Mash-up: Nelson Mandela's life and the Herdman's one-eyed-cat epiphanies

"I could not imagine that the future I was walking toward could compare in any way to the past that I was leaving behind."  Nelson Mandela

This hits me in two separate spaces of my soul.  The first, a void created by my inability to...maybe sacrifice my other children?  ...maybe inability to...I don't know...if I knew...it wouldn't be a void.  There'd be a sixth child still asleep in his bed as I typed.  But there isn't.  And I think of him always.  How can you express that to a child you've failed?  You can't.  You just help the other adults who are picking up the pieces.  I can admit that I did not break this child.  And, by God's grace, I have watched him heal in tremendous ways.  But I have added to some of the pieces on the floor that is his life.  And I wish I could help him to see that the future with his possible new forever family has all the potential in the world to be so much brighter than all the combined safe-happy-moments he experienced with us.  Love.  It's the seed I planted.  Now, it's time for someone else to tend the field and I pray to harvest the crop that should be a life well lived.  

The second breath-holding-realization from that quote has been forming for quite some time.  All the efforts and love and pain and joy and tears and work I have put into the last year and a half to end with yet STILL a disrupted adoption...has left me really questioning.  What big miracle am I really asking for?  A child to heal?  to function in society?  is God really asking me to sacrifice even more of my other children's safety and sanity?  like...really?????  am I depending too much on my own strength??  bc I surely haven't FELT strong.  or wise.  or holy.  or brave.  or heroic.  And if all this is true...and let's add the kicker here...our littles could  be going home in three months despite allllllllllll the reasons everyone, save the main decision maker, can see...has had me truly asking...yelling...threatening...so what if You are real??  Why on Earth would I want to serve a God who allows such things.  I am not asking for massive freedom-of-will miracles to be performed.  I'm asking for one child's heart to settle and accept love...and then for the judge to simply make a wise decision based on ALL the facts and recommendations of EVERYONE involved.  I have done all the hard work, made all the sacrifices, given Him all the credit.  It's a formula...last I checked.  You know....Job loses it all but then gets like more and better in the end...right????????

Hmph.  I've always struggled with the first half of that story.  LOSING IT ALL.  I had a miscarriage.  I didn't want MORE or BETTER...I freaking wanted my baby.  life.  a life I'd had dreamed of since I was 4.  And then one day---I was holding J-bob (after the miscarriage) and I could really look at him and say...it was worth it.  I am thankful...because God's plan was better than mine.  {And I could actually say that without a bitter acid reaching the back of my tightened throat}

Today my five children and I began reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and I was literally crying from laughing so hard at the Herdman's one-eyed cat.  Of course, my belly laugh led to the kid's belly laugh.  And then we did a few days of our advent reading (one kinda loses a week or so when one packs a child up AND has court for the others in the same 7 day stretch...I share the pathetic failings bc it's taken 10 years of actual Motherhood to even make it past day 3 on an advent reading...and who am I kidding...as a very.bad.Christian. I didn't really even know said readings and Jesse Tree things even existed until about 3 years ago...so don't go thinking high of me...oh wait...I just admitted to thinking the book of Job was a magic formula of pain begetting more and better...HA...yeah, no pedal-stools here).  

What was I on about bf that train-wreck of ADD just hit???  OH!  laughing and advent. We prayed over our first-scented-candle-in-like-7-years and tonight was Mermaid's night to blow it out and make a wish (prayer)...throw me a bone...we don't do Santa...I think blowing out candles and trusting those unspoken thoughts are floating up to God in the smoke is a beautiful and magical thing.  And I realized...that "I could not imagine that the future I was walking toward could compare in any way to the past that I was leaving behind," or in my specific case...present...but it can.  And He is good.  And I don't even have to know the future or like what He is saying, not saying, doing, or not doing.  I simply have to just keep clinging to Him (even if I am kicking and screaming) because...I have tried to do this life without Him...I have tried being angry and resentful and pretend I don't want to serve...but.I.can't.  Because I love Him...dearly.  And I trust Him...dearly.  And He knows that terrifies me.  And that trusting that He loves my children (borrowed, middle, or forever) is even more terrifying.  

Sinking Ships

We are reading the book Hero Tales in which several Christian heroes stories are shared.  Now, the funny part is that most of these greats are (apparently) well-known among the Christian community.  Like, especially the really good Christians which (apparently) I have not yet become because at the age of 36, I still can't recognize the how-many-ever-points of this one man's doctrine versus the lack of or total opposite beliefs of the other camp's doctrine MOST LIKELY because the moment people start up about it, my brain takes a vacation, until it all comes back to what I consider the easiest-hard-thing God has commanded us to do:  LOVE.  And before I get peppered by the legalists...if we go to the Bible's definition of "love" then that isn't all warm and fuzzy.  Like.  At All.  At least the slow to anger and long-suffering part is my Achilles heel (again see the fact that I am SO NOT a really good Christian).

So, I have heard of Moody Institute...but much like it took me years to comprehend Pets Mart is a play on words and could also be Pet's Mart...yeah...I.am.special.  I really only recently learned of who this said Moody man was.   I sure do love his passion.  And quite frankly, stubbornness.  Because he even had a medical doctor caution him to stop doing what he felt God was asking him to do because it was gonna kill him...and he really just didn't care.  Gotta love that in a person. 

So he was on a sinking ship.  And found himself a tad bit scared along with the rest of the people.  Not scared of death...scared of loss.  The loss of him in his wife and kiddo's lives.  The reality that he was leaving so much work left to be done.  He was quoted as saying, "It was the darkest hour of my life!"  I can get behind a man willing to admit that.  Especially a super-Christian.  Transparency goes a long way with me because lately I have felt like I was on a sinking ship.  And I have been scared.  And dare I admit this?  I have questioned God and even His existence.  I won't go into why.  I will share that in all His Love He made it really clear, really quick that He does exist.  And He does care.  And while my ship has been sinking, He hasn't let go.  Not once.  {And can I pause a moment to say that most of that happened via random Face book emails, letters, and posts?  Dear Friends...thank you.} 

So on said sinking ship, he gets clearance to read some verses.  I was reading this story out loud after a heinous night of our "one" {he had been visiting for one weekend a month for the last four months and then was placed for what many of us believed the *very last time* last month} flipping out compromised severely by my total and complete inability to not flip out right along with him.  I can say this with a whole lot of confidence.  My childhood baggage and broken parts are not conducive to the healing of my precious borrowed son's baggage and broken parts.

So we get to this verse in the story:  Others went out to sea in ships...In their misery they cried out to the LORD, and he saved them from their troubles.  (Psalm 107: 23-28) and then this:  He has put his angels in charge of you to watch over you wherever you go.  (Psalm 91:11)

I could hardly finish reading them the story through my tears because I knew by that time that another placement was being looked into for our "one".  And I truly believe, it is for the best...his best...our best...and God's best.  So many people give me too much credit.  And I am one stubborn, feisty, not-so-young-not-so-lady young lady.  But I also know several people who have seen me at my absolute worst (ummm...my kids and husband and dear friend and child's CASA) who can testify that for-the-love-stop-saying-good-things-about-this-woman-because-she-is-broken-and-OH-SO-flawed (my God, thank you for loving me anyway) and the only good I've given anyone is not any part of me...it's that pesky easiest-to-do-hardest-to-do love thing I was talking about earlier. 

Today we will celebrate this "one's" birthday.  And we will most likely also be packing his things.  And I am not sure what to expect emotionally for him or myself or how to reconcile it all for either of us.  I am sure that the family to which he is going seems perfect for him...oh my word...how I have fallen in love over the phone in one conversation.  Oh my word how I can see SO MANY GOOD THINGS for ALL OF THEM.  My heart rejoices that maybe, just maybe...I was just a tiny role in what will be his "happily ever after".  Maybe?  I really don't know.  And for Dwight Moody's sinking ship...it so happens that another boat came to their rescue.  It took eight days of being towed to get to safety. I can't put into words how metaphorical that is for my life in.this.moment.

And I know that no matter what, "He has put his angels in charge of you to watch over you wherever you go.  (Psalm 91:11) 

So while I may be too broken to get him safely to shore, I know that God will bring along someone whose boat doesn't have a huge hole in it and tow him there for me.  And there simply aren't words that can articulate my love for this family and my prayers that this really is the beginning of his "happily ever after".

Total side-note:  God has healed the wounds from my childhood in ways that I can probably never fully articulate.  The simple evolution in my marriage and comprehension that my husband actually DOES love me...like...a whole lot...and isn't going to abandon me...BAM...that's a big ole bag of healing that God has done in the last 14 years of my life...but...I can't explain the way living with someone who is unpredictable (even just in childhood explosions) is for me and subsequently my family.  It goes well beyond just "not giving up".  I can't patch this hole in my brain that needs order and peace.  I can't undo my anxiety or PTSD that has been re-established by the last year of living without.  I even had a doctor angry at me because he was having to medicate me solely based on my unwillingness to walk away from our "one".  I share that because I don't want people to think that they can't overcome their past and become incredible parents BUT ALSO because I think it is imperative that we as adoptive parents let the PROFESSIONALS DO THEIR JOBS...get matched.  Trust the words of those who truly know these kids long before our good intentions met them.  Fight like hell but also acknowledge when you or your family...isn't the right one to help a certain child heal.  My pride??  it's wounded;  but not nearly as wounded as trying to force a child to fit into the mold of a family they do not belong would become.

Laughter

Believe it or not, we laugh...a lot...like..a lot LOT in this house.

Between the antics of Spider-man, the innocence and newness of life being discovered by "the tod", the hilarity of our teenager's personality, the out-of-the-box-gross-boy-humor of J-bob, and Mermaid's random explosion of loud giggles (that leave everyone jaw-dropped because she's so usually so guarded and typically does NOTHING to draw ANY attention to herself, laughter is found around every corner. 

Laughter has saved lives "up in here".  It's taken us from I'm-a-gonna-kill-this-kid to snot-bubble-snort-out-loud-only-you.

It's definitely not all hard.   And the good moments far outweigh the negative (most weeks).  And the beauty of joy in the storm of family is indescribable.  And learning how to be a family---a large family, a medium family, a small family, a "middle" family, a biological family, a permanent family, a group of sinners living under the same roof, loved by the same God, and working towards the same goal: figuring out how to live a life poured out in sacrifice and love---isn't easy---but it is the single most rewarding thing we have ever done.  And we get to do it together.  {I cannot wait until the day I can share more pics AND figure out how to edit the above really long run-on sentence}

Let It Rain

Do you have a song that can literally transport you to an exact place and time of your life?  I love how music can unlock so many things---and that God so graciously gave us David (a musician) and the book of Psalms and many other accounts of music and instruments in His Word.

This song takes me to my husband's 1998 Hunter Green Ford Taurus (Toby---I miss you, Toby-the-Taurus).  We had just miscarried our first baby.  It.was.devestating.  I had wanted to be a Mother for as long I could remember...a deep, burning desire that eclipsed many other passions.  Children.  I have always loved them.  Even as a child.  12 weeks and no heartbeat or eagerly anticipated ultra sound video to watch and re-watch (there's just no words to capture *that moment*...a defining one for my husband and me, and our future, and our relationship).  We drove to the nearest Pizza place and I bitterly drank the biggest cup of caffeine for the first time in 3 months, and we shoved our pain in our mouths and wiped our tears away with greasy-comfort-food-fingers.  We discussed my up-coming surgery.  That day  I held my husband as he cried a cry I have never seen him cry since (real men feel...real men grieve...real men cry...just look at Jesus if you need further proof).  It's a special kind of grief and cry that accompanies the loss of a child...no matter the age or length of parenthood.

I boxed up all the baby things we had already acquired.  I boxed up all my emotions and disappointment.  I became strong-when-I-should-have-been-weak.  And then, as it seems I always do, I became weak-when-it-was-time-to-be-strong.  Hence, the aforementioned song and all it means to me.  I would blast it in our car.  I would scream at heaven and my only comfort was found in that He gave His Son, too.  He knew my pain.  I would slam my fists on the steering wheel.  I would cry so hard---I could barely breathe.  But this song would calm my spirits.  "The Lord Reigns..."

I became quite obsessed with getting pregnant IMMEDIATELY after my D&C (you're NOT supposed to do that).  I tracked my temp, checked my cervical *ahem* mucous, and *double ahem* fill-in-the-blank with my OA as much as possible.

We immediately got pregnant with J-bob.  Before the first 8 week exam I started bleeding.  I couldn't believe I'd been so foolish to get pregnant so soon after our loss.  I just knew that I had pushed my will into motion and was reaping the consequences.  The enemy tried to take my son 3 separate times during that pregnancy, but by God's amazing Grace...10 years later...I listen to him play with his little sister in his room.

Autism was the next thief.  It stole the joy, intentions, and dreams of the kind of childhood/motherhood I'd always expected.  It led me (unknowingly) to have a tubal ligation at a much.too.early.age.  A decision that has haunted me for years.  But God has brought 4 more children into our lives through adoption and/or fostering.  One of them is my teenager.  Born to someone else for someone else: US.  A joy, unexplainable.  A bond, indescribable.

Life with our "tod" has reinforced that I am MUCH better with babies and toddlers.  It's one of the first recognizable gifts God blessed me with.  Friends, family, and other foster families with newborns or soon-to-be newborns have further reinforced that I still so desperately desire to have a baby.  I have to choke down the thick lump of jealousy that sometimes creeps into my throat.  His ways are not my ways...His plans are not my plans...and I am humbled how He has given me more than I have ever asked for or dreamed of for myself.

Psalm 97

1The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad;

let the distant shores rejoice.

2Clouds and thick darkness surround him;

righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

3Fire goes before him

and consumes his foes on every side.

4His lightning lights up the world;

the earth sees and trembles.

5The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,

before the Lord of all the earth.

6The heavens proclaim his righteousness,

and all peoples see his glory.

Let it rain, Oh Lord, not my will but Thine be done.  May the People See Your Glory.  

Words

     I was eighteen and worked in the book department of our local entertainment store.  Stocking books and wiping away tears.  Apparently I've always had stubborn tears---the kind that fall when you least appreciate their burning sting.
     My former-student-English teacher, whom I adored and first introduced me to the philosophy of 'existentialism',  was my one of my managers.  He walked by and noticed me crying.  I can feel the book I was shelving in my hand, I can see the carpet, and I can still recollect the exact corner in which we were standing.  My God, I have always loved books.  Words.  Escape.  What a brilliant gift to Your people.
     It was his advice that makes this such a vivid memory.  I have very few vivid memories.  I attribute it to a childhood lived in mostly fear and an adulthood lived with little sleep.  He told me to write down all the things I didn't want to be.  All the ways I wouldn't do things.  He said I didn't HAVE to repeat the cycle.
     It's as if the fist chain in my life was mentally broken in.that.moment.  It took many more years of ridiculous actions and regretful moments of self-hatred and a decade of marriage before I finally understood that I, the broken one, the dirty one, the used one, the abandoned one...etc...was actually worthy of love.
     It took the words of my biological father, calling on a day that defies all odds other than the Holy Spirit's active work, that still radiate through my heart: Daughter, hear me, you were not a mistake.  We knew what our actions would lead to.  You are one of the best things I have ever done.  I still get a lump in my throat...cherished...by a father.  Cherished...period.
     I spent over 30 years of my life trying to pour my life out as on offering of apology for ruining what-could-have-been by my existence.  I didn't even realize I was doing it.  It all hit me a few summers ago when things got so ugly...I could hardly breathe through the pain of the words I have longed to forget over and over and over.  Words that I said and words said by others.  I was devastated that as an adult, I actually stooped to doing one of the things on  my list of nevers.
     What are we supposed to do with words we've locked so deep into the pits of our ugly hearts?  Is there ever a good or "deserving" time to release them?  Will it feel like a balloon released into the sky to have them gone?  Or will it feel like a huge wave that crashes and destroys and leaves the taste of nasty, sticky salt water burning in your nose and the back of your throat? 
     I am so thankful that God has given HIS WORDS.  They are like a life preserver in the sea of sin and self absorption lest I drown in my ridiculous attempt to be heard (words that should never even be spoken).   An anchor to grab when I find myself suddenly grasping for even an ounce of my own humanity in a character-defining-situation lest I lose such control that I don't even recognize myself anymore or even worse, blind others to Him in me. 

• Proverbs 12:18 ESV 

There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

• Matthew 12:36 ESV 

I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak,

• Proverbs 16:24 ESV

Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.

• James 1:26 ESV 

If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.

• Psalm 19:14 ESV

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

     Amen.  Sigh.  Amen.