That first time... What was it like for you, mom of an adopted child? I tend to be a bit out of the loop. If you know me, you know we don't have cable, we rarely watch network television. Our family has opted for the Hulu and Netflix subscriptions for entertainment. So when the classic "Annie" popped up as a family movie selection, I opted to show it on our last family movie night. My seven-year-old son did not hesitate to grumble a bit and beg for something more manly or boyish.
As Annie's lungs belted out the beautiful song, "Maybe," I realized that I had yet to share this childhood favorite musical with my two favorite kiddos. The context of every word spoken or sung changed meaning for me. Not only because I was now viewing one of my favorite musicals through my lenses as an adoptive parent, but also because we lost Karen this July. She is the beautiful woman, who despite her "Hard Knock Life", was able to give birth to the two beautiful children I am blessed to raise and call family.
As I watch that red head on the screen dream and sing about meeting her parents we all know died in a fire, and then I look at my seven-year-old red head and then to my eight-year-old brown eyed spit-fire princess, I think about the sorrow they will have to face one day about the mother they will not meet who died too soon.
So we pray. We thank God for the woman who sacrificed, who may not have understood everything that happened and why she couldn't keep her children. And in the spirit of the adoption..."I don't need anything but you."
So to my post-adoption readers-Mama and Daddy, Aunties, Uncles and Grandmas and Grandpas-does watching a show like Annie now change for you? I would love to hear your comments. What was watching it with your kids like? Did it open dialogue or bring up questions?
What is going on around us is not always clear. I find myself using my shirt to wipe clean the lenses of my glasses from the smudges and the dirt of the days activities. When I finally slow down in the afternoon, I'm always amazed that I've managed to look through the filthy lenses and read and teach, to cook and clean, to manage a home, and drive here and there. Cleaning up the messes and healing happens in the strangest places through some unlikely activities.
Christmas has been one of those holidays that has been a big deal to me. It is a holiday for family to be close. It is a happy holiday. It tells a happy story of a Savior who loves not only me, but every one, no matter the mistakes we make. There's a jolly human-elf guy passing out presents, eating cookies, and laughing. What's not to be happy about?
It has smells. It has feelings. It has textures. It has colors. It has tastes. It has people. For me growing up, it was oatmeal cookies, peanut butter, chocolate balls, trips to visit my cousins, and my Grandma and Grandpa King.
My Grandma and Grandpa King (Aren't they a handsome couple?!)
It was their Christmas tree covered in icicles, the big boxes covered in Rainbow Bright wrapping paper and Mickey Mouse Christmas paper Santa delivered every Christmas, and driving down Chicago Street to see and read the story of Jesus' birth, life, death and resurrection told in Christmas lights.
And then, sometimes, something interrupts. Tragedy. For me, Grandma passed. I was 16. Ten years later a beautiful little girl was born, but I didn't know, yet. Then another year went by. A beautiful boy was born. Another year went by. In 2008, this little girl and little boy needed to know what that Savior did for them.
You see life is messy, and they needed some stability and I had a longing to see Christmas celebrated for a family redeemed. And in 2008 we got a call and said, "yes", not knowing that it would be permanent, but hoping maybe it could.
And tonight, we made more memories, six years later, the family Christmas tree before, bare with some lights and beautiful wooden beads. It could be organized, uniform ornaments that match, and ribbons placed just so, and the lights shining and twinkling:
Before
Then we decorated. We sang Christmas carols. The kids pulled out handmade ornaments from before and after their adoption, ones we picked out as a family and ones they were given as Christmas presents from their Grandma and Grandpa King. And then the tree came into focus:
After
More healing happened as the kids took more ownership of the holiday and directed which ornaments go where, and they remembered making some and couldn't believe they made others. Pieces of themselves were regained tonight, put back in place-to a place of belonging. Tonight was for keeps.
There were so many kisses of God this extended holiday/weekend...and so many times I made my complaints known to God. I'm still in the valley, barefoot and treading through terrain that is at some points well watered, soft, and beginning to grow spring grass and lilies.
But I step too hard and my feet sink and are stuck in the miry clay mix that I know I'm pulling out of, but it's slow. Then when I'm free from the muck, I place my foot in the next part of the path and it's rocky. It's the only way through the valley, I think. And I have to ask for discernment. Is this straight? At first glance all sides look the same-painful and wrong.
This weekend was that path. But what the Lord did was prove his holiness and omniscience-again! And when pressed in on all sides, feeling the need to make a decision for direction, but being open and naked, in a valley exposed to enemies, all I could do was wait, pray, and ask. What was I feeling? Was I feeling anything at all? Shock? Numbness? Nope. Fear. But Fear of the Lord. He has an answer. My daily reading today was Hebrews 10 to the end of the book. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay."and"For, after just a brief moment,he who is to come shall come;he shall not delay.But my just one shall live by faith,and if he draws back I take no pleasure in him. We are not among those who draw back and perish, but among those who have faith and will possess life." (Hebrews 10:30, 37-39)
I still had no clear answer other than to have Faith though I had foggy vision. I continued to pray for revelation because as I had remembered when we are hungry, lonely, angry or tired, we shouldn't act, we should stop and pray. Those cloud or fog our judgement and discernment.
And. HE. DOES. EVERY. TIME.
More than I could imagine...
He gave me a chance encounter with a dear friend at the bookstore at church: A helper from my third grade class was working the register as I checked out.
Then a former student from said class was there as I turned around at the ready to tell me all about his life since then and give me hugs.
Blessed prayer time at the end of worship with ministry students blessed my heart and allowed me to minister to them.
All weekend to find respite and connect with a friend and her family to process and find the path and answer for navigating valley in a safe way.
Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope"
His promises are true and they are real. My faith only needs to be the size of a mustard seed, but I love it when it's even bigger!
"So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, 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." Matthew 17:20
For your listening enjoyment...Audra Lynn says, "I don't want to waste another day" in Tastes So Sweet
Most days I live in oblivion (probably ninety to ninety-seven percent of the time) to the destruction terrorism, war, and real poverty are doing around the world. My battles are with the television ads telling my daughter she must look a certain way and my son he needs a Pajanimal (if you haven't seen these count yourself lucky.).
As a mom with an intercessor or Anna calling, I do tend to have a little more heightened sense of the burden or ache for these things for sure. However, I get distracted. The mundane. The routine. Even the beauty of my blessings take my mind off of what freedoms I have living where I do and the need to pray for those in war zones and poverty.
I frequently look at others and wonder Why God did you choose now? How God did you choose to place me here? Why these talents for me? Why did you choose for that person to live there? What are you going to do? What are you trying to show?
One of the dearest women The Lord placed in my life who strengthens my walk, challenges my integrity as a person, and inspires me to have fun every day is also a veteran.
But you would never know that she fought and still fights every day for my freedom and yours. I never knew the comittment that even our reserves and many of our retired military put into our country after the fact or when off duty. I am so honored to be a citizen of a country where I have freedom to speak out and debate with others about how my amazing country is run. I am grateful for her and others who continue to do their duties so that last Tuesday I could proudly walk into my local voting venue and safely vote.
And today I will do my duty to honor veterans and celebrate them. I send extra thoughts and prayers to honor you and bless you. I pray that battle scars be healed. That a revelation of what our country was founded on spread across our nation and to the ends of the earth.
Thank you veterans for giving what I cannot so that Americans can have a life of freedom.
"Now Peter and John were going up to the temple area for the three o’clock hour of prayer.And
a man crippled from birth was carried and placed at the gate of the
temple called “the Beautiful Gate” every day to beg for alms from the
people who entered the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked for alms. But Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” He paid attention to them, expecting to receive something from them. Peter
said, “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you:
in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorene, [rise and] walk.” Then Peter took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles grew strong. He leaped up, stood, and walked around, and went into the temple with them, walking and jumping and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they
recognized him as the one who used to sit begging at the Beautiful Gate
of the temple, and they were filled with amazement and astonishment at
what had happened to him." Acts 3:1-10 (NASB) This year I took up he challenge of adding the goal of reading 10 chapters of the Bible a day. Not every day have I read my Bible and not every day have I been able to get all 10 chapters read; however, to read through the Word in this manner, in large chunks changes things. The atmosphere changes. My heart changes. The Lord has time to speak. The Word is really alive and active. It gives it time to run throughout, not just sprint in and out of my daily life. So when I read Acts this week, again, of this man sitting, every day, disabled, weak, hoping to receive something from his fellow humans. I hoped with him, felt his hunger stronger and could picture a family on their way into temple dropping off a loaf of bread. And just maybe yesterday he received two mites, but it wasn't enough to do anything with, so today he hopes for two more. Maybe enough to get him some dinner tonight, he thinks. And then he sees them--foreigners. The pull him up he stands. Never before. What sorcery? What trick? No! It's the power of God's son, Jesus. As the sight registers on faces, scrambling begins for everyone to get a seat or standing room only. "If only I can get in and get out for a touch of the healing power."
The touch from Peter and John was just the catalyst for the man to fully understand the truth he'd been "sitting" on the whole time. All he needed was to know who He was. Beautiful. He needed the power to know that who he was in Christ was already enough. Who he was right there in the moment was who Christ needed him to be. That he was beautiful already. Beautiful.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
I woke up with a song playing in my head this morning. Do you have that happen often? For me it's almost a daily occurrence. Of course Superchick was it again. Hope.
Hope and Faith. I've always had hope. Maybe it's been far off hope. My hope has been in a future for my children. Praying and hoping in the future of our nation despite destruction and despair, because I know the foundations of Truth America is built upon. A Hope in the future of our Creation's purpose.
Last week I was given a more tangible closer hope for the immediate future. A doctor in St. Louis and his team are going to do excision surgery to literally cut out the endometriosis from my abdomen and all affected organs. Radical? Yes. Necissary? Yes. After years of surgeries that use laser to vaporize visible disease, but cannot treat disease on or behind organs, and multiple hormone treatments to suppress a disease that is not supressible and dealing with side effects from the hormone treatments that never fully go away even after treatment stops, I have HOPE. I have hope of chasing after my kids on the playground again. I have hope of walking around the zoo ALL DAY again without debilitating pain. I have hope of consistently going to church. I have hope of not canceling last minute on a social engagement because I cannot stand long enough to fix my hair or put on make-up.
The thing about Hope is that we have to have Faith. We have to believe in the unseen. It took me a year in believing there were others out there who could do something different from what could be done and that the doctors and opinions here I had sought and received were not the end.
My appointments, my doctors and all we met were covered in prayer. Evidence of His Divine intervention was all around. And now as I build up to the surgery date, May 28 at 7:30 am, I ask for you to follow and stand to see His Providence in this work He is doing. This will be a journey of Eucharisteo. Thanksgiving and gratitude on how a story is written. Are there problems in stories? Yes. But there are always victories.
So, join our journey as we see how the Lord continues to intervene for our family to prepare for this extensive surgery.
Crystal
Here is my P.S. If you'd like more info about the surgery, endometriosis, feel free to read a little more.
Facts about my particular surgery:
Surgeons have blocked out a whole day
Female organs and bowels are involved, diseased parts scheduled to be removed, bowels resectioned, if needed suspected kinking, nodules
other organs and areas being checked: bladder for interstital cystits, appendix, uterus (being removed no matter what) checked for adenomyosis
Here is a link comparing the two types of surgeries: Again, this time I get to finally have excision. Endo Surgery.
And one more helpful link. I have had many women tell me to just have a hysterectomy. While this may have personally helped them, it does not cure endometriosis and in severe cases does not bring lasting, long-term relief. There is no cure for endo. There are many theories on how it is caused. Educate yourselves, your daughters. Endo Myths
Even after this, I will live with symptoms. But maybe with this, pain meds will be few and far between. I will be able to participate in the Westport St. Patrick's Day Race, again. And I will be able to function as a normal person more times than not.
