Chapter 22

“Fear not, for I am with you;
Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you,
Yes, I will help you,
I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” —Isaiah 41:10

After the first few weeks of cautious optimism, Roma and our a worked. He hung out with his friends. He stayed home with us. He played sports. His innate sweetness returned. So had the respectfulness he had always exhibited to others when he again respected himself. His texts were kind and grateful when asking me to change our routine for his transportation needs. If he had to wait, even an hour, he waited patiently. Something had surely transformed our son.

He tried out for and made the semi-pro football team he had been practicing with, earning the starting quarterback position. Roma, of course, had to look the part, ordering more new equipment and clothing for practice. His car fund dwindled, but he was so happy, I saved my financial advice for another time. And the consequence of no car was that I got to continue spending travel time with him.

 I yearned for wholeness for this beautiful young man who, in his never-humble opinion, believed he had already arrived at that destination. I saw his vast potential and his abundant gifts. But he possessed a child-like innocence that was hardly compatible with real life. I remember an observation of our adoption agency’s social worker who was also an adoptive mom. She shared that her biological children had received 18 years of in-family care. The adopted ones might need the same amount of time, even if they were 25 when they could leave the nest. I was finally ready to accept that possibility, even embracing having Roma close, so I could delight in his progress.

Roma was so dear, so genuinely sweet, and, when not determined to be the boss, he was a delight. That’s it—Roma delighted me. That was a new mercy and miracle. God had brought him home and reminded me what a treasure he was. A “diamond in the rough,” a teacher had once called him. Yes, Roma’s light shined more brightly than most, even if it wasn’t yet fully polished. If he needed to stay home several more years, that would be okay, if he didn’t descend into the darkness again. And I wasn’t going to worry about that.
            The vision I had experienced in my prayer closet, if it were indeed that, haunted me, but I was determined not to allow fear in my heart. I pushed aside the sense of impending suffering that began just before Roma was expelled from Fork Union in March 2013 (for his blatant disregard for rules: his sixth offense of dipping tobacco.) Likely it was that memory that fueled my overactive imagination and reignited an ember of dread that led to a rogue and nightmarish thought in my prayer closet. I resolved to push out the darkness that infiltrated my current joy. Fear is always the enemy, trying to steal my peace each day. I was not about to let it overwhelm the gratitude overflowing in my heart for this long-awaited season of harmony.

Roma was attending a new church with a friend. He talked about his plans to join a young adult Bible study. He was hungry for God. He even agreed to visit the teen Bible study where I served  in the kitchen preparing the meals for the teens. But at 21, Roma felt he was too old to continue with the group after his initial visit. He left a lasting impression on all in attendance with his relaxed demeanor and warm humor, especially with the teenage girls. But he promised me he would find a Bible study for his own age group.

“Mom, I feel like something big is coming,” he told me one morning in the car on the fourth week he was home. I was stunned, and confessed that I had had the same premonition, for the past few years, that something big was coming.

Roma and I were often on some kind of fine-tuned frequency.

I reminded Roma of a memorable incident that happened shortly after God had His way and Roma arrived in our family. I had picked him up from his first American birthday party. He was babbling on in his broken English about the fun he had experienced at the party. His new vocabulary was insufficient to describe his experience, so he used loud sound effects and wild arm motions.

My attention was suddenly and unexpectedly diverted as I noticed a street sign at an intersection in an area of town I rarely visited. I had an instant flashback to a murder that happened on that street many years earlier. A man had returned home in the middle of his night shift to shoot his wife as their young children slept. I rolled past the sign in silence. But as I turned to see why Roma had become suddenly quiet, he was watching me, his green eyes narrowed. He simply said, “Killing is a terrible thing.” Chills covered my body. It was as if he had heard my thoughts.

“What made you say that, Roma?” I asked, trying not to alert him about my shock.

He just shrugged and said in his husky, thick accent, “Ah dunno.”

I was reminded of a time 15 years earlier, when I had been fighting God over His idea about adoption when it wasn’t my idea. A few times while I was sound asleep, I awoke to someone calling my name. It was so clear, I would sit straight up in bed and answer, “What?”

It reminded me of the story of Samuel. In Samuel’s day, according to 1 Samuel 3:1, words and visions from the Lord were rare. When young Samuel heard his name being called, three times, at first, he basically answered like I did. But there the similarity ends, for Samuel finally answered, with his master Eli’s prompting, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” I never answered with such surrender!

The Lord’s response to Samuel? “See, I’m about to do something that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle.”

When Roma had been on his prodigal journey, I had recalled that experience. On many occasions, I would go into my dark closet, drop to my knees, and plead my case for my lost boy.

I prayed, “Lord, let him hear you call his name.” I remembered how powerful that experience had been for me. As I prayed, often I would envision what that might look like. Sometimes in my attempts to help God answer my fervent prayer, I would even call out Roma’s name in a loud whisper, envisioning I was right by his ear as he slept. I trusted that God could connect my brain with Roma in a powerful, miraculously transforming moment, as we had always shared an eerily common bond, even from a distance as far as Maryland to Atlanta.

In the car that morning, I decided to ask, “Roma, have you ever had an experience you would call, um . . . ‘spiritual’”?

He didn’t pause for long.

“Well.” He started slowly, gauging whether he should continue with his crazy-sounding story. “Sometimes, when I am sleeping . . .”

He paused as chill bumps covered my arms and tears stung my eyes. I knew what his next words would be.

“I hear a voice calling my name.” Having admitted that strange part, he gained momentum. He put his fingertips together and held them close to his ear. “It is like a loud whisper right in my ear.” He smiled at his story that seemed to happen in another dimension. He knew his crazy mom would appreciate his stories. He did not know, until I confessed that had been my exact prayer for him.

“Mom! Stop praying that, It’s annoying.”

I was giddy at hearing how precisely my fervent prayers had been answered. And Roma didn’t doubt for a moment that my prayer was behind his annoying experience. We both laughed. “Yes, Roma, it becomes even more annoying if you don’t answer God’s call. I’ve been there!”

Oh, the joy this surprise gift of Roma brought me on so many levels. Roma made God visible to me. I knew what it was like to resist that “Call,” a call that was annoying from my human standpoint. That Call that asks the impossible of us, to leave our god of the almighty self, and head down an alternate narrow road less traveled. I know what it is like to surrender to the Call, if only once in a while, and encounter sacred joy. Watching Roma surrender to his Call was even more joyful than my own surrender.

He was unsure about the “something big” he sensed was coming. But I learned to listen to “Roma’s wisdom,” as a friend would call it later. Roma had wisdom? Who knew? I was always so busy trying to impart some of my wisdom into Roma’s hard head that I was hardly quiet and still enough to listen to him. I was so thankful for this present opportunity. I always recognized that something was special about Roma, but my focus was suddenly being skillfully honed by the Master.

Was this “something” Roma “felt” was “coming” the same “thing” I had felt for three years? Our minds were in sync sometimes in bizarre, astounding and hair-raising ways, as if a fine thread of telepathy connected us.

On November 13th, Roma texted me, “I think it’s started. France just got bombed. And I believe it’s not the end of the attacks.”

That night Roma boldly posted on Face Book, sounding like an Old Testament prophet:
“Oh we should be scared for what’s coming to this country and what God is capable of. Look out for the signs.”

So whatever Roma thought was the “something big” coming, his thought was global. I had similar vague feelings that the world was about to change in ways I could hardly verbalize.

 

Continue with Chapter 23