Looking Back

 Today was Laura Tremaine’s One Day Hour by Hour social media initiative. It’s one of my favorite annual events because I love to look back on my life at different stages AND because I love to see other people’s days unfold.

This year, each day, I have been collecting my fb posts back to 2009 when I got on fb in the hope of collecting my writing to sort through what I have for a book. It’s been fun (and funny) to look back at the past 12 years, but it’s also been encouraging.

A few days ago, I saw a post in my memories from the first year the kids were home and I was doing a prompt a day for the month of November with an adoption agency. This is what it said (the prompt was I wish you understood…):

I wish you understood....

{vulnerability ahead}.... There are many approaches to this prompt, but mine is to the world outside of our family of 7.

I wish you understood that, while things are SO GOOD, I don't ever feel like I can admit when they AREN'T. I have always felt comfortable cracking jokes or making comments openly about any sort of issues in regard to Emma and Kelsey but I don't feel that same sort of grace in regard to my other three. I am afraid you will judge them. I'm afraid you will judge me. I'm afraid I carry the banner of adoption and I'm going to somehow dissuade someone from adopting if they hear from me that every moment is anything less than perfection.

I wish you understood that I am, so frequently, SO STINKING TIRED. I'm physically tired enough that my daydreams are filled with sleeping for days or a week. But more than that, I'm emotionally and mentally spent. I'm weary from having my mood tied to those of teenagers quite literally twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, at home and at school. I'm exhausted from worrying about teenagers, those in my house and my classroom, all of the time. I'm tired from being in my car running people places, I'm tired from trying to make sure each kid has every advantage he or she can have, that each of them feels loved and falls in love with Jesus, from making sure Kraig feels known and loved too. I'm so weary of keeping so many plates spinning in the air at all times, from family to my full-time job to my side job to friendships to a million other things. At any given time, I feel like I'm failing at something. I will say, I guess that's better than always feeling like I'm failing at everything.... 

What I most wish you understood, though, is that I don't ever feel like I can SAY I'm tired. I'm so afraid that you'll say, maybe even just in your mind, "You asked for this. You chose this. You brought this on yourself." I'm afraid to admit to being weary because I'm afraid you will think that somehow, I don't realize how blessed we are and that I'm not so grateful to be #touchedbyadoption . I wish you understood that sometimes the most joyous blessings also take the most out of you.

I read those words, and I could feel that bone-crushing soul-weariness from those early days, those first months home and back in school. I didn’t know the new three yet, we were feeling our way along blindly, I had never parented five kids at one time before, finances were new territory with seven people, my high alert was on with my original two kids and watching them for an adjustment issues, and I was also maintaining my other two jobs. Every night I went to bed feeling like I wasn’t sure I had another day in me and every morning I woke up already emotionally exhausted from a day that had not begun yet. I was feeling so blessed, yes, but I was also so fearful of the future. 

But when I read those words two days ago, it wasn’t that soul-crushing weariness I was feeling. It was such sweet relief that we made it. We survived those very hard and tiring days and these days are so much easier. I don’t go to bed and wake up emotionally spent (I mean, I have this year but it’s due to my career and not my family, haha) every day. We KNOW each other. We’ve weathered the adjustments, we’ve worked out the finances, we have parented 5 (and now launched 1.25). 

And will more hard days come??? YES, a thousand times yes. The seasons ahead could be harder than the ones behind. But the difference will be that I will be stronger. I’ll have more faith. I’ll have seen what I am capable of from those early days and I’ll feel more equipped to handle the rest. That’s the beauty of looking back. It girds you up for what is forward.

A Boring Evening at Home

 8 years ago today, the lives of 3 of my kids changed forever. 8 years ago today, a typhoon that had threatened their country for 5 days made landfall in their province, forever changing their present and their future. 8 years ago today, their perspective of “normal” shifted for good. 8 years ago today, they lost their mom, their dad, and their baby sister, as well as many other family members and friends.

Today, I reread Gerda Weismann Klein’s autobiography, All But My Life, to teach to my Holocaust Literature class. I also showed them her Oscar acceptance speech, linked below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zn-fPM4KS0

There is a very powerful thread that runs through both her book and her acceptance speech, and that is the idea that we don’t realize the beauty of the ordinary when we are living it, and it’s not until we are faced with a terrible diagnosis or a tragic accident or a natural disaster or any such moment when our life changed for good that we can see the “magic of a boring evening at home”. In her book, she has a line that says something to the effect of, “And I could think only one strange thought: that I had not realized how pleasant luncheon had been the day before.” 

Until the world changes, we don’t see the beauty in the mundane. Until we’ve experienced great loss, we don’t fully appreciate great value. Until we’ve been broken, we don’t truly understand whole healing. 

Three years ago today, I got a report from the doctor that “something” they had found over a month earlier that had started an unwanted journey of mammograms and ultrasounds and biopsies (and eventually, even after this, a lumpectomy) was benign. I hadn’t ever had to trust Him over a long period of time with my health and my body the way I had to in October and November of 2018, but with every mammogram since, I have appreciated the “boring evening at home” the night before, the “pleasant luncheon” the week earlier. I now know what it feels like to have everything hang in the balance while you wait to see which way your life is going to go, and due to that, I will never take for granted the easy days of blissful ignorance.

In 8 years, a ton of healing has happened in my kids. The Lord has been good to these three since that day, He has kept them in the palm of His hand. This is the first year since they have been home that they haven’t mentioned the anniversary in the days and weeks leading up to it or on the day. I know that isn’t because they have forgotten, but maybe it’s because they are learning again to trust Him with the future and cherish the present.

Small Beginnings

 {Originally written as a guest post for another blog in July, 2021.}

Zechariah 4:6-10

6 Then he said to me, “This is what the Lord says to Zerubbabel: It is not by force nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.7 Nothing, not even a mighty mountain, will stand in Zerubbabel’s way; it will become a level plain before him! And when Zerubbabel sets the final stone of the Temple in place, the people will shout: ‘May God bless it! May God bless it!’”

8 Then another message came to me from the Lord: 9 “Zerubbabel is the one who laid the foundation of this Temple, and he will complete it. Then you will know that the Lord of Heaven’s Armies has sent me. 10 Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand.”

Yesterday, I stood at the Colorado River. Except, a river it was NOT. A little stream, trickling in places, narrow, a couple of inches deep… if the sign had not said “Colorado River”, I never would have known. I was standing at the headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park. 

A year ago… in fact, a year ago TODAY... I stood on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and gazed into the chasm and across the deep. It’s the only place I’ve ever been that I had a physical reaction to, as we rounded the lodge to get our first look and my breath literally caught in my chest, causing me to audibly gasp. Later that day, we went to the iconic Horseshoe Bend, not as dramatic in its scope but every bit as beautiful. 

Both of those places came into existence, were carved and cut into their current form, by the Colorado River. The physical environments are continually changing even today by that mighty river. “Mighty”? This?

Yes. This. These waters are the beginning of the same river that runs 1450 miles and stops a few miles before the Gulf of California in Mexico. It passes through 7 states and 2 countries on its journey. It carries boaters and rafters and trout and fishermen and a water supply for agriculture and industry and recreation. Nature dot Org told me that “The Colorado River supports $1.4 trillion in annual economic activity and 16 million jobs in California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. That's equivalent to about 1/12 of the total U.S. domestic product, meaning the Colorado River's contribution is important to the national economy as well.”

All of that…. From this.

The moment I realized this was that same river that does all of those things, the verse, “Do not despise small beginnings” came into my head and, to be honest, I wasn’t even positive where to find it in the Old Testament. I took the picture because I knew there was a message from the Lord, a lesson, in this for me and possibly for others. When I looked up the verse and read the context, I couldn’t help but also notice verse 7… not even a mighty mountain will stand in his way, it will become a level plain. Or a canyon with a river running through it. The lesson in this, at least for me, is in the end of verse 10. Not only do not despise small beginnings, which is a great phrase to memorize and apply, but the second part: “For the Lord rejoices to see the work begin”. 

I don’t actually mind the beginning of things. I get really excited in the planning and organizing and dreaming process. The part I don’t always enjoy is the work on the front end… and the middle… and the redos…. and the next middle…. I much prefer being the raging river that powerfully cuts through the mountains than the trickling little stream that pushes and fights and weakens and works to get to the mighty end. 

But the Lord, He rejoices when I pick up the plumb line. He rejoices as each stone is set in place. He rejoices as I toil, as the little stream keeps pushing through the valleys until it has the power to level a mountain and create a canyon. And, as the early part of the passage says, it’s not my power anyway. It’s not my might, but His. He is the one who dropped the water into Rocky Mountain National Park, who poured that little dribble of headwaters into place, then it was the power of HIS Spirit that pushed that stream into a river with the power to create one of the largest canyons on planet earth.

So today, maybe you are like me and you need that reminder that the beginning doesn’t determine the end, that the work required is worth the result, that He rejoices with you in your labor, and that it’s His Spirit and not your might or power. Whether it’s your occupation or parenting or your vocation or your ministry or relationships or a dream long deferred, He wants to remind you of these things today.

This is Swim.

 I just got home from a swim meet. Our sports repertoire in this family has consisted of volleyball (2 kids, 2 levels, 5 years), cross country (5 kids, 3 levels, 8 years and counting), track (4 kids, 2 levels, 3 years), tennis (2 kids, 1 level, 3 years and counting), and swim (2 kids, 2 levels, 6 years and counting). If I ranked the sports based on my viewing pleasure, cross country would be first, followed by tennis and swim, then volleyball, then track. If I ranked them based on team culture, cross country and swim and tennis all tie, followed by volleyball and track. If I ranked them on positive experiences, middle school volleyball ranks right up there with cross country and tennis and swim. If I ranked them based on team spirit and encouragement, cross country and swim knock all of the others out of the competition.

Above is just a sampling of the moments from tonight. At swim meets, everywhere you look are kids encouraging each other. The high schoolers calm the nerves of the middle schoolers. The kids clang on the blocks to push their teammates to a strong finish. The swimmers stand at the end of the lane and cheer their teammates on during the events. Kids walk the length of the pool encouraging each other. Opposing team members reach across the lanes to give each other high fives in the water at the end of an event. The middle schoolers screech and shout for the high schoolers. They all watch each others’ times, they know the goal times of their teammates. They critique each others’ performances and ask each other what their dive, their stroke, their turn, their count looked like. 

The strange thing about swim (and cross country) is that they are individual and team sports at the same time. You’re competing with yourself and your teammates, but you also need your teammates to do well. And if you work with a teammate on a stroke or turn or dive to help them improve, you’re helping the team but you’re also potentially helping that teammate get faster than you. It’s an unselfish man’s sport, for sure.

When I watch these kids at meets, I always think about it as a metaphor for life and a chance to self-reflect. How often am I at the end of the lane, cheering for my coworkers? How many times do I reach across the lane and high five the person whose life is “beating” mine right now? Am I willing to put in time and effort to help the people around me, knowing it puts them in a better position than I might be? Do I enter more rooms with an attitude of “how can I help?” or one of “I’m going to do whatever it takes to one-up you right now”? Am I the person reaching out to the more inexperienced people or am I just scrambling to keep myself in a good position?

I wish I could say that I always find myself being a great teammate, an awesome mom, a fabulous wife, an incredible friend, a valuable coworker, a perfect teacher, an admirable Christian, an encouragement to this world. The truth is, I don’t always find myself to be those things. I fight a very real spirit of the elder brother and I am sometimes a naturally jealous person. Sometimes I have to battle my flesh to be happy for the people who are beating me. 

But if there’s one thing that being a sports mom, a swim mom in particular, has taught me, it’s the value of setting aside self for the good of the team. And every time I struggle to do so, I recall the images above and I look deep inside to try and find the ability to be these people.

Shifting the Paradigm

The other day, I was talking to a student about a new dog they had gotten, a shelter dog. She was telling me about the many issues the dog has, the fact that the shelter was concerned that no one would ever come for that particular dog. I told her a little bit about Saige and our journey with her, the way she was terrified of males (and now Kraig is her absolute favorite person in this house), the fact that she took off like a shot (somehow getting out of her harness) the moment we got home and we thought she was gone for good, the desire we had for her to be a house dog and the way she wouldn’t come anywhere near the house (once we finally caught her that first day), and the fear we had that we were going to have to give her away almost as soon as we got her because she didn’t seem to be willing to live here.

I look at this baby now, almost four years later, and I am so shocked by her transformation. I can’t imagine the past nearly four years without her, those soulful hazel eyes and soft fur, floppy ears, high energy but ability to fall asleep INSTANTLY. It also kind of scared me to imagine how close we came to giving up on her.

And as a teacher, a person who works with foster care ministry, and a mom of kids from a hard place, I can’t help but think about the fact that her initial behaviors when she came to us weren’t from a place of animosity or even misunderstanding, but a place of fear. Her defenses were up because of the past that she had. She was afraid of men, likely because of the ways men had treated her. And as Kraig and the boys loved on her and met her needs and played with her and gained her trust, she warmed to them. But she didn’t just warm to THEM, she warmed to all men. She lost the generalized fear she had of men, fear she had developed because of the treatment of certain men, due to the gracious love shown to her by other certain men. 

We can’t disregard the past that people carry with them, the ways in which their behaviors are shaped by the treatment they have been given. At the same time, we can’t underestimate the impact we can have, just us as individuals, on those around us. It may only take you to shift the paradigm for someone, to show them that it doesn’t always have to be the way it’s always been.

He’s 18.

 My son ran his last cross country meet (ever) last week. It’s taken me a full week to sort through my thoughts and feelings about the fact that my third child is experiencing all of the senior highlights, that my third child is nearly at the end of the at-home years. For 12 years, I only had two kids. I have now almost launched more kids than I ever even imagined myself being privileged to parent. It’s a shock to my gut.

And this kid…. this boy…. Every child in my nest is special. Every single one of them has their own unique story and place in our home and the fabric of our family. 

So let me tell you about this one.

This guy, from the very first time I laid eyes on him, captured my heart. He has a twinkle in his eye, a mischievous smile, and a wit that cannot be matched. My adoption hope was always that God would allow for us to adopt a son (little did we know that we would be blessed with TWO sons and a daughter too!) and I think that when I saw Roman, my heart immediately recognized the son it had always dreamed about.

When we started to skype, that little scampish personality shined through instantly. I saw in him the male students I had always loved to teach, the ones who were smart and witty and fun but also just a little bit of work, the ones I had to keep a close eye on because the risk was there for them to outsmart me, even as 15 year olds. Roman was “that kid”. 

There is a certain picture of him I will never forgot, one I saw online in the days leading up to our trip to the Philippines to get them, and I just remember thinking that my insides melted when I saw it. I didn’t know what parenting him was going to be like, but I was pretty sure it was going to be an adventure and a joy and a lot of hard work.

And I was correct. On all levels.

Roman was the first of our new three to get in any sort of serious trouble (as serious as trouble can be for an 8th grader). The early years of disciplining him were not fun for anyone. He completely shut down when you tried to discuss issues or discipline with him. As I told someone today, the potential was there for some really, really major challenges and at times I wasn’t sure what parenting these difficulties would like like in an older teenager.

But the changes, the growth, the beauty from ashes, the softening of his heart, the spiritual maturity that happened in him over the next few years… it was incredible to see. 

The Roman that we know today has come so far from that little boy who stood with his head down, refusing to look at us as we talked to him about his indiscretions, shutting down for days at a time after being disciplined. 

Today, Roman reflects his Father. When he prays, the depth of his communion with the Lord stuns me. The profound nature of his thoughts in his prayers is astounding to me. He talks to Jesus like He is a best friend. Roman is, without a doubt, called to children’s ministry as a layperson. Several years ago, he started helping with the children’s service during our church’s recovery program (mostly drug and alcohol) every Thursday night. When I say that not only do we NEVER need to remind him to go, nor does he ever dread going, what I mean is that often I forget that he has that on Thursdays and he reminds me. He has arranged his work schedule around it. He gets very frustrated when he has to miss for a trip or cross country meet. He comes home glowing and alive and full of stories from the night. He routinely requests prayer in our family meetings for the kids whose stories he holds from Recovery Alive. It’s his heart, and his heart reflects His.

Seeing Roman grow into a man, 18 years old tomorrow, from that little 13 year old boy we brought home from the Philippines has been one of the greatest joys of my life. Seeing all of the parts of him that I loved and adored from the first moment I met him that are still inside to watching the amazing growth and maturity in the parts that needed to grow and mature to the joy of the new aspects of who he is that have come as he has aged… it’s been such a privilege to witness. I love this boy with every fiber of my being, every beat of my heart. I can’t imagine, sometimes, that I lived without him for the first 12 years of his life.

And even though I knew, I really did KNOW or I wouldn’t have even considered adoption, that you can love a child who wasn’t knit together inside you and who you didn’t even meet until he had lived a good portion of his life just as much as the ones you birthed… I am still amazed by it sometimes. I look at him and I see what God sees in him. I see his past and his present and his future and I know the Lord saved his life and set his feet on a firm foundation and redeemed his losses and cut a road through the ocean for us to become his parents and provided him with every bit of his intellect and his charm and his faithfulness and his servant’s heart to equip him for the good work He has ahead for him. 

And I’m just so thankful that, even though I wish his life had not been so hard and that he had not suffered losses I can’t even imagine, that God chose me to be his second mom.

The Hourglass

 I remember when I was little and my mom (who would die if she knew this was written for posterity online) would watch “Days of our Lives”. 

“Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.” Or something like that.

I was having a conversation with someone tonight in social media comments about favorite and least favorite months and seasons and so on. In the discussion, as I tried to explain why I dislike November so much more than even January or February, I made a comment like, “Once you get to January, you’re in the dead of it (winter), but at least you’re making progress. November is the very beginning and so far away from summer.” It made me think of how I’ve always loved Thursday more than Friday and the way I prefer the days before school gets out over the first days of summer. I love the anticipation of the thing most, because once the thing starts, the clock is ticking. I’ve always said I don’t hate August and September because at least the countdown is on to summer, versus during summer when you feel like the hourglass sand is slipping through your hand.

I do better in the middle of the ick, I said, than at the beginning of it.

I hate that feeling of trying desperately to hold onto something as it slides past, what Andrew Marvell referred to in the poem we read in class last week as “Time’s wingéd chariot hurrying near”. But after all, what else is living, if not the constant starting and ending of every single thing in the world? The starting and ending of days and weeks and months and seasons and years and parenting phases and classes and friendships and hobbies and hopefully pandemics and diets and crises and achievements and failures and books and meals and laundry (just kidding, that never actually ends) and on and on and on and on. And on. While we just sit and try to hang on to vestiges of the good and happily relinquish the bad.