Hope

I have so much to say with the recent events in our nation and the upcoming election.  I just won't though.  It doesn't matter - and I have been in enough Facebook "debates" recently to know that no one has any real skills or desire to truly debate any of the issues.  The pervading emotion is fear.  I can't be part of that.  I have been called simple, silly, and a baby murderer just in the last week alone.  By believers.  Believers with a platform.  Oh friends....

Today, I just want to share some thoughts with you.

Jeremiah has been home 8 months now.  It has been the longest and shortest period of time in my life.  We have had two surgeries, countless doctors appointments, lots of tears, lots of smiles - fear, elation, joy, and every emotion in between.

Every time we turn into our driveway, no matter how long or short of a time we have been away Jeremiah squeals with utter delight from the backseat - "Hoooome!  We're hooome!"   He has never had that opportunity before.  Yesterday, out of the blue and for no obvious reason except whatever was going on inside of his head, Jeremiah threw his arms around Patrick and said, "Patrick, you my brother!"  The joy and excitement in his voice brought me to tears.  Ugly cry tears.  He has never been able to say that before.  This morning, on two occasions Jeremiah got angry - once with Stan and once with Lyndsey.  When asked what was wrong, he replied, "Jeremiah mad at daddy.  Jeremiah mad at G."  Then, in a few minutes he was laughing as dad tickled him and pressing Lyndsey's face close to his for a kiss.  This is a family.  He has never had that before.  He roots through the refrigerator freely, as do all of my kids.  He is cautious around strangers, but after looking at me for approval, he looks people in the eye and talks to them.  He is outgoing, happy, smart, funny - and one of the two most courageous boys I know.

Jeremiah and Patrick have inside of them a courage that I so wish I could fully describe to you.  Their stories are not mine to tell though, so there is so very much about both of them that no one knows.  No one.  As much as I am an over sharer in many ways - my boys' history, medical issues, and emotional struggles will always remain under wraps.  Unless there comes a day that they decide to share them.  Suffice it to say though that both of them are survivors to the highest extent.  They have overcome obstacles from the moment of conception that most of us can not even fathom.  They are heroes.  Even though they may have been considered "hard placements," even though their medical predictions were frightening, even though we had no idea what we were getting into.  Even though.  These two boys, born to other women - one across the country and one across the world from me - were foreordained before the creation of the world to have a chance at LIFE.  They are ROCKING that chance.

Yesterday a friend said something on her Facebook page and I want to leave you with her quote.

"This.  This is the way our family casts a PRO LIFE vote."

Travel Kit

As we have gotten deeper into adoption advocacy I am constantly asked about what oils or vitamins to take when traveling to pick up your new little one.

This list could apply of course to any type of travel.  Our family has used it for 9 cross country drives, a trip to the Cayman Islands, one to China and one to Ethiopia.  We have all seven survived to tell the tale.  :)

When traveling I of course want to keep our immune systems strong and supported.  I start a couple of weeks before we leave with little to no sugar intake (sugar decimates your immune system and it is the main source of "food" for disease germs) - it is imperative for a strong immune system to get rid of the sugar.  We make sure our water intake is where it should be (1/2 your body weight in ounces, at least per day).  Drinking this amount of water flushes toxins from your organs and helps you absorb nutrients better.

When traveling we try to stay on a diet that is high in vegetables, fruits and protein and low in carbs and sugar.  Sometimes this is just not possible, but we do the best we can and we definitely keep our water intake very high.  Bottled water is readily available in most countries - and definitely in China and Ethiopia I felt very safe with the water options.  (Do not use the water from the faucet for anything, even to brush your teeth - even in really nice hotels).

Here is a list of what we use daily with links to purchase these products:

Homeopathic Spray for "travelers stomach."  This spray is a blend of various homeopathic remedies that are designed to support common stomach issues that arise when traveling internationally.  You must call the number listed on the link and order the product to be shipped to you.  We have used it in both China and Africa with success.  Follow the directions on the bottle.

YLEOs for immune, sleep, digestion, and stress support.  I am a Young Living Distributor (for full disclosure) and I would love to talk to you about purchasing your essential oils.  If you have someone else in your life who has introduced oils to you, then call them.  Otherwise, this is a link that can be used to order your own starter kit and if you do that I will contact you for a personal "intro to oils class."

Every morning before starting our day we used 1 pack each of Ningxa Red, 2-3 drops of Thieves on our feet, 5,000IU of Vitamin D3, 2,000 mg of Vitamin C, and 2 drops of Digeze rubbed on the abdomen.  These things support a strong immune and digestive system.

Every evening before bed we each took 1mg of Melatonin (available at any health food store), 2-3 drops of Thieves on our feet, Life 5 (YL's probiotic) and Lavender and Peace and Calming rubbed on our wrists.

We did all of these things morning and evening regardless of how we felt.  These were preventatives and immune support.  I also took Thieves hand sanitizer with me to use as needed throughout the day.  The stress support oils I took - Lavender, Peace and Calming, Cedarwood, Frankincense - were used as needed throughout the day.

From the very moment we met Jeremiah in the Gotcha Room I began to apply Peace and Calming to him.  I wanted him to benefit from the oil and also associate it with feeling safe and secure.  He absolutely LOVES his oils!!!

When traveling I also bring with me Colloidal Silver  which can be used in place of an antibiotic, Eden Salve which is an amazing salve for cuts, scrapes, burns, bites, boils,  acne spots or any other irritation, and Purification oil which is a wonderful mosquito repellent, bug bite oil, and also has anti-viral properties.  These were my "first aid" products.

When we went to China I did take with me Benadryl, Children's Motrin, a steroid pack, and a children's antibiotic in powder form that I could add water to.  Thankfully I never opened any of those things and never felt like we needed them.  I do think that when health care is not going to be readily available in case of an emergency, these things are good to take along.

I am not a doctor and this post is purely for informational purposes for those who are more naturally inclined and who have asked me what we took in our "medicine bag" when we traveled to get our son in China.

"The best kept secret in medicine is that the body heals itself if we give it the right conditions and stop doing that which caused the disease in the first place."  Anonymous

Enjoy your travels!!!!

My Unpopular Thoughts on the Purity Movement

In less than two weeks my oldest daughter will be getting married.

She is a virgin and so is her fiancé.  

That makes me feel extremely humbled and I am very happy about it.

With that said, let me tell you why I am not a proponent of the purity movement.  In fact, I am not only not a fan of it, but I want to persuade you not to use this method of training your children up in the way they should go.

When we began home schooling in 1998, said oldest daughter was four years old.  I was immediately thrust into an environment unlike anything I had ever known.  I was twenty-four years old.  I knew how to talk the "church" talk, but the "home school" talk threw me for a loop.  Let me tell you, in 1998, the home school movement was in the throes of trying to "find itself."  

My friends all had hair down to their hips, wore no makeup, ground their own wheat, and wore denim jumpers.  You guys, this is not a myth - it was for real.  My 24 year old southern girl self who never left the house without my "face" on was mortified.  I mean, my whole life my Mama told me to "put some lipstick on so you don't look dead" and for "heavens sake, where are your earrings?"  And this was just to pick up a few groceries.  These women looked over their reading glasses at me like I had just popped in off the street corner.

Suddenly, I had to reevaluate who I was and how I was going to raise my children.  I tried to play along.  I did.  And God was good - though I am sure He got a laugh or two out of my attempts to conform.  (Yes, I bought a denim jumper.  And yes, Stan laughed his head off every time I wore it).  I became a true follower of Christ during this period of my life - most of the ladies I met were amazingly in tune with the Holy Spirit.  They wanted to get this marriage and parenting thing right, and of course, so did I.  As my little children began to grow up, the majority of my friends had children a few years older than my oldest, some the age of my oldest, and a few younger ones as well.  We home schoolers like to reproduce (and yes, we know exactly what causes it) - we only look prudish.  :)  

Suddenly, the home school conventions began to display vendors selling all sorts of curriculum designed to instill "purity" in your pre and young teenagers.  (Of course we did not use the word teenager).  No one really told us what "purity" meant, so the collective "we" decided without really talking about it that it meant no sex before marriage.  Most of us came out of a secular dating culture where anything was acceptable, and we knew we did not want that for our children.  The problem was, no one really seemed to know exactly what we were aiming for.  No sex before marriage - fine.  However, what exactly did we want before marriage?  

As with most things, this was yet another issue where the conservative right was determined to be known for what it was against, rather than what it was FOR.  We were against sex before marriage.  Well, ok but .....  God created us, and our children, as sexual beings.  Your tweens and teens ARE going to have crushes, they are going to be attracted to members of the opposite sex - and actually, you want that.  Don't you want them to grow up and get married one day?  Of course you do.  You just don't want them to "test drive" a dozen people before they find the one.  I know.  That's what I wanted too.  After all, Stan and I daily carry around the weight of our relationship mistakes and it is not God's best way to start a marriage.  I get it.

So, I heartily joined the "Purity Movement."  

I clearly remember the day we stood our "tweenage" children in a circle in the church gym during a "purity study" and gave the first little girl a construction paper heart.  She passed it around the circle, skipping all the guys because....well, somehow guys always get a pass on this purity stuff - and every girl tore a little piece off of the heart.  Then "THE" guy who was to be the future husband takes the paper that used to be a heart and holds it up.  It is a ragged, torn, wrinkled piece of nothing.  He dangled it between two fingers as us moms said to our beloved offspring.... "Do you want to give your future husband a whole heart or, or THIS?"  

Friends......

I have no words for the damage that did to my oldest daughter.  I am ashamed, embarrassed, and quite frankly shocked at myself for such a ridiculous illustration.  If you have done this to your children - apologize.  If you still have little ones - think long and hard - LONG and HARD about something like this.

Our God is not the author of shame.  He is the author of redemption.  He takes broken hearts and MAKES THEM WHOLE.  Nothing you have ever done and nothing your children will ever do is beyond His forgiveness or His healing touch.  NOTHING.  

When we set up "purity" as a sin that is irredeemable we are doing nothing but creating a culture of shame and fear.  You want to raise daughters that are confident in who they are in Christ.  You want them to know Him as a loving Father who is powerful and redemptive.  Christ makes us pure, not a list of dos and don'ts.  You do not want them skulking about in the shadows of guilt and shame because they have a crush on their older brother's best friend.  Good grief.  

Friends, you want communication with your children and believe me, you will not get it if they are ashamed.  You will get hiding, lies, and dark of the night internet searches.  They will stop talking to you because you make them feel like they are dirty and not "pure" enough for their future spouse.  They will carry around an undue burden because of emotions, thoughts, and feelings that pop into their heads, and which they will consider "sinful."  All of this and they have never even had a boy or girlfriend.  They will think of sex as dirty and off limits rather than the beautiful and holy thing that God created it to be.  Then, all of a sudden they are supposed to find a spouse, get married, and love sex.  It doesn't work that way.

Let your family be known for what you are FOR.  

In our family, we are for healthy relationships and marriages full of laughter, communication, and amazing, holy, God ordained sex.  Remember, God created this.  The enemy is the one who twisted it into something disgusting.  Don't let him have the upper hand.  

I am so thankful that my oldest daughter is a non-conformist.  Like, truly.  She could not follow a rule without questioning it if her life depended on it.  It has served her, and me, quite well I must say.  She was not about to let this "purity movement" thing go on without an thorough explanation.  Be very careful about teaching your children to think.  They WILL out think you - I can almost guarantee it.  The more we discussed it, the more I realized how devastating it actually is to our children.  Many of her peers from this movement are afraid of relationships, disgusted by the thought of sex and children, and truly damaged.  I am so incredibly humbled that God spared us with minimal damage.  However, Bryce would be the first to be willing to talk about her struggles if it helps someone else.

And her younger siblings are most definitely glad she cut them an easier path.

So, back to my statement at the top.  Bryce and Jacob are both virgins and we are very happy about that.  That begs the question of why are we so happy if I am against the purity movement and what exactly am I teaching our younger ones about sex?

Here's the deal.  God lays out for His children in Scripture His very best.  If He says do something or don't do something, it isn't because He is trying to kill the fun.  On the contrary, He is trying to preserve it.  He is trying to grant us fun the likes of which we can not even fathom.  For that reason alone, I am happy that my daughter and her soon to be husband are going into marriage without the baggage of past sexual partners.  Do I believe sex before marriage is a sin?  Yes, but I do not believe it is an unforgivable one (God, I hope it's not).  I also do not believe it is any different from any other sin that we commit every day without much thought - lying, gossip, anger, envy.  Those things are spoken about in Scripture far more times than sex.  I believe that like everything else God says, He instructs us against sexual sin because it is His very best for us in the long run.  

So, what do we teach our younger children?  Well, we most definitely do not use the torn up heart illustration.  We do not tell them, in words or actions, that God can not redeem the broken hearted.  We teach them about God's design for sex, we model for them a healthy marriage, we are an open book as far as our own sin.  We do not in any way make our children feel that their thoughts or feelings are any different than ones we ourselves have had.  We teach our sons to respect women and our daughters to respect their bodies.  We teach them that relationships are to be taken seriously and that hearts are not to be toyed with.  Communication with your children is imperative.

Yet, above all of that - your children's own personal relationship with Christ is the absolute key.  Friends, this world is sinking to a very base level and it is sinking quickly.  The world tells them that anything goes - and there is not enough parental control software made to truly control their internet usage.  I wish it were different, but let me tell you straight up - they are smarter than you when it comes to technology.  You can't block everything negative from their lives.  Gracious, it would be nice, but it is not possible.  Trust me on this.  Your children have to learn to recognize and repent of their own sin, you can not always be their Holy Spirit.  

My very wise friend and mentor once told me that young teens need enough rope to make non-life altering mistakes, but not enough to hang themselves and have a total moral failure.  It is the only way they learn.  We do not allow "traditional" dating in our young teens.  We allow groups of friends to hang out, go to the movies, come to our home.  We do not encourage "pairing off" until such a time when marriage is in the foreseeable future.  Does this mean they don't have crushes?  Of course not.  All early teenagers have crushes.  This is the time when they are learning to respect each other.  Your sons should take this time to learn to hold doors open, pull out chairs, treat girls with gentleness and kindness, serve together.  Your daughters can learn to expect this from the boys in her life and to respect herself.

So, what is the answer to the "purity" movement?  In my opinion and after lengthy discussions with my daughter, the answer is simple, not easy, but simple.  An awareness of sin in your own life.  She and Jacob have had plenty of opportunities to have sex.  They are 22 and 23 years old.  We do not hover over them all the time; that would be ridiculous.  They have chosen to restrain themselves because they value God's Word above their own desires.  That is a lesson we all need to learn to apply in every single area of life.  They put their own hedges in place, made sure they had accountability, and focused on preparing for their future.

If they had made a mistake?  Then, we would have dusted off and moved forward - forgiven, whole, and redeemed.  And one thing I am forever grateful for, instead of hiding it, she would have confessed it to God for forgiveness and to her daddy and me for accountability, knowing that any sadness we had would have been the same as sadness over any sin and hardship that someone you love is facing.  Not "disappointment" and not anger and not horror.  Once your children are mature adults with their own relationship with Him, their sin is not about you and you have no right to be personally offended by it.  

I know this is not really the popular way to feel about the "purity" movement among believers and goodness not among homeschoolers.  However, trial and error has shown me, and many of my fellow sojourners on this path, that "kissing dating goodbye" might have been just a little bit hasty.  We had good intentions mind you, but you know what they say about those.

Moms of young children, we do not have to manipulate everything.  Train your children to "glorify God and enjoy Him" and to "seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness" and truly, ALL else falls into place.  It does.  

Find Joy in the Journey - life is too short for anything else and GRACE truly is scandalous.

Let's Talk Parenting 101

Despite the fact that I have been at it for 22 years, almost half of my life - I am no parenting expert.  I think that is point number one, so let's jump in.

#1 - There are no experts.

The reason there are no experts is because you are raising little people.  They are not robots, they are not computers, they are not clones, and they are not born desiring to please you.  They have minds, bodies, and souls that are uniquely crafted by God.  They are pre-wired with DNA that He gave them.  He knows what they need - and here's the kicker - He knows what YOU need.  So, he gave your children to you.  For a reason.  No one can parent your children the way you can and there is no 12 step program that is guaranteed to work.  If you can not read a parenting book and take away what you need to apply and shrug off the rest, then take this advice if you don't hear anything else - THROW THE BOOKS AWAY!!!!  

#2 - Slow down and enjoy your children. 

We have six children.  They range in age from 22 down to 3.  So, we have done this - and now we are doing it again.  Here is my not so expert advice.  Slow down.  Yes, the days are long - bedtime looms sometimes.  I know.  I get it.  (I have been known to unashamedly break out the Melatonin just to have an uninterrupted conversation with my husband when he gets home from work).  No judgment here.  However, believe me when I tell you that there will come a day that you would give an actual arm or a leg to have these days back.  The time is fleeting - and let's face it, the world we live in is more than uncertain, it is downright scary.  We are not guaranteed one more second.  Hug them, kiss them, get them another glass of water.  Again and again.  Your dishes will just get dirty again and no one cares if you mopped the floor.  Believe me.  No.one.cares.  But, your five year old will remember that you played one more game of Candyland (or in my son's case Monopoly - grief, we play a lot of Monopoly around here).  Go to the pool and get in!  Put down the phone, snuggle up on the couch and watch a movie, read stack after stack of books.  Be there.  

#3 - Communication.  #4 - Keep it simple.  

If I could say one thing about our success at raising adults - it is this.  Communication.  Let me tell you how our family defines "success" - lest you think I am "tooting" my parenting horn.  If you think that - go back to #1.  In our family, we have only one goal.  In order to describe our one goal, I have combined numbers three and four.  Don't worry, four won't take long.  We want our kids to leave our house with Jesus.  That's it.  Truly, it is that simple.  Our theme verse for our lives is Isaiah 55:13, "And all your children will be taught of the Lord, and great will be the peace of your children."  We pray this for and over them.  We have this printed on our family picture that hangs on our wall.  The Lord brings peace.  Not a parenting book, tactic, or 12-step program.  And bless it all, stress does not bring peace.  

Here is where the communication part comes in - maybe I should have switched three and four.  Oh well, let's carry on.  Jesus does not have a one size fits all plan for everyone's life.  Therefore, when we say we want them to leave with Jesus - we understand that can look as many different ways as there are people.  In our family there are eight of us.  We go in eight different directions most of the time, but if everyone is chasing Jesus - we are happy.  

You must talk to your children and help them learn to hear His voice for themselves.  Talk to them often and about anything.  Do not let them shock you.  As they get older they will try.  We believe that learning for everyone takes place in three stages - the logic stage, the dialectic stage and the rhetoric stage.  When your children are young and in the logic stage, they just need the facts.  You need to talk to them, help them learn, spend time just being there with them and listen.   As they reach those "middle school" years they are in the dialectic stage.  They are starting to figure the world out on their own.  You have to listen more than you talk.  Let them share with you.  (Again, remember, not to be shocked).  Ask lots of questions and let them participate in decision making.  Give them some rope.  As my friend and mentor says "Enough to make non-life altering mistakes, but not enough to hang themselves."  By age 16 or so they are in the rhetoric stages.  Your day to day job of telling little people what to do is done.  I will never forget years ago talking to a fellow mom who asked me what time my 16 year old goes to bed.  Upon my look of confusion, she said, "I mean, I make my son brush his teeth at 8:30 and start his bedtime routine."  Mamas, you do not tell your 16 year old when to brush his teeth.  Cavities are non life altering learning tools.  He will figure it out.  

When we look around at the other kids our older ones grew up with, the ones who are the most settled in life are the ones who grew up in families with great communication.  We home school our children as do most of our friends, so we got to see families in their real and raw environs.  Let me tell you - people are quirky - us included.  Most of us ran the gamut of "philosophies" when we first started home schooling.  We tried everything as did most of our friends.  I am so thankful that we abandoned all of the "step by step" philosophies early on and stuck to the basics.  "Leave with Jesus."  Communication is the KEY.  I will always stand by that.  Let them talk to you.  Let them work out how they feel and what they think about social issues and current events.  Let them disagree with you.  Remember, you are raising adults.  Thinking adults.  That is what you want.  You do not want a little clone of yourself.  You can do better than that.  You want your kids to be better than you - at marriage, at parenting, at life.  You want them to be unafraid and unashamed.  Let them ask the hard questions.  Jesus can take it.  Be sure that you can.  

Our oldest is getting married in just three short weeks.  I have a lot to say about that, but I will let her get to the alter first.  

Mamas - slow down and smell the roses.  Seriously, life is too short for stressing about things that won't matter in thirty years.  Enjoy your babies!!!!  

       

Roots or Wings?

I had roots and I have given my kids wings.

I am not sure that there is a black and white answer to the question of which is best.  I have searched deep within myself for many years with little success.  Maybe there isn't one, so much in life can not be filed in neat little compartments.  Maybe God's sovereignty over our lives is personal.  We are messy, us humans that He created.  Maybe I am a wanderlust because I had deep roots.  Maybe my kids will want roots because I gave them wings.

So far I have one wanderlust like me, a home body who clearly wants roots, two who are still trying to decide and two very young adventurers who could not define the term wanderlust just yet, but love to tag along on Mom's random road trips.  My oldest daughter is my mini me.  Her favorite quote is "Not all who wander are lost" - it is mine too.

I want to see it all - I seriously could just keep a "go bag" packed and ready and if someone asked me to leave for another continent on two hours notice I would thrive on the "stress" and beat them to the airport.  On the other hand, I love lazy days at home, I love to be alone in my prayer closet, and I love to curl up with a good book.  What I hate is mediocrity and boredom.  I hate it when my littles sit in front of the tv all day.  It causes a stifling guilt to rise up within me.  I despise "mindless" activities.  I want to see them run in fields, build sand castles, peruse museums, and taste all the samples at Farmer's Markets.  I want to see the wind in their hair and the fire in their eyes.  I want to be doing all of these same things myself.  I love long lazy drives in the country, walking trails in the cool morning, watching the flaming sun set over the mountains or the beach, waking up to the sound of lapping waves and air so thick that you can taste it.

I am a wanderlust and a romantic.  I envision things that have a hard time matching reality - and this sometimes plunges me into a pit.  Sometimes I can climb out of the pit and shake it off and sometimes I live there for a while.  I am not proud of the periods of time I have lived in the pit.  It is slimy and gross and lonely.  No one likes pit dwellers.  They are no fun, they are crabby and frown a lot.  This is how I feel about myself most of the time.  So many don't believe that about me - they believe I am peaceful, content, loving and selfless.  I don't mean to be a poser.  Those things are what I want to be - and some days the scales tip to the positive side.  Many days they don't.  I have ben in a pit for a while now.  So much in our life is changing - good changes, but change nonetheless and it is stressful.  I feel like I am in a mode of self preservation and it is a pervasive mood in our family right now.  I hate it, and I feel paralyzed to change it.  The changes just keep coming - the weight of it feels too much right now.  I see no light at the end of the tunnel.

It is times like this that I see the benefit of roots.  I want my extended family close by.  I want my childhood friends.  Maybe I want my childhood.  When someone took care of me.  I want to be able to drop my kids off at my mom's for a few hours or oh my gosh have them spend the night with their grandparents or cousins.  I can't remember the last time my kids spent the night with anyone.  This is the consequence of giving them wings.  We spread ours and flew away over twenty years ago and we have gone at it apart from human help ever since.  God has been faithful and He is more than enough to carry the weight of what we are dealing with right now.  As I said, mostly all good things - but even good changes can feel overwhelming when they hit you all at once.

Part of me holds on to the hope that my children will figure out how to have the benefits of staying close to their roots and still not being fearful of spreading their wings and flying high on the wind - wherever God leads them.  So, what do you think?  Roots or wings?  Or is it wishful thinking to believe that there is a way to have both?

Parenting Trauma - When Adoption is Not the Right Thing for You

This is not going to be a popular post.  In fact, it is probably going to stir up some feelings of anger and injustice and self righteousness in some.  If that is you, the I hope it stirs you to give it some good hard thought - and lots of prayer.

It is no secret that I believe in adoption.  I believe with all of my heart that orphan care is the responsibility of believers.  I could list Scripture after Scripture of God telling us to care for the fatherless and vulnerable.  Who is more vulnerable among us than children without protectors?  I have wanted to adopt my whole life, it is just something God put on my heart as a child.  I have never questioned whether I could love "someone else's child" and I have never asked myself "what if this doesn't work out" when faced with adding a child to our family.  Honestly, never.

However, I read tons of adoption blogs and I am a member of countless FB boards about adoption.  Special needs adoption, domestic, international, older child, foster care, kids from hard places, etc.... In the six years since we adopted for the first time, I have learned many things - but the one thing that breaks my heart the most is the disruptions.  They happen all.the.time.   I know there may be a time and a place for a disruption, and God may require me to walk through that heartache at some point - but, there is one thing I can stand before Him and a watching world and declare without hesitation.  Unless one of my younger children is in danger - either of being physically harmed or sexually assaulted by a child I brought into our home - I WILL figure out how to deal.  Stan and I watched a family walk through the sorrow and horror of having to have a beloved son, whom they adopted, placed in a group facility.  He tried multiple times to kill them and his brother, who they also adopted at the same time.  They moved to several states, tried several different schools and counselors, they spent years trying to parent this son - and no one could have.  Through no fault of his own, his life prior to entering their home had just completely ruined him for normal life in a family.  So incredibly sad.  They live near his group home to this day and visit him daily.  He is loved and I believe they did the absolute only thing they could have in this situation.  Sadly, this is not the norm when things go south with an adoption.

More often, the child enters the family, shows signs of Reactive Attachment Disorder (which can not be accurately diagnosed in a week or a month or even six months) and the family says, "Well, it didn't work out."  Yes, there is much more emotion involved than that, but that is truly the crux of it.  And then what happens?  That poor child is rejected again, told in deed if not words that they are not worth it.  There are even disruptions years after an adoption for the simple reason of "oops, we got pregnant."  Or families bring home a five year old when they already have a five year old and then say "oops, we can not handle two five year olds."  Yes, those are absolute real life examples that I have personally seen happen.  And this from followers of Christ!!!  Folks, the world is watching us.  Watching us walk out on our marriages and our children.  And they are supposed to know us by our love.

Every single day on the FB adoption boards I am part of, I see the posts.  "Which agency is the quickest to find a child with "minor" special needs?"  To which I want to scream from the rooftops - "Get a goldfish!!!"  There are NO "minor" special needs when it comes to adoption.  Yes, I know what they mean - a "minor" physical needs, with little long term impact.  But, friends - emotional needs are much more lingering and difficult to parent than physical ones.  Believe me.  I have two little boys - one born with a club foot - which was seriously a non-need and the other with a more serious file - several surgeries, but still not a "major long term" issue.  Our third son is coming to us with no physical health issues that we are aware of.  But, all three of my little boys are traumatized.  They had traumatic breaks in their lives and the body does not forget that easily.  It fights to remember.

If you do not know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you can handle the emotional impact of adoption, then donate to an adoption fund - there are people who can.  These children deserve better than a half hearted attempt.  And if you are willing to disrupt without exhausting absolutely every available resource and sometimes even being willing to say "this child will never love me and I will love him anyway because I am the adult here" - then maybe it is not for you.  And you know what, that is ok.  There are more ways than one to be a part of the orphan crisis.

There was a time I would not have said this.  There was a time I would have blasted the church for its seeming lack of desire to be part of orphan care.  (Ok, I still am more than willing to blast the church for that - I have rarely seen a more apathetic group than the "church" in America).  But, now I have been deep in this lifestyle for six years and I have seen things that I honestly never thought I would see.  These children are hurt - and we are not training new adoptive parents on how to handle it.  They are expected to be "grateful" and so glad to have a family.  They are expected to behave maturely in situations that they have never encountered - like the family dinner table maybe.  These children are wounded, terrified, and lonely.  All of those hurts are manifested mostly as anger.  Hurt people hurt people.  We all know it is true, but we don't want to deal with it when the rubber meets the road.

When we first got home with Jeremiah, Patrick was really struggling with not being the baby anymore.  Six years is a long time to have an entire house full of adults catering to you.  What made me the saddest was that Patrick is the one who "found" Jeremiah on the website.  He prayed to be a big brother, he told literally everyone about his little brother in China.  He talks about orphan care to everyone (and he is adopted himself which he also loves to talk about).  Several weeks after we got home, after a particularly hard day, I asked Patrick to talk to me about how he was feeling.  Sadly, he said, "I just liked his picture better."

Now, thankfully, things are looking up and they are slowly but surely becoming brothers.  But, that statement has resonated with me for the past three months.  "I liked his picture better."  Isn't that true of the way most people view orphan care?  We don't want to see pictures of sad and starving orphans.  We want to do something.  When we hear that 18,000 children die every single day from hunger related disease, we are appalled.  We "love" their pictures.

But, each of those pictures represents a real flesh and blood human.  With a personality and mannerisms that may get on your nerves.  Each of those pictures represents a person, one who is hiding more traumatic experiences behind those soulful eyes than you or I will likely ever even hear about in our lifetimes, much less actually experience.  These kids are hurt.  And we are the adults.  Patrick is six, so he gets some grace.  When you or I go through a year long process to bring a child into our homes, we do not get to say "I liked your picture better."

It is hard work.  It is down and dirty and exhausting.  It hurts - physically, emotionally, and mentally.  Spiritually it will tear you apart.  You will rage at God sometimes screaming "WHERE are YOU?"  You will take one step forward and 400 back.  And sometimes, the breakthrough never happens.  Sometimes he or she is still mean and catty.  Sometimes the anger is barely simmering under the surface and often it explodes.  Your other kids don't know what is going on.  It is messy.  And sometimes you just have to say, "I love you anyway."

Friends, I don't mean to be harsh - just real.  I think the time has passed for sugar coating adoption and showing pictures of these precious smiling babies without talking about the other side.  Every picture on my blog of Patrick and Jeremiah is real.  Every single one.  They do smile, a lot.  They belly laugh and they play.  But sometimes they sob - gut wrenching cries of grief, unlike anything I have ever heard in my life.  Sometimes Patrick wants to know why.  Why did my first mommy not want me?  Jeremiah will want to know too.  Those questions are deep and raw.  And you must - you MUST be prepared to deal with them.

You must know that when you bring a teenager into your home, he or she will not immediately be thankful.  Why would they?  They have no obligation to love you.  You are not the first person to tell them this is forever.  Or to say "I will love you no matter what."  Everyone says that, until it gets hard.  Until they yell "You are not my mom." or "I don't want a dad."  Teenagers know where to strike to draw the most blood.  Believe me, I have a few of them myself - and biological or adopted, they go for the gut.  Add trauma to that and oh my goodness.

Friends, please.  Dig deep into yourself before you start the adoption process.  Play out the worst case scenarios in your mind.  Be sure that God is leading.  There are many many options for supporting those who He does lead to adopt.  Be very very sure that you are not stepping out on your own.   It is the most rewarding thing I have ever done - but, it is not easy.  I think that for far too long, we have unintentionally been misleading by only blogging about the good times.  We want to celebrate those - but there is so much more that needs to be talked openly about.

Talk to many people, leave me a comment, do your research before you enter this world.  It will grow you and stretch you unlike anything else I can imagine - but you need to be prepared.

Mother's Day

Twenty-two years ago I became a Mom.  Mother's Day takes on a whole new meaning at that point.  I believe that Mother's Day is a day to celebrate all women, because women are nurturing by nature and whether or not someone calls you "Mommy" you matter, and the investments you make into the lives of others count.  I know though that for those struggling with infertility, or the loss of a child - or for my single mom friends, this is a very hard day.  I am so sorry for the pain you are in and the reminders that are particularly hard this weekend.

There are another group of ladies for whom this weekend is painful and bittersweet.  They are largely forgotten and until you are personally invested with one of these amazing ladies, you don't realize the depth of their emotion.  I am referring to the birth moms.

Six years ago I sat in a "crunchy" organic cafe in the art district of a metropolitan city and ate a spinach salad with my Patrick's birth mom.  Then she handed me "our" baby, all five pounds of him, and she walked away.  That was one of the most profound moments of my life.  Despite the mistakes she made in her life leading up to his birth, she managed - with God's help - to keep him safe for nine months.  She held him close to her heart then and for the nine days following his birth.  She rocked him, she sang to him, and he knew her voice.  Then she did something that quite frankly, I don't think I would have the courage to do.  She chose a life for him that she could not provide, despite the pain in her own heart.  She is a hero.  

Less than three months ago another profound moment occurred when we stood in a large room with over 40 friends who had become family in a miraculously short time - and watched 14 orphanage directors walk in with our new children.  We held Jeremiah in our arms that day after an 11 month paper pregnancy that left me as weak and spent as any delivery has ever done.  When I looked in his eyes, I thought immediately of his birth mom.   Short of a miracle, I will  never get to share a salad with this one.  I will never get to tell her that her baby boy, the one she loved and cherished for five whole months, is happy.  That he is healthy and that his medical needs are being addressed.  We can only assume that she could not provide what he needed medically and so she let him go.  Despite being in a country where letting him go was illegal and had to be done in secret - she risked everything to do what was best for her baby, knowing she would never lay eyes on him again.  Would I have that kind of courage?  I am going to be honest and say that I am not sure I would.  That is true sacrificial love.  The kind that makes my heart squeeze with emotion.

These two women birthed my children.  My beloved sons.  The magnitude of that is crazy huge.  Because of these women they have characteristics, mannerisms, and talents that have nothing to do with Stan or me.  Yet, we get to nurture those.  We get to watch them become all that God has for them.  It isn't fair.  Not at all.  It is hard and I just want to wrap these women up in a hug and tell them how very sorry I am that life is not fair and at the same time how very grateful I am for the precious gifts they left to us.  Yet, I can't do that.  Circumstances do not allow me to be able to do that with either one - and the further down this path I get, the fear that once accompanied the thought of adoption, is replaced by a longing that can only come from God Himself.  A longing that I could sit over a cup of tea with my children's first mommies.  That I could hug them tight and tell them all about "our" boys.  The knowledge that there is a "village."  Not the village that some people want us to buy into, but a sisterhood.  A village of mamas who only want what is best for these children that God has given - no matter what the circumstances.  Their births were not accidents or surprises to Him.  Their lives matter - to each of us, to the world.  We only want to get this right and it takes all of us, for these women are part of my children.  Their blood, not mine, flows in their veins.  And that matters.  It matters, for the men they grow into will be because of both of us.  And there is a time and a place when our worlds collided - and even if I never get to see them again (or ever), our worlds will forever be united.  We will forever both fiercely love the same little boys, who will one day be men. The magnitude of God's great and awesome ability to weave HIStory together into something so gloriously messy and beautiful never ever ceases to amaze me.  And the fact that He is allowing me to be just a tiny part of that tapestry is nothing short of a miracle.

Last night Stan and I watch a new documentary called Closure on Netflix.  It is the story of a 25 year old adoptee finding her birth mom and dad for the first time.  I won't give any of it away to you, because you should watch it.  I just sat and cried because recently God has been replacing what used to be a fear in my heart, with a longing.  A longing to watch my world collide with the worlds of my sons' birth families.  Three worlds that could not be more different.  I can picture myself around a tea table in China with the lady who gave birth to Jeremiah.  I can see myself at a large backyard barbecue with Patrick's birth family.  I can see us crying together and laughing at the amazing, awe inspiring God who did this thing in our families.  I long for the day.

So - even though I am a day late posting this - Happy Mother's Day to us all.  Women who invest in others, women who have loved and lost, women who have loved in the gap, women with wayward children, single moms, grandmothers, counselors, encouragers -- we all matter.  It is cliche to say that they hand that rocks the cradle rules the world - but friends, I believe it does.  We can raise warriors, no matter where they started or how rough their beginnings were.  And though most of us have no desire to "rule" the world - I have yet to meet a mama who doesn't want to change the world we are leaving for our children.

We have the power, with God's help, to lay down our lives for that very cause.

Happy Mother's Day!!!!

Journey to Jeremiah - Update

It has now been about 10 weeks since our little man was placed in our arms.  We have been home for over 8 of those weeks.  Since I last wrote about attachment, Jeremiah has continued to thrive.  He has meshed right in with our family and is doing exceptionally well.  Patrick is struggling a bit.  His world has been rocked to the core and I admit to being a bit disappointed in his jealousy.  I knew he would have his moments but he has struggled much more than I anticipated.  I think he is also disappointed in himself, which breaks my heart.  He loves Jeremiah and talks about him constantly when he is not with him.  But, when we are all together at home (he does extremely well out and away from the house) but at home, he is so jealous every time Jeremiah comes near me.  It has reveled some issues in Patrick that we have frankly ignored over the past couple of years and should have addressed before now.  Patrick is adopted from birth and I foolishly assumed that we would avoid many of the trauma behaviors that children who are adopted often have.  I did not take into consideration that Patrick's in utero experience was rough (understatement of the year).  He had to fight to survive and he is still fighting.  So now we are addressing Patrick's needs as well as Jeremiah's and Mama is T-I-R-E-D.  

Trauma is exhausting.

Attachment is exhausting.

Doctor's appointments are exhausting.

Parenting is just plain exhausting.

Tell us something we don't know, said all the moms.

Well, adoption is absolutely amazing.  Every morning when I look at their faces, I see the very heart of God in my home.  MY home.  And I do not deserve it.  Jeremiah said "I love you" unprompted for the first time on Saturday.  We spent the day in a little town a short drive from our home and we were walking around the town square, playing, having their faces painted, running in the grass, laughing.  All of a sudden, he threw his arms around my neck and said "I love you Mama."  

Melt.My.Heart.

When I look at his huge smile, hear his belly laugh, and watch him play and explore the world around him every day I am just in awe of the God who redeems.  He reaches down into our most broken places and picks us up.  He gives us things we don't even realize we need.  Jeremiah had no idea he needed a family - and we had no clue how much we needed him.  

Both of my little boys show me every day the Father's heart towards us.  "For He predestined us for adoption as sons, through Jesus Christ."  And now we have the right to be called Children of God, the very same as natural born children.  (my paraphrase)   God uses all of our children in various ways to reveal Himself to us - to grow us, stretch us beyond anything we thought we were capable of.  We fight for this life.  We fight for their lives and their health and their emotional stability.  

If not us, then who??? 

Now for a more practical update of our lives for those interested.  We have started the process of addressing Jeremiah's physical needs.  Mentally and developmentally he appears right on track, if not advanced.  Physically he is very healthy apart from his "special need" which is hypospadias and undescended testicles.  We received all of his blood work back (after much drama trying to get a blood draw).  Jeremiah is now termed a "difficult draw" and can only have blood drawn under sedation - per the instructions of the best pediatric IV team that our children's hospital has.  Yikes!!  That's tough.  But, they have been amazing and we got what we needed for his diagnostic tests and his basic bloodwork.  So, all of his bloodwork looks perfect as far as "health" is concerned.  He has clearly been well cared for.  

His special need is, in and of itself, not a big deal.  The big deal is that these needs are usually addressed and repaired under a year old, so they become a bit more involved and traumatic in an almost four year old.  After about three weeks now of almost constant doctor's appointments and attempted blood draws, we are good to go.  We will see the doctor next week to put a date on the calendar for the surgery to repair both issues and then hopefully put the medical part of this process well in the rearview mirror.  (I will save my post about the current state of our "sick care" system for another day). 

In the past few weeks we have also had Jeremiah's first dentist appointment, regular chiropractor visits (which he adores, as we all do - our chiro is THE most amazing person), countless baseball games for Graham, multiple trips to the zoo, the science museum, the children's museum, all the parks in the vicinity, and a visit from our NC family - which was amazing!  

Jeremiah seems to know his colors and how to count in Chinese and he is diligent about learning to do the same in English.  His favorite things right now are the dog, splashing in the pool (but not going under), taking a million showers a day (but not wetting his hair), eating toast and seaweed, peeing on the potty (but not consistently enough to call it potty trained), watching Paw Patrol, and reading Brown Bear Brown Bear.  He loves outings and he loves playing at the park.  He babbles literally all the time.  He is still mostly attached to me, but when I leave him home for short periods with the other kids he "gets over it" pretty quickly.  Stan and I have even been on two dates, which was amazing!  He sleeps all night, only sitting up for water once or twice soon after falling asleep.  

In other news our life is nuts right now.  In the midst of our crazy, Bryce graduated from college last week and we celebrated her with brunch at a local resort.  We leave in a couple of weeks for Florida, where Lyndsey will graduate from high school and then stay in Florida for a few more weeks.  The rest of us will return to Arizona, take care of Jeremiah's surgeries and finish the wedding plans.  Bryce and Jacob get married mid-August and she moves to Texas.  By then school will be starting again and I will be tutoring Patrick and Jeremiah's Classical Conversations class, Lyndsey will be taking college courses, Graham will be in High School (still at home), and there is a very real possibility we will be adopting another son who is Patrick's age.

Anyone want to join me for a nap?

I do love my crazy life! Enjoy a few pictures of our growing tribe!

Happy Resurrection Day!

Brunch to celebrate Bryce's graduation!

Face Painting in the square in Prescott! (the day J said "I love you.")

Hallelujah and Amen

I read the best blog post today.  You should go and read it before you continue this one.  You can find it here.

I think my favorite quote is this, "Yes, we are a Hallelujah people, and redemption is our song. But let’s not cheapen that redemption by acting like it wasn’t costly."

I snapped this picture just a few minutes ago.  It has already been a month and I still look at him and simply can not believe he is here.  It is over...the paperwork, the hours in the car, the waiting game.  Yet, truly that was the easy part.  It is actually only just beginning.  The bonding, the attachment, the medical needs, the language hurdles.  The important things.  The ones that come with lasting consequences if we don't get them right - or if God doesn't show up.  

God always shows up, you say.

And you would be right.  He does.  But, I can tell you with no hesitation that He does not always show up the way I want Him to.  Sometimes us "Hallelujah People" have to wait for Sunday for a very very long time.  Sometimes Sunday only comes on the "other side."  I know too much to think otherwise.  I know the stats on human trafficking and child rape.  I know there are hundreds of thousands of children who need homes, both internationally and here in America.  Our foster system is full of lonely children - they are broken, confused, and that is displayed to those around them as anger and aggression.  I know there are millions of homeless people worldwide who are not lazy or looking for a handout, but who truly need help - their story could be mine, or yours.  Where is God?  

That is the question of the ages, right?  Why doesn't He "show up?"  The question we really want to ask it "why doesn't He fix it?"  He could reach down and point His cosmic finger and BOOM - fixed.  He could just speak it, like He did in the beginning.  

But, He is not going to.

How do I know this?  Don't I believe in miracles?  Absolutely I do.  Every single day.  Look at that face up there.  He is my miracle.  So are his brothers and sisters.  So are the boys yet to join our family.  (Yes, there are more to come)  So are my sons and daughters in law to come and my grandchildren - biological and adopted.  I submit to you that the olive shoots around your table are without a doubt your greatest contribution to this absolutely broken world.  The "blessings" we all love to talk about are not what we think they are.  They are not money, houses, vacations.  They are people.  Living, breathing, broken people.  Just like me.  People that are needy - stuck, as the author that the blog post said, in the "messy middle."  And sometimes friends, it costs us everything. Hallelujah, Sunday is coming.  But, here and now this life is made up of a lot of Saturdays.  And you know what, God IS here.  He is here in the broken and messy.  He gives us glimpses of what is to come.  That glorious day when He will show up in a way that can no longer be denied by the majority.  

Oh - what a day!  I can't wait - this very second would not be too soon for me!

Come Lord Jesus!  

Happy Resurrection Day to all of you.  Let's be people that show up every day and sit in the mess with those who are hurting.  After all, don't you want someone to sit in your mess with you when it is your turn?

Journey to Jeremiah - Part 4 - Bonding and Attachment

Attachment, bonding, grieving, connection, trauma, RAD....these are the terms and conditions that I have analyzed (ok, overanalyzed), read countless books about, studied, prayed and cried over these past 11 months.  I thought about them when we adopted Patrick almost six years ago, but I thought adopting from birth was a guarantee that these issues would not affect your family.  It's not.

Adoption and trauma go hand in hand.  Always.  No matter what the circumstances behind an adoption - there is a tragedy involved.  What to us is a moment of long anticipated joy is to our children the culmination of a series of traumatic events leading them to a place they never wanted to go.  Whether it happened after only nine months in the womb and 9 days out of it, as it did for Patrick or whether it was three and half years worth of events leading up to "that" day - as it was for Jeremiah - there is still trauma and tragedy and heartache.  Yes, Patrick's "break" was easier on the surface.  His mind can not remember his birth mother.  But, his body can.  Her DNA is a part of him and it always will be.  There is connection in our cells and when that connection tragically breaks, there is long term pain involved.  Patrick is totally and completely attached to me - and to our family.  He is.  And yet, there are issues that arise from time to time that can only be explained by the trauma he endured in utero and the break that happened soon after.  Those things are irrelevant to our love for him or even to his day to day activities.  But, they are very relevant to the man he is growing into.  They are part of him and we can not deny them - it would only add another tragedy to his life if we attempted to.

Jeremiah's story is a little more complicated on the surface.  How their respective stories will affect the men they grow into remains to be seen.  Jeremiah does remember.  Not his birth parents - that break was made early, and his mind can not remember it.  Yet, it is still a combination of their DNA that makes up his physical body.  What he does remember are the caretakers he has had since he lost his birth parents.  We are eternally grateful that his caretakers have been kind, loving, and godly.  His life has been happy and settled.  He has been well cared for, fed, kissed and played with.  He is developmentally on track and at least in my experience, well advanced in many ways for a three year old.  The problem is that no matter how wonderful of an environment you live in, when you are an orphan, living in an orphanage - that is not a family.  It is a type of "familial" living and in his case, it was a very very good representation.  But, a representation is not the real thing.  And his nannies, though they loved him dearly, were not the same as a Mama.  It was their job to love him.  I love him because he is mine.

Bonding and attachment are intentional work.  They don't just happen.  I believe that love is a choice.  God led us to Jeremiah and we chose him 11 months ago.  We began at that point to choose to love him.  I understand, because I talk to hundreds of women about this, that adoption is not an easy choice for some people.  The thought of loving "someone else's child" is overwhelming to many women (and men too I suppose, I just talk mostly to women).  They want to want to - but, they think they just can't.  For me, this is the easy part.  It never crossed my mind that I would not love Patrick and Jeremiah as much as I love my biological children.  It just didn't.  Now, I knew that adopting an older child may be somewhat different in the beginning than adopting a newborn.  Patrick was handed to me weighing five pounds.  He really had not formed any distinguishable personality yet and he was a tiny, precious baby.  I wrapped him up in my sling and carried him around just like my first four children.  And I fell in love with him as he fell in love with me.

Jeremiah came to us with a personality intact.  A pretty strong one, I might add.  I was prepared that I may have to "fake it til I felt it" with him, as I have heard many people say.  I know that three is a hard age anyway and I was prepared that he may have habits and mannerisms that just got on my nerves.  Ya know?  Like when you babysit someone else's child and you love them and you are kind to them, because they are a child and you are an adult, and you just do.  But, they do things that just get on your nerves.  It's ok to admit, we have all felt it.

I can honestly say however, that I do love him.  He doesn't get on my nerves and he hasn't really displayed any habits (yet anyway) that are particularly annoying to me.  If you are reading and you did have a hard time with bonding, please don't feel defeated or "less than" or any of that.  Every person and every child and every situation is different.  I could adopt again and have a totally different experience - and so could you.

Attachment, I would define as the act of forming the true parent/child bond with your child.  When we talk about attachment in adoption circles, we all kind of mean whatever is the opposite of RAD.  It is a scary acronym to those of us who adopt older children.  I guess a child of any age could have RAD, but somehow we mostly equate it with the "older" ones.  Those who have already had their little wills shaped by someone else, someone who is not you.  We read books and blogs and we scare ourselves too death about the horrors of reactive attachment disorder.  And it is a real thing, and it happens.  A lot.  We want to do it right and be sure that nothing we do tips the scales the wrong way.  It is a lot of pressure.

Attachment is not something that happens automatically.  It takes real, intentional work.  You can not just jump back into your busy schedule with a newly adopted toddler or older child.  These children thrive on consistency.  Their entire world has been turned upside down.  They have no idea what or who they can count on anymore.

We arrived home two weeks ago, and today marks one month since our Gotcha Day.  So, it is still early to talk about complete bonding and attachment.  We are doing very very well, but there are still moments that it is painfully clear that we have a long way to go.

For our family, bonding has looked like spending a lot of time playing, singing, eating (so much eating).  Food is a really important tool for bonding.  What may look like bribery - and sometimes is - is also a huge factor for trust.  Jeremiah came to us very well fed and well taken care of.  That is not always the case.  However, even though he has never had to perform for his meals or wonder if he was going to get one - the fact is that he had no way to know if we could be trusted.  Food is a huge thing.  I know for me, one of my biggest concerns about our trip to China was food.  What if we can't find anything suitable to eat?  I brought a suitcase full of food - it was my security blanket in a way.  How much more so for a three year old being thrust into a situation that he did not choose and had no say in.  What if they don't feed me????  It has to be something that runs through their little minds.  So, we met him at the door with lollipops and crackers.  We allowed him to eat as much as he wanted when we would go to the restaurant for a meal.  We gave him snacks every time he asked.  We kept his cup of water full all the time and in plain sight.  Now that we have had him for a month, he has learned that we are going to feed him.  So, after he eats two bananas, then I can steer him in another direction when he asks for a third, knowing that he is not really hungry.  We still have a full water bottle near him all the time and we still offer snacks and meals more frequently than we will as time goes on.  But, I think we have cleared the food hurdle for the most part.  He does love to eat though, and has been so compliant about trying new foods.  We have learned that, in addition to his "staples" of seaweed sheets, noodles, and bananas - his "new" loves are olives, yogurt frozen into a popsicle, toast with butter, and dried peas.  Sometimes he eats these all at the same time, because you know - choices are HARD.

As we settle into our new normal, I am realizing what I already knew would be true.  This whole thing is about me.  What I mean by that is not what it sounds like.  Many would say (and do say to us daily) that Jeremiah is so "lucky" (I don't like that word and do not believe in luck) or they will say he is so "blessed" to have us.  In fact, it is the other way around completely - if I believed in luck, then there is no doubt that the "lucky" ones are us.  We GET to.  We need him a lot more than he needs us. Because you know what, God could have used anyone.  He could have picked someone far more qualified.  But, that's the thing about God.  He is just so - GOD.  He wants to draw us to a place that we never would have gone on our own.  A place where He must show up or we just couldn't make it.  Never make the common mistake of believing that God will never give you more than you can handle.  That is not Biblical and I promise you it is not true.  God absolutely will give you more than you can handle.  If He wouldn't, this chic would not be attempting to mother six children - I can assure you of that.  I am a complete and utter disaster.  There is absolutely nothing I feel truly good about in my life.  Most days I fall into bed feeling like a complete failure.  Overwhelmed with all the "little" things of life that add up to make a huge boulder in the path.  I never feel like enough in any area of my life.

But God.....He shows up in sticky kisses and giggles.  He is there when teenagers hold your hand.  He whispers I love you in the voice of a five year old who has been missing his Mom and just wants to snuggle.  He tells me over and over that though I never deserved this life, He gave it to me just because He can.  He delights to give us the desires of our heart - and a long time ago, I decided that the only true desire in my heart is to follow Him into the deepest places.  I stumble, I fall, I fail - I feel like I fail much more than I succeed.  Yet, somehow we keep moving in forward motion.  We keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Somehow, I have amazing adult children, teenagers who love me (and like me most of the time), and now two little boys who fight over who gets to snuggle with Mama.  Honestly, my life is nothing like I thought it would be at this point, but it is far more than I ever dreamed or imagined.

God is there - and that is really all that matters in the end.  I am so eternally grateful.

I will leave you with a few pictures from the past couple of weeks.  That smile -- oh my goodness, it melts my heart.  Watching him learn to accept our love is a beautiful picture of how God knits hearts together.  It seems like yesterday we were in that Gotcha room, but at the very same time, I don't know how we ever lived without this little guy.  Our family was definitely missing someone - and I am so thankful we found him!!

Journey to Jeremiah - Part 3 - We Gotcha Baby Boy!

The morning dawned early for all of us.  Too excited to sleep, we all went to breakfast.  Someone had suggested that we get together to pray before we left to get the babies.  We were to leave at 9:30 and the babies would arrive at the registration office sometime before 12:30, depending on when they left their orphanages.  About six or seven families (some missed the "memo" and did not realize we were getting together) met in the lobby for the prayer time.  We dragged our chairs into a tight circle and huddled together, heads bowed - not completely unaware of the fact that the huge bubble camera attached to the ceiling above us was watching and likely recording every word.  We started out sharing our thoughts, our fears, what was going through our minds here at the last hour.  Then we took turns praying.  Corporate prayer is such a powerful thing.  Obviously God hears and responds to every prayer we utter or even think, but where two or more are gathered the Spirit falls in a unique and powerful way.  We prayed for our children of course, for each other, the other children we brought with us, for adoption in general, for China - the country we had come to dearly love - for the nannies and foster mommies who had loved on our babies in the interim, for their birth Mamas.  We prayed for the tragic circumstances that our precious ones had faced to bring them to this point.  Our hearts were full to bursting with excitement, joy, anticipation - their hearts were about to break.  We felt the full weight of that knowledge in that moment and it was beautiful and it was messy, and it hurt.  God had given each of us the most amazing responsibility - the responsibility to raise another one of His children and point them back to Him.  None of us gathered in that room that morning took that lightly.

We left for the Registration office, where we were to meet the orphanage directors and nannies that would bring us our children.  Jeremiah's orphanage was about three hours away, so I did not expect that he would be there when we arrived.  Our large group all received our children together, but we were divided for bus rides, even when we were going to the same place.  This is a picture of us with the six other families that we were with the majority of the time.

It was Monday, February 15th in China, but in the US it was Sunday evening, the 14th.  Valentine's Day.  Clearly, the best one any of us had ever had.  What better day to receive the gift that represents the very heart of the gospel - the very definition of Love itself?  

We walked up those concrete stairs and through the front door, armed with bags of "distractions."  Hand held toys, cars, dolls, stacking blocks and lollipops.  Lots of lollipops.  It looked like any other government building and a dim hallway led to the "Gotcha" Room.  It was just a large room with a few chairs lining the edges.  The nannies or orphanage directors would bring the kids there to meet us.

As I knew it would, our Gotcha was not like anything I had imagined.  Mostly because I totally and completely jumped the gun and ran away with it.  We were coming down the hall en masse with our group, having been warned over and over by our guides that most likely none of the kids would be there yet and not to worry or be anxious.  They would all make it.  Because patience is not my virtue, I peeked through the crowd into the room and I looked down.  And there he was.  All I remember is yelling over my shoulder to Stan and the kids, "Jeremiah is already here!"  And I pushed through the crowd.  

I didn't mean to.  I didn't think about it.  But, I saw him and I just couldn't stop myself.  I squatted down right in front of him.  I don't recall seeing the orphanage director or anyone else for a few minutes.  

Then everyone else saw what was going on and pushed forward.  And they just jumped on him.  I keep imagining that he actually recognized us, thanks to all of "Aunt" Carol's hard work showing him pictures of us so often.  He didn't cry and after checking me out for just a couple of seconds, he broke into a huge grin.  His orphanage buddy, Louie, who also lived with Jeremiah at Shanghai Healing Home (more on that) was also there.  Everyone else in our group just jumped in there and started snapping pictures and making videos.  We had vowed to help each other capture as many moments as we could.  At that moment, I could not see anyone except Jeremiah and the rest of my family as they gathered around him.

It was surreal really, I don't know how else to put it.  It was a day that I had dreamed so much about, worked so hard for.  I had tried to prepare for it, but you never really can.  The emotions are completely overwhelming.  And being in a room filled with other people experiencing the same thing made every emotion intensified.  I used to be a very private person.  I like being alone.  When I was younger, I never wanted to talk to older women - I didn't want a mentor.  I didn't want to open up to anyone.   I just wanted to be inside my own head, to work it out alone.  As I have gotten older, I have found that you miss so much by not sharing life's personal moments and struggles with others.  We are all broken.  God sent me my first mentor about 12 years ago, and having her in my life has taught me that I need my sisters in Christ.  Stan needs his brothers.  We need people that we can share life's joys and heartaches with - God created us to live in community.

So, a community "delivery room" is about the best explanation I can think of for the Gotcha Day scenario when you have a large group like we did.  We would stare at our babies - still a bit in disbelief that the long anticipated day had come - hug them, and then carry them around the room to snap pictures and ooh and aah over our friend's babies.  For two hours we watched the children come in, we heard the cries and the laughter.  We took thousands of pictures and videos.  We laughed and cried with each other.  We took in the emotion of the reactions of others.  Some people laughed when they first saw their babies, some gave shy smiles and patiently waited for the children to make the first move, some barreled into it with no reservation (that was mostly the kids), some broke down in sobs, and some people literally fell to their knees - praising God and absolutely overcome.  It was a beautiful, glorious picture of heaven.  It was just a sliver of what that glorious day will look like.  When our faith culminates and all of our hopes become our reality.  Gotcha Day is just a little like that.  And I believe God was smiling.

By noon the last of the children had arrived.  We gathered our things and our new little ones and headed back to the buses.  Then began the work of bonding.  Grief is no joke.  And make no mistake, these kids are grieving.  But, they are tough and courageous.  They are made of the stuff of heroes.  Next post I will talk about the bonding process and how that has looked for our family.  It is so different for everyone and really nothing that can be predicted.  I do think that many people in the adoption world today are not prepared for the intensity of the grieving process and often give up too soon.  These precious souls have faced tragedies the likes of which most of us can not comprehend.  They are wounded.  But, they are oh so resilient.  So incredibly brave.  They fight for a fresh start and we have the holy opportunity to fight with and for them.  It is a privilege and an honor that we are so very grateful God has given to our family.  Thank you for reading and for being a part of our journey. Your prayers, your support, your love for our kids mean more than you can ever begin to know.