back to using, chained to their addictions. With only three recoveries, the failed program shut down at the end of twelve weeks. However, against all expectations, two of the three who remained in recovery were Myra and Ted.
Two years later, on Father’s Day, our family gathered for a private Reconnection Ceremony at our church. Ken and I stood in the sanctuary, facing the altar and Myra and Ted stood a few feet away, across the aisle. Myra looked straight ahead. The two little girls, wearing pretty dresses with bows clamped in their hair, stood between Ken and me.
After our pastor recited the story of the Prodigal Son and the joy of reunion, he lit a small candle from a lighted taper on the altar. He handed the candle to the older granddaughter. She walked over and passed it to Myra and stood with her parents, stretching her fingers inside her daddy’s hand. I bit my lip to control bittersweet tears. Next the pastor removed a bouquet of flowers from the altar, handed them to our younger granddaughter, who joined her parents after she gave them to me. I glanced at Myra. She stood with her head lowered. One hand covered her eyes and her shoulders trembled. My heart went out to her.
The pastor held up his right hand for the benediction.
“The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord look upon you with favor and give you peace. Amen.”
Myra blew out the candle and we sobbed in each other’s arms. The crying spread like a giant wave, and included the pastor. That day, Myra and Ted drove home with their children, a reunited family. And Ken and I became grandparents again.
Epilogue:
This year, Myra and Ted celebrated twenty-seven years of marriage and twenty-five years of recovery. Against all expectations. For that, I have endless gratitude.
~Judy Buch
Coming Home
Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.
~George Iles
Rushing out the door with backpack, kids’ bags, and a time clock ticking in my head left me too frazzled to notice another passenger quietly jumping into the back of our Dodge Ram.
Robby faithfully did his duty as the eldest. “Mom, everyone is buckled up. We can go now.” And off we went.
With a sigh of relief I crossed Interstate 59, relieved that I wouldn’t be late for my classes at USM. Finishing my degree while raising three kids got a little wild some days, but I knew that when I finished and started teaching it would be well worth the effort. I was happy that my husband Glen R. would be home Friday to give me some help.
Smiling contentedly as the kids laughed, I pulled into the babysitter’s yard and started to unload the crew.
Melinda let out a squeal. “Mama, Kitty Karen just jumped out of the back of the truck! Quick, go get her!”
“Sweetheart, don’t worry, she won’t go far! As soon as I get home this evening we’ll find her. Kitty Karen will be okay.” I comforted the kids, whose frightened big eyes looked to me for assurance.
Glancing at my watch, I quickly kissed my babies goodbye and hurried to pick up my carpoolers on the way to school. Although I enjoyed my classes, I was glad when the time came to scoop up the kids and head home. Little did I realize that the morning’s events would come back to haunt me.
“Mom, look at my picture! It’s all of us! Look, there is Daddy. See his beard.”
“That’s great, Robbo. Ryan, what did you make today? Jeri, thanks so much for letting them paint. They really love it. I guess we had better find Kitty Karen and head home. Did you guys see her when you were outside playing? No? Well let’s pack up. I’m sure she isn’t far.”
Melinda sat in the front and helped me scour the neighborhood. As we looked and looked with no sign of Kitty Karen, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach.
Where in the world could she be? I prayed, “Lord, please help us find her. The kids will be sick if she’s lost.” I was really worried, but I didn’t want the kids to know.
We drove around the same streets over and over, but no beautiful fluffy white cat with jeweled eyes of blue and green came running. My heart sank lower and lower as I berated myself for rushing off to class instead of looking for her right when she got away.
I tried to keep everyone’s spirits up as the stars twinkled in the evening sky and we gave up looking for the day. “We’ll surely find her tomorrow, guys! It’s going to be okay. Don’t cry now. We’ll ask God to take care of her for us tonight.”
After dinner and bath time, our bedtime prayers were filled with pleas to keep Karen safe and help us find her the next day. Unfortunately, we said those same prayers the next night, and the next, and the next. Days turned to weeks. We searched and searched, but no Karen.
I started looking less and less. Finally, I faced the realization that our prayers would not be answered. I tried to keep the children busy with activities and distracted them when they wanted to talk about Karen and pray for her return. I didn’t want them t
o have to learn the hard lesson that prayers are not always answered in the way that we would like. They were too young for this harsh reality.
One day flowed into the next. With three kids, a husband, and a dog, it was never boring! Thankfully the kids prayed for Karen less and less. I dodged the bullet of having to explain to them why God didn’t hear their prayer and answer.
A year sped by and out of nowhere Melinda said, “Mama, let’s pray for Kitty Karen to come home.”
What in the world would I tell her after all this time?
“Melinda, let’s pray that Kitty Karen has found a good new home. We can pray that God will help us find a different cat that needs a home, too. How about that?”
“No, Mom,” Melinda declared with conviction. “I am going to pray that Karen comes home!”
“Okay, sweetie, but you know it has been a long time and Karen may have another home by now.”
Melinda looked at me with her big, brown eyes and said, “Mama, you know God can do anything!”
“Yes, honey, He sure can. Let’s pray.”
The next morning, around ten, I was washing dishes and heard a faint scratch on the front door. Almost afraid to hope, I called Melinda and we opened the door together. There stood our Kitty Karen. Her once beautiful white hair was matted with dirt and her paws were sore and bleeding, but she was home.
~Jan Penton Miller
A Bit of Dad
If I keep a green bough in my heart, then the singing bird will come.
~Chinese Proverb
My dad taught us the magic of bird watching when my brother, sister and I were kids. We would huddle around the window or sit on the patio and watch the birds at one of his many bird feeders. We always had a bird book handy to identify any we didn’t recognize. As we grew and had children of our own, Dad continued the tradition with his grandchildren. He would tell them all about the yellow finches, house finches, cardinals, those ornery blue jays, etc.
We continued this tradition with our children. My sister and I both live in areas where we have open spaces, trees, and fields, even though I live in the heartland and she on the East Coast. We both have multiple bird feeders and take delight in feeding the variety of birds they attract. Every time dad would visit he would say to both of us, “I can’t believe that you cannot attract Baltimore Orioles.”
We would respond with, “Well, it’s not because of lack of effort. They just don’t seem to want to come.” He would shake his head and tell us to try again next year. Try again we did, over and over, never giving up that hope of attracting Dad’s favorite, the Baltimore Oriole. After fourteen years, it seemed as though it would never happen.
On Easter weekend of 2011, my dad passed away, and we were all heartbroken. A week after, I was sitting in our office watching the birds at our feeders and thinking of him. Lo and behold, not one, but two Baltimore Orioles appeared in the small tree outside our window. I was so excited that I thought, “I need to call Dad; he will never believe it.” Then I was brought back to reality, and realized that phone call would be impossible to make, so I called my sister. Upon sharing my joy, she started to cry and said that her family also spotted their first Baltimore Orioles that very same day.
In the midst of a broken heart, I felt pure joy at this gift God sent to remind us of our dad. He would have had such a smile on his face knowing that we could enjoy his special bird. Every year that has followed his passing, the Baltimore Orioles have returned and given my sister and me a little bit of our dad back. We are truly blessed!
~Beth Huettner Olsen
Can You Hear Me Now?
I may never know when an answer to prayer is going to arrive, but I know that God will never fail me.
~Suzanne Elizabeth Anderson, Waiting with God
The church bulletin advertised a women’s retreat in the mountains of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. The intent was to take us away from our hectic lives to bask in God’s presence for two whole days.
The noise at home had grown so intense that I could no longer hear myself think, let alone hear from God. I needed to get away so I made a beeline for the registration desk.
When the weekend finally arrived and we pulled up to the retreat center, I savored the rolling hills and lush, green trees that filled the horizon. I watched as two swans glided along the pond that sat peacefully nestled at the base of the property. Inside the resort, I found a bed with clean, crisp sheets waiting for me. Even my meals were prepared.
While all these things were a treat, it was not why I went. I had a specific goal in mind: I attended so I could study God’s Word and demand some answers. You see, for years, I had felt compelled to write a book. This yearning had begun to intensify in me but it didn’t seem to be the right time. I had a home to care for and four children under the age of five. I certainly did not have time to write a book.
Over the course of the two days, I enthusiastically took notes during the sessions, trying to absorb all the lessons. We learned about the Israelites and how they waited forty years to reach the land God had promised them. Was this why I was here, to find out I’d have to wait forty years? I certainly hoped not.
In my alone time, I sneaked off to pray. I begged God to reveal the answers to my questions: Should I write this book? If not today, someday . . . or was this a selfish yearning to make my mark? I needed some kind of sign.
Several sessions and lots of quiet moments passed. Still nothing. I felt frustrated knowing I would return to the noise and chaos at home with no answers. However, I continued to participate, thankful to be among such lovely women.
Our final assignment for the conference was to find a new prayer partner. We were given a card with half of a picture on it. Our task: to find our card’s mate. Once found, we were told to introduce ourselves to the cardholder, share a prayer request, and agree to pray for this person for the upcoming month.
I wandered about the room for a short while, checking first with the ladies I had already met. None of them matched my card. Then finally, I found her. My prayer partner was an older woman with kind and caring eyes. We greeted one another, and I introduced myself: “My name is Darla Grieco. I am married and have four small children. I am a stay-at-home mom, and my husband has his own business. And, that’s about it.” I smiled nervously.
She nodded, “Okay. How can I pray for you?”
I hesitated, but since I still had no answers to my questions about writing, I thought I’d pass this prayer assignment on to my new partner. For several minutes, she listened intently as I poured out my desire to write a book and all the doubts I had. I ended by telling her, “I think God put this story in my heart, but it just doesn’t make sense right now. I want God to give me a clear yes or no if this is something He wants me to do.”
Although I didn’t know this woman, I saw a reassuring smile spread across her face. Then, she spoke ten words that would change my life forever: “My name is Joyce Hart. I am a literary agent.”
Joyce has been my mentor and a constant source of encouragement ever since!
~Darla S. Grieco
Divine Intervention
Heavenly Voices
Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.
~Leo Buscaglia
I’ll never forget the moment Plácido Domingo first kissed me. It was the spring of 1996 at the New York Metropolitan Opera and I was nervous—to be singing Sieglinde in Wagner’s Die Walküre for the first time and also to be working with the Three Tenors legend.
Plácido was singing the role of Siegmund, Sieglinde’s lover and — alas, as fate would cruelly have it—her twin brother. So as you can imagine, my character sang all about love, passion, and heartbreak, and she wasn’t demure about it. When is opera ever meek and mild?
In one scene, I had to faint in Plácido’s arms as he tenderly stroked my hair and face—that helped my nervousness. And then came The Kiss. Timed to the beat of the music, the orchestra built up, lingered on a chord .
. . and our lips met. I remember how Plácido moved toward me on opening night for The Kiss. In that moment, I wasn’t Deborah Voigt the soprano anymore. I was Debbie Voigt from suburban Illinois, thinking: How did I get here? How did I get so lucky?
But it wasn’t luck that put me on the stage that night, or gave me a career that took me around the world, singing for presidents and princes. It took a tremendous amount of hard work and belief in the natural gift God gave me—a belief I didn’t always have and nearly lost, if it hadn’t been for a moment of divine intervention.
My parents say I practically came out of the womb singing.
Grandma Voigt owned a vinyl LP of the My Fair Lady soundtrack when I was a toddler, and by age three I’d memorized every word the flower girl sang—with a cockney accent, I might add. I’d dress up in Grandma’s worn-out apron and her Jackie Kennedy pillbox hat with the netting on front, stand in the center of the living room, and happily belt it out for the family:
“Jusst you ’ait, Enry Iggins, jusst you ’ait! . . .”
I loved putting on my pretend costumes and performing; it filled me with joy. I couldn’t articulate it then, but it had something to do with the power of the music and feelings for both singer and listener. To my little heart, it was a sacred exchange.
My parents applauded politely, but didn’t quite know what to make of their pint-sized diva. As strict Southern Baptists, they believed that singing was for, from, and because of God and should only be used to glorify Him. To them, that meant singing church hymns, not Broadway show tunes about star-crossed lovers. That I enjoyed doing it so unabashedly was also worrisome to them. I’m sure it came across as very . . . prideful.
“Pride Goeth Before a Fall,” our pastor at Prospect Heights Baptist Church used to sermonize, in his booming voice. It was a proverb my parents never tired of quoting.
Sure enough, by age five, my zest for performing was rerouted to the children’s choir at church. There, I found ways to channel my love of singing into hymns like “His Eye Is on the Sparrow”—which I liked very much, and sang with all my heart knowing I had a higher, nobler purpose.