I have long held the secret notion that when my tear ducts become involuntarily activated, it is substantiation that the Holy Spirit is moving through me. This is especially true with matters of family. Recalling one of my dad’s familiar habits or coming across a sweet, child-made birthday card can prompt a wetting of my cheeks. I also find my tear drops are triggered at family gatherings or simply upon receipt of a handwritten note from my dear mother.
The love we have for family is tethered to our hearts by bloodlines and emotions quite distinct from nonfamily. These deep-seated bonds are also likely to activate abundant god-winks, reaffirming God’s joy with our celebration of family. He is pleased by the love we show our spouses, parents, children, and brothers and sisters. And as we display kindness to kin, we can expect godwinks for us, exemplified by the stories I have collected for this chapter.
“Come on kids . . . let’s get going! We want to get there before dark.”
Laura Saldivar was ushering her three older children—eleven, thirteen, and fifteen—and her three younger foster children—eight months, one, and four—into the eight-seater SUV for a week’s camping at Fairy Stone State Park near Martinsville, Virginia.
“Emerson, can you carry the baby’s bag, please?”
She shouted the good-natured command to her oldest son while aiding the younger ones along and carrying one-year-old Dion, the foster baby whom she’d grown to love like her own since he was three days old.
“Come on . . . everybody’s got a job.”
Seasoned by her own service in the U.S. Navy—where she and Carlos had met, fallen madly in love, and married fifteen years earlier—Laura was commanding her own small army on their way to a long-talked-about summer vacation. Unfortunately, Carlos had to stay behind in Virginia Beach to work.
Laura and Carlos were ideal foster parents. Deeply committed to their faith, they had a heart for children who were victims of society’s underbelly—children who came under the Child Protective Services division of the Virginia Department of Social Services. For seven years CPS social workers knew they could call on Laura and Carlos in the middle of the night, and they would always open their arms to children who needed to be sheltered.
“They knew they could call me, and I’d always say yes,” said Laura, anticipating the next question. “Take care of ’em 24/7 . . . but don’t bond too much . . . those are the orders.”
For several weeks prior to the camping trip, however, she and Carlos had seriously been talking with the foster care social workers about adopting Dion—having found it impossible not to bond with this adorable child.
Arriving at Fairy Stone Park, Laura and the kids set up the pop-up trailer tent, pulled their bikes from the carrier on the SUV, and soon were singing songs and toasting marshmallows around the campfire. Laura’s own children accepted their mother’s counsel to always help the smaller ones. They also accepted that there would be times when the babies would get more of their mother’s attention.
“They all understood that the foster children came from less-privileged backgrounds than themselves, and they sometimes needed more attention,” she said.
At the end of the second day, one of the older children, a responsible teenager, asked if she could take Dion for a ride on the bike. The girl would hold Dion on the seat and walk him around as she had done in their own neighborhood.
“Just be careful,” Laura intoned hesitantly.
But moments later, she wished she’d said no.
“Mommy, Mommy . . . the bike fell over . . . Dion’s been hurt!” cried the girl, rushing to Laura with Dion screaming in her arms.
Laura’s heart sank.
“Aw, Baby, you’ll be all right,” she said cuddling Dion, soothing his tears, thinking his ankle had twisted and would soon be better.
She thought she ought to have a doctor take a look at him, to be on the safe side, and was directed by a park ranger to a hospital in Martinsville, twenty miles away.
Doctors took X-rays and reported that Dion had suffered a twisted fracture, perhaps catching his foot in the spokes of the bike as he fell. He would need to stay overnight. Because hospital policy required that a child not be left alone overnight, Laura and the five other children bunked in the room.
Laura advised doctors that Dion was a foster child, which mandated that they report the matter to the local office of the Department of Social Services.
“When there’s a twisted fracture to a foster child, that’s a red flag,” said Laura, fully understanding why the department was routinely called. But she was not prepared for what followed.
Within hours, social workers came to the hospital and took custody of the other two foster children and ordered Laura to remain overnight with Dion. The next day, he was also taken from her.
Laura cried daily for the next seventy days, saddened by the sudden absence of children she loved. She was shocked when the social workers, who for years had praised her foster parenting, now accused her of neglect. They refused to return phone calls and avoided conversations with her.
“People who knew me well were acting like they didn’t know me—that I was a bad mother,” she said. “Only one person stood up for me—but only in private because she was fearful of losing her job.”
Laura and Carlos determined that filing for adoption was their only option. Dion was the only one of their three foster children who was adoptable at that time, and they decided to instigate proceedings for custody against the wishes of the Department of Social Services.
Within weeks they were summoned to a hearing at juvenile court.
The judge patiently listened to the accusations of the DSS attorney against Laura. The charges of neglect were spelled out carefully and seemingly callously.
“I had to muster all my strength not to show anger,” said Laura quietly, “but it was very, very hurtful to hear those words.”
The judge then asked Laura’s attorney to testify. He detailed her history of exemplary service—how she and her family had opened their home to some twenty-five homeless babies and children over seven years. He articulately described the innocence of the accident that injured Dion and suggested that a far more serious injury to the child’s psyche would be the child’s deprivation of this loving family.
Kindness is more important than wisdom. The recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.1
—THEODORE ISAAC RUBIN, MD
The judge was unsatisfied. He set another hearing in thirty days to hear additional testimony from authorities in Martinsville who were involved on the night of the accident.
Laura was worried. The days ticked off slowly, each a burdensome uncertainty. She prayed, Lord, please allow me to have my baby back.
At the second hearing, the judge heard additional testimony from the DSS and the painful charges of parental neglect were repeated. They said that the injury to the child proved that Laura Saldivar was unfit to be a foster mother or to have custody of little Dion.
The judge looked directly at the social workers and their attorney.
“A few days ago my son suffered a broken bone when he fell from the trampoline in my backyard,” said the judge pointedly. “Would you come and take him away from me?”
There was nervous laughter.
“Oh no, judge, he’s your blood child,” replied the attorney.
“So, you’re telling me that this mother, whose record you have testified was exemplary for seven years, would not have had this child taken from her if she was the blood parent?”
They sullenly nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“There are many times as a judge, when I go home at night wondering if I have made the right decision. Today I am confident that this baby belongs with his mother.”
He slammed the gavel.
Laura was surprised later that evening as she stood in line at Wal-Mart. Someone was calling her name, trying to get her attention.
She turned. She didn’t recognize him at first. It was the judge from the hearing, no longer in a robe, but dressed in street clothes. He was smiling. Laura felt she could now communicate in a way she could not in the courtroom.
She went to him and hugged him.
Then she pointed to Dion in the shopping cart. “This is the baby you returned to me today.”
She squeezed the judge again.
“I felt badly that his son was injured in the trampoline accident,” said Laura later. “But I wonder how things would have turned out if that godwink hadn’t happened.”
The birth was easy, or as easy as it could be for an unmarried seventeen-year-old girl. The hard part was yet to come.
She sat up in her hospital bed, her face streaked with tears, looking hopefully at Danella Hoff.
“Nurse, I’d like to spend some time with my baby,” said the young mother.
Danella frowned.
She knew the rules—it was not a good idea to let birth mothers bond with their babies when an adoptive family was waiting in the wings. They needed to avoid complicating an already heartbreaking transition.
“Please . . .”
Danella relented.
In the nursery at St. Margaret’s Hospital in Montgomery, Alabama, she walked quietly to the only bassinet labeled “adoption” and picked up a tiny baby boy. Wrapped snugly in his nursery blankets, he slept blissfully unaware of his already turbulent life. She planted a kiss on his forehead.
After delivering the baby to his mother’s trembling, outstretched arms, Danella retreated to a corner of the room.
The girl leaned her head to her son’s face, touching her lips to his forehead, nose, and mouth. Love for the child swelled up until it burst out again, and a mother’s tears christened her baby.
“I’ll love you forever. Please forgive me, but you’ll be better off with a mommy and daddy who can give you everything . . . that I can’t,” she sobbed.
All the stresses of the last nine months—an unplanned pregnancy, her family’s hasty move to Montgomery to avoid the prying eyes of neighbors, and the decision to give the baby up—all of it melted away as the beauty of this little life overwhelmed her.
She gave him a name to be placed on the birth certificate even though she knew that someone else would choose another name for her child.
Wiping away her own tears and watching, Danella drew closer. This was no ordinary girl—one who could be oblivious to her mistake and probably on course to make another one. This was a woman-to-be with an almost superhuman ability to put aside her own desires to do what she believed to be best for her child.
Perching on the side of the bed, Danella hugged the young mother as she crooned over her baby.
“Everything will be all right. You’ll be fine; the baby will be happy,” said Danella soothingly, with words of comfort that felt hollow as she spoke them.
Little did she know that the scene she had just witnessed was the beginning of a long, slow godwink.
Danella’s shift ended, and she went home to her husband.
For twenty years as she raised her daughter, Amanda, Danella helped bring hundreds of babies into the world, but she never forgot the purity of the love she saw that November night in 1980. She felt that she had received a gift that night, being witness to the purest love of all, agape—a love untainted by self-interest or desire. That love became a part of her work, part of her marriage, and part of how she parented her own child.
“Mom, this is the one!” Amanda exclaimed joyfully as she told Danella about the new man in her life, retelling how she and Chad had met and fallen in love over a long conversation at a coffee house. Amanda had just graduated from college and for the first time realized she had met a man who felt like he could be her lifetime partner.
“Well, when do I get to meet him?” Danella asked.
“Tomorrow!” Amanda said, the word lifting off her tongue like a dove in flight.
When Chad Brooks walked through the door the next day, Danella’s maternal antennae went up. Chad exuded anger and a sense of longing though he smiled and exchanged pleasantries.
“What’s your story, Chad?” Danella asked bluntly as they settled into the living room chairs for a get-to-know-you chat.
“Well, I’ve just finished an apprenticeship with a master electrician. I tried roofing, but that was too dull. I like the challenge of wiring an entire building. I’m pretty sure this is the field for me.”
“What about your family?”
“My mom’s name is Dot Clare. She and my dad divorced when I was a baby, and she married my stepdad when I was two.”
“And are you from here?”
“Yes, I was born here, but my real parents aren’t from here. I mean, my mom isn’t my birth mom; I was adopted. All I know is that my birth mom was from Colorado. She gave me away the night I was born.”
The bitterness in Chad’s voice cut like vinegar through the pleasant conversation.
Danella’s hackles rose.
“Now wait a minute . . . let me tell you a story. I want you to know how much sacrifice and love goes into giving a baby up for adoption—a love that usually goes unrecognized. I’ve been lucky enough to witness it.”
She retold the story of a night twenty-one years before, when she saw the greatest love of a mother for the baby she was giving up. Though she could barely recall the young girl’s face, as Danella looked at Chad, a feeling rushed through her like a bolt of pure insight directly from the heavens above.
Could this be him? The very baby she was talking about . . . who was christened by his mother’s tears that night in 1980?
She stopped midsentence and peered intently at Chad.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-one.”
Of course you are, she thought, as she studied Chad like a jeweler examining a precious gem. With growing wonder in her voice she asked: “Where were you born? Which hospital?”
“Jackson Hospital.”
“Are you sure?” She realized this was a presumptuous question, but she sensed he was wrong.
“Yes, I’m sure . . . that’s where my real mom gave me away.”
Across the table, Amanda lifted an eyebrow, signaling her mother to let it go.
Danella dropped the subject.
Chad, unaware of the tension, didn’t realize that his life was about to come full circle.
There were plenty of other topics to discuss as Amanda and Chad soon commenced plans for their wedding, which took place in December 2001.
During the early months of their marriage, from time to time, Danella urged Chad to request his adoption records, so he could find his birth mom and perhaps answer some of the questions that had nagged him all his life, causing deep bitterness.
But life was busy with work and family, and years passed.
Amanda became pregnant in March 2004. Feeling an urgency about his unborn baby’s heritage, Chad finally requested from the state the file containing his birth records—a privilege offered adopted children when they turned twenty-one. As he sat reading the records at the kitchen table with Amanda and his mother-in-law, his eyes fell upon the birth date that matched his own. His birth mother was named Darla Svenby, and he was born at St. Margaret’s Hospital in Montgomery—where he knew Danella had worked—not Jackson Hospital.
Chad lifted his eyes and stared at his mother-in-law.
Danella knew what he’d read. She’d known it all along, from the day Amanda brought Chad home.
She nodded wordlessly as Chad’s eyes widened.
“I have held you,” Danella said tenderly. “And your mother loved you with the most unselfish love. Nobody loved you more than she did. Now go and find her.”
Chad’s godwink—the one that began the night he was born—had finally found its mark. With a sense of purpose he’d never felt before, he changed his last name to Svenby.
His and Amanda’s search began in earnest with a flurry of “googling”—searching the Internet. Amanda typed in “Randy Allgood,” the name of his birth father, and it brought up innumerable matches. They called them all; none panned out. “Darla Svenby” brought up absolutely no hits. But when in desperation Amanda combined the names, there was a hit! It led them to a list of addresses for the two. They were married!
“They’re together!” Chad said in wonder. “If I find my mom, that means I’ve found my dad!”
A few days later Amanda’s father, who had also been drawn into the search, handed them a folded piece of paper.
“Open it up, Chad,” said Amanda.
His hands shaking, Chad unfolded the paper and read “Senior Master Sergeant Randy Allgood” with a telephone number for his work, at an Air Force base in Anchorage, Alaska.
He held the paper reverently and in a voice filled with awe, he said: “This is my dad, and this is his number!”
As he dialed the number, Chad didn’t know what to say. He had thought of this conversation for years, and when it finally happened, all he could blurt out was: “Guess who this is!”
“Who is this?” was the brisk, military reply.
“I’m your son!” He had to repeat it a few times before Randy understood the meaning behind those simple words. The confusion lasted just a moment, and within minutes, floodgates burst open. For the next few weeks, the lines between Alabama and Alaska—cell phones, landlines, and e-mails—burned bright as Chad and his parents covered twenty-four years worth of love, longing, and heartache.
Chad absorbed his family history with amazement.
Two years following the chaotic early years of their relationship, Randy and Darla had married and parented four boys.
“Four brothers . . . I got more than I imagined!” marveled Chad, going instantly from an only child to an older brother.
Then another godwink unfolded: The name Darla put down at the hospital for the baby she gave up was “Chad Svenby.” His adoptive mother, totally unaware of that, had also named him Chad—Chad Brooks!
During their long-distance communication, Amanda and Chad put together another piece of their godwink puzzle. They learned that Chad’s grandmother—Darla’s mom—had prayed for Chad all her life. She faithfully wrote her never-seen grandson many letters over the years, trusting that someday he would make his way back to his mother. When they heard that she died on March 2, 2004, the exact date the obstetrician had told Amanda that her and Chad’s baby was conceived, they just shook their heads in disbelief.
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.
—JEREMIAH 1:5 NKJV
Finally, it was time for Chad to close the circle. He longed to be held in the arms that had once enveloped him years before. He and Amanda flew to Alaska in the fall of 2004.
Just as she had twenty-four years earlier, Darla held out her arms to her baby as he emerged from the airport Jetway. For several moments, they clung to each other—heartache and sadness released in a torrent of tears.
“He clutched me so tightly, just like a little baby laying his head on my shoulder,” she said as she spoke of their first meeting.
“Why, he’s beautiful!” exclaimed Darla, sounding like a proud new mama as she pulled back to look at Chad.
Once he folded into his ready-made family, Chad wasn’t about to leave. For three months, Amanda and he stayed with his parents and brothers—visiting, fishing, eating, laughing, learning, and crying.
“It’s like he was the missing link to our family,” said Darla.
“It’s like we haven’t missed a step,” agreed Chad’s dad, Randy. The past was no longer an unbearable, bitter, unresolved memory, but a welcome prelude to a future of close family ties.
Darla remembered: “That night in the hospital, I could hardly take it. I just didn’t want to let go.”
Now she doesn’t have to, thanks to a steady stream of god-winks.
Twenty-one years in the making, the Godwink Link was an angel named Danella, who simply kept a memory alive for two decades and sensed her cue when it was time for her to do her part to bring a family back together again. Never could anyone have imagined that the baby Danella handed to a weeping mother would end up being her future son-in-law.
It was a hot Friday the thirteenth in July 1984, in Big Flat, Arkansas.
Angilee Wallis’s phone rang.
Her twenty-year-old son Terry had been in an accident—a bad one. His truck had flipped, tumbled down a twenty-five-foot bank, and landed in a dry creek bed. He was rushed to a Missouri hospital—in a coma, near death.
After three months, Terry woke from his coma but couldn’t speak. He was able to communicate only by blinking. He was out of critical condition, but no longer the smiling, proud dad that he had become when his daughter was born, just six weeks before the accident.
His eyes were open, and he was awake—but not aware.
He was not aware of how big his baby girl, Amber, was growing. Not aware as she grew into toddlerhood, entered grade school and then high school. He was not aware that Amber loved a daddy who could not love her back.
Several months after the tragedy, Terry was moved to a nursing home in Mountain View where he was visited by his wife, Sandra, as well as his brother, his parents, and, of course, Amber.
Years went by.
Every Friday the thirteenth, the family winced at the memory of that Friday in July, long ago. Not superstitious by nature, they still felt that bad luck had fallen on them that day.
Doctors reported that Terry’s condition was not encouraging. His family—especially his mom—still kept visiting him, praying, and hoping.
After nineteen years, Angilee’s prayers were finally answered. Terry woke up one morning like any other. Except for one thing—he greeted the day by speaking his first word in nearly two decades.
“Mom.”
His family was shocked!
“I just fell over on the floor,” said his mother, Angilee.
More words followed.
For a Father’s Day present two days later, on June 15, Terry said, “Dad.”
Although his speech was laborious, Terry slowly built up his vocabulary and long-term memory. And to the delight of his family, his sense of humor came back.
“It’s amazing and uplifting,” said Terry’s doctor. “I think the message is that you should never give up hope.”
“God gave us a miracle,” said Angilee.
But just to let her know that it was Him—God—who was the author of this miracle, Terry awoke on another Friday the thirteenth . . . nineteen years after he had been silenced on that so-called unlucky day. God winked, and Terry Wallis started speaking again on Friday June 13, 2003.
THE NATURE OF FAMILY WINKS
I imagine that as you evaluate the godwinks in your life, like those in the preceding stories, they’ll remind you of God’s personal involvement in matters of family. Certainly each of the foregoing stories was a deeply heartfelt experience. But sometimes godwinks within the family tree are more serendipitous, as was the case with the next two stories.
Joe and Percy Lyman were brothers—very close brothers. They enjoyed family holidays and vacations together. They went into business together, growing a small butcher shop into a robust supermarket in Harlem, a desirable area of Manhattan in those days. Their wives each gave birth to a daughter and then a son. The boys—born one year apart—were both named Barry after a favored grandfather.
Barry Hugh and Barry Saul regularly played together, and they became best of friends—until Barry Hugh was ten. His father died suddenly in his forties. Within a short time, Barry Saul’s father died too—they say of a broken heart.
Yet as close as the fathers were, the mothers were not. The families quickly drifted apart, ceasing all communications between the two Barrys.
Forty years passed.
Barry Hugh grew up to become a highly successful entrepreneur, the president of an electronics corporation. By his fiftieth year he had developed an expensive hobby—a keen interest in buying and selling antique British cars. Though he lived in Vermont, Barry had a friend named Tom who owned a classic car restoration company in New Jersey. He bought and sold several British cars in dealings with Tom and tried to visit the shop whenever he was in the area.
One day Barry walked into Tom’s showroom specifically thinking about a vintage Morgan.
“Why are you thinking about a Morgan now?” asked Tom with a trace of annoyance. “You told me on the phone you were interested in the Austin Healy I advertised in the paper.”
“I beg your pardon? I didn’t call you,” said Barry.
“I don’t get it,” continued Tom. “You phoned me about the ad. And every time I asked you a personal question, you said, ‘I have no idea who you are.’”
As the penny began to drop, Barry slowly shook his head.
Could it be, he wondered, that his long lost cousin Barry Lyman had telephoned Tom? And that he was also a collector of classic cars made in Britain?
Barry laughed and gave Tom an explanation. Fortunately, the dealer still had the other Barry’s number, and within moments the two Barrys were on the phone, emitting joyful sounds and arranging a luncheon appointment for the next day.
Talk about godwinks—both arrived at the restaurant driving the same model Mercedes. Both wore blue blazers, khakis, and a blue shirt. And both had an unusual watch on their wrists: a Concord Mariner SG.
It was a wonderful reunion, catching up on forty years lost. Barry Hugh learned that Barry Saul was also an entrepreneur, but in real estate management, and both men had arranged early retirement. Barry Hugh retired at fifty and Barry Saul would retire at fifty-three.
Nowadays the two Barrys live six houses apart in Delray Beach, Florida, and play golf a couple of times a week. Once again, they are the closest of friends.
“I don’t know why, I just feel like going to one of those waffle houses,” said Rick Smith to his wife Marie. They were on the eighteen-hour, eleven-hundred-mile drive from visiting family in Pittsburgh to their home in Natchez, Mississippi.
“You don’t like waffles,” observed his wife.
“Yeah, well . . . I just have a hankering to try one of those waffle houses.”
Marie cocked her head slightly and raised her eyebrows, tantamount to a shrug, thinking, This too shall pass.
A few minutes later, halfway along their drive somewhere outside of Nashville, she decided to test her husband’s resolve. “There’s one!” she said, thinking he might say, “What?”— then she’d know the feeling had definitely passed.
“Naw, let’s find another one,” he replied.
They drove in silence for a while. Rick let his mind drift. He wondered how his brother Bob was doing—wished he could have seen him. A couple of weeks earlier, Bob had called to say he wouldn’t be with them at the Pittsburgh family event because he would have to travel to San Antonio. In fact, he said his drive would take him right through Rick’s town of Natchez.
“Well . . . why not stay at our house?” offered Rick. “I’ll leave the keys for you.”
“There’s one.” It was Marie, breaking into Rick’s thoughts, pointing out a Waffle House.
“What’s with this sudden waffle desire?” she continued, not waiting for a response. “There’s another one. These people sure like waffles.”
Rick was silent.
“So? That one looks okay. Come on, I’m getting hungry.” Now she was really pressing the resolve button.
“Let’s see what else there is,” he murmured.
A half mile down the road, a fifth Waffle House emerged. They saw it simultaneously. Marie looked questioningly at Rick.
“Okay, let’s stop at this one.”
Inside, a line formed as a harried hostess said, “About a twenty-minute wait.”
Marie rolled her eyes.
After five or ten minutes, Rick’s impatience got the best of him.
“All right, let’s go”—a statement equivalent to surrendering that once again he’d had a harebrained idea.
Sensing the potential loss of a customer, the hostess whispered: “There’s a booth opening up right now, I’ll get it cleaned up for ya.”
Things were looking up. Soon the waffles arrived, and they tasted pretty darn good—much better than Rick had remembered.
As Rick looked for the waitress to request a check, his eyes landed on a lady who had just entered the restaurant.
“My gosh! That woman looks just like Beatrice,” said Rick.
Marie turned. “And that man looks just like your brother Bob.”
“It is Bob!”
Beatrice and Bob, and Rick and Marie squeezed into the booth. They marveled at the odds that would draw them together at this time and place—at this Waffle House, halfway between Pittsburgh and Natchez, actually, a bit out of the way on Bob and Beatrice’s drive from San Antonio to Florida.
“How did you wind up coming this way?” asked Rick, still puzzled.
Bob shrugged, “We always wanted to see Nashville.”
TIES THAT BIND FAMILIES
I once heard a wise person say: “When love is close at hand, God’s hand is close.”
This collection of family stories underscores how godwinks seem to weave in and out of our lives more frequently among those with whom we have strong bonds of love.
As you interact with your family, look for these little coincidences and odd happenings, and see if you find this to be true.