Angie's Gift

When Roger and I married 4 1/2 years ago, I was thrilled to gain a wonderful mother in law. I was excited to have this steadfast Christian prayer warrior in my family and often in my home. I envisioned lots of times of prayer and chats with her as I became her daughter in law. Unfortunately, that was not to happen. We married in June and dear Angie went to heaven the following September.

She was in her 80's...she had her twins, Roger and Ronda, in her 40's. I knew it was not going to be for a long time that I would have her influence in my life, but I certainly took it hard losing her so soon after just getting to "have" her.

One of the hardest things I have thought about is trying to tell the precious child/children that the Lord eventually allows us to adopt about their grandma. I want them to feel that she is a part of them as well and how very very much she would have loved them! I am very fortunate to still have my crazy and funny parents to share with my little ones but I really wish that Angie could be here to love and nurture them as well. What a blessing she would be to them, as she was to us.

On Saturday, I was working on our bedroom. I finally put a closet pole in a niche in our room, creating a temporary closet until we build on to our home. I started sorting through the stacks of things we have in our bedroom and I came across a long flat box. I opened it up and was delighted to find what was within.

Angie had been a Sunday School teacher of young children for many many years. I think that she had to have been very much involved with little ones throughout all of my husband's life. What I didn't know is that she had kept her "visuals" that she had created during those years. In an age where people seem to think that children need electronics and gadgets to learn from, I was so happy to find her beautifully created pictures that she had used in teaching her Sunday School children all those years. There were hand drawn, colored pictures of Jesus, churches, missionary and Bible stories and open Bibles with verses written in them.

I became very excited after realizing that I had been searching the Internet for teaching aids to use when we are finally able to adopt little ones. How absolutely wonderful that I will be able to teach our little ones about the Lord, all lovingly created and drawn by their Grandma's gifted hand!

So, while it's true that Grandma Angie won't be here to physically love these children, she has left an amazing legacy. Not only did she rear a wonderful adoptive Daddy for these little children, she left her love and dedication to Biblical things to teach her adopted grandchildren about our dear Lord...and that's a precious precious gift.