The Power of a Simple Seed
Scott and I walked up to the front door with our newborn baby fast asleep in the car seat. I was a brand new mom in need of a babysitter for my impending return to the workforce.
Char opened the door to her house and invited us in. We sat at her kitchen table and a love for kids radiated from her. I knew in an instant that’s where I wanted my daughter to spend her days while I was at work.
I didn’t know it that day but a seed was being planted.
Immediately after Char agreed to babysit Bailey she got a phone call to take in two foster kids. I thought that maybe she would be overwhelmed with a baby and two new children, but she still wanted Bailey in her home. Plus, one of the children was close to Bailey’s age so Char was delighted with the idea that they could be buddies.
Char inspired me with her go-with-the-flow attitude and overwhelming gentleness and kindness amidst taking on the roles of being a foster mom and babysitter. She continually showed up for our family amidst social workers and visitations.
Bailey and her new buddy, Brevin, spent their baby and toddler years together. This was the first time in my life I had a front row seat to the world of foster care and adoption.
Foster care and adoption have been in my kids' lives from the moment they were born. It is their normal. The roots run deep for them and the magnitude of that is not lost on me. I can't wait to see what those roots grow!
We were cleaning Bailey’s room this past weekend and I came across a framed photo from Brevin’s adoption day.
The picture was a 4-year-old Bailey and her buddy, Brevin, sitting on a bench smiling from ear to ear. Brevin had just officially been adopted and Bailey was along for the ride radiating pure joy for her buddy.
Char thought she was just babysitting, but she was planting a seed that would grow deep roots.
Shortly after Char started babysitting Bailey, we felt the call to adopt.
I always pinpointed our adoption calling to Orphan Sunday at our church four months after Bailey was born. I still remember sitting in the back row next to Scott as the speaker shared a story about the plight of girls in China. On the ride home from church that Sunday, Scott and I both confirmed that we felt called to adopt a girl from China.
When I saw that picture of Bailey and Brevin the other day, I realized our adoption calling started in the weeks leading up to that Sunday. The seed was planted before I ever heard that speaker on Orphan Sunday because someone was living out orphan care right in front of my eyes.
Our hearts were being prepared for what God was calling us to do. Char planted the seed that God would water in the years to come.
To this day, I don’t remember the speaker’s name from that Orphan Sunday, but I’ll never forget Char and how she lived out the gospel in her home while loving on my children too.
When I showed the picture to Bailey the other day, she laughed and said, “I love this. We need to put it up.”
I couldn’t agree more. I want daily reminders of the people who have sown seeds into my life that have made the gospel take root and come alive.
“[The gospel] is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants…” Mark 4:31-32
What seeds are you sowing? Who has planted seeds in your life?
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