The Music of Sunflowers

The day has begun; it is just shortly after 6:00, and I have been up since 3:20. I have spent time with my beloved husband, reading the Word and praying together. I have stripped the bed and re-made it, and the second load of laundry is happily spinning in the washer. I am working on my third cup of coffee, and have felt the need to reconnect with my friends here.

Retirement has been much more busy than I had imagined, with endless things I want to savor and do and experience. I had imagined long, peaceful, relaxing days spent in the front porch rocking chair watching the clouds change; that has not been the case! But still, life has been so good and each day continues to be a treasure, a gift to open and to enjoy.

I haven’t written much lately about my extended family. So, pull up the other rocking chair and sit here with me for a little while, and I will tell you a story.

About 22 years ago, my sister married a man who had two children,  Christina and Christopher.  The children lived with their mother, and Randy and Sissy got them every other weekend, and for six weeks during the summer. The rest of our family bonded with these children immediately, taking them in and loving them as our own. They WERE our own.  Christopher was an adorable two year old, with a smile as wide as Texas and an easygoing personality. Christina was six, and a little more distant than her brother. Their home situation was not good, and their mom was not a good person. We knew there was a steady parade of men in and out of her life, and we knew Christina was given much more responsibility than a six year old should have.

Within a couple of  years, their mom had another baby by the current man in her life; this was an abusive relationship, and we all hurt for what these children had to witness every day, and live with. By the age of nine, Christina was caring for her two younger brothers while her mom worked. Meanwhile we learned that the local police force was interested in the whereabouts of the abusive boyfriend, who had suddenly disappeared.

All these years, Randy and Sissy faithfully paid child support to the children’s mother. I know that there were many times this was an absolute struggle and a sacrifice, but it was always paid. Abusive boyfriend was never found, so there was no child support ever received for the youngest brother. There were times when their mom would suddenly quit her job, and move the kids to another place, even another town, without telling us. Sissy and Randy spent many frantic days and weeks making phone calls and trips to her relatives, trying to locate them. This happened more than once, and each time would cause these children to be uprooted from their school and their friends, only to start over again somewhere else.  Many nights my sister paced the floor, not knowing where the children were or if they were safe. It would be an understatement to say they lived in an unstable environment. Interestingly enough, Randy was not Christina’s biological father but he loved her as his own. He didn’t have to pay child support for her; he CHOSE to do it because he loved her. And all these years, he and Sissy fought to gain custody of Christopher and Christina.

By the time the case went to court, their mom was living with yet ANOTHER man. In order for her to appear more stable in court, she decided to marry this man and pretend that he was the father of her youngest child.  The hearing was a farce, and custody of these two children remained with their mom. The children were too young to understand their dad’s reasoning, and why he was attempting to gain custody of them; they only knew that he was trying to take them away from the only home and the only lifestyle they had ever known. Those were some hard times, and this ordeal seemed to isolate Christina from us even more. We just banded together as a family, keeping those children covered with prayer.

Summer and Christina

The time eventually came when Christina no longer wanted to spend weekends with Sissy and Randy. We knew that it was just her way of asserting herself, and being able to have some control over her own life. We knew it wasn’t rejection of us so much, as it was just being able to make a decision for herself; otherwise her mom decided where they would live, what she would wear, where she would go, even how she wore her hair. Still, we hurt for her and longed to draw her in.

In spite of all the odds, Christopher grew into a brilliant, well-adjusted and loving young man. He won a scholarship to a prestigious private college here, and lived with Sissy and Randy until he graduated. During this time, he was invited to participate in a work/study program abroad, and spent several months in Brussels and in Italy. He is currently on scholarship, doing post-graduate work in political science at the University of Notre Dame.

Christina chose a different path; she never cared for school, and despite our encouragement and our offers of help, decided not to go to college. Instead she became pregnant by her then-boyfriend Stephen; they eventually had two children together before finally deciding to get married. Theirs was a rocky marriage, punctuated with split-ups and reconciliations; she would leave him at times, packing up their two children and moving in with friends. This became their pattern for the next several years, and we knew she was only repeating the patterns she had witnessed as a child, with her own mom.

The day finally came this past February, when Randy recei

ved a phone call from a distraught Christina. She had left Stephen again, this time vowing it was for good. Her own mom had sided with Stephen, and Chrissy had no place to go; she was living in a women’s shelter and needed help: could she come to their house? Of course.

A defeated and tearful Christina and her two bewildered children arrived with literally the clothes on their back; she had fled the house taking nothing with her. Haltingly the story came out, and the pieces began to fit together; finally we learned what she had not wanted us to know. Stephen was a drug addict. This time when he snapped, he had tried to choke her. She was broken emotionally, and she was spiritually drained. She was finally ready to allow us to do what we had always wanted to do: to draw her in and to love her. And so we did.

Sissy and Randy cleared out Randy’s office and made it into a bedroom for the three of them. Summer and I bought clothes for the children, and groceries to feed the three extra mouths. Summer took Christina shopping for clothes, and bought her several new outfits, and all of us began to help her search for a job and a place to live. We kept our hands on her whenever we could, just reminding and affirming to her that we loved her. We prayed with her, and for her. Summer took her and the kids to Playworld for an afternoon of pizza and games and fun. Gradually, Chrissy began to open up to us. Gradually, she began to talk about the past, and eventually she began to look forward to a future.

The ladies in my Sunday morning class took Christina in like a bunch of mothers,  surrounding her with love and support. She sat under my teaching, often with tears streaming down her face as she began to learn a whole new way to live. I have been blessed to watch her begin to unfold, as a wilted flower responds to the rain. One Sunday after we had anointed her and prayed over her as a group, one of the ladies said, "Christina while we were praying for you, I had a vision of a field of sunflowers. They were all facing upward, toward the sun. I don’t know what that means….."  Chrissy gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth as she burst into tears. Finally she was able to speak.

"I have always had a love for sunflowers," she sobbed. "They have always been my absolute favorite, but no one here knew that except Sissy. When I was younger I wanted to decorate my room in sunflowers, but my mom wouldn’t let me. So when Stephen and I bought a house, I did the whole kitchen in sunflowers."  I told her, "We didn’t know you love sunflowers, but God knows. He’s reminding you that He knows the tiniest desires of your heart, and He will bring them to pass."

Fast forward to yesterday. Christina is working steadily at a job that she loves; she has already gotten two raises and a promotion since she has been there. She has her own house, and her children each have their own room, decorated the way they wanted. She and Stephen are divorced, but he refuses to send her the court-appointed child support. She has notified Children’s Services, and steps are being taken to garnish the child support from his paychecks. Meanwhile, money is tight.

Summer and I spent the day together yesterday, buying school clothes and school supplies for the children. We picked out one cute outfit after another, laughing together and imagining how excited Jaydan and Dawson would be over their new things. Our offer to do this just made Christina cry, because she is new to this lifestyle. She can’t seem to wrap her mind around this yet, how our family lives to just love and bless one another. She spent the first few months just asking Sissy "Why?"  "Why would all of you be so good to me? Why would you go out of your way to help me?"  Sissy tells her, "This is just how we roll. This is how we live."

Christina and Sissy

It is an amazing thing to watch, as Chrissy drops off one more shackle from her past, and one more chain of bondage is broken. It is an amazing thing to hear her introduce Sissy as "my mom."  I delight in grinding my heel into the head of the enemy, and I know that these precious children are the first generation that will be free of the curses that she was forced to live with.

Summer, Jaydan and Dawson at church

And I smiled to myself last night, as I imagined Jaydan and Dawson oohing and aahing over their new clothes and new supplies. Sitting around the table together. Safe and sound in their own house. In their mother’s  kitchen, surrounded by every sunflower decoration that we could find in this town.