WISDOM: 17TH CENTURY PRAYER

Mary Marcia
America's STORYTELLER
Telling Untold Stories in Photographs, Prose and Public Speaking

Link:
 http://tellmeastory-marcia.blogspot.com/2017/01/wisdom-17th-century-prayer.html

Click on  image to enlarge. 

I found this 17th Century Prayer  two decades ago, when I was working as a Community Life Director at a retirement community for senior citizens.  
 

Mary Marcia, 1997

I hoped the humor and wisdom in this prayer would help residents who had become  sour in their old age.

I asked GOD to remind me when I got older - to heed the advice in this centuries old prayer.  

The title of the prayer is traditional.  

The author is unknown.

Here's the prayer I'm praying for myself today.

Who else will pray through it with me?

Click on  image to enlarge. 

17th CENTURY PRAYER

LORD, 

Thou knowest better than I know myself

that I am growing older, 

and will some day be old.

Keep me from the fatal habit 

of thinking I must say something

on every subject and on every occasion.

Release me from craving 

to straighten out everybody’s affairs.

Make me thoughtful, but not moody…

helpful, but not bossy.

With my vast store of wisdom, 

it seems a pity not to use it all,

but Thou knowest, LORD, 

that I want a few friends at the end.

Keep my mind free 

from the recital of endless details.

Give me wings to get to the point.

Seal my lips on my aches and pains.

They are increasing, 

and love of rehearsing them

is becoming sweeter as the years go by.

I dare not ask for grace enough 

to enjoy the tales of others’ pains,

but help me to endure them with patience.

I dare not ask for improved memory,

but for a growing humility, 

and a lessening cocksureness

when my memory seems to clash 

with the memories of others.

Teach me the glorious lesson 

that occasionally, I may be mistaken.

Keep me reasonably sweet.

I do not want to be a saint…

some of them are too hard to live with.

But a sour, old person 

is one of the crowning works of the devil.

Give me the ability 

to see good things in unexpected places,

and talents in unexpected people.

And give me, O LORD, 

the grace to tell them so.

Amen

Thanks for stopping by.

Come back often, and invite a friend.
 

Mary Marcia

America's STORYTELLER

Telling Untold Stories in Photographs, Prose and Public Speaking

 

 

GOD IS GREATER THAN THE MOUNTAINS

Mary Marcia
America's STORYTELLER
Telling Untold Stories in Photographs, Prose and Public Speaking

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

we will celebrate our daughter,

Sarah Zheng Kang Norwood's  birthday.

Link:  
http://tellmeastory-marcia.blogspot.com/2017/01/god-is-greater-than-mountains.html

 

 Sarah is a beautiful young woman of faith.

Sarah loves our puppy pack:  our four rescued and adopted puppies.

 

 

Sarah with Pearl and Tilly. 

January 17, 2017 will be the 17th birthday

I have celebrated with Sarah.

She spent the first five years of her life

at an orphanage in China.

Once she was a photo I held in my hand, 
and nine months later, she was our daughter.

Orphan Table
Zheng-Kang (2nd from RIGHT) at Changsha Orphanage
(Photo is a gift from the Schmid Family of Switzerland)

 I learned that 

 GOD IS GREATER 

THAN THE MOUNTAINS...

   and CONTINENTS and 

CULTURES 

and COMMENTS 

and PAPERWORK!

Here is the blog I wrote in 2012,

on Sarah's 18th birthday.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012,  we celebrated our daughter,

Sarah Zheng-Kang Norwood's 18th birthday. 

Sarah Zheng-Kang Norwood

She doesn't remember anyone celebrating her first six birthdays.  Her birth family gave her life, but they were not able to keep her.  Some parts of her Life Story may remain a mystery this side of Heaven.

She was discovered on October 9, 1994, at 246 Hou Jia Tang, Yu Hua District, outside the Dong Tang Local Police Station in Changsha City, Hunan Province , China. Someone guessed her to be nine months old.  Officials chose January 17, 1994, as the birth date for her paperwork. 

Zheng-Kang's Baby Photo ... an extraordinary gift from Schmid Family of Switzerland,
who visited the Changsha orphanage every year,
and prayed for over five years that Zheng-Kang would have a family.
Daniel Schmid was in Changsha in December 1999, when we arrived to adopt Sarah ZK.

"Her birth parents and other relatives 
have not been found up to now,"

 declared her official Chinese papers. 

She was given  the name:  "Zheng-Kang." (which means health) as a wish that this little baby (blind in one eye)  would become healthy.  She was sent to the Changsha First Social Welfare Center,  and lived at the orphange for 5 years-2 months-54 days-15 hours - until she became our daughter through the miracle of adoption.  

My husband and I, had no guarantee we would be granted permission from the Chinese officials to adopt Zheng-Kang.   I saw her photo in the Children's Hope International newsletter, and impulsively wrote beside her picture: "This is Sarah Norwood," and the date, "2-13-99."  The writing was smeared by the tears that rolled down my face.   She was blind in one eye - just like my brother, Terry.    

It seemed like God was waving a flag and saying:  "This is the one!  She's waiting for you!  You can handle the blind-in-one-eye-thing.   Think of your brother, Terry!"

God clearly called my husband and me, and equipped us emotionally, financially, physically and spiritually to become parents again through the miracle of adoption.  We were both over 50 years old and already grandparents.  Some (a very few who really didn't know us) praised us as saints.  

Most of our friends and family thought we were nuts to adopt at our age.  They accused us of trying to recapture our youth by becoming parents again.    Others reprimanded us because we already had our time to be parents in the 1970's with our biological son and daughter.   We were chastised for not saving this time in our lives for each other.    

We just didn't fit 
into the  "Baby Boomer" paradigm  
some pictured in their minds. 

We rejected the hurtful, unsolicited comments and chose to obey His small voice.  It was clear we were not even to lean to our own understanding or submit to the chastisement of our friends and family.  God gave us friends who shared our DREAM and our JOY during our Adoption Journey.  He gave us strength and wisdom in His Word.

 "Defend the weak and the fatherless;

 uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed."   
Psalm 82:3

"Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow."  Isaiah 1:17

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: 

to look after orphans and widows in their distress..."  
James 1:27

"In the very place where it was said to them,

'You are not my people,' there they will be called

children of the living God."   
Romans 9:26 

 "...For in you (God) the fatherless find compassion."   
Hosea 14:3

"He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow..." 

 Deuteronomy 10:18

"A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,

is God in His holy dwelling. 

God sets the lonely in families..."   
Psalm 68:5-6

God proved to be greater than the mountains and continents and cultures and comments and paperwork that once separated us from our chosen child.  

The Great Wall of China

Once she was a photo I held in my hand,
and nine months later she was our daughter.  

We flew to China  
on November 28, 1999, 
our 29th wedding anniversary.  

Zheng Kang was the tiniest little six year old girl I'd ever met.  She weighed  just 37 pounds soaking wet.  I hardly noticed her bulging, blind eye as I looked into the soul of a terrified child who - until now -  had no one to wipe away her tears.  Her silky, black hair was cropped close to her head - nearly shaved - in a pixie cut.  She was dressed in seven layers of tattered, handmade clothing, and a red backpack held her only possessions:  a bottle of milk and a small framed photo of herself.  Her arms clutched the picture book with images of Ed, me, and our family that we had mailed her weeks before our arrival. 

Ed meets Zheng Kang for the first time. 
He is wearing a button with her photograph on it.

The "auntie" (helper from the orphanage) who brought her to our hotel room pointed to Ed and me and said, "Zheng-Kang's Mamma and Ba Ba!"  Ba Ba is Chinese for  Daddy. 

Zheng Kang began to cry. 

"Tell her I will cry when she cries," I said to the interpreter, but I looked directly in Zheng Kang's eyes.   

First Meeting:  Marcia shows Zheng-Kang her photograph.

I coaxed her into our room by blowing bubbles and toys.   I offered her Cheerios.  She accepted our gifts until she realized she would have to stay with us. 

She gave back all the toys and began to shake her head and said:  "NO!"  (The only English word  she knew.)  She kept the food, and was inconsolable when the "auntie" from her orphanage left. 

She wanted nothing to do with me, and gestured for me to go sit in a chair away from her.  I did...for a while.  She needed to control something on the day that her entire world was spinning out of control.    She liked Ed much better than me.  Our interpreter advised us to lock the door so Zheng Kang  didn't escape and run  one block from the hotel to the Changsha First Social Welfare Center (orphanage) where she spent the first six years of her life.     

I opened one suitcase -  full of clothes and toys - and offered them to her - one at a time.  I gave her new shoes - but not until she relinquished her old ones.  And so it went as we exchanged the old for new.  We carefully saved the clothes she wore that day,  and treasure them more as the years go by. 

I drew a bubble bath for her, and she actually smiled when she smelled the fragrance of the shampoo and conditioner.  She played with the fishy washcloth and the bath bubbles.  I hugged her for the first time as I lifted her out of the tub and wrapped her  in a towel.  I gently massaged her with Baby Magic, and thought my heart would burst from pure JOY.   

After nine months, and thousands of miles... I embraced our new baby in my arms - and she let me!  I combed her hair and added butterfly hair clips, and she put some in my hair, too.  We ordered room service (pizza, rice and vegetables) for our first meal together. 

She learned two more English words:

"Pizza" and "Shopping." 

This was indeed, a girl after my own heart.

First Meal Together:  Room Service...Pizza and Rice!
After Bath:  New PJ's and Butterfly Hair Clips

We learned later - that this was not only her first meal with us -

 it was the first time she  ever had supper in her entire life.

Orphan Table
Zheng-Kang (2nd from RIGHT) at Changsha Orphanage
(Photo is a gift from the Schmid Family of Switzerland)

"I was hungry every day until you came to get me, Momma,"  

Zheng Kang said when she learned to speak English. 

"We ate two times a day: a bowl of rice in the morning

and a bowl of rice in the afternoon. 

Sometimes farmers brought us vegetables. 

We never had supper. 

I went to bed hungry every night until you adopted me. 

What took you so long?"

I still don't have a good answer. 

What took me so long to hear the cry of the 163 million orphans around the world?  What took me so long to see her as more than a statistic, more than a photo on a piece of paper?  What took me so long to realize that with God's help - I could make a difference in the world - one child at a time?

We kept her Chinese name as her middle name.

Sarah Zheng-Kang Norwood
Chinese Characters for her name are in the right background.

Sarah ZK's First Anniversary of Her  Happy Adoption Day
December 1, 2000

She became Sarah Zheng-Kang Norwood, with all the love,  legal rights and privileges as our homemade (bio) children:  Kristin and Benjamin.  The Chinese and American governments recognized this - but most Americans were-and-still-are absolutely clueless.  

I know because I still get those unsolicited comments: "Who is her REAL mother?  Will you ever be able to love her like you do your REAL children?  Why didn't you adopt a kid from the USA?"

I answer them  from a heart that reminds me I was once ignorant too - until God broke my heart for His children around the world who still wait for their Forever Families: 

"I am her REAL mother...thanks to the miracle of adoption,
and I'm about as REAL as it gets. 

Would you like me to tell you the story of how God

supernaturally brought us together? 

He is greater than the mountains and continents and cultures

and comments and paperwork that once separated us. 

Oh!  You mentioned the children of America. 

Do you want to adopt one of the 100, 0000 children

available for adoption in the USA  -

or give your time and money like we do -  

through organizations here in America? 

Or did you just want to criticize me?"

Most people don't want to listen to anything else I have to say.    

But occasionally - some do.   

So I tell them true stories of our adventures with God.  Stories of our journey to China in 1999, and again in 2002, to  bring home our youngest daughter, Faith Fu Ju Norwood. 

Dang Fu Ju
Benxi Social Welfare Center, Liaoning Province, China

We are now in our 60's raising  two

Chinese/American daughters:   
both born in China  in 1994.   

They might not have known each other 
if not for the miracle of adoption.  

People remark that our daughters are lucky.
It's not luck at all. 
Our family needed them -  
just as much as they needed us.

Sarah Zheng-Kang and Faith Fu Ju
at the Shengyang Palace, Liaoning Province, China
October 2002

Sarah Zheng-Kang Norwood was born in Changsha City, Hunan Province, China, in January 17, 1994, and adopted into our Forever Family on December 1, 1999. 

 Faith Fu Ju Norwood was born in Benxi City, Liaoning Province, China, on July 2, 1994, with cleft lip and palate; abandoned and discovered at a railway station on July 5, 1994 - my 45th birthday; and adopted in to our Forever Family on October 13, 2002..but that's another story! 

Would you like to hear more?

Sarah Zheng-Kang Norwood & Faith Fu Ju Norwood seem lost
in the streets of Shengyang City, Liaoning Province, China....
when I stepped a few feet away to take this photo.
October 2002

NOTE: 

Marcia's story about Sarah ZK, 
"The Beautiful Girl in the Mirror,"  
was published in...

Chicken Soup To Inspire The Body and Soul.
             Edited by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen,

Dan Millman, Diana von Welanetz Wentworth
ISBN # 0-7573-0141-X


The Beautiful Girl in the Mirror" 
 Page 233

Thanks for stopping by!

Come back often, and invite a friend!

 






























Mary Marcia
America's STORYTELLER
Telling Untold Stories in Photographs, Prose and Public Speaking

 

IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER

Mary Marcia
America's STORYTELLER
Telling Untold Stories in Photographs, Prose and Public Speaking

Ice and Snow

Three of our four adopted, rescued puppies in the snow and ice! 

 

Link:   http://tellmeastory-marcia.blogspot.com/2017/01/its-never-too-late-to-live-happily-ever.html

January 2017

The Kansas City metropolitan area is bracing for an ice storm, and the most dangerous time could very well be during the AFC Divisional Playoffs when the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Pittsburgh Steelers at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas city, Missouri, on  Sunday, January 15, 2017.  

The game was scheduled for the afternoon, but it has now been moved to an evening game because of the pending ice storm.  It is actually supposed to get warmer in the evening. 

LINK:  

http://nflspinzone.com/2017/01/13/steelers-chiefs-preview-prediction-afc-divisonal-playoff-2017/

 

Pearl Ming Zhu, was left in a puppy mill and rescued.  She weighed less than 2 pounds when we adopted her.  We fed her every two hours for the first weeks she was with us. 

Our snow-covered back deck.

Snow covered teak table on our back deck. 

Snow covered front sidewalk. 

Here's my blog from January 12, 2012.

 Thursday, January 12, 2012

 Snowflakes!

Our first measurable snowfall of the season (barely an inch) fell today in the Kansas City Metro area. 

What a difference from the Winter of 2011, when the snow was never-ending.  We couldn't even get out of our driveway last Christmas to go to my brother, Terry's house.

We've been blessed with several days of 50 - 60 degree temperatures in recent weeks.  I was able to plant about 50 new daffodil bulbs here at home under a new clump of river birch trees, and 400-plus tulip and daffodil bulbs in the new entry gardens at our church.

 I never thought I'd be praying for cold weather - but I have been. 

Wonder why?

A period of freezing weather is needed to force the almost 500 bulbs we planted into dormancy - or they won't bloom in the spring.  Bulbs develop roots before frost, but most bulbs need to experience  two months of cold dormancy before they resume their growth and flowering cycle in the spring.  

Planting bulbs is  like a special secret between God and me.  Miracles-in-progress under the snow-covered ground go unnoticed, until the warmth and sunshine of spring cause the cold dormant bulbs to grow and flower.

 

I was giddy with excitement when I peeked out my bedroom window and saw the snowfall that descended while I slept. 

 Snowflakes!

You can see them - touch them - taste them! 

They bring back memories of childhood....and playtime in the snow....and storybooks.

Remember Snow White? 

Snow White (illustrations of Franz Jüttner, 1905-1910)

Once upon a time a good queen sat sewing at her window, and pricked her finger on a needle.  Three drops of her blood fell on the snow that had fallen on her ebony window frame. 

She looked at the blood on the snow, and said to herself, " Oh! How I wish I had a daughter that had skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony." 

Soon after, the queen gave birth to a baby girl with skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony.  They named her Princess Snow White.  The queen died as soon as the child was born.  The king took a new wife - who was beautiful but very, very vain.  The story features the magic mirror, the evil step-mother queen, the poisoned apple, seven dwarves, a glass coffin, and the handsome prince. 

Who can forget (Say it with me now):   "Mirror, mirror....on the wall - who's the fairest of them all?"

 The mirror's reply?

"Snow White!"

Snow White's story is not to be confused with another of my childhood favorites:  Snow-White and Rose-Red. 

Snow White and Rose Red by Jessie Wilcox Smith, 1911

Snow-White and Rose-Red lived with their mother, a poor widow, in a small cottage.  Both sisters were good little girls who loved each other dearly, even though they had totally different personalities.  Their story features a bear who comes knocking on the door of their cottage and finds friendship and shelter;   a wicked dwarf;  and of course a handsome prince and his brother who end up marrying Snow-White and Rose-Red...and they all live:  (Say it with me) "Happily ever after!"

It's never too late to live happily ever after...even for you and me.

We understand through our own experiences that bad things happen to good people.  We encounter evil and wicked people in our everyday lives. Sometimes we are the wicked ones.

Yet - God comes to us where we live;  lights our path and offers us His free gift of forgiveness and salvation.  He gives us a choice: 

"This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you

 that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.

Now choose life, so that you and your children may live,

and that you may love the Lord your God,

listen to his voice, and hold fast to him.

For the Lord is your life,

and he will give you many years

in the land he swore to give to your fathers,

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Deuteronomy 30: 19-20

There are thorns in our rose gardens, but He promises to be with us in those troubled times. 

He redeems us by the blood of an innocent lamb, Jesus.  

He makes our mess our message to a hurting world. 

Now that's a true story with a happy ending!

It's never too late to live happily ever after!

"Come.  Sit down.  Let's argue this out."

This is God's Message:  "If your sins are blood-red, 
they'll be snow-white.

If they're red like crimson, they'll be like wool."

 Isaiah 1:18
The Message Bible

Just as rain and snow descend from the skies
and don't go back until they've watered the earth -

Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,

producing  seed for farmers;

and food for the hungry.

 Isaiah 55:10

The Message Bible 

Thanks for stopping by!

Come back often, and invite a friend!

 

Mary Marcia

America's STORYTELLER

Telling Untold Stories in Photographs, Prose and Public Speaking