Random thoughts thread (2)

[_sunshinegirl]

WHY is the air conditoner on and its 30 (something) outside?

 

[gemcross]

it is cool today! I wonder if there are tourists swimming..of course they are it could be -50 and they would still swim. Maybe I should swim....where is my bathing suit? I think I left it in the spaceship..If anyone sees it, let me know.

 

[Freedom&Light]

 

[The Story Teller]

Homeward Bound

By: Jerry Seiden



Right before the jetway door closed, I scrambled aboard the plane going from LA to Chicago, lugging my laptop an my overstuffed briefcase.



It was the first leg of an important business trip a few weeks before Christmas, and I was running late.



I had a ton of work to catch up on, half wishing, half praying I muttered, "Please God, do me a favor; let there be an empty seat next to mine, I don't need any distractions."



I was on the aisle in a two seat row. Across sat a businesswoman with her nose buried in a newspaper. No problem. But in the seat beside mine, next to the window, was a young boy wearing a big red tag around his neck:

Minor Traveling Unattended.



The kid sat perfectly still, hands in his lap, eyes straight ahead. He'd probably been told never to talk to strangers. Good, I thought.



Then the flight attendant came by, "Michael, I have to sit down because we're about to take off," she said to the little boy. "This nice man will answer any of your questions, okay?"



Did I have a choice? I offered my hand, and Michael shook it twice, straight up and down. "Hi, I'm Jerry," I said. "You must be about seven years old."



"I'll bet you don't have any kids," he responded.



"Why do you think that? Sure I do." I took out my wallet to show him pictures.



"Because I'm six. "



"I was way off, huh?" I said.



The captains' voice came over the speakers: "Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff."



Michael pulled his seat belt tighter and gripped the armrests as the jet engines roared. I leaned over "Right about now, I usually say a prayer. I asked God to keep the plane safe and to send angels to protect us."



"Amen," he said, then added, "but I'm not afraid of dying..I'm not afraid because my mama's already in heaven."



"I'm sorry." I said.



"Why are you sorry?" he asked, peering out the window as the plane lifted off.



"I'm sorry you don't have your mama here." My briefcase jostled at my feet, reminding me of all the work I needed to do.



"Look at those boats down there"! Michael said as the plane banked over the Pacific. "Where are they going?"



"Just going sailing, having a good time. And there's probably a fishing boat full of guys like you and me.



"Doing what?" he asked.



"Just fishing, maybe for bass or tuna. Does your dad ever take you fishing?



"I don't have a dad." Michael sadly responded.



Only six years old and he didn't have a dad, and his Mom had died, and here he was flying halfway across the country all by himself. The least I could do was make sure he had a good flight. With my foot I pushed my

briefcase under my seat.



"Do they have a bathroom here?" he asked, squirming a little.



"Sure," I said, "let me take you there." I showed him how to work the "Occupied" sign, and what buttons to push on the sink, then he closed the door. When he emerged, he wore a wet shirt and a huge smile "That sink shoots water everywhere!" The attendants smiled.



Michael got the VIP treatment from the crew during snack time. I took out my laptop and tried to work on a talk I had to give, but my mind kept going to Michael. I couldn't stop looking at the crumpled grocery bag on the floor by his seat. He'd told me that everything he owned was in that bag. Poor kid.



While Michael was getting a tour of the cockpit the flight attendant told me his grandmother would pick him up in Chicago. In the seat pocket a large manila envelope held all the paperwork regarding his custody.





He came back explaining, "I got wings! I got cards! I got more peanuts. I saw the pilot and he said I could come back anytime!"



For a while he stared at the manila envelope. "What are you thinking?" I asked Michael. He didn't answer. He buried his face in his hands and started sobbing. It had been years since I'd heard a little one cry like that. My kids were grown -- still I don't think they'd ever cried so hard.



I rubbed his back and wondered where the flight attendant was. "What's the matter buddy?" I asked. All I got were muffled words.



"I don't know my grandma. Mama didn't want her to come visit and see her sick. What if Grandma doesn't want me? Where will I go?"



"Michael, do you remember the Christmas story? Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus? Remember how they came to Bethlehem just before Jesus was born? It was late and cold, and they didn't have anywhere to stay, no family, no hotels, not even hospitals where babies could be born. Well, God was watching out for them. He found them a place

to stay; a stable with animals."



"Wait, wait," Michael tugged on my sleeve. I know Jesus. I remember now. Then he closed his eyes, lifted his head and began to sing. His voice rang out with a strength that rocked his tiny frame. "Jeeesus looooves me--thiiiiiis I knowwwwwww. For the Biiiiiible tells meeeeee soooooo....."



Passengers turned or stood up to see the little boy who made the large sound. Michael didn't notice his audience. With his eyes shut tight and voice lifted high, he was in a good place.



"You've got a great voice," I told him when he was done. "I've never heard anyone sing like that."



"Mama said God gave me good pipes just like my grandma's," he said. "My grandma loves to sing, she sings in her church choir."



"Well, I'll bet you can sing there too. The two of you will be running that choir."





The seat belt sign came on as we approached O'Hare. The flight attendant came by and said we just have a few minutes now, but she told Michael it's important that he put on his seat belt.





People started stirring in their seats, like the kids before the final school bell. By the time the seat belt sign went off, passengers were rushing down the aisle. Michael and I stayed seated.



"Are you gonna go with me?" he asked.



"I wouldn't miss it for the world buddy!" I assured him.



Clutching his bag and the manila envelope in one hand, he grabbed my hand with the other. The two of us followed the flight attendant down the jetway. All the noises of the airport seemed to fill the corridor. Michael stopped, flipping his hand from mine, he dropped to his knees. His mouth quivered. His eyes brimmed with tears.



"What's wrong Michael? I'll carry you if you want."



He opened his mouth and moved his lips, but it was as if his words were stuck in his throat. When I knelt next to him, he grabbed my neck.



I felt his warm, wet face as he whispered in my ear "I want my mama!!!"



I tried to stand, but Michael squeezed my neck even harder. Then I heard a rattle of footsteps on the corridor's metal floor.





"Is that you baby?" I couldn't see the woman behind me, but I heard the warmth in her voice "Oh baby," she cried. "Come here. Grandma loves you so much. I need a hug baby. Let go of that nice man,"



She knelt beside Michael and me. Michael's grandma stroked his arm. I smelled a hint of orange blossoms.



"You've got folks waiting for you out there Michael. Do you know that??. You've got aunts, and uncles and cousins?" She patted his skinny shoulders and started humming.



Then she lifted her head and sang. I wondered if the flight attendant told her what to sing, or maybe she just knew what was right. Her strong, clear voice filled the passageway, "Jesus loves me -- this I know..."



Michael's gasps quieted. Still holding him, I rose, nodded hello to his grandma and watched her pick up the grocery bag. Right before we got to the doorway to the terminal, Michael loosened his grip around my neck and reached for his grandma.



As soon as she walked across the threshold with him, cheers erupted. From the size of the crowed, I figured family, friends, pastors, elders, deacons, choir members and most of the neighbors had come to meet Michael.



A tall man tugged on Michael's ear and pulled off the red sign around his neck. It no longer applied.



As I made my way to the gate for my connecting flight, I barely noticed the weight of my overstuffed briefcase and laptop. I started to wonder who would be in the seat next to mine this time...... And I smiled.



Submitted by Richard

 

[SparkyMaddie]

the storyteller is a famous author...

 

[gemcross]

That was beautiful. We do not realize the power we can have just by speaking His name. Would that little boy have had such a connection if the man had not helped by planting that small seed on the airplane. How many opportunities a day do we pass up that would be so important to someone else, if we would just do such a little work for our Lord.

 

[The Story Teller]

The less I focus on myself, the better the day turns out.

 

[Imagine_your_dreams]

nothing is nothing, yet it is everything

 

[The Story Teller]

How a Story Made a Difference

By Gail Ringelberg
Grand Haven, Michigan

After reading Linda Kline’s article The Secret They Kept (March 2003) about giving up her baby for adoption, I want to share the other side of the story—the adoptive mother’s. My two children are adopted. Every day I say a prayer of thanks to the two birth mothers who gave up their babies because circumstances prevented them from being able to raise them. What an act of love! I can only imagine the pain Linda felt all those years, wondering if she’d done the right thing. I can never thank women like Linda enough. Because of their sacrifice, couples like my husband and me are able to have a family.

​

THEY WERE HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEARTS MARRIED 20 YEARS. THEY DIDN’T SEEM LIKE THE KIND OF COUPLE WHO HAD A HIDDEN PAST

THE SECRET THEY KEPT
by Linda Kline, Louisville, Colorado

I did not want to wake up that Thanksgiving morning. From bed I could see the sun catching the snow-covered peaks of the distant mountains. Bettie, a good friend from work, was coming over with her husband later. There was a turkey to put in the oven and a hundred other things that needed to get done.


Greg stirred next to me. “Big day ahead, hon. We’d better get moving.”



“In a minute,” I said.



An hour later, I was still lying there. I ignored the sound of Kelley, 17, and Steve, 15, thumping downstairs to help their dad. Around ten o’clock Greg stuck his head in the door. “Honey, are you feeling okay? Can I get you something?”



“I’m all right,” I said. “I’ll be down soon.”



But I couldn’t—or wouldn’t—budge. After almost 20 years, the secret that had haunted my marriage had finally overwhelmed me.



Greg and I had been steadies years ago in high school, sitting next to each other in class, studying together in the library and going to school socials arm in arm. No one doubted we were madly in love.



In the fall of our senior year, I got pregnant. Our families handled it quietly. I gave the baby—a boy—up for adoption. At my request, the nurses whisked him away before I even laid eyes on him. This is for the best, I told myself. Life will go back to normal now. Greg and I still loved each other. A year later, I got pregnant again. This time we married. Kelley came along and Steve soon after.



Yet even with marriage and a family there were moments when I found myself preoccupied with thoughts of my first baby—how I’d sent him off without so much as a kiss. I need to put this in the past, I tried to convince myself. Time will heal this awful emptiness.



But it didn’t. I’d read an adoption story in the paper and start crying. At Thanksgiving dinners, I’d look around at the family I’d been blessed with and think about the one who was missing. At Christmas, I watched the kids open their presents and pictured the mitt or the toy truck I wished I could give Kelley and Steve’s older brother. What was his name? Did he know that he had a mother who still loved him with all her heart? How could he believe that after what I’d done?



One Christmas, I glanced up over the chaos of ribbons and wrapping paper and caught Greg’s eye. He knows it’s on my mind, I thought. He has to.



“Greg,” I said later, when the kids were out of earshot, “you feel it too, don’t you?”



“Feel what?”



“That things aren’t right with our first baby gone.”



A pained, awkward look came over his face. He looked like he wanted to run away. “I don’t know, hon. I guess I’ve just put it behind me. I’m sure he has a good life.”



I tried several more times to share how I felt with Greg and finally gave up. Whenever feelings of sadness popped up, I stuffed them down. I wouldn’t share them with anyone—not even God. I kept a lid on my sorrow. Lord, bless our son, wherever he is, I prayed, never asking God to heal me, never saying how much I hurt and how empty I felt. How could I ask God to heal a pain that I shouldn’t have been feeling in the first place? That I had no one to blame for except myself?



Invisible, unmentioned, the secret I kept buried deep inside me grew, until it crowded everything else out of my life. Greg got used to me lingering in bed on weekends. Late one Saturday morning I felt his arms encircle me and heard his voice in my ear.



“Honey, what’s wrong?”



“I’m okay.” I got out of bed and got on with the day, going through the motions of being a wife, a mother, a worker, yet every step was a struggle.



Then came that Thanksgiving morning. By eleven o’clock Greg realized he was going to have to dress the bird and get it in the oven himself. The smell of the turkey cooking just made me angry at myself. Linda, get down there and help out. What’s the matter with you? Stop being so selfish!



I heard the sound of tires on the gravel outside. Greg came into the bedroom again. “They’re here, honey. Are you feeling up to saying hello?”



I pulled on a robe and went downstairs. “Linda’s really under the weather,” Greg said, doing his best to cover for me. Bettie stared at me as if she’d seen a ghost. I managed to pull myself together for dinner, but for the rest of the weekend, Greg and the kids were on their own. I retreated to the bedroom. Monday I called in sick. When I didn’t show up at work Tuesday, Bettie phoned.



“Let me stop by this afternoon,” she said. I didn’t have the energy to refuse.



We sat together in the living room. I could barely put two sentences together, but Bettie didn’t seem to expect me to. “Linda, I don’t see the point of beating around the bush,” she said. “I came over because I think you’re depressed and you need professional help.”



“I’ll think about it,” I told her. But I knew she was right. A week later, I was in a psychiatrist’s office, answering a series of questions about my appetite, my health, my medical history.



Then the doctor put his pad down and asked another question.



“Linda, is there anything in your past— a problem, an unresolved issue—that you feel you haven’t fully dealt with?”



Did I dare tell him? Would he think I was making too much of something buried in my past? Would he just tell me I needed to move on with things? At that moment every single thing in my life seemed to stand still, like a freeze-frame or a snapshot. The question hung in the air: Was there something in my past I hadn’t dealt with? Could I be completely honest? With the doctor? With God? With myself?



“Yes,” I said finally. “There is something that’s troubling me.”



I described the guilt, the sadness, the emptiness, the million ways I’d tried to deny my feelings about giving away my firstborn, the sense of paralysis that had finally overtaken me. Once I started talking about my feelings—honestly, openly—the words just flowed. My hurt poured out of me like a river, and it felt good. It felt cleansing.



On the way home from my doctor’s appointment, my hands tight on the steering wheel and my eyes squinting against the good tears that wouldn’t stop, I talked to God. Lord, I should have turned to you from the very beginning. Please help me with the pain. Help me heal. In a great rush, the dead weight of so many years fell away.



“I don’t know how this is going to sound,” I said to Greg when he got home that night, “but I need to tell you something. I’m through with secrets. I’m still sad about having to give our first baby up for adoption. I know that it’s all in the past and I should have healed from it by now. But I haven’t and I never will unless I’m totally honest with you about what’s going on inside me.”



Greg was silent. A look crossed his face. Not anger. Not puzzlement. Relief.



“I can’t say I feel everything you feel,” he said, taking me in his arms. “But I know you need to heal.”



During a retreat high in the Rockies, with Greg by my side, I told Kelley and Steve about their brother. Again, I had that almost physical sensation of lightness, of a burden falling away.



After some diligent investigating, I learned that it was possible to find out who my first son’s adoptive parents were and where he was living now. I wasn’t sure what I would do with the information though. I was taking it a step at a time.



One spring morning, I picked up the phone in our kitchen, said a prayer and dialed a number I’d been given.



“Hi, this is Bryan,” a voice said into the phone. The voice was gentle, soft, still youthful. It resonated throughout me as if seeking that empty space inside.



“Bryan. This is Linda, your birth mother.”



I wanted to ask him something simple, even mundane, like what the weather was like or what make of car he drove. But I started crying. Good tears, though. From the phone in the living room, Greg covered for me. “Hi, Bryan,” he said. “This is Greg, your birth father.” That’s how we started getting to know our son. He had a wonderful wife and four kids. His adoptive parents had been missionaries in Latin America. The more I learned the more grateful I felt. God’s hand had been on Bryan’s life even when mine couldn’t be.



One day Bryan and I were having lunch. He looked at me and said, “I always knew you loved me.”



I’d always wondered if he knew. Now I believed it, and it filled me with joy.

The above article originally appeared in the March 2003 issue of Guideposts.

Submitted by Richard

 

[Believer-in-Christ]

Donuts are nice.

 

[symphonyb]

my scotty dogs snoring is annoying

 

[G4MER]

So...how's everyone doin'?

 

[gemcross]

What is that smell? Um its cold. How rude is it for them to put Doritos advertisements on playing cards. Dog, put that down!! I want cake.

 

[revelations12_12]

my cats breath smells like cat food...

 

[gemcross]

my dog's breath smells like cat food

 

[psalms 91]

love is such a wonderful feeling

 

[Mobius 1]

I can't wait to play GT4.

 

[The Story Teller]

do i get to keep it?

 

[Izzy23]

My little tummy is hurting.

 

[JPPT1974]

My tummy is hurting too.