Rock Star ...

I read a post the other day about choosing to have a family at a young age and how the mom did not regret it. It occurred to me that I had always felt like I had done something "wrong" by starting a family so young and so close together. I know that a seed must have been planted years ago in school or other social groups I belonged to but I never realized how deep rooted it was. I did have by children young and not in an order that would be considered appropriate. Jace was born just days after I graduated from High School, Jordon is barely 15 month older than him. Tori followed along just over 2 years later and Tacia 21 months after that. Jace was 5 years old when Tacia was born and I had been 24 years old for all of 13 days.

At about the age most people feel it is acceptable to begin having children, I was finished. Of course the Lord knew my desire for more children and years later and in His time he would bring them to us. Many of the stories of our family seem to circle around a few of our children. It has never been my desire to over shadow any of our children. I think that what happens is that Jace has many milestones academically that he has hit and that our love to share adoption brings on many stories that I want to share with others. This story starts at the beginning and is about a child in our home that feels like a star to all of us ...

When my husband saw me in sewing class the first day of the second semester of my junior year of high school he said to himself, "that is the girl I am going to marry and we are going to have a little red headed girl together ..." I am NOT joking! If I were, I would say something to the effect that I was the most breathtakingly beautiful sight that he had seen in all creation ... but that didn't happen until the next day ... :)

Our first born came and we named our dark haired son Jace. Our second child came and we names our then blonde haired son, Jordon. Then came our third born and pink was to abound and we named our dark haired beauty Tori, short for Victoria. Then came the comments ... "ahh, you got your girl, now you can be done." I cannot tell you how many times I had heard this. Please understand that I adored being the mother of such a beautiful and honestly nearly perfect child. Before the age of one, she covered her mouth when she coughed or yawned ... seriously. There was nothing missing in Tori that lead me to want another child. It was not my desire to have a red headed child ... it was the fact that God had given my husband and myself a vision of what He had in store for us and I anticipated seeing His vision fulfilled.

The trouble was that as much as I had a desire to have that vision fulfilled, my husband was the one who was working like crazy to provide for our family and his work was also not so fond of our decision to have so many children so young. He decided that it was time to put a stop to our "baby making" days and scheduled the procedure for while he was deployed. I cried out for God but chose to trust that He knew what was best and that maybe the vision He gave us was not for here on earth, possibly she was the child we lost between Jordon and Tori but I knew that what ever the case, He was still faithful.

Once James' ship left on deployment it had a few stops. One of those stops was in San Diego and it happened to be the weekend of his nieces' wedding and Tori's birthday. We had little money to get him home but stepped out in faith to reserve him a round trip ticket home. Before going to the airport he went to the terminal and got a free mac flight home! One way was now free! It was such exciting news. he was home for two whole days and able to celebrate both occasions. The morning that he was to leave for the ship, we had a February snow storm! It may not seem like a big deal but where we live, we rarely get snow in the middle of winter let alone the day after Valentine's! James contacted the base since the highway was closed on the way to the freeway and they got him on another free flight back to San Diego. the entire weekend was free. God is SO good!!!!!

My husband went back to his ship and completed the procedure that he scheduled months prior. Four weeks after that I shared with him that we were expecting our forth child. I knew that I knew our red headed daughter was about to join our family. I was just learning about sharing God's visions so that He and He alone would receive the glory. Sure enough on that chilly November morning our ultra precious, red headed daughter came to our family. We named her Tacia (tayshu) short for Annastacia and the Lord Himself gets the glory ... and will continue to do so ...

Tacia has made some important decisions lately about her life. I know that most kids change their career decisions many times before finding the one that is right for them but Tacia has not made a career decision, she has decided to accept a calling and recognize a gift in her life. Tacia has decided to go begin preparing to be a Children's Pastor!!!! Our 0-5 Children's Pastor will tell you that she already had Tacia train her new teachers and she is only 14 year old :) This may seem like a pretty small decision to some but trust me when I tell you that the Lord is still writing the Memorial Box Monday post about how far of a road has been traveled to come to this point. I will share it as soon as Tacia feels comfortable but I will say that there could not be a prouder mom anywhere! As soon as the words were spoke from my precious child's mouth, I saw a vision that melted her previous ambitions of being on stage singing before a crowd with a new. She was leading worship before a body of young believers and trust me, after being in Children's Ministry for so many years ... she will be rock star to them, as long as she is standing on the Solid Rock of Christ ...

So, for our Memorial Box we will have the first lock of red hair cut from Tacia's hair :) It will remind us that God shows us His plans in little pictures and that we can trust what He shows us! Head over to Linny's blog to find other amazing Memorial Box Monday posts.