The Foundation

It was God and only God who graced us during our long and sporadic discernment. He laid two main blocks for the foundation, sturdy enough for the rest to be built on. As simple as it sounds, one was Rose and the other was me.

Rose was born and raised to love. The story, as I love to tell, is that she is the youngest of 12 children brought into this world by John and Leona Schissler. And though she has been the baby all through her thirty-six years, this start put her smack dab in the middle of an environment which had a deep-seeded respect and appreciation for life.

Children were always around Rose. Her siblings, sure, and lots of cousins (um, she has 68 of the first variety alone) and friends; plus those from the days of her mother running a daycare in their home. It was natural then for Rose to become a babysitter extraordinaire in the teen years. Off to college, but not far off, she studied Early Childhood Education at Towson University. Equipped with her degree, she spent six years as a teacher at Grace Methodist School; and, always the hard worker, she worked a second job as the Director of After School Daycare at Friends School in Baltimore, supervising over 100 children each day.

Rose then felt called to both better herself and offer different care to children; as a result, she applied to and was accepted into Towson’s Masters program for Occupational Therapy. Ten years later she is an experience Pediatric OT, having taken the road less traveled – up the sidewalk and directly into the homes of children with challenges that should quiet most of us during our own “struggles.”

Of course, lest we forget, there are three other little challenges having helped forge the path in this direction for Rose: Julia, Benjamin, and Elizabeth. One thinks they know Love, and then God hugs them with the arms of a child.

Yes, His Love is something else all together. It’s not so much that it’s different, but rather it’s pure, and forever. And without His love, I am uncomfortably confident in writing there would be no story for me to write.

My conversion to Jesus Christ, while still a daily committment, is what ultimately opened, then expanded my heart – indeed, it gave it a second beat. Sacred Scripture talks of a new birth, and it is a Truth that seemingly still swaddles me six years after coming into the Church. Here, in the context of this journey, I have come to know and to believe that God will love us through our China Child (1 Jn 4: 16).