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By Donna L. Huisjen


Indeed, you are my lamp, O Lord, the Lord lightens my darkness (2 Samuel 22:29).


pring is coming, but I can’t help but appreci- ate Dr. Seuss’ commentary on the dark sea- son that began Dec. 21: “How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon.


December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?” That first day of winter is more likely to pass unno- ticed than the first day of spring. In December we were immersed in planning or already enjoying Christmas festivities. We probably associated winter’s beginning with holiday nostalgia. We likely were thinking of snow as fluffy, picturesque and conducive to celebration, not as yellowed or dirt-tinged. In the Northern Hemisphere we celebrate the coming of God’s Son only days after the year’s deepest darkness has settled in. Easter, on the other hand, arrives on the heels of spring, when dawn arrives earlier each day and the natural world is beginning to respond to the nudges of warmth and light. Darkness is hard on people. For many in cold, bleak climates, depression settles in during long months with a dearth of light. Where I live near Grand Rapids, Mich., it isn’t uncommon for us to move through weeks seeing only the barest fraction of “possible sunlight.” Our spir- its are noticeably lifted on those rare crisp and cloudless days.


As the single adoptive mother of three special needs daughters, now grown, I’ve known my share of late- winter darkness. It’s been five years since I “lost” my three oldest grandchildren, then 4, 5, and 6 years old. Five years since their troubled custodial dad dragged them for the last time out of my reach, only to lose them to an out-of-state child welfare agency. As the family drifted in and out of homelessness, they had repeatedly found refuge with me for months at a time, sometimes unannounced. And I had done all I could to love these precious children and pro- vide for their spiritual nurture. I had taken upon myself the role of mom, doing all I could to brighten their lives. The last time Will, Lily and Warren (names changed for confidentiality) spent a weekend in my home, little Warren issued a solemn proposition: “Gramma, please keep me!”


I told him I wanted to but the decision wasn’t mine. All the right stuff. But it wasn’t enough. That was just before the vagabond family left once again in their limping vehi-


Huisjen is a freelance writer in Wyoming, Mich. 28 The Lutheran • www.thelutheran.org


Lenten


cle for the prospect of greener pastures in Kentucky. On Feb. 3, 2007, during that period in Western Michi- gan when lack of sunlight takes its toll, I made hotel res- ervations for my youngest daughter, her baby and me to travel south to visit the family, whose whereabouts we felt fortunate to know.


I had worked 31 years for a large Christian publishing house, but that very afternoon my manager escorted me unexpectedly to our human resources department, where I was told that my position had been eliminated. Escorted out the door, after someone else retrieved my purse and coat, I was driven home by the human resources director (my daughter, Khristina, had the car for the day). Upon my arrival I realized that my daughter also had my house key. I retreated to the back steps, waiting for her return, my tears mingling with a bone-chilling rain. The next morning I canceled our hotel reservations, but it would have made no difference. Before we were sched- uled to arrive, a social worker phoned to tell me that the children were being placed in foster care after the young- est had swallowed a handful of his dad’s pills and nearly died.


I recently learned that all three have been adopted into a Christian home. I haven’t been granted “grandparental”


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