What I Learned Walking in the Rain With a Five-Year-Old

I crawled out of bed yesterday morning and started writing about compassion. Not because I've had a recent meaningful experience with such, but mostly because I've noticed a lack of compassion in the Facebook posts and news headlines lately and it's really starting to annoy me that people can criticize each other from such a disconnected standpoint. A few hours into the day, as I moved from writing to parenting and schooling but kept mulling the post, what I noticed is that being annoyed is incredibly taxing.  By the time we left the house at 9 a.m., I was wiped out. I kept coming back to the post throughout the day, but each time it just made me tired. It had also been raining for two days, so my kids were just running in circles around our downstairs at this point. They kept running past the computer where I was working, sometimes wielding swords, sometimes yelling, "Let's get him!" (Get who?), and occasionally stopping to recount in torturous detail various scenes from their current favorite cartoons. By late afternoon I had kissed inspiration good-bye, and I was reading a book instead when Liam's eyes appeared above the pages. 

"Let's go for a walk," he suggested.

"It's raining."

"Yeah, it is." Something about the way his eyes twinkled made me get up and find my rain boots. I encouraged him to wear his, but he declined, so as he pulled on his sneakers I dug out our rain jackets. Five minutes later we were slogging down the street, him licking the water from his arms and me telling him to stay out of the puddles. 

On the other side of our neighborhood there's a house with a stone cat statue displayed prominently in a front flower bed. My kids have aptly named it The Stone Kitty House, and they beg to walk to it any time we set foot out the front door. It also has brilliant decorations at Halloween, so all in all we spend quite a bit of time in front of this house. The people who live there are very kind and accommodating about our weird fascination with their yard decor. So when I asked Liam how far he'd like to walk, he didn't hesitate. And off we went. 

I heard Glennon Melton speak at a conference last week, and she said the most sacred invitations in life are the people right in front of us. I've been turning that over in my mind ever since. Since I'd already said yes to a walk, yes to being soggy and shivering, yes to a head cold the next morning, and yes to our neighbors peering out their windows like we had lobsters coming out our ears, I thought as an experiment I would say yes to as much as I could while we were on our walk. (I didn't tell Liam my plan, of course. For the love, never hatch this plan and then let your child in on it.)  We plodded down the street toward the cat statue, and Liam stopped talking about television and started recounting all the other adventures we've had just walking around our neighborhood.

It was a lot of fun at first. When he shoved his hood off his head and shook out his hair, so did I. When he proposed we hide like ninjas from the oncoming cars, I was the first to leap toward the bushes. When he slyly suggested that it would be a LOT of fun if we could just jump in a few puddles together--I responsibly pointed out that no way would his one pair of sneakers have time to dry out before school tomorrow. Then we jumped. Before I knew it, we were standing side by side gazing at the stone kitty. 

"Let's keep going," Liam said, and I noted the confidence in his voice. "There's a razorback statue up the street."

Sure! We were losing light in a hurry, and the two sensible members of our household were likely back at home wondering where we were. I hesitated. I didn't know what exactly to pray in that moment, so I just sent some vibes toward God, hoping He would deliver them to my husband, and we continued on our way. At the end of the street, I turned to Liam once again for direction.

"Whichever way you want, Mom," was his reply this time. 

"Well." I pointed to the right. "That way is home."  Then left. "That way isn't." 

He grinned and skipped off in the exact direction you know he took. I sighed. Aside from my feet, I was really wet. My nose was numb so I couldn't tell if snot was running down my face. I was feeling pretty sure this whole 'Yes' thing was for suckers, and I was about to shout to Liam that we needed to turn around, when at that moment an orange cat ran down a driveway toward us. More accurately, it ran toward Liam. There is something about this boy and animals. He loves them--every animal, regardless of size, shape, smell, or national origin. And they know this about him on an instinctive level I don't understand. Maybe he emits some kind of natural scent of kindness and sincerity and gentleness that is stronger than all the boy odors. So this kid, he approaches people with utmost suspicion and self-consciousness, but with animals he possesses an extraordinary insight into how they need to be handled, and he becomes totally comfortable. This is true whether he's relocating a ladybug to our garden or feeding ostriches out a car window at the safari park. Observing him with animals is like watching someone walk into his own skin over and over again. It transfixes me, because I'm 32 and still don't know how to be that comfortable with myself. So I stood back and watched as he squatted down to greet this cat, and this time I knew exactly what to pray. Because rabies.

It turns out I didn't need to worry. Liam can probably smell rabies, anyway. After obligingly sniffing the palm he held out for inspection, the cat proceeded to wind itself around and around his legs, pressing its head into his chin and smacking him lovingly with its tail. I could hear it purring from ten feet away. At one point the cat trotted over to me, sniffed, and allowed a quick head scratch before bolting back to Liam and continuing its love poem to a boy. It appeared to be trying to push every inch of fur into his hands at once. And he was just laughing the whole time. I think he forgot where he was for a minute, because finally he stood up, blinked, and said, "Oh. It's dark."

So we headed home, half-jogging and splashing and talking about the cat. It followed us for a few houses before sitting down. It raised a paw, licked it, and then gave the paw a little flick before turning back toward its own home. I am not making that up. I looked at Liam, shocked, and said, "Did you see that?!"

"Sure," he shrugged. "She was just saying good-bye. C'mon. Let's run." So we did, all the way home. It was a good mile and I almost died, by the way. 

I don't write about my kids much these days. Partly it's because I think stories about them belong to them, and I walk a fine line along a boundary I don't want to overstep. But also I kind of struggle against the idea that simply raising a family can be full of magic. It feels self-indulgent somehow, me embracing my typical family and our typical days, like God wouldn't approve of me humoring my kid on a whim when there are hungry people on the streets and terrified kids who need a safe bed. Like I don't have anything to learn from what's right in front of me right now, because somehow it doesn't feel like God's work. I'm not saying we should all stick our heads in a hole and block out the world's problems, but I tend to forget there were plenty of times when Jesus seemed to quit taking himself seriously and focused instead on making a really great moment. He accepted invitations as they appeared, and he encouraged his friends to do the same. His big focal point on the horizon was dying on a cross, for goodness' sake, but at one point he joked with a lady about eating crumbs under a table. Even with the grim and quite important task laid out before him, he didn't forget the power of whimsy. He understood that one moment has the power to build confidence and character in supernatural ways. I've been grumpy lately, annoyed with my kids and treating them like a hindrance to some great thing I could be doing, and it's become exhausting. I think maybe I've been treating them like our everyday stuff isn't worth God's time--like He can't do anything with a walk in the rain. Like whimsy is something I need to teach out of them so we can get to the serious business of being productive Christians. But I remember now--there's so much we can learn from each other when we say yes to something silly together. Sometimes the little moments are where we lose ourselves to what we love, and what a pleasure this must be to our God who created us for that very purpose--to love. I hope next time Liam at least has the sense to wear his rain boots. But if not, I'll probably go ahead and walk with him anyway.

Where We Are

I stared at the question on the big screen in church this morning: What do you need Jesus to be greater than in your life? I didn't even have to blink.

My plans.
My impatience.

I haven't written all summer. I'm realizing it's just so difficult to write a story when you're mid-plot.

It's been nearly a year since we started talking about adoption, a year since God smacked his plans onto my heart. And in our human estimation, we're no closer to adding to our family than when we began the conversation. Not on a waiting list. Not feeling drawn toward any particular kids. Not even doing paperwork.

In anthropology and folklore there's this idea that in the middle of a ritual there exists a phase called liminality, a period in which the participants are "betwixt and between" two places, separated from who they were, but not yet something new.

This is where we are.

I haven't met anyone else who's in this same place. You guys, I don't even have the words to explain this place. I haven't met anyone else whose journey looks like this. It's frustrating. Lonely.

It's also bursting with hope.

It's a little silly, how full of hope I am. This is it, the thing that sets us apart as followers of Christ. This is the gift. We are silly full of hope. Because we know--when God makes a promise, he keeps it.

Since the school year started, I've been reading through a new Bible storybook with our kindergartner. I keep noticing the same phrase over and over: But God remembered. But God remembered Noah. But God remembered Abraham. But God remembered Joseph. Sarah threw up her hands and laughed at God's timing, and I wonder how far Joseph felt from his dreams when he was languishing in prison. But look, I whisper to my five-year-old, Here's the best part. God didn't forget. Even when we feel very, very far away, God is always bringing us back to his promises. This good God who gives hope, he is showing me how he works--and giving me the language to share this with my kids. He remembers even when I forget. 

When we started talking about adoption, I started asking God to show us the way, to prepare our hearts. I don't recommend this. Don't even think about asking God to prepare you for something unless you're ready for some serious renovations. I am here to tell you, he will rub his hands together and go straight to work. And he's not going to come in and paint the cabinets that cute color you have in mind, either. He's going to rip them out and replace them with the cabinets you thought you couldn't afford. We can't DO that!, you will tell him, and he will grab your hand and keep right on working. This is what you asked for.

So even though I'm feeling so far from that first promise, even though adoption has been a series of doors in my face (sorry), I can feel God preparing us. He is always making a better way than what we plan. It's a little confusing to have God set your heart on adoption, then feel him gently guide you away from it. It's a little frustrating to focus your efforts on a kid somewhere out there who belongs with you, only to have God say, Not yet. We're going over here first. We are groping madly along, wondering where in the world God is leading. It feels like a detour to me. It isn't. I expect our story to look like the other adoption stories I've seen. It doesn't.

I stopped praying for clarity when I realized God is teaching me to be blind. He is inviting me to be wholly dependent on him, to give up my plans and let him plug me into this big thing he's doing in the world. He's asking me to believe that there's a better way, that there are some people I need to know and love before I'm ready to meet Evie. He's asking me to step out on the water and lose sight of everything but him.

I was embarrassed to write that we are no closer to adoption, until I saw these words from Jen Hatmaker a few days ago:

Do not be ashamed to hope. There is no shame in banking on God's love to prevail, His Spirit to win the day. That doesn't make you naive or foolish; this has been poured into your heart. Hope is the believer's response and gift......Hope is our anthem and we can sing it in the dark before even a glimmer of light arises.

How silly I was to think that our adoption journey was only about adopting a kid. It is, it always is, about God rescuing his people. His revelation to me was nothing less than an invitation to join him in his plan.
He is taking our expectations and exceeding them in ways only he can imagine.

What you can do:

You can pray with us. I don't mean this flippantly. You can pray that we won't lose sight of hope. That we'll accept with gratitude the responsibilities he's handed to us today and not dismiss them as less important than our own man-made goals, and that the only one we'll blindly follow is the one who has the power to remove the scales. You can pray that our obedience will yield peace in our hearts. You can pray for our girl. I don't know if she's "out there" somewhere or if she's even been born, I don't know when she'll come to us, I'm not even completely certain God wasn't being metaphorical and ironic, but because there's a chance she is an actual child who exists on this planet on this day, I cry out to God on her behalf. I would be humbled if you'd join me.

Where we are is not where I thought we'd be, but I'm okay. Do I believe that God intends to literally add to our family? Absolutely. Is he going to yield to my timeline? It's not looking likely. But I'll keep you posted.

How to Care for Kids if Adoption Isn't an Option

"As you go to take the Lord's Supper today," said our minister Sunday morning, "You'll notice slips of paper on the tables. Each one has the name of a girl who was kidnapped from her school in Nigeria and is still missing. During our communion time, please grab a few names, come back to your seat, and spend a few minutes praying for the girls you picked."

I made my way to the back of the room where our communion tables are always set up. After navigating the minefield of sharing the Lord's Supper with a three-year-old, I grabbed a name from the table, meandered around a bit, grabbed another, and headed back to our seats. 

I looked down at the slips of paper in my hand.

The last names matched.

I buried my face in the boy on my lap and prayed for these girls who may very well be sisters. I prayed for their strength, for their safety, for their future, and for their mom, in whose grief we've all cloaked ourselves over these past weeks. On Mother's Day, I was overwhelmed by what it means to share in the responsibility of motherhood--that their girls are our girls. 

We've been going through what I half-jokingly call the "impostor phase" of adoption. Kinder people call it the preliminary phase. We're taking a weekly class on adoptive/foster parenting, and we're the only ones in the class who lack--you know-- actual adopted or fostered kids. I've been peppering with questions anyone who has adopted kids and is a friend of a friend of a friend and will answer me. Between Google, emails, Facebook stalking, some informational meetings, and a few phone calls, I'm confident we've discovered every last outlet for adoption (or support thereof) in the state. I'm all up in it, you guys. I've got statistics and solutions coming out my nose.  I can head-tilt nod sympathetically when someone says the words "Reactive Attachment Disorder." I'm diagnosing my friends' adopted kids. My next tattoo is just going to be Karyn Purvis's face.
Get the picture? And yet here we are, with nothing but a couple of bio kids and a looming 30-page pre-application to a private agency, sort of just wandering aimlessly at the moment. It's kind of like window shopping. For orphans. 

But something's happening. The more I immerse myself in the fostering and adoptive community, the more I learn (Duh. I know. Stick with me.). The more I learn, the more I know about the people and the needs of this community. And the more I know about these people and their needs, the more passionate I become about helping. If we had been through the same exact process and yet had zero intention of adopting, I'm confident I still would come out fighting for the well-being of these kids. Because, as I'm sure we can all agree, some hills are universally worth dying on. (Someone smart I know said this once.) 

What I've learned over the past few months is this: You don't have to pursue foster care or adoption to be passionate about the subject. You aren't a faker if you want to learn everything there is to know about orphans across the globe for the simple reason that you just want to know. But with great power comes great responsibility. (Someone else said that.) Fortunately, there are endless ways we can care for orphans. Here are a few of my personal favorites:

Compassion International.  We've sponsored kids through Compassion for years. If you visit their homepage, you'll find a million ways to help kids in crisis. 

The CALL of Saline/Perry Counties. Two words: Underwear. Backpacks. The CALL is a foster care training and support nonprofit organization in Arkansas. One of their missions is a foster care closet in our area (where families can come gather supplies for free), and they are always in desperate need of new kids' undergarments and bags. There are several CALL branches across the state, and this is the one with which we've become most acquainted due to proximity to our house and because of a particular group home in the area that has captured our hearts. Speaking of which......

The Second Chance Youth Ranch. The Second Chance Ranch is a youth home for kids in the foster system and we love them and there's always something on their wish list and this is just a GREAT place. 

Thrive Ministry of Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock. These are the precious people who dream of a network that transcends denominations, and they are the ones who have welcomed us despite the fact that we are adopted kid-challenged. In fact, their website says: "Thrive Foster/Adoption groups provide discipleship for those who care about the orphan. These groups are composed of those who are actually fostering or have adopted and for those who have a heart to help." Enough said. For more information about upcoming events and ways to get involved, email care@fellowshiponline.com.

Lucie's Place. Friends, I hand you this one with a fragile heart and gently invite you to expand your definition of the word "orphan." I'll best describe it by quoting their website:
In response to the disproportionate and overwhelming population of homeless LGBTQ young adults in Central Arkansas, the mission of Lucie's Place is to establish a transitional living program for homeless LGBTQ young adults, ages 18 to 25. The goal is to provide a safe home in which these young adults can find their footing while developing skills necessary for independent living.

Translation: A lot of kids get kicked out of their homes by parents who disapprove of their lifestyle, and then are subsequently turned away from the majority of homeless shelters (Did you know that most shelters in Little Rock are run by religious organizations?) for the same reason, leaving them with no place to go at a time when they are most vulnerable. Lucie's Place plans to open its doors later this year, but has plenty of hurdles to overcome and lots of immediate needs. This place has embedded itself in my soul, and I'm convinced Jesus is here. We may have different thoughts about homosexuality--surely we can agree that homelessness among youth in our own city is a problem that demands our humble attention.

May is National Foster Care Month. It's a time to remember the voiceless. It's a good month to remember the kids who need an advocate. And as surely as those girls are our girls, these kids who lack a home, who struggle for basic necessities, whose lives could be drastically improved by a small act on our part--these kids are our kids.

Our church is pretty small. It took all of us, together, to get it done. But Sunday morning, a hundred tiny cries joined together--and in that moment every one of our girls was remembered by name before God. From the other side of the world. Not by their parents......only by people who are willing to take up a cause, a little at a time, so injustice doesn't get the last word.

Mother's Day Rebellion

Confession: Mother's Day makes me cringe.

It's not that I don't appreciate the sentiment. I do. I love that I get to mother actual, human children. I love the family drawings with "Mom" scrawled above the stick figure with long hair. I love the fingerprint pictures and the freshly-planted flowers lovingly transported from preschool and presented on Mother's Day. I love being the one who's best at applying and removing band-aids, telling scary bedtime stories, and rinsing hair while maintaining a low water-to-eyeball ratio. To two precious souls I am the "Mama" in "Mama, look!", "Mama, help!", and "Mama, what IS this?!?" --and for this I fall on my face in gratitude before their maker. There is nothing on the face of this planet I would rather do than pour out my God-given instinct to nurture and protect upon the boys in my care.

But Mother's Day can be so TEDIOUS. I've never sat through a Mother's Day Sunday church service without looking around and seeing tears on the faces of other women. It's not enough to reason that being sad about not being a mother on Mother's Day is the equivalent of crying because you're a kindergartner at a college graduation. Mother's Day isn't about receiving recognition. It's about celebrating the act of motherhood. And we've pigeonholed what that means. I'm tired of hearing people I adore say that they skip church on Mother's Day because it's just too painful. My sisters--you precious people who have believed the lie that a mother is only a person who births children or raises them on a full-time basis. Why do we perpetuate this myth when Genesis 1 is arguably the most readily-accessible book in the Bible?

God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature, so they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, and yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of the Earth." (Genesis 1: 26, The Message)

I've been the crying chick in the church pew. I wish someone had taken my hands and said to me: Grieve. And know that mothering isn't just about being pregnant and having kids. God knows this. He created you for more. And he hasn't forgotten you.

This Mother's Day, I propose we change the rules.

Let's DO celebrate Motherhood. Let's honor the woman who treasures the environment, the Earth itself. Let's lift up the lady who fights for the rights of orphans. Let's give a bit of credit to the girl who saves stray animals from their suffering. Let's celebrate the woman who takes homeless and hurting people under her wing. Let's thank the gal who would give her last breath for the babies she brought into the world. Let's wrap our arms around the mom who is a mother in her heart and can't understand why she hasn't had the kids to prove this. Because really--Who among us is unaffected when nearly 300 girls are abducted by terrorists in one fell swoop? Who doesn't bat an eyelid when faced with the fact that nearly 19,000 kids under 5 die every day from preventable diseases? God has planted in each of us an instinct to protect, nurture, and love. What if Mother's Day becomes about affirming these qualities where we find them?

Look, ladies, we're all in this together. We are the caregivers, the resilient, responsible ones. We pour ourselves out for people without voices. We are the ones who are emotionally connected to this planet and its creatures. We feel it. We birth children, ideas, and endurance, and we bear the pain of it with dignity and grace. There's not a one of us who is greater than the other on Mother's Day. And we've got to support each other rather than alienate and draw lines, because frankly, those strong and awesome men aren't cut out for this stuff.

Here's to moms everywhere, kids or no kids.

Isaiah 58 and why my puritanical grandmother is my new hero

Typically when I start to mull everything that's "wrong" with the church of my childhood, I think of my late grandmother.

She was every stereotypical thing you've ever heard about the church of Christ. She abhorred music in worship. She would literally stop on the side of the road during vacation and break bread rather than miss taking the Lord's Supper on Sunday. She would shake her head and click her tongue at the Baptists, who had it all wrong and were doomed to eternal damnation. The Catholics barely registered on her radar, they were so far gone. I remember hiding for hours in mortification in a far room of her house when the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormons came knocking on her door. She would invite them in with an accommodating smile and, after offering them water or Sanka, show them to a seat and extend a listening ear. And when they finished their testimonies, she pulled out her own tattered Bible and cleared her throat, and then God help them.

She was judgmental. She was a racist. She was embarrassing. She was not gentle. She was......kind of mean and abrasive, actually.

But she was something else, too. She was a servant. She worked--and I mean worked--with service organizations for as far back as I can remember. As we sort through her belongings, our biggest puzzle is what to do with the hundreds of Lion's Club pins that keep piling up. She stood in the rain at football games, selling Razorback programs to benefit the needy. She was a widow who took care of other widows, laughing off the people who treated her as someone who should be taken care of and not even noting the irony. She didn't shy away from an opportunity to help someone just because it was inconvenient. She invited us grandkids along to wave programs at a game or serve catfish at a benefit for the blind, but she never to my knowledge limited her time in service because she "felt called to spend more time with her family."

She would have confirmed in a flash (if you happened to ask) that no one outside of her church was going to heaven, but she would not let someone she disagreed with be hungry or helpless or marginalized when they had a physical need.  She did not put conditions on charity or mercy. She might have believed that the person she was helping was on an irretrievable path to hell because of a wrong belief or a specific sin, but she understood that for the time being, we're all on this earth together. She saw value in partnering with people unlike her to make this life more livable, even for those she thought were furthest from God.  My Granny was a woman who staked her salvation on being right, and yet she served without discrimination because she understood that this is what people do for each other.

For the vast majority of my life, I gave this woman and people like her exactly zero credit. I have dismissed much of my grandmother's religion and even at times have pitied people like her who are just so wrong about the gospel. (I am living proof that knowledge puffs up.) But here's something that my Granny and her people didn't miss about the gospel: Doctrine doesn't trump service.

This week I have seen Christians unite and rally. I have witnessed evangelical Christians actually coming together, using blackmail in the form of withholding aid from children in poverty to keep an upper hand against the LGBT community. I have heard cheers of triumph from a church that would rather let a kid starve than see a gay person get a job within a Christian organization. I've seen Christians celebrate over the death of someone who seemed so full of hate, with utter disregard to the fact that God so badly wanted this person--as much as he wants me. As much as he wants any of us. My heart is open and bleeding, and I am realizing that even my grandmother's version of Christianity was better than this. She might have had to grit her teeth to get past the dirty work of serving people she thought were the worst of sinners, but she never believed having all the right answers gave her a free pass to lord it over people she thought were wrong. She missed a lot, but bless her. She got this right. Even people who realized exactly what she thought of them couldn't deny that she would look them in the face, or that her acts of sacrifice spoke louder than her (hopefully unspoken, if we were lucky) words. And though her theology wasn't exactly good news to a lot of people, she brought actual good news to people in the form of food and aid and friendship every day. And for the life of me, I cannot help but think it was ultimately credited to her as righteousness.

It's been a discouraging couple of weeks. Our adoptive journey seems to be on hold as we learn to trust God and his timing rather than scrambling to figure out the right path, but we are learning something new. There is so much other work to be done. As we become more desperate for God to reveal himself, we subsequently become more desperately willing to seek him. Our kid is out there somewhere, and we'll find her, but in the meantime we're learning how to love people better. We're increasingly drawn the marginalized, and for some reason we're surprised to actually find God there. The small and disputed sections of scriptures we've gotten so hung up on are seeming so much less important than the promises, because there is honest-to-goodness good news here. Isaiah 58, for example, gives us beautiful permission to just help others:

Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help. Then your salvation will come like the dawn, and your wounds will quickly heal. 

This is the good stuff. This is the kind of stuff I want my own children to live for. You guys. Just simply helping people who need it will heal us. Spending an afternoon lightening the burden of a single mom? Therapeutic against resentment. Handing a meal to a homeless guy? Soothes prejudice. And I can't help but dream that this kind of unrestricted love would go a long way toward rebuilding some bridges we've burned with the world. Maybe it's time we shut out mouths, and for just a little bit let our hands and feet do the talking. There are some ways, I cannot believe I am saying this, in which we could really stand to reclaim our roots. My Granny. She got it.

1 “Shout with the voice of a trumpet blast.

Shout aloud! Don’t be timid.

Tell my people Israel of their sins!

2 Yet they act so pious!

They come to the Temple every day

and seem delighted to learn all about me.

They act like a righteous nation

that would never abandon the laws of its God.

They ask me to take action on their behalf,

pretending they want to be near me.

3 ‘We have fasted before you!’ they say.

‘Why aren’t you impressed?

We have been very hard on ourselves,

and you don’t even notice it!’

“I will tell you why!” I respond.

“It’s because you are fasting to please yourselves.

Even while you fast,

you keep oppressing your workers.

4 What good is fasting

when you keep on fighting and quarreling?

This kind of fasting

will never get you anywhere with me.

5 You humble yourselves

by going through the motions of penance,

bowing your heads

like reeds bending in the wind.

You dress in burlap

and cover yourselves with ashes.

Is this what you call fasting?

Do you really think this will please the Lord?

6 “No, this is the kind of fasting I want:

Free those who are wrongly imprisoned;

lighten the burden of those who work for you.

Let the oppressed go free,

and remove the chains that bind people.

7 Share your food with the hungry,

and give shelter to the homeless.

Give clothes to those who need them,

and do not hide from relatives who need your help.

8 “Then your salvation will come like the dawn,

and your wounds will quickly heal.

Your godliness will lead you forward,

and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind.

9 Then when you call, the Lord will answer.

‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply.

“Remove the heavy yoke of oppression.

Stop pointing your finger and spreading vicious rumors!

10 Feed the hungry,

and help those in trouble.

Then your light will shine out from the darkness,

and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon.

11 The Lord will guide you continually,

giving you water when you are dry

and restoring your strength.

You will be like a well-watered garden,

like an ever-flowing spring.

12 Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities.

Then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls

and a restorer of homes.

Isaiah 58:1-12

The Grenade, the Spirit, and the Convict

When I skim through old posts before starting a new one, the first thing I notice is that this blog is just A MESS.

What I'm learning is that it's a tricky game of guess-and-check when you're trying to gain perspective in the middle of something like this. I'd love for this blog to become a place where I can accurately chronicle this adventure we're on--searching for the kids that God intends to complete our family, and learning what it means to become a disciple along the way. But (and I borrow this analogy from the now-infamous-in-our-house Jen Hatmaker) it's as if a grenade rolled up into the middle of our life here in the suburbs of Little Rock. I kind of saw it coming--indeed, I was aware that we were on the verge of a major shift, but I tiptoed around it for awhile, and for some reason was rather taken aback when it had the audacity to actually EXPLODE on me, after I'd been so mindful not to disturb it. And when it did explode, I realized the pieces won't fit back together in the same way--in fact, the pieces don't even look the same to me anymore. So I'm having to rely on someone else (ahem--cough, cough--reading over my shoulder here, God?) to show me how they're supposed to go. I'm kind of just along for the ride at this point, and the blog has likewise started as a dumping ground for fragmented thoughts and feelings as I try to sort and process.

So please, please tell me you understand why I sound like a mental patient at times.

I tend to frame this whole journey, this going, if you will, around the promises God has breathed into my heart. Each promise has brought a new, specific hope and a renewed sense of direction: 

Your family will include children; don't worry.

This baby will be healthy; quit worrying.

I'm not going to fail you, so seriously: Quit. Worrying.

I have your kid's future in my hands.

There are more kids for your family; go to the place I tell you.

And don't worry.

An intervention of the Holy Spirit is a gift, though we sometimes laugh off the people who lay claim to the Spirit's presence as a real, tangible, force in their lives. We say that they read too much into things or that they're a little too dramatic or a little too into themselves. We are uncomfortable that they shout "hallelujah!" in church or lay their hands on our babies. We think it's really weird that they go to certain places or seek out certain people because "God told them to." We especially do not like it when they claim healing in the name of God or suggest that something miraculous has happened......well, miracles are okay, but we would prefer people claim miracles after they happen--not predict them. "We" were certainly due for an attitude adjustment somewhere in our early twenties, I must say.

This week as I chatted with a friend, she remembered a quote from Beth Moore, which she paraphrased like this: The Spirit is super-natural, so if supernatural things aren't happening in your life then maybe you need to question your connection to the Spirit. (She wasn't criticizing, by the way, only justifying some nutty dreams we've been sharing with each other.) 

I have always been a planner, always relished in predictability and rationalization and in being "the levelheaded one." So it's with great trepidation and not a little fear that I have to acknowledge that the things happening lately in my life and the ideas floating around in my head could be loosely described as "ludicrous," "irrational," "daunting," or "insane." Instead of working out practical ways to pad our retirement, I'm dreaming of things like moving to the ghetto and gathering inner city kids in our living room for storytime. On the way downtown the other day, we missed our exit and ended up having to turn around in a neighborhood I would optimistically categorize as "questionable." I know a good opportunity when I see one--so as I searched feverishly through the window for our future home, my husband, noting that I was mere seconds from jumping and rolling, scouted connecting streets to get us back on track. As we turned a corner, we came upon a group of five or six people carefully preparing what would clearly be a community garden. 

"Willie, look at our future neighbors!," I gasped. "They are ready for us!"

"NO." 

Whatever. He loves me.

As my dreams are changing, I'm learning more and more to seek out and rely on the Spirit for guidance. I'm realizing it would be unwise to proceed without it. I have (almost) entirely stopped rolling my eyes at people who "feel called" to do something. I'm learning that while perhaps I can't live IN those blissful moments when God speaks clearly and comes very, very near, I can in many ways live FOR them--for those times when the thin spots (my husband and Stephen King would be proud of that one) between heaven and earth ripple and shimmer and the face of Jesus is revealed in a person, or a gesture, or a moment of spiritual revelation. I crave God's presence. It has become precious and crucial to me, and I'll do anything to feel all wrapped up in it. Francis Chan, in his book Forgotten God, notes that "the Spirit is more obviously active in places where people are desperate for Him, humbled before Him, and not distracted by the pursuit of wealth or comforts."  In truth, I've been compelled as of late to seek out these places, but I've still got a long way to go.

Did I mention that I'm very much a Proverbs 16:3 kind of gal? Commit your actions to the Lord, and your plans will succeed. The rational planner in me wants to kiss this passage all over its beautiful face. And before I go on, let me clarify: I certainly believe in the truth of this verse. I've seen it in action. And I'm aware that handing your plans to God as you proceed with them sometimes boosts your plans to success in supernatural ways---and I'm aware that sometimes God will grab your plans, shake them up, and dump you on your head (in a totally all-loving way, of course. God is just fun and unpredictable in his unchanging way of restoring his kingdom.) But anyway, what I'm sloooooowly on the way to saying is that I've seen another side of God lately. I've committed the HECK outta my plans, taken a step, and been jerked off my feet in a different direction.  I've had things that are SO FAR off my radar appear suddenly at the forefront of my thoughts. I've felt pretty sure about a course of action and then been unable to follow through because something super-natural was stopping me (more on all this later). I am more convinced than ever that the more I quiet myself, the more clearly God will speak, and for this particular journey I am utterly sure that he has a course plotted, and I'm finding a new kind of comfort in that.

Which is why I am wholly repentant for brushing off the words of a very kind convict awhile back. 

Willie and I had joined some folks from church at the Pathway to Freedom prison in Wrightsville for a Wednesday worship service.  It was our first time to attend. (Hello, new-found love of instruments in church! My Granny would roll over.)  After the services had wrapped up, we were mingling with some of the inmates (Prisoners? Future parolees? Dudes? I'm awkward.), and as I shook hands with one man he said, "God has something good in store for you." I smiled, and, thinking this was perhaps a customary greeting for this particular prison, which fosters community and fellowship, mumbled something profound like, "You'm too. derp," and moved on. Several minutes later I was standing by myself when he approached me again. 

"I think you got the wrong idea before," he began. "I want you to know that when I saw you I felt really strongly that God was telling me to tell you this. He has something good for you. I don't know what it is. But he wants you to know."

(In case you are wondering, NO, there is no chance he was flirting or just looking for an excuse to talk. I call as my witness the fact that I hadn't showered for like two days before we went, as well as my mascara-smeared face, a side effect of being moved to tears throughout the entire service. Just wanted to clear up any suspicions.)

This time I was baffled. I told him his message meant a lot to me, and asked him his name (Justin), and we chatted for a bit about his time in prison and the worship service before I thanked him for his courage and excused myself to go find Willie. While I was genuinely grateful, my knee-jerk (emphasis on the JERK) response to God was Really? You have something GOOD for me? I would certainly hope so, since I'm trusting you to take me to my kid and all.

Ugh. I don't like seeing it in print. The thing is, I had grown pretty accustomed to God's words being a bit more specific and directive. I'd come to expect a certain amount of information, like "becoming a better Christian" (ugh again) had entitled me to the "better" messages. God has something good for you seemed like a bit of a backslide, in my humble (Pharisaic) estimation. I put the ambiguous words aside in my head, not forgetting but also not sure how to dissect or follow them. 

That was more than a month ago, and since then I've become keenly--at at times painfully--aware that God is leading us, holding our hands and simply asking that we come along. I'm still pretty sure he was messing with me with the whole "message through a third party" bit, but I think I get it. Sometimes he wants to tell us something in particular, and sometimes he wants us just to find comfort in the fact that he's there, always working, bringing us together in communion, connecting the dots for his glory. Sometimes we're supposed to just be still and know. He's always finding new ways to wreck me. 

So God help me if I ever get to a place where God has something good for you leaves me unaffected. 

A Word on How This All Began.

It's inevitable. For as long I live, the name Evelyn will remind me of being knocked on my butt in the middle of church.

On a day in the middle of 2013, approximately two and a half years after my second son was born, I was finally ready to make peace with our little family. Before our first son joined us, even before we lost the one before him, I was mom to a little girl named Evelyn Reese. I was completely convinced, from the moment we decided to "start trying" to have kids, that our firstborn would be a girl. God, in all his infinite wisdom, certainly knew it would be a bad idea to send an unsuspecting little male child into this family. Aside from my ineptitude when it comes to sports and the fact that my mom's handmade smocked outfits would look ludicrous on a boy, I simply WANTED a girl. Oh, how I wanted to cradle little Evelyn Reese in all her smocked-frock glory and buy her lacy aprons for Saturday morning baking and read her fairy tales (Grimm's, not Disney, for those of you keeping score).

We would call her Evie. 

And then the baby came. And of course, we named him Liam. 

And two years later when the second boy arrived, we went ahead and gave him Evie's middle name. I wasn't even that hung up on the girl thing anymore. I had discovered that my husband could throw a ball and that some little boys actually like to bake and they even enjoy fairy tales if there's a dragon involved and you occasionally make a monster show up to eat the clueless princess. I relish in being a mom to boys. It's sacred and precious and a different blog all in itself. So when Simon was in his second year, it was with zero regret that I kissed Evelyn good-bye. 

I remember the day. I was driving home after running a few errands. The boys were with my mom.  I was thinking about how fantastic they are, probably because they were absent and the memory of a mother is favorably selective when it comes to her babies. It sounds trite, but my heart settled into a place of contentment. I thought about how I knew my husband didn't want more kids, and how Si was coming out of his baby phase and this opened up a whole new world of things we could enjoy as a family--including service. I was convinced there was more to my life than just motherhood, and I was eager to "do some volunteer work," that golden star of stay-at-home-mom achievement.  I was aware of a growing tension between the gospel and the way we were doing life--and with Simon nearly old enough to grab a seat, I was ready to board this train and move on down the tracks to.....where? Anywhere. Anywhere but more babies.

And with that image, I turned my thoughts to our Evie.  I had felt so sure of her five long years ago, and God had brought me so far from that point. I trusted his judgement, finally, and I was in a good place. I congratulated myself on my stunning ability to adapt. (I have so much to learn.)  And then I acknowledged that we wouldn't be having that girl. And that I was okay with that. And then, as I drove along musing on how in-tune I was with God's vision, heaven ripped through to my reality, and the Holy Spirit did that thing where it dumps a torrent of knowledge upon my heart, and I thought my chest would burst, and within a few seconds that knowledge had seeped warmly into my bones, and in that moment I knew that another child was waiting for me. Oh, and also? That I needed to go find her. 

What I did NOT do was stop to consider if what I had just experienced was actually an act of God. No no, we had been this route before, the Big Guy and myself. God has a habit of skipping the whole gentle "Good Shepherd" thing with me. For some reason he has determined that it is ineffective (possibly because I largely ignored him for the first twenty-four years of my life. Whatever.), and he goes straight for the lightning-bolt approach. My Holy Spirit moments could be compared to the time I slammed my pinkie toe into a door hard enough to separate most of the nail from my foot. I experienced about thirty seconds of intense, unmistakable agony. But then my body's natural defenses kicked in and the sharp pain sank into a flood of warm endorphins, and I actually felt kind of comforted and good even though I knew in my head that at some point in the near future my toenail was probably going to pop off.

God works like a crushed pinkie toe. Just go with it.

Anyway, like I said, we had been here before. The first time was not long after the first miscarriage and also not long before I became pregnant with Liam. I was standing in church, broken and unsure, and I remember thinking, "Okay, God. Just do what you're going to do. Just let me learn whatever it is you want me to learn so I can get on with my life. I'm giving it up. Just do your thing, but please, for the love, do it quickly." And then I felt a promise from God, so suddenly and assuredly that I had to sit down with the force of it, that we would have babies, and that they would be okay, and that God would bless our family through them. I knew then and there that 1. God was real, and he was ready to leap in with his presence and fill any space I was willing to make for him, and 2. I never wanted to be far from that presence again.

And if I have bungled this retelling and caused that moment to sound hokey and cliched, let me just assure you: He has kept his word. 

Not only that, but all subsequent moments of revelation (Holy Spirit smack-downs, if you will) have centered around our kids. I knew, in the same way, that I was pregnant with Simon and that his pregnancy would be a healthy one. (Please bear in mind that we had just lost a second baby in utero.)  There was a moment of crisis when I was in labor with Simon that I lost sight of this. The Pitosin from my induced labor was too much for him, and his heart rate was dropping, and then drugs were stopped and labor stalled and there were talks of a c-section and questions about his well-being and I was lying in bed wrapped up in despair and panic and then there came God, thundering, "Don't you trust me?" It was a kind of ultimatum. He expected an answer. I gave it, and about thirty minutes later my body pulled itself together and labor resumed and Si was, of course, fine. And just for the sake of full disclosure, let me include the time that I knew (in the same way) that music would be important to Simon's life. (What the WHAT? I'm interested to see how that plays out and why I needed to know that. Dear God, let him become a famous classical pianist so I can live vicariously.) 

These moments have been crucial to my relationship with God--each one of them leaves me hungry to draw nearer to him, and each one reassures me that he is, in turn, drawing us nearer. And by the time I had the Evie Moment (email me with better titles for that, please and thank you), I knew what I was dealing with and didn't need to question the source. So I would really love to tell you that, upon realizing God had spoken yet another promise into my family by informing me that he intends for us to have more kids, what I did was pull over, hop out of the car, remove my shoes, and dance around like David in a holy moment--but alas, I hadn't yet considered having to record this for posterity. So what actually happened was rather uninspiring: I drove the last two minutes to my house, parked the car, turned my head toward God (that's upward, in case you didn't attend Sunday School as a child), and said kind of pissily through clenched teeth, "What in the CRAP?" This was followed by a moment of self-collection, after which I calmly inquired: "Okey doke, then. Where is she?" 

Crickets. And then a tiny, still voice from the flood of knowledge in my veins: "Just go."

It took awhile, but we're going, though God knows where. I was petrified to tell my husband about all this, and mercifully God brought his heart around to adoption sooner rather than later, and he approached me a few months after, right around Christmas, with his dreams about adding kids to our family. And from there the tension I mentioned earlier grew and grew until I became this crazy person praying crazy person prayers into a blog and giving up social media and clearing out my house to make room for whatever God wants to put there, and then the tension burst like a grenade and now here we are, letting God pull together the pieces one at a time as he reveals his plan for our family. And he is GOOD, and faithful. He is so very, very faithful. He keeps his promises. They are new every morning. Therefore, I will hope, and follow. And keep on with the going.