Author: Betsy Kylstra
Actually, my father's blessings had begun many years earlier, in 1940. What a surprise my mother had in late October that year, getting a call from the North Carolina Children's Home Society, an adoption agency.
"We have a little girl for you," they said.
"A little what? A little girl?" my mother questioned, the shock evident in her voice.
My parents had adopted a son, Charlie, three years earlier, and had applied for another little boy to keep him company.
"Ah, well, yes. Yes! We will come immediately."
My mother left what she was doing, drove to the college where my father taught, and announced to him and his class,
"Lewis, come quickly, we have a little baby girl!"
Daddy made history that day by dismissing class, not even giving his students a homework assignment. Full of emotion, my parents cautiously tried out the words, "We have a little girl."
When they arrived in Greensboro later that day, the busy social worker told them to go into the nursery where the babies who were waiting to be placed were kept. Five or six tiny ones lay in bassinets, awaiting decisions that would affect their destinies. My parents looked carefully at each baby, then stopped and stood by me.
"This is the daughter the Lord has given us," they said to each other.
They knew immediately that I was theirs. With a sense of divine purpose, they chose me. It was settled in their hearts. In a few minutes, the social worker came in to provide confirmation that the baby they were looking at was indeed the one for them. She also added that an unusual thing had happened.
"The birth mother of this baby sent along a lot of sweet baby clothes. Would you like to see them?" she asked.
My parents shared the good news of my adoption with me very early in my life, the news that I was especially chosen.
"If we could have picked from all of the little girls in the world, we would have picked you. God made you just for us, and you are perfect for us." Then they added, "You know, other parents have to just take whatever baby they get. They don't have any choice, but we got to choose you."
It made me feel very, very special. It made me feel that I was important. Eventually, it made me feel that God had such a specific plan for my life that He needed to take me out of one family and put me into this one, so that His plan would work out just right. I had a deep, unspoken sense of destiny. I was special, especially picked out, especially chosen.
So I began a rich love relationship with my parents that grew and flourished through the years. This love would help heal many of the wounds and insecurities already present within their tiny baby girl. This love would help lay a foundation of understanding within me so that later I could receive God the Father's love and His Choosing.
As I came to know the Lord, I realized that, just as my parents, He had also chosen me. That was good news. In a wonderful way, I already understood early in life what it meant to be chosen. It meant that I was very special and very loved, and had a unique destiny.
Before I was school age, my parents read to me directly from the Bible.
"Listen to this, Betsy, it says here that the Lord has blessed us with every spiritual blessing:
Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, He predestined us to adoption ... to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will.
I understood. It was good. I loved being twice adopted, twice chosen.
(Continued)
Perhaps my "dark side" was not dark in the ways you may be thinking. It was not an ugly pile of hidden sins, an area of deep perversion, a force of malicious schemes, or a sinister side held in the clutches of some diabolical, witchcraft spell. Neither was my dark side a foreboding monster waiting to pounce and destroy someone else. My dark side tormented me, and me alone. It was filled with night terrors, unrelenting dreads, and taunting lies that threatened the very meaning and value of my life. It continuously reminded me that "I had no right to exist," that "I was a mistake."
For many years, I did not experience my dark side in a way that I could talk about it logically. I did not have a clear mental grasp of its parts, or how it all fit together. Furthermore, I was filled with shame for not being able to control or conquer it. Understanding has only come with God's healing, so that now I can put it into a coherent framework. Let me explain.
As long as I can remember, I lived with the tyrant of Fear. I was as riddled with fear as an old hat used for target practice is riddled with holes. I tried to ignore my fear, bury it, pretend it away, push it aside. I even tried to overcome it with the power of specific scriptures. It would never yield for very long. I despised it. I felt ashamed of it. I dreaded it. I felt victimized by it. When I thought I was about to win over it, it would launch a particularly vicious attack. The fears of my dark side made me feel weak, immature, faithless, and sometimes, a little crazy.
My fear had many faces. There was fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of being left out, and fear of losing my "place." However, it was the sweat-drenching fear that I was about to be killed that I hated the most. This fear was the worst at night. My anxiety escalated as the evening shadows began to fall.
As a little girl, I felt dread going up the stairs to my room.
"Step one, two, three."
"Won't somebody come upstairs with me?" I pleaded.
"There is nothing up there. You'll be fine," my parents called back, not wanting to encourage foolish fears.
"Step four, five, six."
I went on alone, feeling more unraveled with every step.
"I'm going to die. It's going to happen this time. I don't want to die. When they come up to tell me good night, it will be too late."
"Step seven, eight, nine, ten."
"I have to go on. I have to face it. I can't turn around. There is no help."
"Step eleven, twelve, thirteen!"
Now I was on the landing. I was sweaty and cold. Forcing one foot in front of the other, I entered my room.
"Where will it come from, the dreaded thing that is about to kill me. Will it be in the closet, or under the bed? Is it planning to wait until I go to sleep, and then murder me before I know what is happening?"
Quickly, I got ready for bed. I kept my pajamas in the drawer so I didn't have to open the closet. I lay down in the bed stiffly, waiting, waiting, waiting ...
Many nights I heard my parents come up for bed before I could go to sleep. Even then I would have bad dreams, or be startled, wide awake, when something went bump in the night.
This torturous scenario repeated itself over and over, year after year after year. Sometimes it was a little better; sometimes a little worse. The dread was never further away than the darkness.
With morning's light I would take heart.
"Surely I will outgrow this," I hoped against hope. I didn't.
As I grew older, the shame that I couldn't overcome such "childish ways" only escalated.
"God, how can I say that I trust You and still go into a frozen sweat if the door blows open?"
I read every self-help book I could find, Christian and otherwise. I tried many strategies, all to no avail. I felt like a child, trying desperately to grow up, but who had a malfunctioning pituitary gland. An essential key was missing. I felt hopelessly stuck in this nightmare. It was wretched, infuriating, loathsome to me; a source of self-hatred. I was shackled.
"How do you think you are going to serve the Lord in any significant way when you can't even get through the night without fear?" a voice from deep inside ridiculed me. "What kind of testimony is that, especially after walking with Him all these years?"
I always thought the voice was myself speaking.
"Lord," I screamed in exasperation. "Why don't You do something? Why don't You fix me? I don't know how to fix myself!"
His only answer seemed to be silence.
"Doesn't He care?" I wondered.
In my frustration, I began to blame Him. I wanted to serve God, but I was angry with Him, furious. I was in a "double bind."
"Why should I do something for You, God, when You won't even help me?"
In the midst of my fears, my dilemma, my double bind, there was a searching question which defied all explanation.
"Where had this relentless fear of death come from, this dreadful sense that I am about to be killed? What was its source?"
I knew that my life had never been threatened in Davidson, my safe, little community, full of so many friends.
"Had something happened earlier, before Davidson and my home?"
I had no way of knowing the answer.
(Continued)
You will be blessed and enlightened as you read this book. It will cause you to laugh and to cry. It will cause you to contemplate and meditate on God's goodness and faithfulness.
"Twice Chosen" gives a vivid portrayal of God's providential purpose being worked out in an individual's life. Betsy's life reveals that God chooses us before we know we have been chosen. It demonstrates God's timing and seasons that cause things to happen in a chain of events to bring one forth to divine destiny.
Bishop Bill Hamon
"Twice Chosen" is a book about adoption by God, as well as by human parents. Through it, I came to better understand myself as well as my adopted friends. Thank you for writing this book.
A Friend, Pensacola, Florida
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