{"id":1200,"date":"2019-02-14T12:49:07","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T17:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/read.whitefire-publishing.com\/?p=1200"},"modified":"2020-06-01T09:07:14","modified_gmt":"2020-06-01T13:07:14","slug":"finding-sarah-finding-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/finding-sarah-finding-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Sarah, Finding Me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Finding Sarah, Finding Me<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

by Christine Lindsay<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes it is only through giving up our hearts that we learn to trust the Lord.<\/strong> Adoption.<\/em> It\u2019s something that touches one in three people today, a word that will conjure different emotions in those people touched by it. A word that might represent the greatest hope\u2026the greatest question\u2026the greatest sacrifice. But most of all, it\u2019s a word that represents God\u2019s immense love for his people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Join birth mother Christine Lindsay as she shares the heartaches, hopes, and epiphanies of her journey to reunion with the daughter she gave up\u2026and to understanding her true identity in Christ along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through her story and glimpses into the lives of other families in the adoption triad, readers will see the beauty of our broken families, broken hearts, and broken dreams when we entrust them to our loving God.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t

1<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t

Do Not Be\nAfraid<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Christine, February 1999 <\/em><\/strong>
\n<\/strong>Two months before the reunion<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGwen, I think it\u2019s about time you began to have a life,\u201d Candice said breezily as she moved across the patio refilling the glasses of the many guests. Gwen glanced around self-consciously, then forced a laugh. It was so like Candice Mallard to launch a campaign to reinvent Gwen\u2019s life in the company of strangers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The clandestine nature of my trip paints a\npicture of me I don\u2019t want to look at too closely. As I drive from Maple Ridge\nto Abbotsford twenty miles away, I wonder if I am one heartbeat away from being\na stalker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I find the high school after several wrong\nturns. Squelching down the fear of getting caught, I park in the school lot and\ndrum up the nerve to walk in the front doors. I repeat under my breath, \u201cIt\u2019s\nno different than walking into Lana\u2019s high school at home in Maple Ridge. It\u2019s\nno different at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m an ordinary person just like any ordinary\nparent in the Fraser Valley, the Bible Belt of British Columbia. I\u2019m a Sunday\nschool teacher, a bonded bank teller, a woman of forty-one, hair lightened\nblond, dressed like any nice mom in jeans, casual shirt, running shoes, my bag\nslung over my shoulder. I am David\u2019s wife, mom to seventeen-year-old Lana, fifteen-year-old\nKyle, and ten-year-old Robert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am also the woman who wrote in her journal\nlast night, \u201cFor twenty years I\u2019ve comforted myself that this time would come,\nthat my birth-daughter and I could legally be reunited. And now I am afraid of\nher.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I, I, I, yes I<\/em> am all of the above. I hate my self-centered focus. Am I also\nobsessive? And dear God\u2014am I stalking my firstborn? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s still time to turn around, get back in\nmy car, forget this whole crazy escapade. Instead, coldness grips my spine as I\nstride past the office, praying none of the staff will stop me and ask why I\u2019m\nhere, like a criminal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m only coming to Sarah\u2019s former school just\nthis once, not driving past her house like a real stalker, although I have the\naddress. At least I\u2019ve held myself back from that temptation. This one look\u2014in\na public place\u2014I\u2019ll allow myself. But I shudder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who can understand my hunger to know, to see?\nMy husband and my mother understand, but do I deserve their pity? Close friends\ncan relate yet aren\u2019t able to hold back their trepidation. Those in any\nadoption triad who search for that missing biological connection will\nunderstand. I\u2019ve heard plenty of their wild stories at the adoption support\ngroup. Certainly the militant ones with agendas of their own, if they knew what\nI was up to today, would urge me to barge forward despite my qualms. The\naverage person though? Would they understand this slipping over the edge into a\ngray area that frightens the daylights out of me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But time now stops. Not far from the office I\nfind what I\u2019m looking for. This moment I\u2019ve awaited for twenty years. A hectic\nschool hall with teenagers rushing to their next class drifts away. Bell sounds\nrecede to a muffled hush. A desperate quiet roars in my head. It\u2019s the same in\nevery school\u2014a wall displays mounted photos of each graduating class. Portraits\nof each graduate. Being this close to something tangible emphasizes the growing\nfragility I\u2019ve battled the past two years. My soul stretches paper-thin as I search\nthe pictures. They\u2019re easy enough to follow, in alphabetical order, and I\nsearch for students\u2019 names starting with the letter V.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve waited so long. Far longer than I ever\nanticipated the search to be. Disappointment after disappointment, lost letters,\nlost files, that awful sense of being forgotten. The past few weeks as her twentieth\nbirthday looms, my emotional<\/a> pain has built to a mushroom cloud. I hardly\nrecognize myself anymore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then there it is. Sarah VandenBos<\/em>. Her grad picture. Her face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A wall of air slams into the core of my being,\npushing me backward. It\u2019s hard to catch my breath, and I freeze. After all\nthese years of Sarah being a shadowy picture in my imagination, at last I see\nher features. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her long hair falls slightly wavy in that dark\nblond shade, the exact color as mine at her age. Her eyes hold something of me\ntoo, the shape of her head, her neck showing above her grad gown, even\nsomething about her teeth. For a moment, my own college graduation picture superimposes\nitself over Sarah\u2019s. A ghost from the past, what I looked like shortly before I\nbecame pregnant with her. Yet there\u2019s something else in Sarah\u2019s face, something\nI didn\u2019t expect, though I should have. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her birth father Jim surfaces through her features\ntoo. Her mouth is the same shape as his, her nose has that crazy blending of\nparental genes. Thank God she\u2019s got the tip of my nose and the bridge of Jim\u2019s\nand not the other way around. For the past twenty years I\u2019ve imagined her as a\nyounger version of me, but now seeing the real Sarah, flesh and blood and no longer a phantom of\nmy imagination, the foundation of my life rumbles and shifts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I study every visible facet of her face, a\nfew more pencil lines in the mental portrait of me are erased. She\u2019s beautiful,\njust as I\u2019ve always imagined\u2026as beautiful as Lana. And there\u2019s such confidence\nin Sarah\u2019s smile. Sure, this is a professional grad photo and is supposed to\nexude that balance of poise and assurance, but even while my pride in her and\nthankfulness soar, I want to shrink away and hide. There\u2019s nothing lacking in\nthis lovely face, nothing to show there\u2019s even an ounce of need. This is what a\nyoung woman looks like whose cup of love has been filled to the brim. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How could such a girl ever need me? Sarah isn\u2019t\nthe needy one. I am. I\u2019m the one who hurts because I am not her mother. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve stood staring at the grad photos long\nenough. No one seems to notice me, but I have no right to be here, and it\u2019s\ntime to go. On the drive home I grip the steering wheel. Tears slide down to soak\nmy shirt collar. Now that I\u2019ve seen her, my fears of meeting her escalate. She\nhas her own life, her own family<\/a>. At the same time, every atom in my body\ncontinues to shove me forward, to keep hoping for the eventual relationship\nwith Sarah that I crave. These constant extremes of emotion drain the life out\nof me, and I want to just run away, disappear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A particular psalm has given me strange comfort\nthese past months. \u201cI lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me,\u201d resonates within me. But it\u2019s not the poetic phrases\nof King David in Psalm three that bring comfort\u2014rather, the facts surrounding\nthe psalmist\u2019s situation soothe like a salve on a raw wound. The psalmist wrote\nthose words as he looked back on the time he fled from his son Absalom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certainly Absalom was one wicked man out to murder\nhis father and steal the throne. Those melodramatic circumstances are vastly\ndifferent from my search for my birth-daughter, a nice ordinary girl in the\nFraser Valley. But sensational tabloid accounts of messy lives fill the Bible and\ngive me this peculiar peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this moment, driving home with my emotions\nrocking off their base, I\u2019m consoled by King David\u2019s stewing in a similar\nemotional<\/a> quagmire. He too loved his child, wanted his child with all his\nheart, yet ran to mountain caves to cower from his own flesh and blood. I\u2019m not\nproud of my feelings, but they spill out in a bitter stream from my journals\neach night. December 29, 1998\u2014\u201cI look back now, and for my sake wish I had not\ngiven Sarah up. She is my flesh and blood, yet she loves another couple as her\nparents. I struggle day and night about meeting her. Why do I torture myself\nwith this compulsion to be reunited?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terrible words to flow from a mother\u2019s heart.\nWhat kind of a mother am I? A mother to only three of her children, but not to her\nfirstborn. A fractured mother. In spite of this, my husband and I are happily\nmarried, a happiness attained by hard work and moving past our failures with\nforgiveness. Our three kids are our unmitigated joy. Yet I hunger for Sarah,\nwhom I search for. And fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was all so different from twenty years\nearlier. At seven months pregnant, I\u2019d written in my journal in 1979 my\nlongings that the pregnancy would never end. During those last four months I\u2019d\nnot wanted the day to come that I\u2019d arranged to give up my baby. Heavy with\nchild then, I\u2019d layered the relinquishment of my little one with as much peace\nand love as I layered the layette\u2014of soft undershirts, fluffy sleepers, the\nlittle white Bible\u2014all to be given to her adoptive parents so that they and\nSarah would know how deeply I loved her, how much I wanted to see her again one\nday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had the strength to do all that back then\nbecause I was sure God had promised me a special relationship for Sarah and me\nwhen she was grown. So I\u2019d given Sarah up in 1979, banking on that promise. God\nsimply couldn\u2019t let me down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then, King David had banked on God too, only\nto have his heart broken by his child. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remembering back to June, 1978<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jim and I watched\nthe movie The Goodbye Girl<\/em> on one of\nour first dates. With just a hint of the drama queen that sadly still surfaces\nin me, I remember thinking, Yeah that\u2019s\nme, the goodbye girl<\/em>. I counted up my goodbyes\u2014at five years old to my\nentire extended family in Ireland when we immigrated to Canada. At twelve, my goodbye\nto my father when my parents divorced. At nineteen, goodbye to all my old\nfriends in Ontario when my mother, sister, and little brother and I ran away to\nstart over again in British Columbia. And now a year later, the goodbye I\u2019d just\nsaid to Jim a few weeks ago when he went up north to work on an oilrig. I\nmissed him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought\nabout Jim as I sat at my desk in the little island of reception in the Woodward\u2019s\nChina Buying Office, my first full-time job. I wondered if we had a chance as a\ncouple. If our going together would ever amount to marriage. Still, while the\nheat outside blanketed Vancouver, I worried more about what was happening\ninside me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I missed my\nperiod\u2014so what? But I knew. Miss-Regular-as-Clockwork\ndoes not miss her period.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half the\nstaff left the office, walking past glass cases filled with Waterford crystal\nand English bone china. Their laughter dwindled as they rose as a gaggle up the\nescalator, heading for the cafeteria. The main extension rang, and I answered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With hardly\nany preamble, the clinical voice on the other end said, \u201cMiss Lindsay, your\npregnancy test has returned positive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mouth\nwent dry, and I no longer heard the clacking of calculators but of blood\nwhooshing through my temple. Positive? Negative?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the\nnaivet\u00e9 of a twenty-year-old, I asked, \u201cDoes this mean I\u2019m going to have a\nbaby?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deep inside\nme, the tinkling sound of breaking crystal. Everything receded, including the\nvoice of the doctor\u2019s receptionist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hung up\nthe phone and swayed forward on my chair. Below me lay the beige linoleum tiles\nof the floor. Oh, God, let me fall through the floor. Let it swallow me up.\nLet me be invisible. Unmarried pregnancies didn\u2019t happen to nice Christian\ngirls. But then, I wasn\u2019t a nice Christian. I was a lousy Christian.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other\noffice girls must have returned from their coffee break. The work day must have\nended. Somehow, I boarded a bus. Blinded by tears, I sat on the aisle seat, halfway\ndown, and stared at the dirty floor beneath my feet. I was pregnant. No\nhusband. Jim circled in and out of my life like a revolving door. What good\ncould Jim do anyway? Would he clean up his life, give up the drugs? Would he\nsuddenly become a responsible adult and marry me? Take care of this\u2026this tiny\nthing growing inside me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I swallowed\nthrough a tight throat. I would not cry, at least not until I was alone. But\nbefore I went home to my empty, single apartment, I needed my mother. At the\nvery least, there was always Mum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I got off\nthe bus close to her place. When she opened the door, with one glance at me her\nchin shifted upward. Her eyes darkened with worry. She put an arm around my\nshoulders and led me inside. \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The words\ntumbled out. \u201cI\u2019m pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wasn\u2019t\nafraid to tell her, but I hated to. My world had shattered. As her eldest\nchild, the one who had always done well at school, gone to college, she and I\nhad planned a different life for me. A better life waited for me out there,\nwith a satisfying career, someday a devoted husband, and a home. Not the\nvicious cycle of single-motherhood and poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She held me.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There wasn\u2019t\nmuch else to say. She knew about Jim, and from her own life she knew the story\nwell. A foolish girl takes the risk of unprotected sex with a guy whose love is\nfor something other than her. In my mother\u2019s case, my father loved alcohol. As\nfor me, my competition for Jim\u2019s love was a bag of weed or a white line of\ncocaine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mother\nsat with me on the couch, her arms around me, and together we cried. \u201cDon\u2019t\nworry,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ll get through this together.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mum,\nsister, little brother, and I had learned long ago to be a tight unit. After\ntalking for a while, being with Mum gave me the strength to go home. A soft\nsummer evening tried to cradle me as I walked the two miles to my own\napartment. I\u2019d taken such pride in decorating my little place, my first stride\ntoward independence, and I\u2019d blown it. I\u2019d probably conceived my baby within\nthese walls. I shut the door behind me. Dropping my purse at the open balcony\nwindow, I took in the bachelor suite. So quiet. Loneliness closed in around me,\nand I slumped to my knees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the\nwhile I\u2019d been with my mother, though I\u2019d cried with her, wiped hot tears from\nmy face, I\u2019d been able to hold back the torrent. Now the volatile storm\ngathered, rising up inside me in heaps. My mouth spread wide in silent sobs, my\narms clutched my stomach, and I bent over, my head swaying back and forth only\ninches from the carpet. This can\u2019t be\ntrue. This can\u2019t be true. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it was.\nHow could I have been such a fool? At twenty years old I should have known\nbetter. Even though I loved Jim, in my heart I referred to him as my\nwalk-on-the-wild-side. The skim-milk love he had for me wouldn\u2019t be enough now\nthat I was going to have his baby. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wrapped\nmy arms around my middle and rocked on my knees, bawling until nothing remained.\nMy face stung with drying salt, and my hand crept to my abdomen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deep inside\nme slept a tiny bit of flesh. At eight weeks, how big or small did this scrap\nof humanity measure? Did its heart beat? I\u2019d seen pictures of fetuses in the\nwomb, sucking their thumbs. Did mine have a face yet, a spine? If I left it\nalone to grow, how soon would it become a boy or a girl? But I\u2019m so scared,\ndear God, I\u2019m so scared.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twilight\nsnuffed out the last of the day, and I tried to remember what I knew about God.\nI knew his Son from Sunday school\u2014a gentle, kind man in a white robe, his feet\ncovered in dust, who I\u2019d been told didn\u2019t shoo people away when they\u2019d blown\nit, especially tainted women, like I was now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But God?\nThe heavenly Father? What on earth did a father\u2019s love feel like? Who needed a\nfather anyway?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the\nclearest memories of my dad stole back into my mind, a memory I\u2019d tried to bury\nover the years. But the memory kept slinking back like a mangy cat steals under\nthe porch no matter how many times you scare it away. As a child of seven and\nin the hospital for pneumonia, I\u2019d waited for my dad. It was his evening to\nvisit, and my mother had made that possible by staying home with my sister. From\nmy hospital bed I peered out the window to the street below, looking for his\nfigure to walk up the pavement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daddy never\nshowed up. Ten minutes after visiting hours ended, he sheepishly staggered in.\nA frowning nurse allowed him five minutes with me. The beer on his breath wafted\nover me as he leaned over to kiss my forehead. How rarely he kissed me. Nonetheless,\nhis smelly kiss filled the cold emptiness that had bunched up in my chest as I\u2019d\nwaited for him. When he left me minutes later, even as a kid of seven, I knew\nmy dad spent the time he should have been visiting me down at the pub. I also\nknew he was on his way back to the pub to order another beer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only parental\nlove I\u2019d known came from my mother. Now at twenty I was going to be a mother.\nMaybe God would be there for me as my mum had always been. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did God\u2019s\nvoice echo in my own when I protectively wrapped my arms around my abdomen and\nsaid, \u201cI love you, little one. I\u2019ll take care of you. Don\u2019t be afraid.\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n