Chairs

I have a set of chairs I’ve been meaning to sell. Three weeks ago, late one night I listed them on an online classified agency. I knew I listed them with a price too high, but I thought I’d give it a try anyway, needing the money. Two weeks went by and I did not have even one call or text on the ad. I knew I needed to lower the price, but something stopped me. Each time I walked downstairs these two chairs welcomed me, begging me to lower the price, but, each time I signed in online, I decided not to change the price, not really knowing why. One afternoon I received a text, “Are the chairs still available?” I responded a couple of hours later letting the person know they were and we set up a time for them to come and see them.  I was looking forward to selling them and putting the money in my account.  The following day a woman and her husband came by and looked at the chairs. They spent a few minutes looking at them and ultimately decided that they were not the right color.

Deflated, I walked them to my front door. The man, stopped and looked at me and said, “Your daughter is beautiful; she was adopted, wasn’t she?” My six year old daughter, who is bi-racial (I am a very fair red-head), and her friend had been coloring my driveway with sidewalk chalk. I answered that she was, as well as her little sister and that I worked for an adoption agency – I saw a smile reach both of their eyes as they looked at each other. We stood in the entryway of my home talking about adoption. I stood, humbled and answered all of the questions they had and told them of my family’s adoption journey.  They have a biological daughter and have been struggling with infertility ever since. They had tried several avenues to conceive but with no results. They have been researching and praying, researching and praying. Funny enough an agency they had been researching was also A Guardian Angel Adoptions…the agency they felt the most pull towards. I was able to give them the literature from our agency along with an incredible DVD with birthmother stories. As we walked again to my front door we exchanged numbers, promising to keep in touch. The woman took my hand and said, “We did not come here to see your chairs, we were lead here to talk to you about adoption. I knew it as soon as we pulled up and saw your daughter coloring your driveway.” Tears welled up in my eyes and I knew, again, that adoption is sacred. Nothing is coincidence, no meeting is by chance and that our Father in Heaven is in control and bringing families together one tiny step at a time – even if it is through a classified ad for used chairs.

That afternoon after that sweet couple left, I closed my front door, looked at my little family picture and reflected back on all of my “chance meetings” that brought me closer to my daughters. I will forever be grateful to the people who planted the seed of adoption in my heart – that woman I happened to run into at a soccer tournament, that one family with the newly adopted daughter clinging to them for safety and attachment, the late night phone calls to friends who soothed my aching arms and heart, the agency that listened to my call, answered all of my questions and accepted my family and helped us find our daughter, the caseworkers that selflessly loved my daughter’s birth mother, that gave her shelter and safety who chose my little family for the baby she was carrying and the directors of the agency who valiantly and selflessly understand that their work as a sacred mission.

I learn repeatedly that adoption is sacred; it is a leap of faith – both for the birth mother, and also for adoptive families.  I was reminded again that God is ever mindful of our needs. I learned to stop and listen – even when things don’t make sense. Those two chairs still sit at the bottom of my stairs greeting me with a reminder that nothing happens by chance in adoption.