A brownie and a pen

For those who are following along in the His Story, My Story, Our Story series,

here I give you... 

the rest of the story...

Someday I'm going to write a book (Shhh! Don't tell the Good Doctor, he's such a nag about this.) and I'm going to call it, "My Jesus Smiles."

Too many of us have the wrong picture of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Our finite minds can't wrap ourselves around the complexity of 3-in-1 and an all-powerful, all-knowing God who loves us despite our constant failures. So we fill in the gaps with our own small and inaccurate image of each aspect of God.

For me, this means I often forget that not only has He been there for me in the past, He will be there for me in the future. When He said, "Fear not" He meant it. When he said he would send blessing, He meant it. So to teach me this truth, I've found that He often ends each story of fear or would-be fear with an extra blessing, the holy kiss you might say. I find that if I can remember these situations from the past, I will handle new situations with faith rather than fear, waiting with expectation to not only see how God provides, but to find the cherry He puts on top as well.

We once had a foster child who was a run-away. Children and Youth gave her this label before she had even come into our care. She had already run away from at least one foster home and had managed to break free from a caseworker while being dropped off for a special life skills program. So before she even came into our home we were mandated to purchase door and window alarms. It was kind of silly, really, since they were easily disarmed and had she actually tried to sneak out through those outlets, she could easily have done so unnoticed. But we were at least compliant. And they provided many laughs when, on multiple evenings, the Good Doctor would go around setting each alarm only to forget that he had done so while making one more trip into the laundry room where the alarm would remind him of his mistake. At least I knew he would never successfully make a run for it through the laundry room and out the garage!

Thrown into parenting a child unlike any we had parented before, we quickly became experts at recognizing the tell-tale signs that an escape plan was being put into place. One Sunday morning when the Good Doctor was scheduled to preach, she refused to leave her room for church. My run-away radar was immediately alerted and I suspected that was her reason for wanting to be left behind. I'm pretty sure God chose a Sunday where I had no choice but to solve this as a single parent; it was impossible to rely on my husband. I didn't even want to let him know what was going on so he wouldn't be distracted during the morning.

I instructed the children that we were going to leave quietly for church so that hopefully she wouldn't know we were gone. I didn't want her to leave before I came back. I prayed. I put something in front of every main door and we left through one I thought she wouldn't use. This way I would know if she had run-away while I was gone. I drove the children to church and signed them into their classes as quickly as possible and then returned home. I was pretty certain she was still home since my plan had seemed to work, although I still wasn't hearing any noise from her room and she wasn't answering when I called.

I sat in my living room knowing she would have to walk through there no matter which door she chose and if she crawled out the window below, I'd hear her. I put my Bible on my lap and prayed. I asked God to tell me what to do.  I wanted to call the police, to have them sitting outside my home when she came upstairs to run. But something stopped me. I came to understand that if the police were here, she wouldn't be able to run but that would be a definite relationship breaker. The goal was always to build, not break, the tenuous relationship we had with her. I was thinking clearly enough to grab a pen so if there was an accomplice I could write down the license plate number. Now I sat in my chair with my Bible and a pen and I asked God again to give me wisdom for the next step.

And He said, "Get a brownie."

"Excuse me, God?"

"Get a brownie."

"But that doesn't make any sense. Who is it for? Why?"

"Stop asking questions and get a brownie."

Well, I could't tell God that I didn't have any brownies because He knew there were some in the freezer so I went and got a brownie.

Now I sat in my chair with my Bible, a pen, and a brownie. Okay, God, now what?

"Look at her Facebook page."

"That's silly, God. She doesn't have any devices in her room. She can't possibly be on Facebook."

But the feeling was strong, "Look at her Facebook page."

"Fine. I'll look at her Facebook page but I won't find anything because I'm telling you that she doesn't have any devices with her!"

But she did. Apparently she had exited her room while I was gone and had found the one and only device in the house which also happened to be the one and only device in the house that was not password protected. She must have been desperate as she had gone up two flights of steps to find that device. Not only was she on Facebook but by logging into her account I could see that she had contacted someone to "scoop her". I knew it was a male but that's all I knew. I didn't know how old he was or what kind of vehicle he'd be bringing, or even if he'd come with weapons (I watch too much Law and Order).

I prayed fervently while watching the conversation unfold and then I saw him write, "Leaving now." I didn't know how far away he was but figured I had anywhere from 15 - 30 minutes before he arrived. "God," I prayed, "this rule-following first-born from the suburbs is so out of her league with this hurting and abused street-wise teen from the city. I don't know who is coming or what this is going to look like when he gets here. I need you and I need you now."

And then that non-audible voice again, "Pull the plug on the internet."

Aha. Why didn't I think of that? She might know he's coming but she'll have no way of knowing when he gets here. So I did just that.

And then she came up the steps, backpack on, and without speaking, walked right by me, out the front door, and plopped herself down on the front steps.  I took my pen and my brownie and sat myself down right next to her.

"So, what kind of car are we looking for?"

Silence. So I decided to fill the silence with every word of truth, every statement of love that came to my mind. Verbal vomit. But with a goal. If she leaves, let the last words she hears be words of love and truth.

And then a VW bug rounded the corner.

"Is this the car we're looking for?????"

She looked as confused as I. But she must have recognized the driver because she headed straight for the passenger door. I headed straight for the license plate and wrote the number on my hand.  And then the driver stuck his head out of his window, "Hey, I thought you said you were allowed to come with me?" She didn't answer so I answered for her, "No, she's running away and does not have permission to do so." He looked scared so engaged him in polite conversation, asking for his name and moving on to his career aspirations.

"Ma'am, I want to go into the military and maybe join the police force."

"Oh, that's wonderful!" I responded, "then you probably don't want a police record do you?"

"No, ma'am."

"No problem. Don't take her away and you won't have anything to worry about here. Oh, and by the way, here's a brownie. It's for you."

Now he was really surprised. But he wasn't driving away. In fact, he turned to the passenger he no longer wanted in his car and started talking about his own life, "Did you know that I was in foster care?" She looked surprised. "Yeah, my mom kept kicking me out of the house and the cops would find me and bring me home and tell her that she couldn't do that. She'd take me back in but then she'd kick me out again. I went into foster care but now I live with my aunt." More silence. He continued, "You don't like rules do you? I didn't like them, either. My aunt has rules. I didn't like them at first but then I realized that they were for my own good. I started going to school and getting good grades. I'm going to graduate next year. And because my aunt trusts me? She lets me drive her car."

Now he was getting somewhere. She wasn't speaking but she was paying attention.

At this point it seemed silly for all of us to be having this conversation in the middle of the road so I said, "Do you want to come in? Why don't we go inside and chat?" Again, he looked shocked. I could see his wheels turning, This lady just met me, I was going to scoop her daughter, but she gave me a brownie and now she's inviting me into her house? He thought about it for a minute and then agreed. He pulled the car into the driveway and convinced the would-be run-away to join him in the house. They sat in the living room where he talked truth and sense about life and rules; many of the same things we had told her in the short time she had lived with us. But he had credibility. He was from her neighborhood. He had lived a similar story. I pretended to wash dishes in the kitchen, quietly so as to hear the conversation in the other room while they talked.

Two hours later, the Good Doctor arrived home to find our foster daughter amiably chatting with a strange young man in the living room while I still stood at the sink in the kitchen. The only thing he knew was a quick text I had sent to say that we had a potential run-away and that he would need to bring the children home from church. I later shared with him the story of how this young man showed up and not only did he quickly refuse to drive the get-away car (held off with just a brownie and a pen) but he stuck around to share his own story with our daughter.  His story of being in foster care himself was one that she could relate to and while she wasn't yet at the place of acceptance that he was, she listened to his tale of learning to trust and to listen to people who truly cared about him. He told of turning his life around and having goals for his future.

And I told the Good Doctor what I had learned as well. Once again, I learned that we have no reason to fear. As I had listened to the young man talking, I imagined Jesus standing next to me saying, "Remember all those times the Bible says to 'Fear not'? I mean it. You don't have to fear. She didn't run away. And I gave you an even greater gift, a special friend to speak truth into her life. Remember this in the future. There's no need to fear. Nothing catches me by surprise. Nothing."

Faith is built over time, by seeing Jesus show up, do the miraculous, and then add one more blessing just because He loves us and wants us to remember His promises.

And my Jesus smiles.