The following is an unlikely story that I’ll tell backwards, for that’s how it was revealed to me. One day after church, elderly Sis. Schexnayder paused by the pew where I sat with my young children and peered closely at my little girl who was looking through a Golden Book. Lizzie was about 2 years old at the time.
Sis. Schexnayder commented, “Your daughter looks like a model for a Golden Book.” She went on to tell me about one of her favorite illustrators, Eloise Wilkin, who illustrated My Little Golden Book about God, Prayers for Children, We Help Mommy, and many other books. Mrs. Wilkins also designed dolls. She died in 1987.
Speaking of dolls, I told Sis. Schexnayder about Holly, my favorite doll my parents had given me for Christmas in the 1970s that also looked like a little girl in a Golden Book. At some point, Sis. Schexnayder came to my house and examined the doll. She wondered over it because it did look like Mrs. Wilkins’ style, but it had no markings that would prove it was her design.
Move forward with me a few weeks or months. Early one morning, my husband passed by my sleeping daughter’s room and was startled to see her lying face down on the floor next to her bed. He hurried to her side only to discover that it was my favorite doll, which Liz loved too, lying face down on the floor, and Liz was still snoozing in her bed. He told me about the incident, laughing at his silly mistake.
Like a movie zipping back in time, complete with the tearing sound that a needle makes when it’s dragged across the surface of a vinyl record, my mind was taken back to a moment in my early childhood. At the age of five, I felt the tug of God on my heart and went to an altar to repent of my sins. God filled me with His Holy Ghost that morning. (If you are curious about how I knew, read what I believe here.) I started walking with Him from that moment on. But that’s not exactly the spot to where my mind had just zipped back. Instead, it was to a moment on a Sunday afternoon not long after I began my journey with the Lord. I was playing with my favorite doll Holly by myself on the floor in front of my open closet. I adored that doll. On an impulse, I prayed aloud, “Lord, when I grow up, I want to have a baby girl who looks just like Holly.”
What a sweet reassurance of God’s perfect will at work in my life! Not long after that confirmation of God’s continued presence in my life, Liz fell asleep on the sofa for an afternoon nap. Her position was so reminiscent of the doll’s pose, that I retrieved Holly from the bedroom, laid her next to Liz, and took a picture.
An aside: my husband and I both have brown hair and brown eyes though we both began life with blond hair. Considering our gene pool (my mom has blond hair and hazel eyes and so does his dad), we knew that we had a one-in-four chance of having at least one child with blond hair and hazel eyes. Liz was such a surprise to me when she was born a girl (I was convinced I’d only have boys after having two) that had blond hair and hazel eyes. She really looks nothing at all like her brothers!
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. (Jeremiah 29:11 KJV)
