Gratitude for a Grievous Gift--Redbud Post

I love being a member of the Redbud Writers Guild and am honored this month to have an article in The Redbud Post. The November theme is one of my favorite topics--gratitude.  And I love telling the story of how God gave me a grateful heart.

My phone rang at 2 a.m., jarring me awake. I had been asleep for two hours in my hotel room, 1,000 miles from home. Not again, I thought. Which will this be—hospital or jail?

It was jail. My son was calling to tell me it was all a mistake; he shouldn’t have been taken to jail and could I help him with bail. And so I faced one more event in a long and challenging journey.

Ten years before we opened our home as a foster shelter to a 9-year-old boy who had been taken from his alcoholic, drug-addict mother.  With slight trepidation, we were excited about the privilege God was entrusting to us. We were sure this boy was a gift from God.The next years were not easy. The neglect and abuse he had experienced overshadowed everything we did for him. Fetal alcohol syndrome Keep reading...