Faithful Friday - "The Little Purple Dress" (Revisited)

Today’s Faithful Friday post is a repeat from March 2009. I believe the Lord just laid this on my heart to share today for someone. I hope you are blessed from today’s post! And remember if you have something to share for Faithful Friday, please leave Joy a comment here letting her know you participated (and grab the button above) because we’d love to come visit your blog too!



Here's the post from March 2009:

I realize that Faithful Fridays and "The Little Purple Dress" don't possibly sound like they could go together, but for me they do.

Almost 27 years ago, when I was married for just two weeks, I spotted a little purple baby dress that I fell in love with. Now mind you, I said TWO weeks after being married. Not that I planned on babies that soon, but I've always loved kids and knew that I wanted to be a mom and preferrably have a house full of them....or at least three. Jason and I had talked; he said two and then we'll see! I said three. Well sometimes God has other plans.

When the time came that we felt we were ready for a baby, it just wasn't happening according to our plans. This was about two years after we were married. From that point on, we pursued building our family. Looking back on it is much easier than going through it though. I love the quote, "God won't bring you to anything that he won't bring you through". How true that is. However, the one thing I was sure of was that we were to be parents. I always saw myself as a mom and never believed otherwise, although at times it was tough. I thought I could never go to another baby shower again....it just wasn't fair. As a matter of fact, we went through the pregnancy of a friend's daughter that was fourteen.....yes, fourteen! I just couldn't understand why. But all the while, the little purple dress hung in the closet.

We explored all avenues of building our family and decided upon international adoption, although we didn't have a clue how or where we would get the finances to pursue this. We just trusted God. And although there were many hurdles to jump and red tape, the Lord blessed us with our son, Colt, adopted from Korea, after seven years of marriage! We were (and are) so blessed. I knew God had this little baby boy planned all along to be ours, even from that day that I bought that little purple dress. Now mind you, I didn't make Colt wear the purple dress, but I do have to admit to trying it on him one day while Jason was at work (when he was the right size to fit into it) with my mom as an accomplice. (I really hope Jason and Colt aren't reading this today)! Oh how I loved my baby boy and life with him!

I was so thankful to be a mom and savored and treasured every moment. But, I kept coming back to the scripture about being the "joyful mother of children". Notice that's plural....children? So my faith was firm. I wanted another baby....actually we did, but the desire was stronger with me. I was thankful and blessed with our precious baby boy, if one was what the Lord had for us, but the desire of my heart was for another child. I continued to pray.

When Colt was about two years old, we had met with a birth mother and I even planned to be in the delivery room with her. The lawyer had all the papers drawn up and things were ready to go. But for some reason, neither Jason nor I could get peace about this. We decided for some reason, this wasn't supposed to be. We called and backed out of this adoption. I can see how trusting the Lord in this situation was the best thing now.....because we found out that when the baby was born, she decided to keep her....a little girl. I would have been devastated.

So many more years passed and still the little purple dress hung in the closet. I have to admit a few times it crossed my mind to give it to a friend's daughter or at a baby shower (with its tags still attached and all), but God tugged at my heart. At this point, that little purple dress was most definitely a symbol of my faith. I continued to pray. We explored all options again, including fertility treatments. When Colt was 9 years old, we found out we were expecting. Twins run in our family and it was possible with the fertility treatments, so I had twin girls' names picked out. When we found out it was one baby.......Jason and I picked out names for both boy or girl. However, I KNEW it was a girl. When the ultrasounds confirmed this many times, we picked out the name......Joy (my mother's middle name) and Maxine (Jason's mother's middle name). Her daddy was to call her Joy Max. I even prayed, "Lord if you could....it would be nice if she had brown eyes...I've always wanted a brown-eyed girl to go along with my brown-eyed boy". And so it was to be. She had the brownest eyes from day one. God is so good.

We were also told that our baby girl would have Down's Syndrome. For about a week, I was worried. After that, we had peace. Honestly, we were prepared if it was to be, but we didn't believe she would be. As a matter of fact, when she was born and the doctor said, "Here she is, and boy is she a pretty thing", I didn't even think to ask. I never asked. I KNEW she was healthy. And only God can give you that kind of faith and that kind of peace. I often think about the people that might have aborted the baby because they were told this. We were even asked to do an amniocentesis, but I wouldn't risk miscarriage, so we refused. We knew no matter what, this was God's plan for us....our little baby girl.

Here's a picture of Joy wearing the purple dress when she grew to fit it. It's so funny that she was born with a head full of black hair, then lost most of it about this age (at 6 months), then when it grew back, it was blonde.

So you see that little purple dress was a symbol of faith for both of my babies. I actually wanted a little boy, then a little girl....although healthy babies would have been blessing enough! God gave me the desires of my heart.

And just to tell you about that third baby I wanted. A little while after Joy was born (I was 35 when she was born), I did want another. I prayed about it. Jason felt he was getting "too old" and kept thinking about how old he would be when the baby would be a certain age. You know how men think with their brains and we ladies sometimes just think with our hearts sometimes? Well, I began to pray that the Lord would either change Jason's mind or take away the desire for another baby with me. This time, He worked on me. He gave me peace in my heart in knowing that our family was complete. God is good that way. He answers our prayers in different ways and gives peace accordingly.

God made us a family. We are so blessed.

***UPDATED NOTE***
As you probably already know, God DID have plans for a third child and I did get my third child – our precious Luke, now 3 years old, home from us now from China for a little over a year. God has truly made me “the joyful mother of children. (I love that it is plural). God is SO good!