In the Silver Maple Tree: The Adventures of an Impetuous Young Girl Captivated by God

By Ginger Lawrence, Ron Sauer and Jim Rayburn III

Imagine sitting at the dining room table of a treasured frienda creator of hospitable, soul-nourishing spaces. She eyes you over the rims of her glasses and breaks into the stories of her life, always leaving you to make your own applications. This was Ginger Lawrences clear callto comfort in the same way she had been comforted, her steady cadence lending the wisdom of her years. These stories of her journey of faith are always carefully interwoven with healing and hope.

Ginger has now chosen to share her precious stories with a broader audience. Reading In the Silver Maple Tree is like spending time around her memorable table. These anecdotesa veritable time capsule of her formative youthallow her readers to conjure up her calming voice and settle into her healing space whenever they like.

This book will appeal to varied audiences and genres. Its like an uplifting and encouraging devotional but packed with the exciting adventures of a young girl from another erafrom age two when she was adopted into a new family through her experiences in Young Life as a teen. It can be read alone, shared with a family, or enjoyed in a group setting. Read all at once or savored just a chapter at a time.

As you read In the Silver Maple Tree, you, too, will experience Gingers zeal for life as her heavenly inspired words sing and jump off the pages. Whoever reads and hears these stories will be blessed and encouraged in their own walk of faith.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973628842

Ginger Lawrence

Ginger Lawrence, a very active eighty-four-year-old still creatively working in interior design, recently wrote these chapters in order that her eight grandchildren, two great grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild might know her better, since they have often been separated by many miles during the past thirty years. Gingers friends in the Young Life organization, where she worked for numerous years, saw the value of her inspirational writing and encouraged her to publish these absorbing adventures with God. Ginger, adopted as a child, has lived in eleven states and currently resides in Jacksonville, Oregon.

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 by Ginger Lawrence.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author would like to thank Carmel Ashland for being the model for the photograph used as the basis for the cover art.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-2885-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-2886-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-2884-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018905847

WestBow Press rev. date: 5/24/2018

Contents

Foreword by Jim Rayburn III

Foreword by Ron Sauer

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1   Two Tots on a Train

Chapter 2   Parents Handpicked by God

Chapter 3   Salem School for the Deaf

Chapter 4   The Silver Maple Tree

Chapter 5   The Influence of Music

Chapter 6   God’s Amazing Protection

Chapter 7   Star Ranch

Chapter 8   Under the Silver Cliffs

Chapter 9   The Fireside Room

Epilogue

Concluding Thoughts

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations marked Phillips are taken from The New Testament in Modern English, copyright 1958, 1959, 1960 J.B. Phillips and 1947, 1952, 1955, 1957 The Macmillian Company, New York. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.To

my beloved daughters,

Sherry Woomert and Heidi Greenfield.

"I have no greater joy than to hear

that my children are walking in the truth."

—3 John 4 (NIV)

Dedicated also to my father and mother,

who by their daily walk of love, faith, and integrity

taught me and many others

that we can believe and trust the God of the Universe.

Foreword by Jim Rayburn III

I wish every reader of this book could meet Ginger prior to reading it. She’s a live wire, full of spunk, and there is such a sweet spirit to this woman, radiating love and kindness.

It wasn’t always that way, she would say. She recounts the day, unprovoked, when she threw a classmate’s lunch into a mud puddle.

It is said that everyone has a book within them, a personal story worth the telling. For those who’ve experienced God’s incredible love, there is a need to share that. For Ginger, writing this account wasn’t simply a desire but more of a compulsion.

The author was a mischievous little rascal as a child and she was willing to pay the price for it. Who, for example, would be willing to spend a year in a state-operated institution for the deaf because she’d faked that condition during a hearing test, either as a practical joke or a search for adventure (she wanted to learn lip-reading)?

To be taken as a child from the security of a loving home and family, and placed into an inhospitable government institution, simply because she’d pretended to be deaf on a hearing test? Really? When I asked her why she never set the record straight, allowing her to return to the home she loved, she told me, That never occurred to me. What child would do that? I wasn’t sure how to respond. What child would fake being deaf?

My dad (Jim Rayburn Jr.) and my family are mentioned in this book and I’m pleased that Ginger’s exposure to and involvement with us was such a positive thing. Her participation in Young Life, the work my father founded, had a lifetime impact on her, as you will read. May you sense her kind, sweet spirit, and something of the light that radiates from her. That’s what she most wants to share.

Jim Rayburn III is the author of From Bondage to Liberty: Dance, Children, Dance (2000) and the son of Jim Rayburn Jr., the founder of Young Life.

Foreword by Ron Sauer

A number of years ago I was doing networking and pioneering work for Young Life in Southern Oregon. My brother-in-law asked me if it got tiring driving from town to town. I replied that if I looked at it that way it would be tiring. I saw that at each town I went to there awaited a surprise, a treasure if you will, that the Lord had waiting for me. That in no way was tiring but energizing. It gave me great anticipation and expectation to discover what the Lord was doing.

As I entered Grants Pass, Oregon, more than one person told me I needed to meet a woman named Ginger. She had a significant history with Young Life and was an amazing woman. I made the call and was privileged to meet her face to face. From that time forward my wife, Cheryl, and I have developed a valuable friendship with Ginger. Ginger had been one of those surprises.

In life we each have a story. The beauty of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ is that His story intersects with our story. His redemptive work brings us life, abundant life and eternal life. This redemption helps us to live fully and lean into who God has designed us to be and what God has called us to do.

In the following pages I want to invite you to meet Ginger. Unlike me, you might not have the privilege of meeting her face to face. You can, however, meet her in these pages and hear her story. Step into her story of hope, adoption, a new name, brokenness, confusion, relationship, and worship. See how her story has been given new life through the changing work of Jesus. As you hear her story it will encourage yours!

Ron Sauer is the Young Life Regional Training Director for the Oregon Cascades Region of Young Life.

Preface

Nine years ago, in 2008, a client of mine gave me her daughter’s enormous old computer. It sat untouched in my office for eight months, until a good friend, Larry Rydell (intending to drag me into the twentieth century), sent over his computer technician to hook it up and teach me the basics. Until that time I had written very little, mostly cards and Christmas letters.

For many years my secretary, Dolores Botsford, had encouraged me to write, but spelling and punctuation were difficult for me and I had no desire to do so. But, miracle of miracles, having a big white box sitting in my office that could do these things as long as my fingers were on the keys opened up a whole new world for me in writing. I had always thought that