Chosen Twice

Okay, so if you think back over the pandemic, which was hard, which was a long, hard journey, was there a moment that you remember as a beautiful moment? Or a good moment?

There were several, but I think one of the most beautiful moments for us was when we went to Colorado to be with our son and daughter-in-law on their court case when their third child was being adopted. That was really amazing. You know, I even remember Austin calling and saying, can you get out here? And we're like, oh, do we really need to be there? We're not even going to be able to go into courtroom.

It's going to be on Zoom. We'll just do it from home. But we booked a flight and sitting in their little room in their house with Holden on their lap and the other three kids around us looking into that screen and hearing that judge say, Holden is now a Wilson and he has all the rights of being a Wilson.

I mean, it's like that's part of our legacy. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

And I'm Dave Wilson. And you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today.

We were all crying hard because of the beauty of not only him being adopted, but it reminded us as children of God, we are all adopted into God's family. Yeah. And so we've got a judge in our studio. I don't know if that's ever happened for us.

Not for us. And I'm excited. We have Judge Joseph Wood with us today. And I think you're going to love today because we're going to talk about story and the story of adoption.

I mean, what's really interesting about you is the story of how you ended up where you are. You're an author of a book called Saving Joey. And the sequel, Adopting Joey.

Yeah. And a father and you got three daughters. How many grandkids? Three. Three grandkids. We had three sons. I don't know what it would be like to have three daughters. You've still got your hair.

I lost mine. But welcome to Family Life Today. We're so glad to have you. I am so honored to be here and part of the family life family in your audience. Really pleased to be here.

Joseph, tell us what you do now. I am Washington County judge here in Arkansas. First black county judge in Arkansas's history. I'm in my second term now responsible for one of the largest counties in the state of Arkansas and one of the fastest growing in the state of Arkansas. In fact, one of the fastest growing in the country and number four and one of the best places to live.

Wow. So we got a lot going on up there, the home of Walmart headquarters and Tyson headquarters and J.B. Hunt headquarters and the University of Arkansas. So we have a lot in that area.

So a lot of roads, a lot of bridges that I'm responsible for, Department of Emergency Management, taking care of public safety and public security of that two hundred fifty thousand people up there. Just a small, tiny job you're doing. It's a mighty one.

It is. And I heard over lunch, you love to mow the yard. That's one of your favorite things. I cut so much grass it seemed in my life. And I think I'm married now.

I'm going to have all these boys. And I had three daughters and I did not push hard. And my youngest, who's now 21, I think she went out one day to cut the grass. I think she made one long strip and came back.

Oh, that's so hard. Now, it was probably a little longer, probably a little wet. And but that was the turnaround. She said, yeah, but she did more than the other two.

The other two never went out there. And so I still cut the grass. You know, if I hadn't known your past by meeting you, I would not know the origins of how your life began.

So take us back to the beginning. So there's a young girl who's in her bedroom crying. And I just believe it is a young teen who just had a kid, probably hid it.

And I have no idea. But she knows she can't take care of this kid that she just had, a little boy. And she takes blankets off her bed, finds a box in her closet and puts them in there. And she walks through the streets of Chicago.

It's nighttime, snow and ice, eight degrees. And she sees an apartment complex. Tears are freezing on her face. She leaves this box on the stairs of the apartment complex. She hides behind a tree. And she's hoping and praying that someone will come out and save her little boy.

And as she's getting ready to go and get the boxes, nobody's coming. A light comes on the apartment complex. She gets behind the tree again, and she sees somebody walking out of their complex. And they notice the box, picks up the box, sees there's a kid in the box and the snow and flurries blowing, picks up the box carefully, but quickly goes back into the apartment complex.

That guy's name is Cesar Johnson. He's now just stunned about what he just discovered. And he's waking his wife up. He wakes his neighbors up. They're spending time in the neighborhood trying to figure out where this kid came from. They end up calling the Chicago Police Department a few hours later.

They're asking questions. They're walking the neighborhood, again, trying to figure out where this kid came from. And they told him, Mr. Johnson, you saved this kid.

It's eight degrees, snow and ice. We're going to take him to the orphanage downtown Chicago. And that was the beginning of my story. And I only found this out about 10 years ago. So you're the boy. I'm the boy who was in that box that Mr. Cesar Johnson found and never knew any of that. Always knew I was adopted, grew up being known I was adopted. But it was a closed adoption.

There was no information. I always grew up with a curiosity of wanting to know what happened, what happened. I struggled a lot as a teen because I wanted to know what did I do wrong? Why was I given up? Was I a product of incest? Was I a product of maybe an interracial relation that wasn't acceptable back then?

Why was I given up for adoption? Well, 10 years ago to find out not only was I giving up, I was abandoned in the streets, really just blew my mind. Yeah, stop there for a second. So you've always known you're a doctor.

But to find out that your mom or someone left you on this porch in a box. How did that hit you? How old were you at the time when you found that out?

Forty, forty-five years old. And the laws have changed in Illinois. And we had done a you heard of eHarmony where you can do a match.com. Well, those who are adopted, they can do a registry and put their information in. And those who gave up that kid can also fill that out. And if there's a match, they can share most a lot of adoptions, especially back then, the 50s, 60s, a lot of them were closed, you couldn't have that information, law sealed. And so I'd fill that out in my 20s, 30s, never heard anything. One day I got a response that I'm your dad, you've been matched.

So I'm trying to call my wife, she had just hung up the phone, turned the phone off. So anyway, come to find out the guy thought it was me, thought I was his kid. He had been searching for 40 some years, he married, had kids and all. And I said, well, let's do a blood DNA. We did the DNA and it wasn't a match. And he was just devastated.

I was devastated because he knew for sure. Well, but in that process found out that the law had changed in Illinois. Again, 10 years ago, they said that if you were ever adopted in the state of Illinois, you can have your original birth certificate. If I get my original birth certificate, I can confirm with this guy that maybe the woman was right.

He may not have been the dad, but maybe she was right. So he and I still became friends and waited and waited and waited on this original certificate to come from Illinois. But they were overwhelmed by the number of people in Illinois looking for their original birth certificate. Months later, I finally got it. I just finished cutting grass. I'm sweating. And my wife said, hey, you got something from Illinois to buy those records. And I'm like, and they were like, dad, hurry up. And I'm opening it up. So your girls are all there too. My girls, my wife, everybody.

And my mouth just froze because I got three daughters. I know what a birth certificate looks like. This is your foundling certificate.

And I'm like your audience. And I'm like, what is a foundling? So I had to look it up. You didn't even know. I had never heard of the word foundling. What is that? You were found, you were abandoned.

And that right there just sucked all the wind. You were found on this day. Hold on, that's the day I celebrate. It's my birthday. No, that's just the day you were found.

I'm 45 years old. I mean, now I'm married and my mom is gone and all. So the certificate went on to say that you were found on this day at this address by this man, Cesar Johnson, and you received an orphanage, St. Vincent's orphanage by this doctor. And literally for about three weeks, I just couldn't get that in my head that I was abandoned. So man, what could have happened?

What's the story? What could have been so bad that I was left out in the streets? That's all I knew. I was just found. Well, I ended up saying, I wonder, can I find the doctor who took me into the orphanage?

Did all this research. I found him. He had died in 1999. And then I said, I wonder, can I find a guy who found me, went through all this research, found a lot of Cesar Johnsons in the state of Illinois. So you knew the name. Because it was on the certificate. Cesar Johnson, Cesar L. Johnson found a bunch of Cesar Johnsons, but they were all like 90% of them were younger than me.

Only three names left. I said, okay, all right. 10 o'clock in the morning, I called my wife.

I was in Little Rock. I was the deputy secretary of state and I called my wife and I said, how do I get someone to take my number down? And she said, why? I said, I'm about to call these names. And if I say something that shocks them, surprise them, at least they all have my number if they want to call back. And my wife, will you just call?

You always analyze and get out of your head. That was not the response I wanted, but anyway. It sounds like it worked. I've learned over the years, 29 years of marriage, just do what they say. Just rent his life a little simpler. So I went ahead and I've called the very first number and it was older woman who answered the phone and I said, Hey, my name is Joseph.

I'm here in Arkansas. I'm looking for a guy by the name of Cesar Johnson. He spells his name a little different. He would have saved someone. And she said, hold on, save someone?

And I can't see her, but her expression, her voice in the tape, my husband saved someone? I said, well, yes ma'am. She said, well, he does spell his name different. How do you spell it?

And I start spelling. She said, yeah, that's correct. She said, save someone?

I said, yes ma'am. She said, well, what's your phone number? Now I'm now crawfishing, but I'm kind of pulling back like, why do you need my phone number? She said, he's 80 years old. He's hard of hearing. I may have to switch phones.

And now back in my head, I'm thinking, wow, if he's 80 and I'm 45, that could be about right. The time I'm working all enough and I hear, hello, what's your phone number? I'm like, oh, sorry, going through my number. She said, you said, save someone? I said, yes ma'am. She said, what's the baby he saved? Yes, ma'am. Are you the baby he saved?

Yes, ma'am. Oh, Jesus, Jesus. Oh, Lord Jesus. She went on a Holy Ghost meltdown. Oh, Jesus, Jesus. And I just start bawling. I am crying.

I mean the whole night snotting. Oh, Jesus, Jesus. Oh, Caesar, Caesar, that baby you saved.

Oh, Jesus, Jesus. She has kept going and I could not control him. I'm in my office.

I know my office people like what is going on with him. And all of a sudden he comes to the phone. Mr. Caesar's very different than Ms. Ruthie is. Yeah.

So Ms. Ruthie is a little different. He comes to the phone. Hello? My name is Joseph. Hello? He can't hear anything because you can hear her in the background.

Hey, can I tell him her? And she's just going a mile a minute. He comes back. I remember like that was yesterday. Oh, you're alive. Oh my. That had to be like 50 years ago. No, it was only 45. I had to make sure he knew.

Oh no. But he said, oh wow. I remember like it was yesterday. One of the coldest days in Chicago. I was a night supervisor at the super manufacturing, Campbell's super manufacturing plant, which I remember.

He said, um, I was going to work. I just put my wife and kids to bed and then going down the stairs of this apartment complex and I get outside and the snow and ice is going. I see this box and something's moving in it and I didn't know what it was. So I took my foot to move the blanket and the blanket moved and I saw it was a kid in there. I'm looking up and down the street and didn't see anybody and the snow was blowing. So I go back into the place and I wake my wife up and we wake the neighbors up. We're walking around the neighborhood and we eventually got the police over there and they're asking questions.

They're walking in the neighborhood. They said, see, you say this kid and you did a good thing tonight. We're going to take them to the orphanage downtown. And that was it. That was the last time when you're alive. I said, you ever get to Chicago would love to meet you. And we did get to Chicago. We always go to Chicago around Thanksgiving and this was October.

So I said, I'll be there in a month. And we got to spend a lot of time with him over the years. He passed away a few years ago, private first class, a Korean veteran. So I tell everybody I was saved by a vet. I love veterans. Never knew why, but my grandparents and uncles were, but I literally was saved by a veteran. And it meant a lot to him.

Didn't know all of this. One year he asked, would we go to his family reunion? Every year in January, they have a big family reunion in Mississippi, Greenwood, Mississippi. I said, I don't know your family.

My wife said, we'll go. I said, we don't know his family. We don't know anybody in his family. We only know them.

And they're like, well, I don't want my family to ever take for granted what you've been searching for. We'll have 300 plus people at this thing. And we'll do a masquerade ball on Friday night. We'll do a picnic on Saturday. And then Sunday, the church service is all dedicated to us. My mother had 17 kids, the glue of the community, the glue on the church and the glue of our family. And so when she passed away, this is our way of honoring her for 39 years.

Okay, we'll go. Well, two weeks before this Christmas, we get a phone call from Ms. Ruthie. Cesar's in the hospital. His kidneys have collapsed.

He's 80 at that time, 84, 85. And they can't travel. And they're like, will you please still go? I said, we don't know anybody there at all. We're not going.

I don't know anybody. My wife's like, we're going to go. And so we went, you know, I'm a man in the house.

We're driving to the right. We get there and they loved on us just like Cesar. The tightness of that family and all.

Well, here it is. Sunday was a service all around their family. And then there's this lunch and all these people there. And then they introduced Deputy Secretary of Arkansas is here and he's going to be our keynote.

And his name is Joseph Wood and he's going to talk and share with us about family and how he got tied into our family. And I started just sharing the story. And at the end of it, I'm already crying. They're crying. There's men up there older than me crying.

And I don't understand why they're crying. Well, come to find out, they said that we used to spend, we could not wait every summer was to go and spend it with Uncle Cesar in Chicago. And he always told us about this kid that he found. And now you're standing in front of us. Well, what they also did was we sent notes to Ruthie back there and said, you were screaming and shouting on the phone and the Holy Ghost. And she's like, you don't know why I was screaming and shouting.

She called me while I was still there. Why are you, you told them that? I said, well, it's true. You don't know why I was screaming and shouting. I said, I just thought you got filled with the Holy Spirit.

I sanctified. She said I was crying because he always wanted whatever happened to that kid. And when you said that you were the kid that he found, I knew the Lord had answered his prayers.

And so that's why I was screaming and shouting. And so anyway, that we had this great relation. And in fact, when he passed away, we went to Chicago for his funeral. And the only thing he wanted on his suit when he passed away was an Arkansas flag pin that I gave him because he said, even being in the war and all, this was one of the things that he did in his life. He couldn't save people man in Korea.

And that was the forgotten war that people kind of forget about. In fact, Illinois gave him a citation. The state legislator gave him a citation saying, thank you for your service to our country, but thank you also for saving this kid because now Arkansas benefits and they get their first deputy secretary of state. But at that point, I was a judge. And so they thanked him. And so for him, all his life, he heard, he knew about what he did and his family knew about it, but then Illinois recognized him. And so anyway, it was just a, that's just our story.

And his wife passed away two years ago. And so it was a, it was hard because that was my first connection of anything of how I got started to this day. We still don't know how we got to the apartment complex. And in the book, uh, saving joy, I write that I believe it was a teenage girl, but growing up, I have no idea.

I have nothing. All I know is he found me in a box on the stairs. I think about, um, your story and think about Joseph in the Bible. I think about how God used everything in his beginning years and even the pain and the suffering that he went through to lead a nation.

And I think about you and the response of Caesar and his wife of thinking, Lord, your faithfulness in allowing this young woman to drop you specifically on this doorstep because God knew they would be faithful in getting you to the right place in the orphanage. And I think that's true for all of us, but I think we can struggle with our backgrounds and our stories. Yeah, it's interesting. You know, those of us that know our mom and dad and have a birth certificate with their names on it still struggle to find identity, you know, and yet you didn't know and you're on the same journey in a different way.

Uh, but you know, it's interesting. Part of our identity comes from our name. Where, how'd you get your name? Wow. Did Caesar name you?

No, no. So one particular year I was the key speaker for the homecomings at this, that the orphanage St. Vincent's now Catholic Charities. And as I'm sharing my story and everybody's crying and all that. This is the orphanage that the police took you to?

Exactly right. It's now Catholic Charities, but at the time it was St. Vincent's Infinite Asylum, beautiful place anyway. So they had a homecoming and I'm the key and I'm talking and I'm sharing and at the end they're clapping and all, but they also have some of the nuns who were coming back as well because they remember some of the stuff.

They have items that they collected. This was their call. This was their call, their ministry. Well, one of the nuns stood up and said, I named you.

My wife and my dad was there and we go on, well, what are you talking about? And her name was Mary Josephine Towsma. She was a nun. And at the time, how they named kids was the most senior nun named the next kid that came in. Well, it was her turn.

She was up in the rotation. Everybody knew if it was a girl coming in, it would be Josephine. If it was a boy coming in, his name was Joseph. And I came in. Now, how did we all just come up?

Two years before I was speaking at the homecoming, I was at the homecoming. We had done an article, Cesar and I, the newspaper Pulitzer Prize writer in Chicago wrote an article about Arkansas state official finds the guy who finds him, you know, as he's on his search for his family. And they do this big article for a Sunday newspaper, she's not sister anymore. She was sister Mary Joe. She's now married and she's in the kitchen making coffee for her husband. And she's reading the newspaper and she stopped. She said, this is my baby. Again, this is my, I named this kid. And that was it. She's sharing this with her husband.

Her husband had no clue about any of this stuff. Two years later, she's at this homecoming and she's like, oh, that's the one who was in the paper. That's my kid. And so she tells a story.

And this was less than probably seven years ago at one of the homecomings that I found out how my name came. You know, it's what's truly amazing. I mean, every aspect, the more I hear about your story, it's just layer upon layer of remarkable. That's God's grace.

Totally. I mean, earlier when you were talking, I was like, man, I'm looking across the studio here and I'm looking at Randall from This Is Us. It's like, you know, he's on the same search. He sort of ends up in government, you know, he's a leader. He was a found link.

It's so similar. And then as Ann said, there's Joseph. I see Moses, you know, who has left and God had a plan for his life. But the truth is, as I listened to it, and you know this better than any of us, God's hand and God's providence, even when you're on a front porch in the snow was on your life. And the thing is, we can often think he doesn't see us.

And he does. I know there's a listener right now that doesn't have the remarkable story you have, but maybe struggling with, does God know? Does God care? Does God see me?

Even in a struggling marriage or maybe there's a son or a daughter. And your story reminds us he really does. Even in the dark of the night, when you think he's far off, he's right there.

And he's got a plan for your life. It's going to look different than yours or mine, but he can be trusted because he has adopted us. We say we were kind of special. We were twice adopted.

Somebody chose us. And then when we come to know the Lord, man, twice, man, we got a little something on. And when you get together with a bunch of adopted folks, you kind of start picking that up and hearing to know how he placed us in a place where we can be loved and have a second chance at this living thing. But then to know that the eternal life with him and his father, it's kind of special there. There you go.

Yeah, here we go. No, I'd like to read this as we close from Ephesians 1. I mean, it's just such a beautiful statement over your story. It says, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ, for he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will.

And that's true, obviously, about you. We've just heard it. And that's the beauty of being able to lay your head on a pillow tonight and go, I know that there's a God who loves me, sees me, and has adopted me, and my life is in his hands, and I can rest in that.

The Bible tells us that our times are in his hands. And as we've heard today from Joseph Wood, there's a firsthand illustration of how God is the one who cares for and superintends the details of our lives. Joseph Wood's story is told in a series of two books for children. One is called Saving Joey, a true life story, and the other is called Adopting Joey. It's a sequel to his first book, both of these written for children, books that we have available in our Family Life Today Resource Center. You can find out how you can order them. Go to our website, familylifetoday.com, or call 1-800-FL-TODAY for more information.

Again, the books are called Saving Joey, a true life story, and then Adopting Joey, a sequel to Saving Joey. Both of them are available in the Family Life Today Resource Center. Order from us online at familylifetoday.com, or call 1-800-358-6329.

That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today to order your copy of these books. You know, I think all of us know deep down how important a family is, how fundamental and foundational it is to our development, either for good or for ill. And here at Family Life, our mission, our goal is to effectively develop godly marriages and families. We believe that the world can be changed one home at a time as marriages and families come into alignment with God's purposes and God's will. That's a mission you make possible whenever you support the Ministry of Family Life Today. Your donations help extend the reach and the impact of this ministry in the lives of so many couples, so many families every day. You make all of this possible when you donate. Right now, if you're able to help with a donation, we'd love to send you a copy of Crystal Payne's new book Love-Centered Parenting as our way of saying thank you for your ongoing support of the Ministry of Family Life Today. You can donate online at familylifetoday.com, or you can call to donate at 1-800-FL-TODAY. When you do, be sure to ask for your copy of the book Love-Centered Parenting. And thank you in advance for reaching out and helping to make the Ministry of Family Life Today possible for you, for your neighbors, and for people all around the world. And we hope you can join us again tomorrow when we're going to pick up Joseph Wood's story, hear about how he got to the orphanage, his time in the orphanage being adopted, and how he got to where he is today. We'll hear the rest of that story tomorrow. Hope you can be with us for that. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.