Dear Reader,
You are very lucky. You get to read a story tonight about the four most beautiful little girls on the earth. Honestly, I am not thrilled to write it so openly, it's more personal than I would like to share. But I trust the prompting of my Jesus, the little nudges that He whispered tonight, that says, "It's time to tell "
Find your treasure in it, I already have mine.
So here you go you, I am incredibly honored to tell you the story of the little girls that I was given the amazing privilege to love & {kinda} raise and the story of the God who always remained faithful to them.
[Early 2010]
Standing outside the abortion clinic, in the pouring rain. Along with a friend, I was kinda just there for the ride. I didn't have a plan or know what to do. Just as we were leaving, we saw a lady standing in the rain outside the clinic,waiting for a taxi. Long story, short- she is in my car...we drive to the pregnancy center..a few hours later..a young momma pregnant with her fourth little girl has hope for her future. She got up that morning with the painful reality that she would have to kiss her baby away at the abortion scheduled that morning, but because of some strange occurrence at the appointment & she had to reschedule it for another time & Jesus ambushed her on the way out.
We soon meet her three little girls (ages 6, 2, & 11 months). The sweetest little creatures that you could ever imagine. It was love at first sight. I spent endless time with them for months. Taking them dinner, taking the girls to the park, going shopping, taking them to church every Sunday. Spoiling them! Buying them present...oh the fun! Everywhere we went...they went! You could just hug them all day long...every time that I would see them, they would rush me, & squeeze me to pieces...and make me promise to never let go. I would take them out & about, and everyone would say, "what beautiful children you have!" and I would simply say, "thank you!" .
It was full of adventure too. All sorts of adventure. Sleep over's at my house. Nearly getting kidnapped when visiting them in their dangerous urban neighborhood. Some drugs. Some tantrums. And oh so much more!
And then that beautiful little fourth baby girl arrived. 3 months early. So their momma had to be rushed into the hospital, and the girls moved in with us for awhile. Beautiful M was born, she was gorgeous! We loved her to pieces at first sight. [Though we couldn't figure out why she was born white? And not perfect chocolate like her sisters? Haha, in a weeks time she soon turned the perfect dark heaven skin that she was suppose to!! It was just our blissful ignorance of how things like that work out]
When momma got better, and could take care of everyone at home, we took the other three back to stay with them.
Then it started to get a little dicey.
There was a big bad wolf involved and he put those four little innocent lambkins through hell. And their momma too. I refuse to write the details of what he did to them. I refuse to remember. You can imagine though, what they might be.
One day in the fall, momma ran away {maybe from the big bad wolf? Maybe from something else? we still aren't sure]. And she left all the kids with me. All four. Even three month old baby M. My family was left to care of four little girls.
So we did. There were no other options. They moved in again. They brought joy & laughter to our house. but with a missing momma, abuse there had to be pain & heartache too.
There were endless tears for all of us in this season of life. Tears...Tears...heartache...heartache...
But Jesus came to them. And He held them & loved them through our arms. We would tell them the beautiful stories of how He gave everything so that they could be apart of His family. And they would pray to Him, and tell Him how much they loved Him. D (age 3 at that time)..."Jenny be sure to write down in your journal...D loves Jesus...D loves Jesus...be sure that you write that down, I want everyone to know" We still laughed in those hard weeks, we all fell in love with Jesus a little more...especially those four sweet little girls! I taught them how to ties their shoes, they taught me how to dream ("when I grow up, I am going to be President!")
One of things that I learned in those "last" weeks were that you really can't do anything without the body of Christ. I am so thankful for my dear sweet friends, like Jason & Katie & Gary & Nicole...who opened their hearts & home...to all of us...when the threats came..and it wasn't safe for us to stay at my house anymore..we moved to theirs..thank you! thank you!
I wanted to save them. To spare them from ever going through pain again, they went through enough. We assured the little girls that they would be safe now, they wouldn't be hurt or beat anymore...that those days were over.
But we couldn't save them. They had to go back. My last memory of them is them is them screaming, and bawling at the top of their lungs as they drove away in the sw car. They were shaking in fear to have to go back to the very man (who the government thought wouldn't be there anymore, but we knew would be) that hurt them so badly. They were going back right to the terrible place that I had promised them a thousand times they would never have to go back too (because I thought that was true). It was miserable.
Floods of tears for days. Heartbroken that we couldn't rescue them. Feeling like we failed them.
The only thing we could do was cling to the word that God had given us that He loved & cared for the girls more than we ever could. That He held in His heart, the sweet little prayers of adoration to Him that they would whisper as we tucked them in each night.
TIme elapsed since that tragic night when they left. People soon stopped asking where my "girls" were. I got busy. Days would pass were I wouldn't think of them, week even. Occasionally, I would see something that would remind me of everything, and my heart would be swept with emotions & thoughts if they were all still safe.
But my Jesus!!!! Our compassionate Christ never forgot them.
Inching up on the 2 year after mark of all of this....I found a current picture of them on the internet. This little picture meant the world to me. And it showed that the big bad wolf wasn't in their life anymore. That they were safe, happy, whole & beautiful! Jesus had loved, cherished, and held them all this time. Just like He promised me He would.
I have never felt released to go find them again. I love them from afar, because I know He loves them so closely.
So Jesus, as you are kissing them to sleep tonight- Can you please whisper them this from me?
Dear D, D, M & M,
Your are so loved. So precious. So dear. So celebrated! I hope that you are still dreaming big dreams for your lives, and know that YOUR Jesus paid in blood for every desire in your heart.
Thank you my girls for teaching me about Jesus. Thank you for helping me grow up so fast. Thank you for the endless piles of smiles you brought me. I will never forget you :)
I miss you lots,
Your Jenny.
So my sweet four little girls--here's to you! All the bliss in the universe to you! All your dreams coming true!
And sweet readers, lets raise our glasses tonight to the ones that we thought were in hopeless situations, but that He always remained faithful too!
Just like He has always been to me.
And to you!
