In that moment, a quarter of a century ago, it was like the shot heard round the world. It was my little world but "the world" nonetheless. And it was approximately 6 months later, that we were given one of the most precious blessings our family has ever received... a new sister.
I remember when she would dance in her crib in the mornings while she waited on someone to come get her for breakfast.
I remember when she got a cute little page-boy haircut (that she would look back at when she was older and despise what my mom had chosen to do with her hair) and how her big brown eyes would open really big when she learned something new.
I remember when she used to write me letters when she was in Kindergarten and I was a freshman at Baylor about how she missed me and told me about what Kodak (the dog) was doing and how she learned to spell a really long word.
I remember when she came up to me mortified after the "birds and the bees" talk with Mom and how we all laughed when she recounted a few phrases that Mom had used.... because WE were mortified.
I remember planning her 16th birthday party with a Survivor theme with my brother and sister and making shirts for them all to wear.
I remember her winning Homecoming Queen her senior year and her being salutatorian of her class and how that felt to see my "real-live baby doll" get ready to grow up perfectly normal despite the physician recommendation to abort the fetus while she was in utero.
Yes. She is a miracle. A miracle which makes these memories precious, indeed.
About 6 months ago, Mom and I were asked to come and speak about the miracle that God had performed in our family by giving us another daughter and another sister. The banquet coincided with Mother's Day which made the topic all the more poignant. As we wrote and remembered funny things about her humble beginnings and her aspicious middle years, we both contemplated her future and what it would hold.
I should let you know that Brittany has been an independent girl. She does things on her own. She is a smart (both common sensically and academically speaking), beautiful, healthy, and strong young woman, perfectly capable of handling her life in ways that 24 year olds can. She makes choices and then stands behind those choices. She is not typically a follower of the crowds but tends to blaze her own trail as desired. She is a blessing who has been given the strength by the Lord to handle whatever may come her way. I expect this will come in handy in the near future. Our presentation was about the goodness of God and how in all His supernatural wisdom, He stunned the doctors attending her birth and revealed somewhat incomprehensibly that she was physically, developmentally and seemingly genetically perfect despite what tests had clearly predicted. She was miraculous healed by the hand of Almighty God.... a true gift. One can only imagine great things in her future.
And in God's perfect timing, the day of our presentation, she revealed to us that she had decided to move to Ethiopia in view of God's calling on her life to work with orphans in Addis Ababa.
Yes. She was healed for great things.
They look different than expected. They often do.
They are more substantial than expected. They often are.
They're happening in different timing than expected. They often will.
All the precious memories are God's ways of reminding us that she is His. He has brought our family more joy from that one life. It seems that in His infinite wisdom, He sees fit to bring enormous joy into a whole country of lives far away.
Precious memories will be the link to a work that He started 25 years ago. May the memories that hold her close to our hearts also be the memories that allow us to let her go to touch the lives of others. As we well know, when she returns, she may be the best memory that those lives will ever have encountered.
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