My wife and I have eight children. Blended? No, divinely orchestrated. I am father to each and to all. Our son was born nine years after Mae and I married. Seven plus one makes eight; and like the old television show “Eight is Enough.” No, not really. For GOD has given us many spiritual children across the years. They are the sovereign joy of pastoral ministry.
I am father to three beautiful little ones who are deaf. Mae studied in Kansas for and received a degree in deaf communication, an effort she undertook to mother little ones without hearing. The vicissitudes of my own painful past left me separated from those three children for thirteen years. Letters returned became a sign of suffering. Yet, without the suffering I would not have been admitted to the school of prayer. A poor student, I advanced in painful increments, learning that the answer to prayer was God Himself. I have never graduated but I have known the succor of angels in my wilderness.
When the time was fulfilled I was reunited with those children. In Washington DC, at Gallaudet College, my faithful wife signed the reunion between us. Though she had signed the sermons of D. James Kennedy on the Coral Ridge Hour for millions, taught in the Johnson County, Kansas School System, nothing surpassed that moment of interpretation.
I wrote a song for the children. I recorded it on my first album. I am on guitar, Tiger Bell on violin, and a studio musician I can’t remember (to my shame) on steel guitar. My long-time vocal accompanist, Cindy Gibbs, joins me in singing this lament.
I dedicated this song to the parents of disabled children. I still do.
“No Response at All” on Apple Music:
https://music.apple.com/us/album/no-response-at-all/293604062?i=293604073