HARPO spelled backwards is...

How many of you can say your phone rang today and your caller I.D. said "Harpo Studios??"

I CAN!!!

Oh, yawn, another day, ho hum, with Oprah ringing my phone off the wall.

Okay, okay, it wasn't actually Oprah. She was probably taping. (For those of you who don't know, that's fancy tv lingo for, well, uh...taping.)

It was a producer for her XM radio show, Oprah and Friends. Dr. Maya Angelou is doing a special show on adoption. I sent them our story. They gave me a call.

And get this, after playing a bit of phone tag with them over the past several days the producer calls me and says, "Well, Melissa you left us a message regarding your email you sent us, but we can't seem to find that email."

I'm thinking to myself, if you haven't read my email then how did you know to call me???

She then asks, "Could you just begin to talk me through your story."

I agree and before I get very far into it this is what she says, "Oh, Melissa. I'm so sorry. We did get your email, I remember it now. It was very hard for me to read. I cried when I read it. I suppose I stored it away in the back of my mind."

I told her it was okay, if it was hard for her to read imagine how hard it was to live.

She laughed, the ice was broken, and I shared my story.

She asked if she could tell my story.

Huh?

She said, "Normally we make our submissions to Dr. Angelou in writing but I would love to recite your story to her. The power of it is in the telling."

"The power of it is in the telling." I thought on that one a moment and felt ashamed I have not been obediant to God in the telling. This is my story. This is my song. If the power is in the telling then I should be repeating it day in and day out.

She said it was remarkable, this "story" I have lived.

But what I think is remarkable is Elisha Cooper and how he came to be. And how he had to leave.

And what I think is remarkable is Remi Hope. How she came to be. And how she got to stay.

He is my story. She is my song.

Praising my Saviour all the day long.

And what I know is remarkable is God's grace.

Can you say "God's grace" on Oprah and Friends? If the power of the story is in the telling then she'll have to say it, because that is what I said. "God's grace." I told her He gives hope to the hopeless. Then I held out the phone for her to hear my Hope, calling out to me from another room.