The Gift of Unplanned Blessings

A life planned out to the last detail seems somewhat sterile to me. We have a schedule, but it's a schedule for what to do when we're not doing anything else. Mostly, I drift down the stream of serendipity, dabbling my fingers in its pleasant waters and thanking God for the grace and blessings I little deserve:

Flowers blooming where you planted no seeds
Friends calling when you expected no calls
Money found in pockets while doing the laundry
Leftovers combined to make soup or a casserole that turns out to be delectable
Potlucks where everything fits together nicely without planning it in advance
Spontaneous romps on the bed when the progeny wake one up earlier than planned
The sight of a bluebird, or the sound of sandhill cranes overhead
The song of the Eastern Meadowlark drifting in through the car window as you drive down a country lane
A butterfly on the windowpane
Arriving at the grocery store just at the moment they are giving away bananas
Singing a hymn together on the way to church and finding out that the song leader was going to lead just that hymn
sunsets
startling a pheasant on a walk


Children...


We are the recipients of many unplanned blessings, and children are not the least of them.
In this post I want to tell you about two special "unplanned" additions to our family who were adopted. We had three children, had just had a miscarriage, the headmaster was enlisted in the AF, and I was a sahm (this means very little money). We weren't seeking adoption at all, but we heard of two little girls who needed a home together, and we just couldn't come up with a good reason to say no. There was an announcement in our church bulletin asking for prayers for the caseworker who was placing them. I had miscarried only one or two weeks prior. When we came home I asked the headmaster if he'd seen it, and he said yes, and asked if I'd seen it, and I said yes, and we looked at each other. He made the phone call.

One of the children was severely handicapped, and it was unlikely anybody would take on both of them (nearly 4 and 6 at the time) because of the severity of those disabilities. The birth-mother did not want them separated. And so, over the objections of everybody sensible that we knew, we opened our home to this unplanned blessing.

It made no logical, financial, or even emotional sense since I was still
recovering from the grief of a miscarriage at 16 weeks gestation. By the time I had the D&C I needed (often not required, but in my case I had to have it), we had already met the children. In fact, the children arrived the same month our baby would have been born.

It's funny to call an adoption unplanned, but it really was. What little planning we were able to do came to naught. We were supposed to take the children for weekends for a period of a few months so they could get used to us. Instead, before they ever had their first weekend and just two weeks before Christmas the birth mother called we were told to come get them the next day. She had her reasons, and I won't go into them here, but she did have their very best interests at heart.

So... we went to bed with three children and the next morning suddenly gained two more children who came to us with nothing but the clothes on their backs and some immediate and distressing but treatable medical problems, and some longterm and severe medical problems- again, just two weeks before Christmas. We had no clothes for them, no beds, no presents; nothing was in readiness for them, except our hearts (and even those needed some sprucing up).

There were plenty of the super planners in our congregation and others where that same bulletin announcement appeared. They had more financial ability, more space, fewer children, were probably better parents in many ways, had greater nest eggs, more maturity, more wisdom, and certainly better organizational skills than I did. They had the option to adopt these kids, but they didn't because it didn't fit in with their plans. We have two more warm, wonderful, loving, fun, delightful, precious, precious children. They have their nice plans and their nice uninterrupted lives.

I won't say the adjustment period was all sweetness and light and trouble free. It wasn't, of course. We all, the children and their new family, had some adjustments to make and the children had some healing to do. It was hard, and it was busy, and it was often exhausting. But somewhere along the way the hard parts were overwhelmed and outnumbered by the joy, and the children are blended so well and so fully ours that I have actually had to stop and think for a moment about why I can't recall their birth stories. Then I remember that I wasn't there for their births. I can't imagine life without them. We received so much questioning of our decision and we are so blessed by all our children that it's hard sometimes not to feel just a little bit smug about how happy we are*, but I do realize that is an unworthy feeling. Happiness and gratitude are more appropriate, and truly, more common.

Incidentally, I was an unplanned baby, too, a honeymoon child. My mother returned from the honeymoon to her doctor who groaned, "Didn't you do anything I said?" She had followed his advice because they had plans. God had different plans. Had I not been born when I was, I would certainly not have been in the right place and time to receive these other two unplanned, but very much wanted, blessings.

Sometimes the best things in life are NOT planned.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*I do not want to make a fairy tale out of parenting a disabled child. The Cherub is a joy, but she is sometimes also a sad trial. The point of this post is not, however, about her disabilities, nor is it my intention to pretend that parents and children never have rotton days when one or the other or all of them are out of sorts and quite obnoxious- but that is another post. This one is about those blessings that come to us that are not planned.