It was summertime 1955, and the wind was picking up, while the clouds rolled by, foretelling of a storm coming. As a sleepy-headed six year old, the small-framed girl walked across the lawn to where her grandmother was working quickly in the garden. Darlene noticed her five-year-old brother staring upwards. Shortly, he called her name and motioned for her to look up. Jesus hovered amid the clouds and spoke gently but firmly. "Something is going to happen, but I will bring you back. I will always be with you."

Separated from two siblings and the only family she knew, Darlene was placed for adoption. Over the next twenty years, she endured physical, sexual, and verbal abuse. Rejection, anger, bitterness, depression, and loneliness became a way of life. But Darlene never gave up hope, remembering God's promise to return her to her biological family. God's plan for her was more than she could ever imagine.