All I’ve ever known for Christmas is a family

Three years ago, I got one of the greatest gifts of my life—a call on my life. A love that gives where I think it cannot possible give anymore, a lot of fun, joy, and more adventure than I could have thought up in my imagination!

                It has been awhile since I’ve driven slowly enough down main street Blue Springs to recognize if it’s still there. Stately and strong stands the tree that ushered in the Christmas of my youth. For a child, the tree took on a life of its own. I couldn’t wait to see this beautiful evergreen tree in front of the Blue Springs Bank Annex lit up with colorful Christmas Lights. And the whole month would be a celebration of family—a continuous spinning of love and life ending with a grand finale in Nebraska City with my Grandma, her amazing homemade cooking, and the joy that we grandkids always felt in her home. I literally have no memories of disappointments other than hiding under the bed when I would have to leave my winter wonderland to return home to our regular schedule.

                Every Christmas since Grandma passed has been bittersweet, but three years ago, a miracle happened. During a haircut, I got a phone call. I answered the call. I said yes. I became a foster parent. Even at Christmas with each Cabbage Patch Doll and accessory I got from Santa and lovingly cared for throughout my childhood, He was prepping me for motherhood. I want to be the mother with a heart like his.

                And now, I can see my heart is bursting like the Grinch when his heart grows “two sizes that day”.  I understand more completely my Savior and the love for me! I hope my Grandma is looking down and is proud of me and my children.

Merry Christmas!

Budding

This time of year begins for most a roller coaster of emotions, whether brought on by the furry of the holiday season or the dull colors of winter. This morning, I tossed and turned in a similar mess. I fretted about a couple of students, one an orphan and one would be for Christmas.
"Where could I go
But into your presence
Where could I run
But into your arms
All of my roads
Lead to this redemption
Father you know the way nobody knows
So where could I go"
-Adie "Where Could I Go"
This prayer and meditation was on my heart rising with the early birds. So there I am, sick with a sinus infection that won't let go, mixing my grandmother's infamously, delicious oatmeal cookie recipe and singing this song to make everything seem clearer. My heart was budding. Although the temperature outside would not be warming soon, I could feel spring in my belly. A newness of life and a new chapter is being started. "All of your roads lead to this redemption." So this morning and throughout this holiday, I will rest in Jeremiah 29. As the Israelites were in captivity in Babylon, the Lord promised peace when you seek it where you are. His promises are true. "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
I have already seen great blessing in both students lives since I met them in August. What growth and future they are making for themselves. Join with me in praying for them as well as others in similar situations who need to know they are loved no matter what situation they find themselves in, no matter the barriers and rules that are up keeping them captive in their current situations.

Thanks

I had been writing in my mind all day. I love days off with my children driving around town or hanging out at the house listening to music for that reason. If you love to write or create art, you probably know what I mean. Anything can trigger a phrase or monologue in my mind and I have to stop whatever I am doing and find a pen and somewhere to compose. Although now, thanks to technology and a fully charged Blackberry, I can use my thumbs to type in an idea into my notepad when I am in a crunch. 

Until now, I have avoided the 30 days of Facebook thankfulness, mostly out of rebellion. I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook (I will leave that for another time).  As I reflect on the last 23 days and re-read my blogs, I am thankful for adoption. If you are a faithful reader, you probably could have predicted I would say that. Maybe this is where I am at for the month because it is National Adoption Month. We began the month as a family celebrating orphans and adoption by praying and fasting corporately with others around the Earth who have a heart for those orphaned from HIV/AIDS, earthquakes, tsunamis, and parents who just knew they were not ready to be parents.

Yesterday my children and I saw thankfulness, hatred, impatience, love, duty, courtesy, and incompetence all acted out in preparation for today (Thanksgiving Day). One woman even went so far as to wildly gesture and give me a talking to from her car window as she drove the wrong way down a one-way lane in the parking lot at Hy-Vee. These acts cause me in each moment to reflect on thankfulness and the season upon us. I am thankful that I have been taken through the pain of endometriosis, without which I would not have been brought to foster care and adoption at the right time in my life. So on Thanksgiving I am thankful for the reminder of those who have no family. I am thankful for my adoption into God’s family, and for my opportunity to see adoption worked out in my family. I am thankful for the reminder of the students who have been in my life who have not had a family and have lived life in a group home or foster-care situation. I am thankful for the tears I shed for them. I am thankful for the hope that lives in my heart every day that the One who has saved me has the power to save them. He will give them the desires of their heart, too. And maybe it goes without saying, I am thankful for my family (those by blood and by love) who has made me the person I am today and continues to support me pursuing the desires of my heart. As a teenager would I have thought twice or even once about adoption? A life devoted to missions with orphans? Or working with children who have severe special needs? Nope.  I am a change in the making. Thank you! What are you thankful for? How has it transformed you?

Linger

Do you ever have one of those perfect days even though nothing is perfect? Maybe it has to do with my new music obsession, She & Him, I don't know. But the perfect day started with me spilling my chocolatey breakfast drink all over the carpet while pretending I was Donna Reed (minus the heels, although I do don an apron while cooking) and folding towels before getting my kids and self off to work on time.


 I drove circles around my neighborhood this morning just so I could breathe. And as I buckled my son in his car seat, he peered down at me while I struggled to reach around in our stinkin' big SUV and blindly feel for the other end. As my eyes meet his gaze, he says in a tone of voice only he uses, "Mommy, I yuve you." There is purity in his voice, the inflection and the revelation. I pray never leaves. So after my second asthma attack, we ran back to the house to get my inhaler where Daddy offered to run him to daycare, so I could literally catch my breath that I had lost while running circles in our neighborhood.


And as students melt down and curse in imperfect speech at work, or when you hear of a parent doing something you would never dream of, you "Linger Still." When this song came on my new CD that I checked out from my local library this week from She & Him, how could I resist sharing it? The tune makes me get up and shuffle my feet with imperfect rhythm. And the phrase "linger still" stuck with me and made me recollect the moments I miss each day. The moments today I chose to linger and the ones I chose not to linger in.


What makes you happy? Today I lingered in my son's blue eyes and his "I yuv yous", my daughter's developmental pediatrician appointment and how blessed we are to have a doctor who takes time to listen to EVERY concern from this mother (no matter how silly), finding fun ways to practice spelling with my step-daughter, and even listening to my middle-schooler practice his viola. The pièce de résistance was having them all in bed on time, me in my new Old Navy pink fleece snowman PJ pants, Coca-Cola in hand and typing on my laptop, sharing with you, my beloved readers! Thanks for reading!

http://www.myspace.com/sheandhim/music/songs/lingering-still-65461464

Adoption Love

Slowly I have been decorating a house I have lived in for almost seven years now with my husband. Three of which our two beautiful children have filled with laughter, tears, fun, hurts, love and the beauty of who God is. This week I was attempting to add another set of pictures to the hallway on our main floor of our cape cod. I spent nearly 15 minutes searching for a hammer I never found, to give in to using the edge of vice grips to unsuccessfully hammer in two needles to the wall to hang the picture frame from. This frame in particular was a gift from my parents. Half of a matching set, it quotes the Bible.  In particular it only partially quotes the love phrase from 1 Corinthians 13. It focuses on verse 7: bears ALL, believes ALL, hopes ALL, and never ends.

Why is it that when it comes to caring for the orphans do we called after Christ’s own heart, not bear ALL things? Believe ALL things? Hope ALL things? I Corinthians affirms, “Love suffers long and is kind, love does not envy, love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” (vv4-8)

For a week I have contemplated the “all” of this verse and the “all” of my Jesus. What is His ALL—the whole of divine love? When God uses this Agape love and His “all” in the New Testament, what did he mean for us to bear all? Endure all? Hope all? When God uses “all” it speaks of, “all encompassing in scope—to the fullest measure”. Not one is left out. What has “all” meant to me? In the beginning of caring for our two, in my secret quiet prayer time, God blessed my heart to wholly pray for “all” their needs including those who had neglected and hurt them for their whole lives.

If my Bible is the breathed, inspired word of God, why then, can you not see that these children and their parents are gifts from God that you can and should love? As we stepped out 3 years ago in a leap of faith, the phone call came in as we were getting our hair cut. Chris was in between jobs. He didn’t have a steady income. I was on Christmas break from school. The family services worker was ending the list. We had determined we really only wanted to wet our toes in the small waves with one foster child. This was a sibling group and at the upper age range we wanted to take. And in the back of your mind, you know if it doesn’t work out in an emergency placement, you can hope to pass them to a more permanent situation sometime in the first 30 days…

 “Love bears all things. Love endures all things. Love suffers long and is kind…” Allyson would not fall asleep until 2 or 3 am and had to be held and rocked and gingerly placed in her bed. Aaron could not leave her sight. Every night as I rocked her for hours I prayed for her parents. “Love dos not parade itself, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own…. I did not pray for their parents’ demise, but that they would be released from demonic influence of drugs, abuse, poor parenting, greed, etc. “Love thinks no evil, love does not rejoice in iniquity…” As much as I wanted my own children and family, these children were such a gift and miracle that they could be alive after the neglect they endured. How could I bear taking that away from their birth mother? I knew the creation that my own womb would not produce. I could not be the one to take the chance from this mother and father. We had to do everything in our power to come along side them, no matter how it seemed to go against common sense and what the world said was “right” to help them be parents to these miracles.

God would do his part where our love and prayers stopped.

He knew from the beginning that Allyson and Aaron would always belong to us. In a way, their parents are a part of our family, too. The foster-care system failed them both when they were children needing a forever family. It failed to protect them. Chris and I now stand in the gap daily for them, even though we no longer have direct contact with them, we are glad they are a part of our story.

Through this experience of foster care and adoption, he showed Chris and I that our calling is to help the orphans in a capacity that many are not called to. Even if you are still feeling like, I could never give a child back; I hope that you are seeing how you could love both the child and the parent, no matter what the parent has done. That God has called us to LOVE—and that through His love and our prayers anything is possible! In as much as these orphans need our love, so do the hurting parents. How can God use you to help the children in our neighborhoods who have no one to love them? Those who cannot call someone Mom and Dad?

Evidence.

What do you need to know something exists? Scientific proof with graphs, facts, figures, and variables? A study from a prestigious university or maybe just a news report with some facts from your favorite news anchor? You know evil exists in the world. We see people die every day, maybe not first hand. You feel jealousy, anger, resentment, or other emotions in your heart. But do you SEE evil? Can you tell me what it looks, smells, feels, tastes, and sounds like? No. What you can tell me, though, are the consequences of acting on it--acting on a force that exists in our world, in humanity. Do you deny it exists? No. Because we see the consequences everyday. Cancer. Death. Sadness. Not being able to protect the ones who are dear to us from the pain of this world. Not being able to protect ourselves from disappointment and pain.

Then why is it so hard to believe that there is something opposite at work, too? Goodness, righteousness, loveliness, happiness, aren't those feelings you enjoy/. Have you gotten up to see the sun rise? Not a morning person? Watch it set each night. Remember when there was a pocket of people paying for each others coffee at Starbucks? What about holding the door open for someone or helping the neighbor with yard work? Did you have a teacher who went out of his or her way to explain something to you so you could understand it? We can no longer refuse to SEE the consequences of good. Don't deny it exists. It needs to be seen, yearns to be recognized. When we don't SEE, we suffer, our future suffers. Ps 52:1 "...Why do you boast in evil, O mighty man? The goodness of God [endures] continually."
Rejoice in the goodness of the day that is at your hands and share it with those that have been given to you. Choose to see the Goodness.

Sometimes It’s Not Enough

WARNING:  THIS IS NOT MY TYPICAL BLOG READ WITH CAUTION

In the night sometime Saturday when my family was resting, busy with dreamland, I was writhing in my bed. It had been good for almost a year. The pain was slowly creeping back, like a one of those bony, grainy black and white hands that slinks around a door in an old, grainy horror film right before you scream and throw your popcorn up in the air on your neighbor. But you push through. It’s what you always do with endometriosis. You have no choice. It doesn’t go away. It doesn’t get better. The symptoms my recede for a bit after a surgery with drug therapy, but they are like the tide. They always come back and there is inevitably going to be a hurricane. My tropical storm is building to one.

While I have never been able to have children of my own. I would venture to say that these cramps have got to be close to what it is like to have some sort of labor pains before you go to the hospital. They come in waves and all you can do is bear down and breathe. They will knock you out. The pain goes through your core into your low back. Down your legs enabling you to walk, doubling you over in pain.

Neurotic. I get that a lot. Bipolar. It all has to be in my head. Then someone cuts me open and takes pictures and says, “boy you’ve got it bad.” DUH! How many times do you have to cut me open to say that?! Of course I do! Stage 4 every time. It cuts of my intestines. That’s why the bathroom becomes my office. It’s why I cannot chase my kids around the yard. Laundry piles up. Dishes don’t get done. And my life has to start all over again every year when I have another surgery.

But no one listens. Take 4 Motrin every 4 hours for the pain. That doesn’t work anymore Aleve doesn’t work. Tylenol sure doesn’t work. Take a combination of them. That doesn’t work. Heating pads don’t help.

Girls are suffering from this every day. Tortured. Life, enjoyment of the simple things, like taking a walk. Sitting up, or playing with their children are stripped from them even with suppressive drug therapies. Then it wreaks havoc on their mental well being.

I don’t know if I have a point, but I needed to rant, rave and educate. When you meet someone suffering, cut them some slack and don’t treat them like a mental patient. This is a disease that they have to live with for the rest of their lives. There is no surgery, no drug, no magical age that will take it away. Many of us are too young for a hysterectomy because it will drastically shorten our life-spans and increase our likelihood of other deadly diseases. What are we to do? We pray, we press in, we carry our cross, but sometimes, it’s not enough. Listen, give us a break.

My Family of Exoskeletons

Yesterday was full of beginnings for students around our city. This week is full of days of new beginnings for students in our family as well--yesterday, Wednesday and Thursday we will have students return and begin new schools all over our city. A few days ago Allyson, my five-year-old discovered a "crab" on the side of our home. Aaron cycled around this "racetrack" of the driveway to where Ally had parked her bike. The only constant stream of water we live near is the one that flows from our sump pump, so I knew this creature she discovered could not be anything resembling a crab. The day went easy on us with a high of 95 degrees instead of the 100+. I relaxed my muscles, let the sun dew my skin, not enough to be uncomfortable, but enough to relax and put you to sleep. Allyson kept obsessing about the "crab." The "crab" turned out to be what I grew up calling a locust, but anyone from academia would correct and call a cicada. The locust had made his escape route the side of our house.Six crunchy legs still stuck to the resin siding of our house, with his caramel shell growing out from those, defying gravity's law.

To Ally's delight and slight anxiety (told by the hives creeping up her chest to her neck) she had encountered a new being. He needed to be checked out, wanded perhaps, patted down by her mother. There was no telling the tricks up his sleeves, or claws as they might be called.

Now, walk back in time with me, perhaps you would be in a situation where you would get an adrenalin rush partly because you weren't sure if it was going to hurt or not. It was almost like getting a cavity filled. You knew it had the potential to hurt, but if the dentist did it just right, it wouldn't hurt at all. You would just be numb for a while and feel a little silly. Did he give the numbing medicine long enough to kick in before pulling out the long needle and sticking it in your gums?

You could see that feeling on Ally's face as she peered at the "crab" and leaned a little closer and then scampered to me to tell me...it had MOVED! "MOM! Did you see IT?! It's moo-ving!" And she said it like that with the tattling, attitude voice and the hand on the hip. I figured she had obsessed enough, so I left my catnap on the front stoop to investigate the "crab" that turned out to be a locust exoskeleton. It had not moved, just her imagination.

I plucked the locust's transport vehicle gingerly from the side of our house. Aaron took a giant step back. I began to explain to the children about exoskeleton (I am a teacher, one whose bachelor's degree is in science, so yes I turned it into a science lesson. There is no off switch.). Allyson released her apprehension into the sky like a child releasing a helium-filled balloon  into the clouds. Scientific investigation won over. Aaron counted the legs--six until Mommy accidentally broke one hanging the locust from her shirt. Allyson noticed the escape route of the small slit the original dweller was able to slide through.

All three of us were preparing that day for an "exit" to leave our current exoskeletons behind for newer, more vast ones that would accommodate the journey we were embarking on. Allyson began Kindergarten Monday. I started a new school with middle school boys. Aaron will officially be a preschooler in a week. Our exoskeletons had to fit the growth that was happening and protect us from the "new" and "different" elements or lessons we are to learn on this jaunt of our journey.

"May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy" Col 1:11 ESV

Full Circle

Full: "complete; entire; maximum, lacking nothing"
Circle: "a closed plane curve consisting of all points at a given distance from a point within it called the center"

The screaming, crying, was doable. The hives were almost doable. 12 a.m. She was still holding her. They had a bath. They brushed teeth, read four stories. Sang "Jesus loves me," "The Itsy, Bitsy Spider," "Skinnamarink" and "You are my Sunshine." I rocked her. I could feel her little muscles relax. Her long eyelashes would droop. She has perfect features. A beautiful princess. 1 a.m. each time that I get close to systematically laying her down in the crib, the muscles tense, the hives return and the sobbing is back. 3 a.m. She has finally cried herself to sleep. She is asleep in the crib with a death grip on my finger through the slats of the crib. Her brother is nearby and has slept through the repeated sobbing/quiet spells. 
It is my turn. Waterfalls run from each eye. Silent sobs rise from my chest, but I make sure that they don't disturb my arm that is still attached to this little wonder God's chosen to put under our roof. 

The next morning both kids are up by 7 am. Sleep deprived and jonesing for caffeine, we make it to our doctor's appointment and our meeting with all of the invested Children's Division People. We do lunch. Nap time is not as traumatic. Is it the light? Is it that she knows it will only be a short while? 


After 3 sleep deprived nights. You start to question what you have gotten your family into? Is this really what you want to do? And the answer is no. It is not what YOU want, but what He wanted for you. It is what He needs for you. It is what He needs for them and for your family. Not only that, but it is so much more. It is how He is going to bless you more than He could by growing your family in a traditional way with biological children at this time. Just like Esther was called for such a time like this. He called us for this time. 

Our placement took place during my winter vacation as a teacher. I did not have to take off to take them to all of their doctor appointments, or to get hair cuts and caught up on immunizations, or to get clothing and diapers and the things we would need. My husband's work was slow. He was home to help me out as our family transitioned to having two additional children in our home. And while it was at a time when the world would look on it as a sad time to take a child away from their family-Christmas, we were blessed with the celebration of adding safety and consistency and security and love to their lives. Something they had never known before. 


Not a day goes by that I don't use my expertise in adoption and foster-care to help someone outside of my home. And recently to give back to my own family. There are approximately 1400 children in Missouri (according to the Missouri heart gallery website) alone waiting to be adopted, who need someone to love them. According to the Administration for Children and Families statistics, our foster children in care out numbered 3,000 at the end of our fiscal year in 2010 and need your support whether through a home, a prayer, donation of a uniform, school supplies, etc. My children got a second chance. They have given me more than I can ever give back to them. I am challenging my readers to give children who are just as special and deserving as my two a chance. 

http://www.mfcaa.org/

http://www.moheartgallery.org/
http://www.faithinmotionkc.org/

http://orphanjusticecenter.com/

Full: lacking nothing. A circle: a curved plane consisting of all the points. God knew. He knew what he was doing when I had endometriosis. He knew what he was doing every time I was disappointed and had not conceived. He knew what he was doing every time we felt like we could not help our two. He knew what he was doing when he allowed the children to go through what they went through. He sustained them. He allowed them to be nourished. "Man does not live by bread alone". We have come full circle.

We are closing in on our one year anniversary to the finalization of the adoption. We are full circle: lacking nothing on a curved plane consisting of all the points knowing God will see us through.

Red Licorice and Cherry Coke

In a small town, somewhere in the mid-west, at a little grocery store, they came in those yellow Styrofoam trays. They were saran wrapped with a store sticker stuck to it with the weight and price. I think my grandma probably only spent a dollar for the whole package. I cannot remember how we got there. We could have walked from her house. Regardless, there had been no air conditioning, so our shirts clung to us with the summer sun beating down on us. It seems like we walked. I stayed at Grandmas the whole week. It was a special trip to spend the whole week. The city to his day is idolized as my heaven on Earth.Where kites fly high because here is always a wind to pick them up. The parking lot of the school is always pot hole free and ready to be a race track and place to practice your wheelies. There is an endless supply of cherry coke in Grandpa's fridge and chocolate ice cream in his freezer! That magic reappears as you take a red licorice, bite each end off and use it as a straw in your cherry coke. It is summer again. My cousin and Grandma and I are in front of the local grocery store, sweat beading on our backs. And the store is forever living on. The characters have not aged. The time has not changed. No dangers. No pain. Just red robes, coke and the girls

Reflections from a girl: A change in the making

My first Mother's Day

Allyson and Aaron were more excited than I was, I think. I have been overwhelmed. Our family is in such a season of transition. Mommy has been under a lot of stress as the school year wraps up and we transition to summer schedules and things get busy with baseball season and I transition to a new job. But I am always joyful and thankful for the gift God has given me in Allyson and Aaron. Today spontaneously, they would both shout out "Happy Mother's Day!" I just sense that they knew the significance of today as I did. For our family, it was not just another holiday created by Hallmark. (I love giving and getting those greeting cards, trust me!) But, today was a huge mile marker in our life together as a forever family that NO earthly principality can ever take us apart. We are a family now, not only in God's eyes, but in the court's eyes. And today was another day in the first official year for us to celebrate. Writing this helps me to understand why I have been so emotional this week and attached to this seemingly commercialized holiday. 

When I think back to how it all started, I feel like I should paint you the picture of the day in December when we went to the midtown Children's Division office. The beating in my heart could have been heard by everyone in the car if their had been anyone else besides myself and my husband. Had we made the right choice? I know I hadn't asked all the questions. It was a few days after Christmas. They need a home. What were we getting into? Two children? We had planned on only taking one for our first placement. There they were--standing right inside the doors of the children's division doors. My husband and I had been getting haircuts. We had been later than we had thought. The boy was 14 months. She was 2.  Although they had been with a relative for a weekend, they still looked haggard. While we had prepared to take a placement, we still needed other thing specific to these two children. The anxiety was so great in Allyson, that I couldn't take my hands off the cart at the store without her screaming and huge tears streaming down her sunken face. What had these kids been through? Would they be able to trust us or anyone? I didn't know if we had what it would take to help them. When  Bubby would look at me today, smile, his big blue eyes shining and say, "Happy Mother's Day!", and at bedtime,  when Sissy snuggled up on my lap and just lay there with me--something she never does, I received the best Mother's Day gifts I could have been given. Today I could offically claim them as my Mother's Day gifts.
When I think about how much I love my kids, my eyes tear up. Ally is not that same child in the shopping cart. She is reading and sounding out words at 4 years old. She can count, she has bonded with me and my husband. Aaron knows his sounds of his letters, recognizes them. He wasn't crawling, sitting up, talking when we met him. Lord, your love has washed over a  multitude of things and made them new.

And I never would have been able to do the things I have done for these children had it not been for the role model in my life growing up. My mother. Who has shown me unconditional love. Right from wrong. That you do unto others as you would want to be treated. That is the heart of compassion and love.

True Romance

I could start this with a number of questions or cliches. But this morning my God decided to give me a kiss. A gift. Something to bless my heart. I got in my car and immediately my two little dears began asking for mommy to put on the "soup song" and "I'm not perfect". Both of which I don't think are real song titles but are their favorite Laurie Berkner songs of the week. Mommy of course has misplaced the CD with these songs on it (not on purpose might I add). As I start the car, "The Revelation Song" comes on sung by Kari Jobe. My four year old princess immediately belts out "holy, holy, holy is the Lord, God Almighty! Who was and is, and is to come!" My heart screams, "Yes! Lord! Bring it!" When she opened her voice today and sang the words, that there were rolls of thunder and flashes of lightening! The tears roll down my cheeks. And, of course, it is picture day at my school where I work, and I chose today to wear mascara, eye liner, the whole shabang! This is it! This is amazing!

We left this morning before the sun woke. This also was pointed out as we packed the car for our journey to preschool and daycare this morning. "Mommy, is it almost night time?" No punkin pie. It's morning. It is early. Mommy has Bible Study this morning. And mommy has struggled with finding the time to delve into this weeks study and see it really working in her life. So this morning God decided to give a real life lesson!

What can break your heart? And bring you joy in the same instant? It was a gift from the indescribable power of our universe who created every living thing that ever has and will be that decided to have that be the first song on my radio this morning. He knew I needed  that. Why? Because He wants me to know that I am loved.

"God has written the Romance not only on our hearts but all over the world around us. What we need is for him to open our eyes, to open our ears that we might recognize his voice calling to us, see his hand wooing us in the beauty that quickens our hearts." From the book Captivating by John and Stasi Eldridge

I have no doubt that this is what God did for me today. I have been transformed by the greatest Romance that ever was and ever will be through a four year old beautiful little girl singing about the love of a savior.

Each morning I get to wake to you, to see your curls and listen to the gentle rhythm of your breathing. Already, you’ve been given a second chance at life. Even in the short two years of life before we met, God is the only one who really knows the harshness of what you went through and how close to death you came. What a privilege it is to have this second chance with you! 

As a special education teacher, foster and a adoptive parent, children have a special place in our family. Add to the mix that I always had an overactive imagination that I was not really an only child but had secret brothers and sisters hidden in exotic places all over the world that one day I would get to meet and travel with, and you might get a glimpse into my love for life, travel and sharing my interests and the world with others.


A transformation has taken place in my heart over the last two years and 3 months. One that I never would have thought about or even considered. It started with a disease called endometriosis. A disease that took away my ability to conceive without expensive medical intervention. Many women in our nation end up infertile from this or for other reasons, while we watch others so easily have children. Children they never even considered having and once they have they don't ever bond with and have no desire to provide for. Then each month and year we go through the heart ache of not conceiving, while or best friends, sorority sisters, or coworkers do. The pressure builds, our hearts ache and wounds form in ourselves and our most precious relationships.


For me all of these things are things I've struggled with and maybe will write about, but today I want to talk about the transformation of my heart into the awe I hold in regards to the resilience of human life. All creatures depend on something or someone to get their sustenance early on in life, and then have have some mode of transportation to get it later on. For my two children who we were blessed to adopt through our state foster care system, their system failed them. I'm sure you can imagine some things from what you've seen through the media. But these things I'd seen didn't prepare me for the pictures and the eye-witness account I would get at their first meeting we would have with all of the state workers to discuss the plan of care. How could a human being survive in those conditions? Let alone a child and infant?

There is something deeper. There is a current that runs deeper than the milk, the nutrients, and the lack of exposure to a mother's love, that sustained them. For that each morning, I give thanks and am brought to tears that this second chance was given to my children when no one knew they were there. God was there with them for every breath. Every blood-curdling, hungry cry. I'm so thankful. And finally, thanks to a good Samaritan who saw something strange and called the police. They were found.

Each day is a new day. Children are taken for granted more than we realize and go hungry and cold and unloved. Be transformed. Find the joy in a child today the transformation you start, will move you more than the child.





 I had something started for my first official blog for today. Something cerebral. Not emotion driven, however this is where I am going to start. So much of my life right now centers around how my life is morphing and changing around family and career and what shape that will end up looking like at the end of this stage. This blog will serve me as an outlet to practice the craft and art of writing. I hope it touches the hearts of those who read it and maybe entertains and challenges you, too. Thanks! Crystal