How to love the crazy adoption people...

My dear friend Lisa, along with her family, is in Lithuania.  They have adopted the adorable Asher and Annalise, 4 year old twins.  Asher and Annalise join sibling Adeline and Alden.  These friends are precious to us.  We met them only a year ago through a mutual friend but it was an instant love connection.  Our husbands get along; our kids want to marry one another.  And we all love Jesus and adoption and pizza from Costco.  (You, know, the trinity of important things…)

Anywhoozie, Lisa is about to come home and I’m just reupping my blog and I thought I’d reflect on our first few weeks home in order to help her.  Most friends, though well meaning, have zero idea what it is like to bring an older child into your family through adoption.  It is foreign and so those well meaning friends often do harm when they mean to help, or worse yet, do nothing at all.  So here is my version of how to love an adoptive family.

First of all, read Jen Hatmaker’s How to Be the Village.  Jen does an excellent job of setting the stage of what adoptive family’s go through after the big hoopla of the airport moment. 

Many people will say “Oh, you went from 2 to 4!  It’s like you brought home twins from the hospital!”  Um, yes, but a bajillion times harder.  It’s similar because your expenses doubled and you are sleeping approximately 2 hours a night, but that is really where the similarity ends.  Babies are pretty easy.  You have a baby and people expect you to be tired and bring you stuffed animals and meals and the world’s cutest socks but really all you are doing is wiping poop, producing milk, and watching Netflix whilst the smooshy balls of flesh sit still where you put them.  I mean, a baby doesn’t crawl under the bed in defiance right before your in-laws show up to meet their grandchild for the first time.  A baby can’t lob the remote at your head or stand on the kitchen table or forget that you said to not eat the soap.  You bring home two preschool children and despite the fact that you are getting no sleep and these kids don’t know what you are saying nor what it means to be in a family, everyone asks you to meet them at a park and to touch them like they’re the newest addition to the petting zoo… “Ooooh, their hair is so soft, I never expected that!” 

Ouch, Elizabeth, now it sounds like I will just screw it all up, when I want to love my friends.  What can I do????

Make meals.  We were blessed with meals three times a week for close to two months.  There were so very many days that I’d been up for so long and spent so much time in “come to Jesus” meetings on the time in couch that I couldn’t form sentences, much less a meal. (And did I mention that while I was in those time-ins with one child, the other children were unfolding the five loads of laundry I’d just folded while we watched Cars two times in a row.) A couple of weeks ago, I was so proud because I’d planned this yummy crock pot meal.  I’d set the table!  We were using real (not paper) plates!  I’d even managed to sweep up the cereal from breakfast, so our kitchen was neat.  And then it was around 5pm that my darling husband noticed I’d forgotten to actually turn on the crock pot.  Y’all, I would’ve cried, but by this point, I was so used to dropping all the ball all the time that I realized from now on my role as Mom was to just roll the ball.  I could no longer juggle. So we went out for pizza. 

So cook.  And make something normal, please.  No lentil salad or tofu lasagna.  It does the family no good if you bring over some wackadoo meal and they still have to order pizza to feed the family.  Because chances are they’ve already had pizza three times already this week.

Do the grocery shopping.  If you live near the family, whenever you go to the grocery store, text your friend.  Sometimes you picking up a gallon of milk or another 8 pack of yogurt will save the day, and really, how hard is that?  Things that would be a blessing to a just home from the airport family:

-milk
-cereal
-frozen pizzas (are you recognizing a theme here?)
-eggs
-kid friendly yogurt
-oreos
-goldfish (and other “pack in lunch” items especially if they have school aged kids too)
-bread
-rice
-deli meat
-spaghetti sauce
­­­-bag of salad
-paper plates
-small plastic cups (not giant 16 oz solos, but ones for kids)
-paper towels (seriously!!!!)
-kids’ band-aids
-fruit: bananas, apples, grapes, clementines, strawberries (things that are healthy that can be offered to a child that has known starvation at anytime without a parent having to feel guilty)
-ice cream
-beer
-wine (lots!)

Fold laundry.  Come over one night after the kids’ bedtime and offer to watch TV and fold laundry. Most likely, your friend will first refuse this offer.  Offer again.  Say, “How about I just fold the kids’ laundry and linens?  You won’t even have to say words or think or even help, you can just tell me how you like your shirts folded and stare off into the mid-distance.”  A friend did this for me and I still cry when I think about it.  In fact, I hired a friend to come for a couple of hours every week just to fold my laundry and vacuum.  Adopted kids often regress in the potty department so it is not abnormal for the addition of adopted kids to multiply the laundry exponentially. Maybe your friend thought they were potty trained but they aren’t.  Or maybe they don’t know how to wipe and so even though the kid is going in the potty, they still have to change clothes 47 times a day.  Or perhaps the kid is so ecstatic about having their own clothes that they don’t have to share with anyone and drawers to call his own that the child changes clothes every 5 minutes.  Your friend knows she should probably say something but a)how can you blame a kid who has had so little for so long, and b) that would probably require moving and/or dodging a shoe.  Or *cough, cough* maybe a child who has been in the home since birth with the addition of two new siblings has suddenly lost the ability to go pee and poo in the potty but also refuses to wear pull ups because she’s been in panties for over a year. 

Check in.  Send texts.  Most likely your friend is lonely and starved for adult conversation.  And possibly homicidal because of all the pee and poo everywhere.  That said, don’t assume that because things are hard they regret their decision.  Or maybe they momentarily regret it.  With a lower case “r”.  Which then makes them feel guilty and horrible.  So don’t say things like, “What?  Is it harder than you thought it would be?”  Because more than likely your friend has spent hours researching and training, but when the time comes, no one really knows what to do when your child screams and thrashes and throws whatever loose object they can find at your head for 45 minutes because you dared to strap them into the car seat. And don’t say things like, “Well at least you are now together!”  Because that completely negates your friend’s feelings.  It’s like telling a woman with severe morning sickness she should be thankful for the puke on her shirt. 

Your friend has done things she never thought she’d do in these trying times—let the TV stay on 24 hours (hey—it’s teaching them English!), gone to the pharmacy in pajamas, yelled at the kids so loudly her throat was raw, seriously pondered nudism as a means to reduce the laundry, driven around aimlessly for two hours because all of the kids fell asleep in their carseats, cussed out her spouse, given the kids bubble wands then locked them outside, and locked herself in the bathroom with her phone (that candy isn’t going to crush itself). 

Whatever you do, DO NOT GIVE PARENTING ADVICE unless you yourself have parented an adopted child.  It’s so very different.  And it’ll make your friend want to punch you in the face.  You know how it’ll take ten minutes to get out the door with your kids, so you just say, “Fine then! We are leaving without you.  Goodbye.”  You can’t say that to a kid who has actually been abandoned.  To a kid who has been abandoned or orphaned through death, you can’t send them to their room when they misbehave.  They’ve already been sent an ocean away from everything they know.  Every parenting decision, every consequence given,  must be done through the lens of trust-building, relationship affirming.  So when you see your friend offer a do- over to a kid who just hit her because he’s mad, don’t say, “Oh, in my house that would get a whoopin’.”  Because more than likely, your friend’s adopted kid has already had more than his fair share of whoopins’ and your friend is trying to both earn her kids’ trust and also teach him the appropriate way to deal with his anger and disappointment.  Kids who come from hard places have this intense internal struggle.  How do I grab on to this new family while grieving the loss of my first family?  How do I suddenly accept help from a parent when I’ve done it all on my own for so long?  How do I accept that these people are telling me I’m precious and adored when the circumstances of my life tell me differently?  These are very difficult and adult and complex emotions being sorted out by teensy tiny immature people.  It's no wonder there is crap everywhere.  (Gosh, why won't she stop talking about poop?)

Send your friend money, gift cards, jewelry.  No really.  Money because adoption is expensive and more than likely, your friend has at least 10k in debt.  And the need to pay it off isn’t helping your friend relax in the 2 hours a day she gets alone.  Gift cards because your friend needs a million things from Target and WalMart.  She needs pants because their newly home child has gained 7 pounds in two months.  Baby wipes because one of the children put two bins of wipes down the toilet.  A plunger (see previous sentence).  More Doritos, because, well, just because.    And getting to go shopping without having to price out every little thing is such a joy and Target has baskets that three kids can be strapped in so it’s the closest to normal your friend has seen in awhile.  And jewelry, because, y’all, she needs it.  A dear new friend gave me the cutest Stella and Dot studs yesterday at church.  Just because she loved me and wanted me to feel special and loved.  Oh my goodness.  I may not have bathed today but on my ears are the loveliest pair of sparkling earrings reminding me that Jesus sees me and is for me and so is my buddy Nicole.  Even if I can smell myself, especially when I can smell myself.  

We’ve been home almost 4 months.  And this crap is still happening.  (Though, honestly, a lot less.  Or at least the kids have gotten used to the car seats and now all sleep in their own beds.  Most of the time…)

Ok, so now you are thinking, holy heck!  What did my friend sign on for?  Why on earth would anyone adopt?  Go into debt and get shoes thrown at me? No, thank you.  Because while it is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done/am doing in my life, it is also the most joyful.  There are days it feels like death.  But even those days bring me closer to my Jesus than ever.  I know what my adoption cost him.  It was bloody and precious.  And well, this holy calling of adoption puts our family in this raw place of genuine living that it’s almost a high.  A joyful intensity that can only be accurately described as bordering lunacy.  Unbeknownst to him, I think adoptive families are the ones Keroac wrote about:

“the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

We aren't Dead

So, it's been three and half months since we brought Mollie and Charlie home.  I haven't written much because a) I am so very tired, b) um, I have four kids 6 and under so there is no time, c) I feel like so much of our life right  now is sacred and private and not my story to tell, and d) I spent a good bit of that time in a cave of post adoption depression afraid of myself of other people. 

So, you know, the usual.

I can say that it has been HARD.  Hard for all of the reasons listed above and also because my dear kids have experienced trauma and that's just difficult to wade through.  Heartbreaking really.  But redemption is always bloody, right?

All that said, I am blessed.  Beyond measure.  All 4 of my kids are hilarious.  And our life is bursting with so much life.  And life is always loud and messy and sticky and joyful.  I don't do anything half-assed.  So this integration of family has been approached with my whole ass.  And sometimes I fallen flat upon it. 

Never the less, if you wanted to buy me this shirt in a pink XXL, I'd love you forever...

So the looks of this blog are going to change.  I'm not quite sure how that is going to look just yet.  I've considered just disbanding it entirely, but I want to document some of our lives.  I'm thinking now it might just be pics and random conversations.  I can't do weighty blogs about transracial adoption or ethics  or attachment parenting or any of that other serious stuff that I spend a lot of time praying and chatting about because I just don't have the stomach to wade through that as well.  Plus, there are already people doing that well.  And I'd just be noise.  (If you don't read Kristen Howerton's blog Rage Against the Minivan, you should.  Like Jen Hatmaker, I like to pretend Kristen and I are besties because I follow her on facebook and we are in some transracial adoption groups together.  I'd love a complete new blog design, but that's not in the "let's get rid of the adoption debt and also have money to readopt the kids and get their citizenship" budget.  So we will just have to work with my playing with the layout button for a few minutes change.  Unless YOU want to make me a new pretty template.  :)

Because I'm a Winner, No, not a Loser

I’d like to thank the academy…

That was how I’d planned on receiving this award.  But apparently, there is no academy or little statue.  No matter, I have a half eaten chocolate Santa in my fridge with my child’s name on it so that will have to do. ( I had planned on posting a picture of it here, but I ate it instead…)

Anywhozit, a fellow Congolese adoptive Mom Jennifer over at Call 2 Congo blog nominated me for this fun blogger's award, the Leibster award! To be honest, I’m not really sure what this means or if it is real.  But when I googled it, the interwebs seemed to know what it was so there.   

So, what is a Leibster Award? This award is given to new or up and coming bloggers with fewer than 200 followers. The award is then passed along to other bloggers in the same category to help spread the word.  I’m fairly certain that this is kinda made up, but that’s okay.  It’s an award.  And when you spend the majority of your time wiping noses and butts, you take what you can get.

If you receive the award, there are a few rules to follow… 

Each blogger nominated must post 11 things about themselves. Then answer the 11 questions the tagger has asked. The blogger must then create 11 questions of their own to ask the bloggers they decide to nominate. Bloggers must be notified of their award. No tag backs. 

So here we go…

11 Random things about me.

1.       I’m the youngest of three children.  I’m a lot younger than both my brother and my sister.  (Something I love to point out to all of my sister’s friends.)  This age gap mixes together all the fabulous traits of a youngest with an only child.  Yep, yep, this explains a lot.  Someone once told me you could discover a lot about a person by asking the following, “When you were a child, what was your job or role while getting ready to go on a family vacation?”  *ahem* My job was to just sit in the car and wait for everyone else to get us ready.

2.      I’m a sucker for a well written television show.  I was a Media Production and Creative Writing major in college, which might explain this passion.  My all time favorite television shows?  MASH and the West Wing. I’m a sucker for complex characters.  I’m really digging the turn Downton Abbey is taking with Thomas and Bates for this very reason.  

3.      I cannot, cannot, cannot stand Nicholas Sparks books or movies.  You need to know this if we are going to spend any amount of time together.  My mom has told me she prays that one day I’ll be mature enough to enjoy him and movies on Lifetime. ­I kinda feel like there are other things I would rather have her praying for…but if you like him and his vapid, sentimental relationship porn, that’s cool. Lots of people I adore go crazy for those boy meets girl she dies or commits adultery story lines.  And I’m totally fine with that.

4.      I love my basement.  In fact, I do not know how I lived almost 35 years without one.  Seriously, like Yoshi in Super Mario brothers, our basement has been a game changer. 

5.      If money were no object, I would become a professional student.  I just love school.  I love taking notes, sitting in libraries, writing papers, giving oral reports.  I would love to get a master's in 20th Century Literature and then another in Theology.  {This is where my husband acts shocked that I didn’t give tours in college because I sound like such a nerd.  But really, I swear I wasn’t—next tidbit notwithstanding}

6.      I did Student Television in college.  

7.      I’m a “order the same thing every.single.time” at restaurant kinda girl.  If you suggest we go to a new restaurant, this will cause me great anxiety and I will have to look up the menu online just so I can pick out what to get in peace.  I’m not good at making relatively inconsequential decisions on the fly.

8.      I hate going to the grocery store.  Honestly, I’ve considering homesteading just to reduce the amount I have to go.  But something tells me going to Kroger once a week is a heck of a lot easier than milking a cow and making my own cheese.  But I hate it.  Hate it.

9.      There is never anything really good in my refrigerator.  {see above}

10.  I have stubby thumbs.  So does my dad and at least two of my nieces.  And even Megan Fox has one.  I used to be really self-consciouse about it.  Then I realized, “Ummm…they’re thumbs, who cares?”  In some circles they are called “Murderer’s Thumbs”.  So I dare you to make fun of me.  My husband thinks they are cute.  So THERE!

11.  {Hallelujah I’m almost done with these.}  My preferred alcoholic beverage is champagne.

And now for the questions that Jennifer from Call 2 Congo sent me:

1.      Are you working your dream job?  As a stay-at-home mom? Yes.  Most definitely.  But I would like more PTO.

2.      What is your favorite holiday or other tradition that you implement with your children?  I adore Christmas.  The expectant waiting for God to dwell amongst us, the lights, the sugar overload, the snuggly mornings of sleeping in.  Growing up, my mom always gave us Christmas PJs as our Christmas eve present.  We’ve modified that a bit: we give our kids their Christmas jammies on Thanksgiving and a new book on Christmas eve. 

3.      Do you have a recipe you are “famous” for?  Not really.  But whenever a party calls for heavy hors d'oeuvres, I always get asked to make the same sausage dip.   I got the recipe from my fabulous sister-in-law, Holly Phillips, who can cook as well as she can design. 

Hot Sausage Dip (insert inappropriate comments here)

-1 lb HOT sausage (preferably Neece’s if you can get it)

-1 box cream cheese (I use Neufatel to counterbalance the fatty sausage)

-1 can Rotel tomatoes, drained

Brown sausage.  Drain and rinse off excess grease.  Set aside.  Melt cream cheese in skillet.  When cream cheese is gooey, stir in Rotel tomatoes and crumbled sausage.  Serve with Frito scoops.  If you can wait long enough and not eat it straight from the skillet (this happens at Holly’s house every single Christmas), it’s great in one of those mini-crock pots.

4.      Are you crafty, and if so, what is your medium?  Yes.  I’m super crafty. I prefer artistic. {My roommate in college once introduced me this way—“This is my roomie EJ.  She is really autistic.  Like crazy talented autistic.”  The guy I was introduced to and I just looked at her awkwardly.  I said, “Ummm…I think she meant arrrrrtistic.   I don’t have autism.  But I did really like the movie Rain Man.”  She was really embarrassed.  That’s okay.  Fifteen years later and it still makes me giggle.  And cut me some slack with the Rain Man comment.  It was 1998 and I was 21.}  I’m fairly competent in most art forms except for pottery.  I can sew, draw, paint, sculpt, knit, scrap, emboss, and glue-gun like a boss.  But my preferred medium?  Hmmm…I guess some amalgam of all the above-- multi-media collage.  In high school, I won an award for a 3D collage diorama I built in a fish tank.  I made a collage for Gracie’s room and I’m itching to settle into this house a little more, pull out my easel, paints, and shredded paper and get to work.

5.      What book do you recommend when I “get a life” and some free time?  Anything by Nicholas Sparks.  Just kidding.  Anything by David Sedaris. 

6.      What is your all time favorite movie?  Sound of Music.  My flower girls even wore white dresses with blue satin sashes.

7.      Are you an animal person?  Yes and no.  Yes, I respect and genuinely think animals are lovely and we should treat them as blessings and reflections of God’s love.  I’ll watch a documentary on Penguins and go to the zoo.  No, in that I have zero desire to ever have a pet other than our fish. Also, I kinda think out culture's humanization of pets is ridiculous. 

8.      What is one thing your readers may be surprised to know about you?  I’m an introvert.  Really.  I adore being alone.  Yes, I’m loud and outgoing, but it taxes me.  Large groups of people freak me out to no end and I always collapse in exhaustion after parties and usually come home from Women’s Retreats or girl’s weekends depressed and sick.  I’m not so good at filtering the appropriate from the inappropriate which makes meeting new people a hazard.

 

9.      Do you have a bucket list?  If so, name one thing on it.  Not really.  I think I’m too type B to make a list that spans my entire life.  It makes me itchy just thinking about it.  Buuuut….I would love to have a rockin’ 50^th wedding anniversary party with a band.  I’d like to embarrass my grandchildren by drinking too much and grinding on Sloan.

10.  How did you choose your children’s names?  Each of our kids were named for family. 

-Henry Marshall—Henry = Sloan’s paternal grandfather, Marshall = Sloan’s brother-Margaret Grace—This was a surprise name.  Originally, we’d chosen Emma Sloan as our girl’s name, so when that placement fell through we were at a loss.  But Grace’s entry into our family in the midst of that grief was a grace to us.  Thus, she named herself.  But the Margaret?  We didn’t have anything to go with Grace and our case worker called and said, “Are you going to give her a middle name?  I need to get this paperwork typed up with a name.”  I shrugged my shoulders and just said, “Well, I guess Margaret sounds good.”  It got on our list because Margaret also happens to be the name of my late paternal Grandmother and my great aunt.

Our Congolese kids will keep their African names as their middle names.  The names we intend to give them are as follows:

-Charles.  Because Sloan is actually Charles Sloan. 
-The name we’d originally chosen for our daughter was Vivian, the name of Sloan’s maternal great aunt.  But when we got our referral, our cutie just didn’t look like a Vivian.  She looked like something else.  At dinner one night, while discussing girl names, I said, “I want to name her after someone we’d like her to grow up to be like.  I want her to love God and life and laughing and family and art and music.  I want her to be kind and generous and to treasure everything.  Is there someone in our family like that?" 

Then Sloan and I looked at each other and at the very same time we said, “MOLLIE!” 

So we are naming our youngest after the fabulous Mollie Burpo.  She’s not ‘technically’ family, but she’s been like a sister to me for as long as I can remember.  Our friendship began as camp buddies in Missouri so many summers ago.  And through the magic of the interwebs, she has become beloved by Sloan and our kids as well.  She points me to Jesus, makes me laugh, and has promised to steal me a lock of Jen Hatmaker’s hair. 

11.  If you had $10,000 extra bucks, what would you do with it?  I’d buy 4 airplane tickets to Kinshasha.  I know this is supposed to be a “what do you dream of getting” question, but honestly, I just want to get my kids home. 

My 11 questions for my tagged nominees:

1.       Who would you invite to a dinner party for 10?  Can and should include famous and/or dead people.

2.      When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

3.      Best gift you’ve ever received.  {You cannot say Jesus, salvation, my spouse, or my child}

4.      What is your go to road trip snack?

5.      What is your dream vacation?

6.      What drives you to blog?

7.      What do you hope your children remember about their childhood?  What do you hope they forget?

8.      What’s your go to “I’m at a party and I’m going to tell a funny story about myself” story?  You know you have one.

9.      What are you most proud of? {I’m assuming it is not the above story}

10.  What do you like the most about yourself?

11.  What is your favorite dessert?

And the nominees for my Leibster Award are:

Amanda at Living on Grace 

Tori at One Thousand Miles 

Ali at Tripping Over Toys

 

I think I’m supposed to do 4.  That’s what Jennifer did.  I’d love to nominate Cindy at Joy in the Journey, but with her 5 kids and prepping to go to Ethiopia for a mission trip in a few weeks, I’m fairly certain this would sink her.  So Cindy, feel celebrated and loved, but don’t feel obligated to do anything other than hug me next time we meet.

two months---in bullet points

When you've blogged pretty regularly for 5 and half years and then  you go dark for almost two months, you have a choice.  Explain why you were gone and catch everyone up, or just start from where we are now. 

So the short explanation is I've been busy.  REALLY busy.  I thought giving up the blog would just kill me.  But it didn't.  I think sometimes it feeds my crazy a little too much and lately, well the crazy level has been so high and things have been hectic that, well, the crazy has not needed feeding. 

Here is just a taste of what has happened since I last posted: 

• Henry had pnemonia and had to receive IV fluids.
• We put our house on the market and it was discovered that I can keep our house perfectly clean OR be a patient wife and mother.  But not both.
• We rode Thomas the Tank Engine, went to Field Days of the Past, the VA State Fair, walked in a fundraiser for Prader-Willi research,  and visited both sets of grandparents.
• Hosted our last Phillips Family Homecoming parade extravaganza for the high school homecoming parade that goes by our house.
• Regressed from potty training to being back in pull ups because Grace pooped in the foyer 30 minutes before we had a showing.  (But that's Ok, because we...)
• Accepted an offer on our house.  20 days after we put it on the market.  (GO GOD!  GO Elliott Gravitt, realtor extraordinaire!)
• Made an offer on a new house and are under contract.  (I will write about this house later on because it is ridiculous.)
• Given Gracie roughly 300 nebulizer breathing treatments (fall is not her friend).
• Had both kids LOVE LOVE LOVE their new teachers at school.
• Completely changed the way we parent Gracie because of some behaviors she's been exhibiting that we suspect are from the crank she was exposed to in utero.
• Prayed for more and more patience as we await news on our kids in the Congo.
• Discovered that Gracie has imaginary friends.  They are adults.  Their names are Mrs. Fox (?) and Mrs. Walker.  (Mrs. Walker is also a teacher at school.  But sometimes "Mrs. Walker" has tea parties here.)  Gracie also sometimes plays with Jesus.  She REALLY wants Jesus to come to her birthday party.  Because He is her best friend.  
• Henry earned his yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do.  
• Henry can now count to 10 in Korean.
• Gracie started dance class and it is the cutest thing in the world.
• Learned some upsetting news about our son in the Congo and prayed him back into our family.  
• Hugged our kids who live here extra tight every night because never ever did I think I'd see the day when I'd be praying for one of my kids to get INTO foster care.  

I think that's it.  There might be other stuff.  I don't know.  I'm going to try and get back into the habit of posting more regularly, but my guess is that it will be shorter.  And probably kinda trivial.   But y'all gotta hear some of the things that come out my kids' mouth because they. are. hysterical.

It is well (It is well)

So much has transpired in the past week I’m not even sure what to write.  Perhaps now is the time to explain why I write.  

I have been criticized as of late for not talking about what I’m feeling but blogging about it.  That it has annoyed some friends and loved ones to read about my life on the computer rather than to hear from me on the phone.  

In the immortal words of DJ Kool, let me clear my throat.  

A.  I detest talking on the phone.  For reals.

B.  The written word is how I figure out what I’m feeling.  It just is.  If you want me to talk to you, you will get a hodge podge of verbage that really doesn’t tell you anything other than I may be crazy.  You would think that my knowledge of my inability to say the correct thing would prohibit me from talking a lot.  

You would be wrong.  

So I say a lot of stupid stuff.  I’m a dreadful person with whom to argue.  I think fast and don’t fight fair.  You know how you think of zingers ten minutes after the fact?  I think of them on the spot and because I’m pretty observant as well, my zingers can sting.  I’m a real peach to be married to. 

Let’s say you sent an email saying “Hey, I don’t think we will be able to come over tomorrow for a playdate.”  I would probably reply, “OK. Cool. No worries.  Check you on the flip side.”  If you were to call me, there is a high probability that I’d say, “Well, fine.  I really didn’t want to have to deal with your bratty kid anyway and your face is ugly.”  (OK, that was me using hyperbole.  I probably wouldn’t call your kid bratty.)  

There has really only been one time in my life that someone has angered me so much as to render me speechless.  And that was a very.good.thing because I probably would’ve said things that would have irrevocably broken that relationship.  

C.  Ernest Hemingway said, “The writer must write what he has to say.  Not speak it.”  By writing out my grief, my frustration, my passion, it gives it a sense of weight.  And then I can just move on.  Really.  Once I’ve written about something, I’m sort of done with it and don’t even want to talk about it too much.  

I really don’t like to talk about my flair.

And as of late, my flair has been particularly heavy.  

Friday was hard.  I saw J’s face every time I shut my eyes.  As I was on the elliptical, I cranked up the resistance and ramp to as high as they would go.  It was almost as if I was trying to feel the difficulty J feels when moving his legs (J has mild cerebral palsy).  I spent close to 10 hours on the elliptical last week.  I lost 4 pounds because that is what happens when you live off protein shakes, cheese sticks, and do the elliptical for an hour and a half each day.  

I kept replaying the past six months in my mind, trying to figure out just where Sloan and I zigged when God zagged.  

Sloan kept telling me it was all part of the same journey.  That we hadn’t made a mistake.  And it was like I couldn’t hear him.  We argued.  We shifted blame.  We pointed fingers.  We cried.  We let the kids watch a lot of TV.

I was in a fog.  I went to the grocery store and forgot half of my list but did return home with a semi-automatic Super Soaker and a Slip and Slide.  We ate cold cuts or take out all week.  Because you can’t eat a Slip and Slide.  

It wasn’t so much the grief that overwhelmed me.  Having lost a placement before, I knew that the grief would be like the tides, rising and falling.  You know, as the hymn says, when sorrows like sea billows roll.  This side of heaven, I’ll never be okay with this.  There will always be a piece of my heart in China.  I will always long for J.  Just as I long for Emma.  

What was and is completely foreign to me was this doubt.  This mistrust of myself and of God.  Was I not praying the right prayers?  Did God try to tell me to go to the Congo but all I heard was Chinese baby?  Did I not listen to my husband?  Did I rush things too much?  How much was this going to cost my family?  Was everyone sitting around laughing at me because we obviously didn't know God's will from a hole in the ground?

But then my friend reminded me that I was misjudging God’s character.  Jesus is not a god who looks back.  So I’ve been repenting.  A lot.  For thinking that God judged me as a puppy who messed on the floor and his plans were to rub my nose in it.  He loves me so dearly that even my thinking that of him grieves Him.  As we prayed over this new direction, I kept thinking, “What if we are wrong again?  What if I think I’m following Jesus but really I am chasing my own tail?”  

I've never really been afraid before.  I do not like it.  I would prefer to not feel this emotion ever again.  If you can figure out a way to make that happen, let me know.  

But God is far more apt to redeem my mistakes than I am to make wise decisions.  So there is freedom to step out in faith and trust that even if I misstep, Jesus will not let me fall.  He will still hold me and guide me.  Even though it is common to say “I’ve found Jesus!  So and so led me to Jesus!”  Let me state this unequivocally:  Jesus is not the one lost.  He is not hiding out in the best hiding spot, giggling, as he imagines us all with our compasses and Camelbak water bottles, fumbling around, calling out his name only to hear echos in the canyon.  

False.  

Yes; we are fumbling around in the desert.  But He is stalking us.  There’s and old poem by Francis Thompson that describes God as the “hound of heaven” and I think that is about right.  

So I am granting myself some grace.  Moreover, I am repenting of my believing that loving J was a mistake.  I can guarantee that I would not have an ache in my heart for special needs kids like I do had it not been for a particular boy with a pointy nose and chapped cheeks.  Jesus used him to change me.   This hurt, this loss, has not been without my heart becoming more aligned with His.  So I will rejoice in this loss.  

I will sing that yes, it IS well with my soul.  We sang it in church on Sunday and my body shook in joyful tears, snuggling my Gracie as I sung, 

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.