Family Culture

I am reading a Bible plan about developing a family culture of strong faith.  Today’s focus was on defining traits that would characterize our family.  I’ve been praying about it, looking for wisdom and insight.

Honesty is a no-brainer for my family.  I’m a bit of a freak about it.  We often say, “We tell the truth in our family.”  It shuts down a lot of nonsense before it starts. Some other traits that I want to mark my family are mercy, trust, and compassion.  Our One Word of the Year this year has been attachment.  It’s a key word for kids from hard places, but a necessary component to any healthy life.

I continue to pray as I move through my day.  I want to be purposeful and mindfully foster a culture for our family where each is washed in traits that draw them closer to God. I want them liberated and equipped to carry out the work God calls each of us to do.

Do you do this?  Are there words or traits that naturally characterize your family?  Are there things you purposely develop?

Both And

 I hope it is obvious that I love my crazy big family. I could write books about each member and not comprehensively convey the exquisite beauty and value I see. God made and ordained this family to be. All in His perfect timing—which often felt too slow to me—He fit each person together to create something that I pray radiates through time and space with His love.

However, the paradoxical truth is that, if everything were perfect, three of my kids wouldn’t be mine.  I wouldn’t even know them.  While I am confident that God is pro-adoption and that something holy happens at these unions—fusions—adoption is nearly always preceded by brokenness. 

When trying to help our girls understand what was happening to them—and we must always be mindful that their lives thus far have really happened AT them—I used an analogy of boats. 

Imagine every family being a boat.  Sometimes these boats run into trouble.  The trouble could range in range and magnitude from a scrape on the hull to decimation.  When the boats leave people in the water, people from other boats can pull them up. 

This analogy models all the complexities of real life.  Which boats can take on new passengers?  Are all the people in the water rescued, or are some left behind?  What if people from one boat end up in a whole bunch of other boats?

Sometimes the degree of separation the analogy gives brings relief and clarity.  Other times the separation can’t be perceived, because reality is oppressively painful. Then I must set aside any attempts to explain or assuage and just sit and grieve with the ache and unanswered questions.

Adoption is wonderful.  It is often a saving grace, a second chance, and a glimmer of hope.  But just as frequently, it is mixed with grief; a capsized vessel; and shivering, wary new passengers who’ve survived the unspeakable.

I love my family.  My girls are mine, wholly.  I love raising them.  I get to share my days with delightful little sparks of joy. And if their lives were perfect, we wouldn’t even know one another. 

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.