The Time of His Favor

Being a mother to children you did not birth can lead a person to some unusual emotional places.  With children you give birth to, there is an inescapable bond which makes it more natural to have insight into what the child needs.  There is literally a part of you inside that child somewhere which connects you emotionally and you at the very least have some sort of "hunch" as to the origin of the particular behavior, attitude or action.  It's not that there is a greater love for natural children as opposed to adopted ones, but simply a greater ability to understand the child.

The inability to understand my children who did not come from me has been weighing heavily on my heart lately.  I try very hard to look them each in the eye as much as possible to see if there is some new light into who they are becoming as they are growing older.  They say the eyes are the window to the soul.  I'd like to meet the guy who said that & have him live in my house for a while.  There are times when I feel like I'm nowhere closer to understanding their souls than I was when they first came.

Yesterday was one of those days.  I felt like I have failed my children.  I am at a loss to know what to do next with a couple of them and it all just hit me like a brick wall.  I don't love them any less than any of my other children, but love is a choice.  Understanding is not.  I can choose love and that love increases & strengthens over time.  I can choose to understand all day long, but unless somehow the light is turned on for me, I cannot understand any more tomorrow than I do today.

Today I am seeking after the One who has the light to shed some of it into this broken momma.  As I prayed for my children today on their 1st day of school, I was led to a passage in Isaiah which most likely has nothing to do with children, but God used it to open my eyes to what He is doing in our family.

Isaiah 49:8  

This is what the Lord says, 

"In the time of my favor I will answer you,

and in the day of salvation I will help you;

I will keep you and will make you

to be a covenant for the people,

to restore the land

and to reassign its desolate inheritances."

My take away?
First of all, what I'm asking of God takes "time."  In my mind 6 years is a lot of time, but in the grand scheme of my children's lives and the whole of history...It's really not that long. Okay, Lord, I will wait for the time of your favor.

Secondly, He will KEEP me!  This process is NOT going to destroy me...Even though I felt destroyed yesterday.  He has me right in the palm of His hand.  There is no better place to be than that!

The final thing struck me like lightning!  He is making ME into a COVENANT for my children...to RESTORE them and "reassign their desolate inheritances."  They have come from desolate places with genetic wiring that I cannot understand, but He is reassigning them to their new origin!  WOW!  I guess it's not only a work in THEM that needs to come to completion, but there's a serious work in ME which needs to take place as well.  How in the world can I possibly be a COVENANT for my children?  Lord, make me into whatever YOU need me to be for the sake of my children.  My own understanding is not nearly as important as my BEING who You need me to be so that You can use me to make them into who they need to be.

Thank you, Lord for making today a WHOLE NEW day!  I gladly leave yesterday in Your hands. 

My Big Junior Highers on their first day of school

My Littlest Munchkins on their 1st day of school

April Fools!

As a child I remember being excited to try little pranks on April Fool's Day.  For many years as a teacher, I would pull little tricks on my classes, but eventually the "fun" of that day sort of wore off.  There is one April Fool's Day, however, which is the most memorable one of my life.  It's the day we received our very first placement in foster care...April 1, 2004.  We had NO IDEA what we were doing.  All we knew was that for some reason, God had asked us to open our home to little people without a home.  It didn't make sense.  Some might even say it was foolish.  Nevertheless, that day, a case worker brought four blonde headed little boys into our home and our family would NEVER be the same.

 April Fool's Day, 2004

These four boys, while they only lived with us for a period of four months serve as an eternal reminder that the "wisdom of this world is foolishness to God" (I Cor. 3:19).  People asked us regularly if we were crazy.  The truth is, most likely YES.  We cannot help ourselves when it comes to saying "yes" to the Lord.  It doesn't always make sense according to our human reasoning, but somehow in God's mind, it is EXACTLY RIGHT.   After all, what kind of King lays in a manger and grows up as a pauper?  What kind of a King stands mute as He's ridiculed, beaten beyond recognition & even killed over nothing?  Certainly not any kind of king WE can think of!

God's plan is almost never something we can even imagine with our own feeble minds.  There are times, even, when it doesn't make sense in hindsight.  However, I seem to remember hearing/reading "somewhere" that faith is "being certain of what we do not see" (Heb. 11:1).   I believe God does not reveal His full plan to us up front because there are things about His plan which are too overwhelming and would frighten us away.  However, as we remain faithful and obedient, He gives us more and more glimpses of His plan, increases our faith and strengthens us more and more. 

So...on this April Fool's Day, I challenge you to be "foolish" for the Lord.  Open your heart up to WHATEVER He leads you to do, whether it makes "sense" or not.  Take a step.  Trust HIM!

Time Out...Time In!

Well, the past two years have been INSANE!  In addition to our "new addition" and my "new calling" I have been working diligently to complete my master's in ministry and educational requirements for ordination through The Wesleyan Church.  I'm DONE!  I do have one last 2 1/2 day class to take in April, but my master's is DONE and everything else is DONE!  I know there's a chance that no one will read this because I've dropped off any blog radar there may be, but I'm using this as a chance to restart, nonetheless.

As a mom, the past couple of years have been stretching to say the least.  God has stretched me to the very edge of who I am so many times, I'm not even sure I'm recognizable anymore.  That's a GOOD thing...Just different.  My children are growing so quickly.  There are things we have discovered about a couple of them which have caused us to realize that sometimes damage cannot always be "undone" but that sometimes we have to learn how to operate and move ahead regardless of the past and regardless of what we can fully understand. 

Here's a short summary of a small part of the Good, the Bad & the Ugly from the past 2 years:  Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Reactive Attachment Disorder are REAL.  They do not just go away over time.  Disorders and Syndromes, however, are NOT beyond the scope of God's control nor His power.  We are clinging to that now more than ever before.  Even though it was not our direct choices which have brought about these circumstances into our lives, we still must pay the price and be faithful.  We have a choice on how we move forward.  We can move ahead with hopelessness and allow "nature" to run its course, whatever that may be or we can choose to cling to the hope of an all powerful God who can give us wisdom, strength and endurance to run the race marked out before us (Hebrews 12:1-2). 

I believe God can and desires to save the souls of ALL EIGHT of our children (II Peter 3:9).  I cling to the hope that He will.  I determine that I will operate under the fact that suffering is temporal  and that we are working and striving for things which are eternal (II Corinthians 4:17-18).  I will store up the tiniest of advances and allow the collection of them to strengthen my hope.  I will say OUTLOUD every day: The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God:, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold (Psalm 18:2).  I will allow HIM to carry us and not my own strength or wisdom (Psalm 46:1 & I Corinthians 1:25).

I pray that wherever you find yourself at this moment in time, that you can understand that we all have our struggles.  They may look different from one family to the next, but God is the same God to each of us.  There IS victory in HIM alone for all who are willing to call upon His Name!

Journey to Uganda

Well, we FINALLY received THE email!  We have a court date!  On April 23rd we will be in court with Henry-the-8th!  We could not be more thankful, excited, overwhelmed, frightened, joyful, and freaked out all at the same time!  The journey that God has taken us on the past year has been a long one.  Mostly because I spent a few months as Moses did, making excuses to the Lord as to why this should NOT happen.  He certainly has a funny way of getting through to us though.

Now the race is on.  We have much to do, and less than a month to do it all.  There's scheduling and rescheduling to do.  We have many loose ends to tie up, but have no doubt that the Lord will provide, as He has all along.  He never ceases to amaze me!  I still cannot figure out why He has chosen us for our son, but there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that He HAS chosen us for each other.  I am eager to turn the page on this chapter and move forward with our complete FOREVER family!

Henry-the-8th

Five years ago, we opened our home to a sibling group of four little ones and ever since, you can imagine the comments and jokes we receive for having so many children.  One of them we get a lot is that we need to have an 8th because then we'd have a "Henry XIII" or the "Eight is Enough" reference..."NEVER!" was often what went screaming through my head as people would joke with us about that 8th child.  Well, I guess the joke's on us! 

Henry-the-8th!

Last February, a friend in my Bible study was sharing about a little boy that she & her husband were going to try & adopt from Uganda.  The next week, she shared that there was a chance that he was too old for them.  By Ugandan law, you have to be 21 years older than the child you adopt & they are in their mid twenties & he may be as old as 12.  All that week, I found myself thinking continually about this little boy and almost hoping that he would turn out to be too old for them.  This made NO SENSE to me!  What in the WORLD was I thinking?!  

Sure enough, my friend shared in the coming week or two that they were not going to be able to adopt him, but she was struggling as to why the Lord would bring this boy into their lives & hearts only to then "take him away" so-to-speak.  That night, I couldn't sleep.  I prayed for him.  I thought about what it would be like to be able to be this little boy's mother.  I thought about what it would mean to our oldest son to have a brother his age.  I couldn't stop thinking....

FINALLY, after wrestling with these thoughts for a month, I opened up to David about what I had been thinking.   I figured he'd tell me I was insane and then we'd be able to get on with our lives.  Instead, David said, "You know, it's strange, but I've been feeling like we have had another son out there somewhere."  WHAAAT??!!!  His reply shocked me.  This was NOT the man I married saying these words!  

Since that conversation, we prayed about him for a while to the point where the best answer we had was, "Well, I know it's NOT a 'no!'"  After another month or so, I got a call in my office at church from my friend who first shared about this boy with me.  She was in tears and said, "I don't know why, but I feel like the Lord wanted me to call and ask you & David to pray about adopting him!"   The tears started flowing.  I knew why the Lord had her call me.  Because we needed that little confirmation in our hearts that what we were thinking was truly of HIM and not just something we had come up with in our own human reasoning.

From then on, we decided to move ahead until we felt the Lord tell us to stop.  So far...He has only confirmed, "GO!"  SO, here we are...in the process of adopting "Henry-the-8th" somewhat out of the blue!  I can tell you that while I realize that by all human standards, this makes no sense, the Lord has made His will very clear to us and we are moving ahead with excitement and great anticipation.  Our children could not be any more excited!  

Here he is talking to me on the phone the day he found out we were going to adopt him.

We told our oldest son, Alexander, first.  He was our first miracle baby and remembers well what life was like before foster care and adoption.  I'll never forget the times he would pray that the Lord would fill our home with children who needed a family.  He has truly sacrificed much for each of the kids who have gone through our home.  The damage to his possessions are like a scrapbook full of memories of which child did what to which toy.  In spite of the sacrifice, when we told him, he was so excited that he would have a brother who would be his age.  He set to work immediately cleaning and preparing his room for this new brother.  Every picture he hung on the wall so that his brother would be able to enjoy it from his bed too.  He even made sure to leave some empty places to make room for his new brother's things.  I could not be more proud of my son and the incredible heart he has for others.

His response puts me in the mind of how the Son has felt all these thousands of years eagerly working to prepare our place in Heaven.  Getting our mansions ready, setting a place at the table for us, preparing all the most amazing splendor He can come up with...All for us!  Just knowing how eager we all are for the arrival of "Henry-the-8th" makes me wonder how much more eager the Father and all of heaven are for our arrival.  "What a day, glorious day that will be!"

By the way...I can't tell this story without telling you that my friend who initially told us about our boy actually got to be the one to meet him, take him gifts & a picture book from us, and tell him that he has a family waiting for him in America.  Jade Metz has a blog too & she blogged her perspective of this story back in November.  What an incredible moment that was for her!  

I love this picture of Jade almost as much as I do of him!
What a privilege for her to be the one who got to tell  him about his new family!

Here he is "meeting" us through Jade & pictures

Healing

“Daughter, your faith has healed you.  Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”  Jesus said this to the woman who was healed after she touched His robe.  She was suffering, not only from the physical pain, discomfort, & weakness that 12 years of bleeding would bring, but the emotional suffering brought on by years of rejection, stares, sleeplessness, and loneliness.  She had ENDURED suffering.  She didn’t want to inconvenience anyone, but she had tried everything—every doctor in the area, every medicine available at the time—DESPERATELY seeking relief.  Then He came.  She had heard of His miracles.  She may have been skeptical at first, but so many had claimed freedom from their own suffering that she had to try.  She just had to get close enough to touch Him.  He wouldn’t even have to know.  He wouldn’t even have to stop.  Surely He would be too busy to talk to her or to even care about her circumstances.  She was merely a woman, after all; and He was clearly a great teacher.  All of a sudden, there He was!  Without even thinking, she forced her arm through the crowd until her fingers felt the “swish” of fabric passing through them.  In an instant, the pain which had gripped her, even kept her from standing completely upright, was gone!  Could it be?  Was she healed?  She straightened for the first time in years just in time to see His face.  His eyes locked onto hers.  Was He speaking to HER?  Surely not!  “Who touched me?” she heard.  With her face flushing of all the color which had only seconds ago finally come to her, she weakly said, “It was me.”  Fearing what may happen next, she realized He was still looking at her—No, not AT her, but INTO her—as though He KNEW her.  Quickly, she rattled off her story and apologized for bothering Him.  He smiled.  No one had smiled at her in such a long time…and never had anyone smiled to her with such kindness—such love.  How did He know her?  She couldn’t place His face, but somehow, He was familiar and there was recognition in His eyes, so He MUST have known her.  “Daughter, your faith has healed you.  Go in peace and be freed from your suffering,” she heard Him say.  With a tear of joy running down her cheek, she whispered “thank you,” and watched Him walk on down the dusty road on His way.  She would never forget that moment and would forever praise God for sending this “Jesus” through her town. 

We don’t even know this woman’s name, but Jesus KNEW her.  He KNEW she would be on His way to heal Jarius’ daughter.  He KNEW she would finally drum up the faith to come to Him.  He could have sent an apostle to heal her later on when He sent them out 2 by 2, but HE wanted to be the one.  He could have even let her quietly slip away as she had hoped to do, but He wanted to see through His own human eyes, the joy in hers, the instant she realized that she was truly healed.  He loved her—just as He loves you. Just as He did for her, He wants to be the one to free you from your suffering.  Whether it’s physical, emotional, or spiritual, He wants nothing more than to be the one to bring you peace and free you from your suffering.  Bring it to Him.  Lay it at His feet.  Allow the peace of God to surround you and renew your spirit.  I have BEEN this woman.  While I have not suffered in the physical sense as she did, I did suffer silently & alone for many years until I finally reached out and touched His garment.  At that moment, He brought me peace & released me from my suffering.  Thank you, Father, for healing ME.  Thank you for your peace in the MIDST of the storm and for cradling me through difficult times.  Thank you for your healing.

Motherhood Redefined

Recently, I have been reminded that being a "mother" is so much more than simply birthing a child.  In my own life, I have lost two little ones due to miscarriage, birthed 3 little ones, and adopted 4 little ones.  The four that we adopted technically have another "mother" running around somewhere.  What does that make me?  Am I in competition with that mother?  Sometimes I feel that way.  Am I somehow "better" than her?  Am I "more" their mother than she was?  I don't honestly know.

I believe in my heart that the Lord brought these children to us.  Was that His plan all along or am I "plan B" for them?  It's weird thinking that you're "plan B."  I'd like to think that I was "plan A" but then if that were true, wouldn't I have given birth to them?  I don't know.  Wouldn't it have been God's plan for them to have stayed with their "original" parents and have grown up in a healthy home with them?  I struggle a little in how I should feel sometimes.  Of course I love them and will always provide for them, but will they ever FULLY feel like "my" children?  I certainly love them as MUCH as the ones I gave birth to, as far as the amount that I love them, but I don't feel the same stuff BACK from each of them.  I wonder if that ever comes.  I really do feel like two of them love me right back just like the 3 I gave birth to, but the other two, I'm just not sure.

At the same time as I've been sorting through the long term "what ifs" of my own family, my nephew's family is suddenly struck with strange "motherhood" issues of its own.  My nephew & his wife have two little boys and one has had some fairly serious medical issues, which ended up requiring surgery.  In the midst of all this, just a few days prior to the surgery, Lisa was struck with a seizure which completely erased all her memory of the last eleven years of her life.  This includes meeting my nephew and giving birth to the boys.  How is this mother, who is now, just seventeen in her own mind, supposed to be mommy to her 9 & 6 year old boys?

The time came for Macon's surgery and I was happy to see that Lisa came.  What struck my heart even more than her presence at the hospital, was her obvious resolution to be what Macon needed her to be throughout the surgery and recovery process.  There she was, completely lost and inexplicably overwhelmed, but she held him.  She whispered into his ear and rocked him.  She watched his unrecognizable face and found signals about what he needed.  She spoke love to him and was near to him as every "real" mother would be.  She didn't even know him.  She could just as easily have walked away with not so much as a tinge of guilt.  But this seventeen year old mind in a twenty eight year old body somehow knew deep down in her heart somewhere that a mother doesn't abandon her child.  So regardless of the fact that she had no memory or emotional attachment at this time, Lisa did what a "mother" would do.  She loved.  She comforted.  She mothered.  Selflessly.

That's exactly what our kids' original mother could not do.  She had memory of their births.  She knew them by face and name.  She remembered everything about "her" children, but she could not love them selflessly.  Then again, sometimes loving selflessly means that a mother gives up her child because she knows she is ill-equipped to handle motherhood.  Does that mother who painfully puts her baby up for adoption cease to become a mother?  Is she a bad mother for doing so?  Suddenly, motherhood looks different to me.

So this is what my mind could come up with:  Motherhood=providing God's best for your child, regardless of your feelings or what seems best for yourself.

I am so proud of Lisa.  My niece is my hero.  I know she is still struggling and this is just the beginning of this "new" motherhood journey that she's actually been on for nine years, but I've never seen such heroism and resolve in another woman's eyes than I did in hers that day she held that "stranger" in her arms in the hospital. Her child.  Her baby she didn't even know.  It was God's best for Macon to have his mommy hold him through that, regardless of how his mommy felt at the time.  She DID IT!  I know that there will be days where she will glow with her "new" title as Mommy and other days she will want to run away and hide from it.  I know that there will be days that she feels like a great mom and days that she feels like a terrible mom.

I know this because every mom feels that way sometimes.  Memories or not.  Every mom feels like running sometimes.  Every mom feels like a failure sometimes.  Every mom feels helpless at times.  Every mom feels alone sometimes.  Every mom feels suffocated sometimes.  Every mom cries.  Every mom feels pain.  Real moms stick it out.  Real moms push through to the end. Because there are those other times...Every mom feels like a champion every now and then.  Every mom feels like a hero at least once in her child's life.

Lisa, you ARE a hero.  You're the REAL THING, baby!  You're God's "plan A" for Gavin & Macon.  Don't give up.  You've only just begun this wonderfully painful and joyous journey of motherhood...redefined.