Ok. I know it’s been a really long time since I’ve posted on here, but I feel like I absolutely positively cannot finish this day without sharing this story with you!
I was lucky enough to wake up this morning and find out that school was cancelled! Yay bonus day at home with my kids! So as I am avoiding my housework I logged on to Facebook and started patrolling. I saw that a friend is wanting to buy some glitter paint for her daughter’s walls when she redoes her room, and I smiled. I watched a video of a parody of the song Hello, making fun of how difficult it is to exercise and avoid pizza and donuts, and I laughed. I saw a post about the school shooting in Kentucky and thought of my students and how much I love them and worry about them. And then I saw a post that changed my thinking – hopefully forever! And that’s why I HAVE to share it with you:
This is a true story from my past.
The first piece of new furniture my husband bought for me was a rocking chair, a simple, neither ornate nor fancy, rocking chair. I cherished it and it became the spot where I sang, prayed, read, sewed, rocked my children and filled it with love.
Through the years that chair heard thousands of prayers but one must have embedded in the grain of the wood. We were going through a tough time and in order to survive we sold almost all that we had at auction. The night before the auction I sat in the rocker and sang my babies to sleep just as I did every night. Before getting up from that chair for the last time, I prayed with tears streaming down my face,
“Dear Lord, thank you for this rocking chair. It has been a blessing to me and to my children. Please let the people that buy it feel Your love. Let them hold their babies and rock them to sleep. Let them sing. Let them laugh. Let them enjoy all that you have to bring to them. Amen.”
I stayed inside the house while that chair sold, unable to watch it go. Of all our sold possessions, that was the most precious. Unbeknownst to me, the couple that purchased that chair desperately wanted children but, as yet, had none. But God heard our prayers and the couple was soon blessed with a lovely girl. This was a special blessing for me because it was my brother and his wife that purchased the rocker so I got a beautiful niece, and later a handsome nephew from God.
Years rolled by and the chair was returned to me for my eldest daughter’s first two children. The chair fell apart and I decided to sell it at a garage sale. This time, the rocker was in pieces in a little open box and very well worn. Most people simply walked by. One older couple and their daughter were drawn to the chair parts. They spent a long time just looking so I walked over and told them the story of the rocker. Their eyes lighted as they told me that the daughter and her husband had been trying, unsuccessfully, to bear children. The dad enjoyed rebuilding old furniture and they would give it a good home.
I do not know where the rocker is now but I believe that God blessed every family that has owned it. I am thankful for each soul that found comfort while sitting in that simple wooden chair.
Here is what I commented on my aunt’s post:
I seriously can’t stop crying! I’M THAT BABY! And while I knew that story, I haven’t heard it in YEARS (probably around the time that Mary got it). And yet today this story falls on a heart that far too often beats its self up for not being enough, not skinny enough, not smart enough, not good enough, not strong enough, the list goes on and on. And yet here I am, on Facebook because school is canceled today and I have plenty of other things I can and should do around the house but I’m on Facebook and end up reading about ME and that my conception and birth story is being passed on and giving others hope for a future filled with family and love and hugs and baby snuggles! And it’s inspiring ME and helping me realize that all those slings and arrows I fire at myself, I’m firing them at her too (that baby in the miracle rocker). That baby whose story has brought hope to a family. That baby was (and still is) more than enough because she is fearfully and wonderfully made and she needs to recognize it more often! She (I) was prayed for, wanted, loved, cherished (even when I was naughty). Yes, I’m an adult now with two miracle babies of my own, who were also prayed for, loved & cherished, and while I would never sling those arrows at them either, I shoot them at myself.
Well no longer! New new years resolution: be nice to MYSELF because I’m all God made me to be – ME!
Friends, go be YOU today! Because YOU are enough! YOU are fearfully and wonderfully made – know it to the bottom of your toes! You are beautiful!
Click the pic above for a printable version!
Tamar Knochel 