Today is Monday, July 25th, 2005; Karen's Korner #596

Friday's Karen's Korner was a favorite from "Chicken Soup for the Soul".
 
Remember? The title "My Toughest Decision" was written by a gal who had a baby at the age of 16. Because of her situation and a love for her young daughter, she made the "tough decision" to give her baby to a couple for adoption. Her final sentence read, "I know in my heart that I made the right choice.  I just wish with all my heart that it was a choice I never had to make."
 
What a special reply, I got from one reader:  Arlene Lockwood.  Here is some of what she wrote:  "WOW !!!! Your Karen's Korner sure hit home!!! I remember being sixteen and in those same shoes...and all the years of not knowing where our daughter was or how she was ....and missing out on all those milestones of her life."
 
Unlike the writer of the Chicken Soup for the Soul, who experienced an open adoption, Arlene and Jerry (who is the biological farther), didn't know anything about their daughter.
 
Arlene said, "The only thing that kept me going all those years was that one day we would be reunited. She said many times she would hear ringing in her ears, "Hope and trust in God."
 
 It was 26 years before Arlene would know what trusting had meant to their family. "God completed the circle of love when it was the best time in her life, and our lives... .in HIS timing!" wrote Arlene. "Then we got to look at the pictures of her steppingstones and milestones and could ask all the questions and get the answers. And she did too!  Like the author said, it's like all the puzzle pieces are there and fit together now; it is complete."
 
One more part of Arlene's story, when God whispered all of those years to "hope and trust". Arlene had named her baby "Hope Renee" ; her adoptive parents renamed her Sarah Christine. 
 
When Sarah had a baby girl in 2001, she named her baby the name given to her by her biological parents: HOPE Renee!!
 
God's hope had come full circle!!

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