Another day, we were reading the bible and the word 'grace' was mentioned several times. When we were finished, she said, "Mom, Grace is a name, like Mercy." I said, "Yes, it is." She skipped away saying, "Mercy and Grace, two gifts from God. I like my name!" This is HUGE. You see, before I adopted her, she had had several failed adoptive placements. One of those families had started calling her "Eva" because they wanted to change her name. When the adoption failed, she, and her brother, demanded they still be referred to by their new names, even though it was never legalized. It made life quite confusing in transferring all of their legal documents here. At any rate, she hadn't liked her name, or herself. Huge.
This year, we couldn't celebrate her birthday the way she likes to because we were in North Carolina helping friends then drove the 8 hours back home. However, we stopped at Burger King for dinner and she got one of the crowns and wanted her birthday picture taken with it. Look at that smile!
While we were in NC, we went to church on Sunday morning, as we often will do while we're traveling. I like to go to church to hear whatever lesson God has for me that week. Today, although I enjoyed the sermon and meeting new people, it was Mercy who taught a lesson. First, the pastor asked if anyone would like to share a testimony. I was prompted to share our family testimony but I didn't do it. Yet again, I didn't obey, even though I've experienced many blessings through obedience, but I'm thick-headed so God just went ahead and used Mercy. The children were called up to the front for the Children's Church discussion. The pastor asked if they had ever had any "good news." Mercy said, "I was adopted." Now, some people had already met us in Sunday school and knew I adopted several children but most people hadn't. The children's lesson ended and the pastor returned to the alter to preach his sermon but stopped and started talking about how he felt the Holy Spirit moving and how Mercy's comment opened his eyes and reminded him that we were all orphans and are adopted into the family of God through Jesus Christ. The pastor was weeping! My friend said to me, "Alison, you're family made my pastor cry!" Lol. I commented to Mercy about how God had used her that day. She was beaming. What a blessing it is to be used by God to bless others. The pastor later posted this on the church website:
"My heart is over flowing. This morning worship was awesome as always at Providence UMC, but one moment this morning stood out. During the Lambs Lesson I asked the kids if they had ever had good news. One said, "my dog once had puppies", another "My grandfather got out of the hospital." So far so good, but then one little boy (ok, it was a girl) who was visiting from New Jersey with family says, "I was adopted." I was a mess the rest of the service. that little
What made this special, too, was the fact that Mercy and her brother had had several adoptive placements before mine that had failed. I read in her paperwork before she joined us that she wasn't looking forward to being adopted again because, "It didn't work out too well last time." Even so, she gave it another shot. "Adoption changes people, it just does." That's what my son, Richard, says. I have a passion for adoption, especially of teens. My children have all overcome so much and have accomplished many things. I'm so proud of them all.
Happy Birthday, Mercy!
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