Guest blog

I hope everyone is staying cool, yet enjoying their summer and play time in! I wanted to invite you over to www.crossrivermedia.blogspot.com to see my latest post. Today, CrossRiver invited me to guest blog for their readers! Please feel free to share with your friends on Facebook or tweet about it!
Have a wonderful safe weekend!

Blessed and greatful,

Crystal

Scents and sense

On I-70 he rolls the window down. Hot asphalt mixed with diesel swirls and dances with the bought air inside. Like Pavlov's dog, my response is classically conditioned. My shoulders relax, the heat waves radiating off the pavement ripples into my memories of the Mediterranean Sea, and I no longer co-pilot my Honda, but see the architecture of old that exists thousands of miles across the ocean. Missouri sounds no longer heard, but sounds of laughter, splashing and the occasional moped and the boats out at sea lull my thoughts.
"is that weird?" I ask.
"what?"
"mmm... That smell. Is it weird for me to like that smell? Do you ever get transported somewhere just by a scent?"
"sure," he says flatly, the interest of a deflated balloon.
No matter, I was there, ten years later a scent could still take me to a country that was my home for four weeks. One sense-smell-could revive all my senses. I can taste the gazpacho and paella, the fresh produce drizzled with olive oil, see the gothic architecture, and feel the air of the sea and sun mix on my skin.

Where do your scents and senses take you?

I quit my job.

Making something official, officially yours, officially done. What does it mean? Does it need a stamp of approval? This week summer vacation has commenced for thousands of students in our local school district. Water balloons took flight, basketball games picked up and parents fretted about the next three months as to how they would occupy their children. The words poured off my husband’s lips like think maple syrup, “Your never ending summer is just beginning…” I was about to venture into uncharted waters. Yeah, I am a certified teacher…certifiable is more like it, or how I felt many days with the paperwork and meetings and things I seemed to forget to do in the moment.

I am now a homeschooling mom.  Sorry interrupted by life. Asthma. Hopefully we won’t be headed to the hospital. Ah, homeschooling. I should be totally qualified right? Like a dentist pulling his own kids tooth when it’s loose. Where do I start? Which curriculum should I choose? I know one thing to be true, her spiritual development will not dwindle. We will ignite her spirit and see her flourish.

I said goodbye to friends who after one year in this current school and district had become a family. True, dear, had my back and had seen more of me than my family at times. But when stepping out in faith, God finds a way to tell me that I am on His path. Each little piece: a piece of mail comes at the right time, a conversation with a coworker, a job offer, an email that a piece of writing has been accepted. I stepped out in faith and resigned a job that consistently I was told I was good at, but bogged down with. Can this really be right? Can we make it without two incomes? I could definitely make my doubt column bigger than my hope/faith column, but that really wouldn’t be faith. But just knowing my doubts of my ability reminds me of one of my favorite verses Jesus reminds me that, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matt. 17:20)

I hope each day gets easier. Each one of my coworkers has made a cement footprint on my heart, in my life. Each imprint different, lasting, each made me grow, cry, definitely laugh from my belly, many to tears of joy. Thank you for this year that has gone by too quickly. Never have a left a school year with sadness, like this, a certain cloud of what I will be missing next year, will my students be okay without me there? Why didn’t I listen to my coworkers when they told me of the difference in my students in just a short time I had been their teacher?

The answer is simple: Faith in a road that I skip down. Faith in a journey I hold a map for, but cannot read completely. Hebrews 11:1 and 3 reminds, that “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” And “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.”

Professional Parent

"Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get." Most of us know these immortal words of the Forrest Gump character. I can picture Tom Hanks imparting the wisdom of his mama while sitting on the bench in his cream suit waiting patiently. Life. Birth--You have no choice at. There's no escaping being born. As the parents, you may try to take tip the scale in your favor, or stack the odds. Even with adoption, there is no guarantee. Despite your best efforts in genetic test before birth, Forrest's wisdom still holds true.

My journey with Autism Spectrum Disorders began in 1997, ironically in the spring. Pre-IB English had my number. The assignment: Do something you had never done before and the catch was you could not receive compensation for it. At 16 the things you think of cost money don't earn you money and I had no money to spend. Most of my classmates were doing cool things like jumping out of airplanes or learning to fence. When I was running out of time, my task was chosen for me. The secretary at our chiropractor's office needed someone to tutor her daughter and she could not pay anyone to do it. Her daughter was diagnosed with autism. Autism? Autism--a term I heard that afternoon, and had not heard before or cared enough about to remember until I met the little girl and her mother.

Today, I woke to realize, we survived another high school graduation with our adopted 5-year-old daughter. We waited and watched and worked to see. After 3 stable years in a loving, consistent home, we decided to use some labels, ADHD and Asperger's. With the help of the training I have had and the years of experience (do the math 2012-1997=15) working with kids who have autism spectrum disorders, I should be fully equipped to make it through the day to day with my beautiful, bright, shining daughter. Fifteen minutes before it is time to leave for my nephew's graduation, she comes down from her room wearing exactly what was not laid out for her to wear. The clothes I picked did not match in her mind's eye. They were not "beautiful" and were "ridiculous" among other things. Three attempts later she had on the bones of the outfit, with no sweater over the top of her tank top. The beauty of the mind of my daughter is that she cannot lie: She comes down the stairs wearing a sweatshirt she was to put away in the winter clothes that morning, and I ask her about what she was told to do, she can repeat the exact direction to me. She knows she is in deep water now (although if I told her she was in deep water she would look at me funny because idioms escape her literal thinking). The silent tears falling, slowly one by one, and mommy's lost her patience, now. Not with her daughter, but with herself.

Thank God for a husband who can step in and take the princess to put on her sweater find her fidget to take to graduation. She comes back downstairs. We go over the rules of graduation. We give her an out. It is okay to not go. That if she doesn't feel like her body can handle sitting there all night tonight, it is okay. At this point, the choice is hers. "I want to go, Mommy!" She says. "Can I have a drink there?" And the question of something to drink there continues throughout the event. And I think, "If only I had come prepared with that visual reminder..."

Life is like a box of chocolates...and we made it...and she loved the Panther clap. Congrats Oak Grove High  School Graduates 2012...You never know what you're gonna get!

Everything is made beautiful in His time

What do you feel when you lose someone? Do you remember? Do childhood memories somehow become sweeter? Clearer? Changed like adding. An effect to them like changing the effect on the photo you just took with instagram? Does grief filter your thoughts differently?

This week a friend's battle with cancer ended. We wrote together in high school on the school paper. She aspired to inspire.
Shanna, you are missed already. You achieved so much in 31 short years. I spent tonight reading through the lives you touched who have felt led to share on your Facebook page about the legacy you have left behind.

Prayer goes a long way. I regret not keeping up more and hope that the prayers I prayed had an eternal impact.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end." (Ecclesiastes 3:11 ESV)

Thank you. For life. For hope. For love's sake.
I am inspired by the way you fought, by the way you continued to just breathe and love life.

Horror in my mind

Worth. What is your child worth? What is someone else's child worth? What if the child has the state making decisions for them? How much is that person's mental well being worth? Did you know that they cannot be denied things they request as long as they are legal for people their ages, even if you and I would deem it inappropriate or excessive. It's considered a right.

Now think about the things that constitute a child becoming a ward of the state and not being adopted. What kinds of decisions are these children capable of making? What kind of decisions do your children and teens make without parental guidance?

Is your convenience worth a child's mental health? To not consider others and the effect a decision you allow them to make without helping to see the consequence and the long term effects?

The reach we have on others is infinite and surpasses time. "Do into others as
you would have them do unto you."

Scars

Many of the sparse moments of reflection lately have been spent meditating on the love of my savior and my BFFs in my life. My family's life is more than sprinkled with the love of Christ. In fact it is like opening up your lunchbox and reading a love note written just for you or walking into your office and finding a trinket that only your best friend would know you would want and appreciate the meaning of.  That is how special the last several weeks have been for our family and the Easter season has enhanced it! I do not make it through the transition of the seasons or through a holiday without some sort of celebrations, crafts, or forcing my family to do something in honor of it! And this year I found these great lessons for the 12 days of Easter Countdown here at http://www.shauna-lynn.blogspot.com/2012/03/seeing-as-easter-is-just-around-corner.html. This is not your traditional ressurection egg activity. We loved it. I used it to lead right up to Good Friday activities at our local church and used our study activities and prayer room focus through the weekend and today for our celebration of Jesus's ressurrection.

Music, like writing, is life to me. I frequently have a song playing in my head. I have some soundtrack for every season, day or minute of my life. As we have been focusing on Easter over the last two weeks, I found myself pondering worship and what my worship play list would be if I was a worship leader for a Good Friday serv ice and then for Ressurrection Sunday. Then comparing them. Maybe that's the teacher in me. I guess this is my compare and contrast paper. Over the course of my days, I meditated on what the girls, Mary, Jesus's mother, Mary Magdalene, and Martha, as well as the other women not mentioned would have had on theier iPods if Steve Jobs had invented them by then. What about Andrew, Peter, John and the other disciples and apostles? I took the songs from my playlists like, Switchfoot's song, "Redemption,"



and wondered if they could really see that their "monstrosities" fit inside those piercings on His hands, side and feet. Could they at that point see that they were forgiven? Could they understand the love as they were caught between the days of Jesus's death and resurrection? What about Kari Jobe's "Revelation Song" or "What Love is This?" How would these sogs look in light of the time between His death and resurrection?

And what of the worship Matthew speaks of in his Gospel account? As Jesus's body lie entombed for two and a half days, would your heart have heardened after having walked side by side Him? What would you have been like after having witnessed the sweat, tears, and blood of the Lord?

Here's some more of my play list. Happy Easter! Be blessed!

"Now More Than Ever" by Gaither Vocal Band

"Amazing Grace" by Chris Tomlin

"Like a Lion" by David Crowder Band

"Beauty from Pain" by Superchick

"I Believe in a Hill Called Mount Calvary" by the Issacs

"He's Alive" by David Phelps





To: Bio Mom

How much time, energy do you waste contemplating, chewing on and formulating thoughts about history, politics? Another's business and how they should run their life?

The real deal is in my arms now! She inhales and exhales. She has a voice, melodious and heaven sent.  Yet, my heart breaks because I realize that she has been mine for 3 years and 2 months. I have woken up to he beautiful face more mornings than the woman who carried her for nine months-whose body cocooned, nourished her despite the drugs and lack of nutrients. She was given sustaining life to develop and come to this world with 10 toes, 10 fingers, a fully developed brain, two fully developed lungs, a fully developed heart that lub-dubs, brown eyes, a mouth, teeth, lovely wavy hair like wheat and a cute little nose.

She reads now. She counts to 100. She loves all arts. She especially loves ballet. She runs, jumps, climbs and cannot wait to be outside in the sun. Most importantly she loves her family and knows she is loved. As I tucked her in last night and prayed for her and she prayed for all of her friends and each classmate by name, I broke down for you, her biological mother. My heart breaks for you because you were not given this chance as a child to be a child. To experience God's creation, God's true love. Know now that we love you and that you have given us one of the greatest gifts--to experience life and love.

My prayer has always been and will always be one wanting you to know you are unconditionally loved by at least two others in this world, a prayer hoping you one day have a real family and a prayer that you find redemption in this life.

How will you worship?

The more you praise and celebrate your life, The more there is in life to celebrate...