Weekends

 

A typical weekend day frequently starts a little after midnight when our bedroom door creaks open to spill the hall light on my face.  My three-year-old has one of those impressive little clocks that is red when she is supposed to be in bed and green when she can get up.  At midnight it is decidedly red.

On this particular day my son, who regularly takes morning duty on the weekends, is sick; I figure the best plan is to take the baby to the basement to sleep so she doesn’t wake the house at 6:30 again.  Sleeping with her is an adventure all its own because she can have night terrors and thrashes.  This night, she flops herself enough that by morning, she is upside down in the bed and I am cuddling/guarding myself from her feet.

After getting three heads of hair brushed and fastened in place, we are off to the church building.  I can’t help but smile when my three littles sprint when they spot my oldest daughter waiting for us in the lobby.  She helps us wrangle the girls into their respective Sunday School classes. We four adults make it to our seats moments before the service begins. While the announcements are made my husband whispers that he is grumpy.  I ask why.  He says it’s because he hasn’t kissed his wife all day.  I lean in and he is magically cured!

I am frustrated with myself during the service because I have difficulty focusing.  Usually, I take notes to stay on task, but this morning I assumed a more passive role and paid for it.  I range from praying for each of my kids and husband to listening intently to the teaching on Zephaniah—a favorite book because of the image of Christ dancing over us.  Interspersed between these heavenly-minded activities I discover the Bible app has a new “pages” feature, wonder if Derek Hough is still a Mormon, try not to fall asleep, and pray/imagine how great it would be if we could get a second vehicle.

Once home, I help the littles get out of their tights—one pair heads straight for the trash can. I take a 5-minute break in my room and answer some texts.  I get on Facebook for a minute—why do I do that?!  I see a wholly inappropriate reel that I send my husband and two choice friends who won’t think less of me.  Then I scuttle downstairs to cut my son’s hair, supervising the three-year-old, who is eager to ‘sleep’ up all the fallen hair with the broom that I keep reminding her to keep on the floor. 

After that, I ask my grown girl to take the chicken out of the oven as I run up to comply with a request to check a painful vulva to see if it needs cream—it doesn’t, but some is applied anyway. I give medicine to another daughter who is fighting yet another UTI. Then I check on the most recent poo to confirm that it does, indeed, look really cool.  I kiss my adult daughter before she goes to Bible study and feed the three littles.  My son joins us after a shower. My husband returns from grocery shopping just in time to kiss the girls while I kick them to the backyard to burn some energy.

Sending the girls to the backyard means hearing the slider open and close with a frequency that makes me wonder if we have an asthmatic donkey in the house.  Potty breaks, asking for things, telling on each other, asking for food—we did JUST eat.  Today is momentous because the neighbor boy was permitted to get tossed over the fence so they could play together ON THE SAME SIDE!  So exciting! The slider wheezes a few more times to announce how much fun they’re having. I bring the baby in because she keeps screaming her various protestations.  She decides to spend the next half hour cleaning up a single puzzle.  Works for me!

When my oldest girl returns from Bible study, she and I take the littles to friends for our weekly play time while our men (my husband and son plus her husband) play games.  They have three kids whose birthdays are just a few months before our youngest girls.  And the six of them are divinely matched in their cute/naughty ratios to be splendid playmates. 

Today is special because we share our monthly Yums box where we sample snacks from around the world.  Today is Belgium.

Our washer is broken, so I run my laundry through her machines because she is the rockingest friend ever.

We do our bedtime routine that includes a chapter from The BFG. After that, it’s movie time for the adults.  We are watching the Hunger Games movies with our oldest and tonight’s the fourth!

Meet My Family

 

There are seven of us.

My hero husband came out of retirement to allow me to stay home with the girls.  He is a gamer at heart.  He has weekly games at the table and on the computer, and we are still longing to find a way to fit board games into our schedule.

I am homeschooling the girls, devouring every book on adoption, trauma, and a variety of special needs. I often feel underprepared and lonely on this walk.  There is much we can’t talk about.  Some surprises knock me down, and other things repeat like a dripping faucet. The combination has been difficult to bear.  Other times, I feel capable, ready, connected, and hopeful.  I haven’t felt so emotionally unstable in all my life.  There are days I hardly recognize myself. My hope comes from knowing God’s strength is revealed in our weaknesses.  Let me tell you, God’s strength is written all over my story.

Our firstborn and only son is 25. He is an ELL Assistant at a local middle school and leads Lego clubs around the greater metro area after school.  While the plan is for him to get a place of his own after the new year, his presence in the house has been unaccountably valuable in helping the girls adjust to their new family. He evens out the adult-to-kid ratio!

Our adult daughter is 23 and works as a vet tech and dance teacher.  Although there were many unexpected turns, she is doing exactly what she dreamed of when she was little. Her ultimate goal is to be a wife and homeschooling mom. She is living in an adorable apartment about three miles away.  When she is over, every one of us is elated.

Then we have our ‘middlest’ girl, our serene ballerina, who is 9 years old.  She is eager to please and light veritably shines from her smiling face. Her goal is to be a teenager, which doesn’t seem to mean what she thinks it means.  Her sincere desire to be good is endearing. Her heavy grief for her first family is inspiring—I’ll demonstrate that over time. She has an insatiable curiosity, which can be frustrating as we work on foundational things.  The phrase ‘wanting to run before she can walk’ suits her.

Our twinkle berry is 7 and she barely touches the floor.  She flits everywhere and has a laugh that takes her to another dimension. Her progress in every area is astonishing—spiritual, academic, physical...  We aren’t always sure what she picks up because her brain never seems to settle.  Then, months later, she will say something that shows she is absorbing everything.

And finally, our baby is pushing four with fervor. She is equal parts raging tornado and sweet KitKat.  I have a little notes page on my phone where I write about things I want to remember, and she has inspired half of them. Here’s an example.  KitKat fell off the couch and immediately retold the story with wide-eyed wonder. “I was on the couch, and I fell off the couch, and I died!!”

There we are.  May the adventures begin!

Are We Crazy?

 “Honestly, I think you’re both crazy to do this.”

These are words from friends we’ve known for eight years. We have been through a lot together. We watched their family of four grow by three more kids. They watched our two kids grow through their high school years and step into adulthood. They abided with us in prayer and encouragement through two heaping handfuls of loss. Their opinion matters because they know us. And perhaps because we already knew they were right.

Imagine a middle aged couple, one retired and the other perimenopausal. They are *this close* to empty nesting. They’ve taken up ballroom dancing and took a train to Niagara Falls for their 25th anniversary. The story is written by countless couples who’ve walked the same path.

Then what? Well, according to these trusted friends, they went crazy. To be clear, we went crazy.

What did we do? We adopted three little girls aged two, five, and seven.

I'm Back!

 November 17, 2024

I’m back!  It’s been seven and a half years since my last post.  What’s happened since then?  Well…let’s see.  We moved our little family of four to the Sacramento Valley to finish their high school years.  We moved into a 1000-square-foot apartment that was three doors down from my oldest friend.  She was fostering a five-month-old and we took over as her child-care providers.  

We lived between the two apartment units in a state of grace for nearly a year.  My friend welcomed another foster son who was 16.  Then she took in the baby’s mom.  Her heart was big.  But things took an appalling turn and so many hearts were shredded into tatters. 

As horrendous as the experience was, all four of us knew that we would do it again if it meant a child was safe for at least the time she spent in our home.  So, we dove in and became foster parents again.  We went through a depressing combination of waiting and heartache, including a mind-boggling three-month stint with twin toddlers.

Meanwhile, both kids graduated high school. I got my BA in Education. My daughter got certified in Animal Training and Enrichment. My son graduated from WGU in the spring of 2020.  2020!  We don’t need to revisit that, do we? 

We got to work with Afghan refugees in a program that took a few forms as it pivoted around the California Covid lockdowns. My son and I ended up going into the home of one family with five boys to provide tutoring and friendship.  My daughter and I delivered gifts, and she recorded my reading books to them in over 200 videos! 

Amid that, I got a job running the birth-through-Kinder program at our church. I had the unique experience of starting a Sunday School program including recruiting and training 75 volunteers at a megachurch. 

We made it through all of that with a small group made of people most precious, most noble, and most loving. I felt like I had front-row seats to God’s provision and grace watching these amazing people.

And my hero retired!  There was no way we could afford California, so off we went!  In the fall of 2021, we landed in Iowa!  I love it here.  We happen to live in the most urban part of the entire state, and I would prefer to live in a more quintessentially Iowa part of Iowa, but here we are.

I got my degree in—get this: Master of Science in Learning Experience Design and Educational Technology. Yep, I did!  I got a marvelous job at a little Lutheran preschool.  Best. Job. Ever! 

All of that fails to compare with the biggest news.  Are you ready?

To my son at his high school graduation

Max. 

As you know, we named you after my dear grandma Mac when I was halfway through my pregnancy. So, you were Max for about five months before you were even born. This is a thread in your life that connects you to a woman you only met once, but who shaped me, loved your dad and consequently shaped you. 

Your first years were a mixture of tumultuous and steadfast. When you were 18 months old, your dad had been in three different jobs and you had already lived in four place plus we were at Aunt Diane's often enough to call it a fifth home. Amidst all those changes, you and I spent every single day together. We rode out the changes in stride. You knew your parents loved you and were there for you always. I am so thankful for this thread of constancy we have been able to give you because I stayed home. Without the steadfast provision, support and leadership of your dad, your entire life would be different. This thread is something we can almost ignore because it spans your entire life and there is no comparing it to its opposite: I was always home, thanks be to God and your dad. 

You were a sweet kid. You had energy and a sense of humor. You were sensitive and intelligent. You had obsessions and cared to be precise, something that seemed odd for a kid who could not yet speak clearly.  You would become so frustrated when we would imitate your pronunciation in the hopes of guessing your meaning.  These are the threads God wove into your being before you were even born. They are precious and make you you. 

When Madi came, you added to your personhood the role of brother. Big brother. So many people warned me about rivalry and jealousy. It was assumed you two would fight and have nothing in common since you were boy and girl. Well, didn't you prove them all wrong!  You were the best big brother from the very first time you met. You were careful & attentive; you shared with and delighted in her. She was your baby sister and you never looked back. Another thread hooked into the fabric of your life as though it had always been there. 

That is when you and I began to school. We did it our way. No one schooled quite like we did, but it was perfect for us. You loved to learn and you loved stories. As long as you were allowed to wiggle up one wall and down the other, you were golden. Again, there were nay-sayers who thought I was making up your accomplishments since they could not understand what you were saying and could not believe anyone moving as much as you did could retain anything being said. But I knew. Daddy knew. God knew. Aunt Diane knew. Grandpa Danny knew. The threads of your academic accomplishments are beautiful and unique. 

Speaking of Aunt Diane, she was the one who first said you would make your life all about words. She believed that the challenge in talking made you a peerless communicator. God wastes nothing. He works all things for your good. The challenges in speech Diane knew were part of the beautiful tapestry God was creating to be your life. 

You didn't always fit in with kids your age. You couldn't always make people understand you. These struggles meant you didn't mock people who were different. And you didn't need people to be exactly like you to connect with them. More threads included that make you tender, approachable and open-minded. 

You did at least 16 years of school in twelve. I don't even know how to calculate the time you spent at college while wrapping up your high school years. These threads of academics, learning, hard work and time well spent give strength and shape to the fabric of your life. You have the proven ability to persevere, give your best and go the extra mile. 

I am going to break with the thread analogy for a moment. Max, you are capable of so much. You have accomplished so much. You are amazing. But all that has gone before was just the training ground. It mattered. Believe me, it mattered!!  Can you imagine soldiers facing a battle without having been through boot camp? Remember what the author of The Outliers said about all the people who are success stories?  They could never have done what they did without the thousands of hours in training. 

You trained well. But training is made worthless if training is all there is. Fifty thousand hours of piano practice is pointless if the pianist never plays. Four sturdy legs are literally firewood without the board to make the table.  So what comes next for you is what matters now. 

I am eager to see what you do with these 18 years. I pray with all my heart you press deeply into the Holy Spirit and breathe in His companionship and guidance. I hope you share yourself with the world God brings you to. Banish fear from the driver's seat. Kick laziness to the curb. Keep the slate clean by regular confession and honest relationships with people who will love you enough to hold you accountable. You are far too valuable to waste and I think fear and lazy are two enemies who lust to lay you flat. 

You leave in a week to your first job, first time away from home, first independent ministry. It is mind boggling to think of what you are engaging in this summer. New people, new challenges, new accomplishments, new skills, new wins. 

I know you will mess up. But, you are like David, who God called a man after His heart. I know you take good care of your conscience, which takes good care of you. You will handle the mistakes with immediacy, honesty and humility. And that will be another win.  

So far, there is a beautiful tapestry made of countless threads representing people, books, experiences, fears and dreams. But what has been woven so far is merely a framework for what comes next. It is like the straight edges in a puzzle, we can see the border. You get to fill in the middle, the real picture. You get to decide how the frame will relate to the subject, the message, your life.  I can hardly wait to see what you make. 

I love you, Max. Forever and for always. 

I miss you.

Diane,
I wish I could talk to you. You have been gone over two years and your birthmonth is approaching. I dread it. This grief is threatening to define me and I do not want that. You and God wouldn't either, I know. Maybe those are the only reasons I don't want it. And that my family deserves better. 

A lot has happened to me since you left that I wish I could have talked with you about. Big things have happened like deciding to move (truly a big thing by itself) and then actually moving.  Brian's job change has been so challenging. The adjustments  the kids have made are admirable. I became a mentor, which is simultaneously exciting and laughable. I am anxious about a medical exam and I could really use your guidance in how much grace I should give myself. See? Just that sentence would have set you off on a sermon. 

Max is graduating high school and turning 18. Eighteen!!  We are fast approaching the last day in all the world that I can say my son will be an adult in months!  Other big things is that a guy wanted to ask Madi out and Brian told him no. Then it happened again months later and Brian said yes. Then Madi said yes, so she is going to a high school dance this weekend. My little girl is going to a high school dance!  That is something this homeschooling momma never anticipated. Nor did I expect to have a 15 year old girl going on a date of any sort. I would like to talk with you about it all in excited rushes and in quiet confessionals. 

The kids are so full of personality. They make me laugh and I know you would love to listen to their ideas. They take becoming adults seriously, but attack the tasks from such different perspectives, it is fascinating. I would love your wisdom in how to best mother them through these transitions. 

My marriage is really good. Work, for sure, but shockingly, blessedly good. We are so thankful for the hand you still play in that truth. 

We are going to buy a car. Since we haven't done that in 15 years, that qualifies as a big thing, too. 

But even more pressing are all the little things. The nothings that do not even need to be talked about are what I want to talk about. I miss you much because of these. Yesterday my poop looked like a circumcised penis and I think you would have liked to have known that. I came up with a game show idea called 'Do You Trust Yourself?' and NO ONE has any interest in hammering out the details with me. Just because my initial plan involved wiping a contestant's memory. What's with that?  Ever since Caleb gave me whooping cough, whenever I get sick, my lungs snore. I want to tell you my thoughts on Grimm since you wanted me to watch the show so badly and I refused. I finished HIMYM just for you, too. I couldn't do Hawaii 5-0, though. 

Walking across the many bridges at my apartment complex in the rain scares the shit out of me. They are so slippery and I think falling would ruin more than my day. It rains every week here and never snows. It is an effort to not be burdened by that. It rains all day and all night. All night. 

Our new neighbors got two dogs and one is a pit!  Part of me wants to rip my shirt open in the ever-falling rain while collapsing to my knees and wailing 'Why?!?' to the sky, half hoping to drown like a stupid chicken. The other part is all fat little determined Disney fairy, determined to go all out Jesus on their asses. Like, I am gonna learn whatever lesson God has for me so that I never have to live under a fricken dog for the rest of my life!

Oh, I really want to tell you about Buttercup. She is precious. Glimpsing from my angle into the foster system stirs up so much in me, it would be such a help to talk it all out with you. There are quite a few things I cannot even bring myself to type that I would talk with you about. These things are so mysterious and confusing that I only whisper them to God and Brian. 

We started attending a new church. We want to be involved in a church family so much but we are terrible misfits wherever we go. I have hope and fear that I would really like to carry to the Throne with you. 

Brian is sick.  So....  you know. That sucks. 

I could really use your words, too. I want to hear about David and Kiso and Cher. How you are proud and when you are concerned? I want to pray for your friends who are moving through crises. I want to be inspired by your choices to grow. And I could stand to hear one more sermon on how great I am. 

I want to end this like David did, with praises to God. He supplies. He is faithful. He is loving. Yup. All true. But I still miss you. 

Three Lessons

“A soft wind from the south began to blow, and the men thought that they could carry out their plan, so they pulled up the anchor and sailed as close as possible along the coast of Crete. But soon a very strong wind — the one called “North-easter” — blew down from the island. It hit the ship, and since it was impossible to keep the ship headed into the wind, we gave up trying and let it be carried along by the wind. We got some shelter when we passed to the south of the little island of Cauda. There, with some difficulty, we managed to make the ship's boat secure. They pulled it aboard and then fastened some ropes tight round the ship. They were afraid that they might run into the sandbanks off the coast of Libya, so they lowered the sail and let the ship be carried by the wind. The violent storm continued, so on the next day they began to throw some of the ship's cargo overboard, and on the following day they threw part of the ship's equipment overboard. For many days we could not see the sun or the stars, and the wind kept on blowing very hard. We finally gave up all hope of being saved.”

‭‭Acts‬ ‭27:13-20‬ ‭GNB

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How Difficulty Can Make You Better, Not Bitter

Life is not fair. You will have problems, difficulties, and hurts that will make you better or bitter. You will either grow up or give up. You’ll either become who God wants you to be or your heart will become hard. You have to decide how you are going to respond to the tough times in your life. How will you handle it?

When you go through those difficult times, what happens to you is not nearly as important as what happens in you. That’s what you take into eternity — not the circumstances but your character.

In Acts 27, we learn three ways you shouldn’t respond:

1. Don’t drift. “The ship was caught by the storm and could not head into the wind; so we gave way to it and were driven along” (Acts 27:15 NIV). The ship carrying Paul and other prisoners to Rome was in the middle of the Mediterranean and hadn’t seen the sun for 14 days, so they couldn’t get any bearings, and they started to drift.

When they face difficulty, some people start drifting through life. They have no goal, purpose, ambition, or dream for their life. Today, we call this “coasting.” The problem with coasting is that you’re headed downhill. Life is not a coast. Life’s tough. Don’t lose your ambition or your dream just because life gets hard.

2. Don’t discard. “We took such a violent battering from the storm that the next day they began to throw the cargo overboard” (Acts 27:18). The men in charge needed to lighten the ship, so they threw the cargo overboard, then the tackle and the food. They were discarding things they needed because the storm was so tough.

When you get in a storm and the stress gets unbearable, you tend to start abandoning values and relationships you would not let go of in better times. You say, “I’m giving up on my marriage. I’m giving up on my dream to go to college.”

God says, “Stay with the ship!” Have you done that in your marriage? Have you said, “Divorce is not an option for us. We’re going to make it work.” If you haven’t, you’ll always be tempted to walk out. If you don’t throw away the key, you’ll never develop the character God wants you to have. God can change situations and personalities. He can change you. But he won’t if you’re always abandoning ship! I’ve learned from personal experience that it is never God’s will to run from a difficult situation. God wants you to learn, grow, and develop. Stick with it.

3. Don’t despair. “We finally gave up all hope of being saved” (Acts 27:20). After 14 days in total darkness and after giving up their cargo, tackle, and food, the passengers finally give up hope. But they’d forgotten one thing: Even in a storm, God is in control. He hasn’t left you. You may not feel him, but if you feel far from God, guess who moved?

God is with you in the storm, and he’ll help you through it. He is testing you to see if you’ll trust him. Will you pass the test?

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Earlier in this plan, "God's Dream For Your Life," Rick Warren used the passage immediately preceding this one to teach how we should obey God. He taught that Paul had given a word from God to not sail that season, but the sailors did anyway because they trusted the "experts" and the changing circumstances over Paul's warning. As I read that lesson to my kids, along with all the others from this plan, we were blessed by the encouragement.

Now we find these same characters used for another lesson.  I disagree with the applications Rick supplies. 

To begin, the three accusations against the sailors were behaviors wholly appropriate to sailing. In a storm, as when hitting black ice, one does not resist the gale (or skid). I agree wholeheartedly with Rick's teaching to not drift.  I object only to the reference and analogy. It is true that without a goal, there is no direction; without direction, we are taken along by a fallen world. This is not the life of a believer and follower of Christ!

The next point is to 'not discard', siting the sailors' acts of lightening the load to avoid sinking. Again, I am pretty sure this was a wise move on the part of the sailors. Paul does not object, as he does later when they try taking to the lifeboat. So, it is a bad example for the lesson. 

And here, I can only agree with the lesson conditionally, and on one point I must disagree vehemently. The general lesson to stick out difficult situations is a good one. If quitting is always an option, then it will likely become reality, especially if quitting is the plan when things get 'too hard.'  It will always get hard and who gets to define what is too hard?

But the author then says, "it is never God’s will to run from a difficult situation."  This is simply not true. Peter was spirited from jail. Jesus escaped both a stoning and a crowning!  1 Corinthians 10:13 says that God will provide an escape from temptation (which I personally define as a hard situation).  2 Timothy 2:22-24 tells us to flee temptation. In fact, Rick Warren himself gives a teaching to leave situations and choose friends wisely in this teaching here: http://rickwarren.org/devotional/english/don-t-fight-temptation.-flee-it!

I want extreme caution taken whenever teaching about escaping or avoiding difficult situations. It is a good and worthy lesson, but is so very dependent on circumstances and requires such intimacy with our Lord for discernment, that a blanket instruction seems foolish and dangerous. Considering the staggering statistics on the perpetuation of abuses and addictions generationally, to advise someone (notably, someone with children) to stay in a home with addiction and/or abuse is to inflict untold harm on those children and the generation to follow. To bring it home, if I told my daughter to stay with her abusive husband because quitting is not God's will, I could be laying the groundwork for my grandchildren to be abusers of their own children!  Generational curses are biblical realities that require attentive obedience to the Holy Spirit to break.  Let us not perpetuate them with generalities as this. 

And, finally, the third point is one with which I can agree conditionally again. In the biblical account, Luke says they gave up hope of being rescued. I see this as a limited loss of hope and acceptance of truth, rather than losing hope in God altogether, as Rick characterizes it. They were not going to be rescued by a coming ship or even by a supernatural display of calming waters or walking on the water to safety. This was reality, and hanging to a false hope would have led to poor decisions. I cannot fault the sailors. 

To our own lives, hope is vital. But in what do we hope?  This is key. I do not think Rick gives a clear indication of the distinctions here. We never need to abandon hope that God is near. We never should lose hope in our salvation or the goodness of God or the promises of His Word. But we can and should embrace truth, which often may mean giving up hope in human-made plans and dreams. The truth sets us free. Holding to false hope is a prison that limits our vision and options and should be abandoned with vigor.