Meeting the Mother Who Gave Me Up for Adoption After 60 Years - Vince Lewis

One thing that I think is, uh, is incredibly, uh, interesting another, uh, time, uh, and I, I talk about God in our lives as, as Him pulling on a thread, gently pulling all the time, never yanking that, that thread, but just, if, if we'll submit to that and recognize it, like maybe I was sitting next to my bed reading that little black Bible, that's God tugging on that thread slowly, and He's not gonna throw me in, in, into the fire and, and, uh, difficult times. There are people that, martyrs that's happened to, uh, got threatened with, with death if they didn't recant. But yet, uh, in my life, that God kept pulling on that. And so that's the story of my life.

But there's another story that's in parallel that I was adopted and I never saw my adopted mother again. Well, Charlotte begins, uh, researching and researching, I mean, for a few years, a number of years, and along comes the computer and, and her search is accelerated and she finds my action, my natural mother, who I've never seen or heard from or talked to in my entire life. And so, um, I pray to God, "Lord, could you just let me talk to her once? I would just be so happy if I could just do that." And so Charlotte found through some, some contacts, uh, some relatives of her, she found her phone number. And this was in 2004.

I picked up the phone and we called her and she said, it was almost, these aren't her words, but it was also there was a pause, like she was about to say, "I'm sorry, you have the wrong number." And she could have said that.

But God was acting. He was active in this area. And it, it's sometimes even 2004 is a way back, but it really, uh, gets me, uh, even in my emotions. Sometimes I could just cry, uh, realizing what God did. And she said, uh, "Yes, that's me."

And wow. So things went on. It was in 2006, um, we went to, uh, Chicago near where she lives and we got to meet her for the first time. Here's my mother that gave me birth and had to give me up, gave me up because that's the only thing she knew how to do or facing re-rejection and, and, and rebellion from her whole, own family and getting, uh, maybe even put out of the family and disgraced. She chose when she could have aborted me, which is the easy solution today for a lot of people. Let's just abort. It's like bombing those people in a bombing campaign. I'm not thinking about those people. I'm thinking about me.

And I think abortion is the same way. It's a convenient thing to do. I'm not thinking about who that is. I'm thinking about me. And this is an interruption of my life. And my mother could have aborted me, but she said, "I knew better." In 2006, I met her for the first time. I learned about her and, uh, we met, uh, her husband at the time, who did not know about me. And, uh, 50 some years, um, after this had happened after my birth, he finds out that his wife of 50 some years had a baby before they were married. And I'm telling you, that would not be easy for any man that had been married that long to accept, to find out his wife had had a baby and never told him.

And so, uh, she took us to her house to meet him. He was polite and kind. And, um, she asked, "Mom," my mother asked us to stay for, uh, a family get-together. And just something inside me said, "No." And it was a good decision. Again, I think the Lord and, and wanting me to go in that direction. And we got home and I got a very abrupt and, and I would, it's a, it's a tough word, but I would say a nasty letter from him, uh, how I had ruined his, his life and their marriage and everything by, uh, coming and meet her. And, and I didn't, I didn't wanna go down that avenue and blame him or, or blame my mom or, or, or accept all this blame on myself.

And that's just what happened. And those are the circumstances we went through. And, um, I said, "Okay, you know, I met my mom. I, I, I got what God, uh, I'd ask God to do and even more, not talking to her only, but meeting her." And so he took a copy of that letter. I don't even know why someone would do that. It was not a rich man. He lived in a, in a neighborhood in a, in, uh, Ohio or in Chicago, suburb, Naperville was the suburb and, uh, stucco house and rather small split-level house. And he took that letter, he made a copy of it and stuck it in his, in his file.

And years later, my mother passed and he passed. And so, um, they had children and those children were cleaning out, uh, his things. They sold off the goods in the house, you know, all the furniture and, and things. Uh, he had had a lot of tools. They sold that off. A lot of bidders came in. They had an auction company get rid of that. But while they were cleaning out his house, they found a copy of this letter 10 years after he had written it. God kept that letter in that file, this carbon copy, so to speak, of that letter.

Why would they have found that? How could they have found that? And I discovered I had, uh, more than just a mother that I may be related to. So I got this, this is 10 years later. I got a letter in the mail one day, uh, saying, it, it basically said, uh, "You don't know who we are, but we, we know who you are." I said, "Letters like that usually just, you know, toss them in the trash and, and be done with." But there was something that made me rea realize that, uh, we began to look and, uh, "You may be our brother. In fact, we think you are. And, um, we'd like to, like to talk to you."

And so without hesitation, we, uh, created a vision, a video exchange, uh, immediately for the next day. And I got to visually see the one, uh, I've never seen. He's kind of in a, in a different, uh, location than her, uh, than, than the rest of them. And I have six brothers and sisters I never knew about. And we're in very good relations with them. And they're at different places in their spiritual walk. But wow. And, and we send cards and, and celebrate, uh, birthdays and things and, and Christmas and Easter. We send them cards because they know it. That's what appreciate. That was in 2016. Wow.