My Multitude of Children

Seeing as how it's Mother's Day, I thought I would share some pictures of the children God has blessed me with over the past 5 years. Though I may not yet (or ever) have biological children of my own, my life is rich, filled with dozens of kids who become an integral part of my heart's beating. I love each of these fiercely, with a passion and protectiveness that mirrors a mother's. And from their own lips these beautiful children reciprocate this relationship with me as they tell me how much they love me or when they ask me to fill in as their mom in a classroom activity or by writing me Mother's Day cards.

Last year was a darker, more painful encounter with Mother's Day, being reminded of what I don't have, but today I am grateful to be relying more closely on the fullness of Jesus and recognizing the multitude of blessings He has poured out on me.

These sweet girls are somehow like daughters and sisters to me.

My three T kids, who I mothered for two weeks in March

My Maddie on her birthday

My Kate, Viv, Olivia, Riley

My massive family with whom I spent those 3 beautiful years with in Michigan

A return Michigan visit with those Crazy Kids.

For two years, I have spent my Thursday Morning with these lovelies
(babysitting at Morning Moms.)

My Michigan Heartbeat

My precious Jillian

My sweet Amelia baby, born the day we moved to NY, we have a beautiful bond.

My Tess, Calandra, Arella and Catherine. Such sweet spirits. 

My Tilly, Hailey, Riley, and KayKay. Love them in my life. 

And to the mothers of all of these beautiful children of mine, thank you so much for sharing their lives with me. I am sure it's not easy to allow another woman to pour into your baby's life and become deeply connected with them. But you let me in, you encourage me along the way, and I feel so loved and appreciated by each of you. 

---------

Lest I not to mention how thankful I am for the two moms I have, I am reflecting on the truth of the words I  wrote three years ago. Read here.

Subscribe.

Negative Nelly? Not Today.

I'll be honest. I have a tendency toward negative attitude when things don't go my way. I can be quite childish, actually. But God is always good and this morning He granted me, in all His sovereignty, the state of mind to remain calm and positive in the midst of extremely frustrating circumstances.

Exhibit A: 
Our beloved 1998 Honda Civic is on the fritz. The past few days it's been stalling out whenever I put in the clutch or cruise for a bit in neutral. Not cool. Yesterday, I had to restart it no less than 6 times on a 10 minute drive. We plan to take it in to the mechanic on Monday morning, but we're also seriously considering buying a used Honda Civic Hybrid. Tough decisions, I tell ya.

Exhibit B: 
Due to the state of our vehicular affairs, I opted to bike into work today. Yes, 7.8 miles. I figured it would take the place of my run and it wouldn't cut into Kevin-and-Mel morning time together because he was leaving at 7:20 for a conference.

Within the first 10 minutes of ride, the rusted-out chain of my bicycle had fallen off the gears. Glorious. By God's grace I managed to figure out how to put the chain back on, and I was back on the road.

Exhibit C: 
Back up to an hour before leaving for work. I'm in the bathroom getting ready for the day, and in preparation for putting lotion on, I placed my ring on it's ring holder. But somehow, who knows how, the ring bounced off it's shelf, onto the floor, and right down the rusted-out, gross-looking floor register. (Evidently, we have a lot of rust going on in our lives.)

NOOOOOOOOO. I did NOT just drop my ring down the register. PLUNK. I heard it hit the bottom of the metal duct work. I was hopeful it was just a few feet down, so Kevin and I attempted to pull the vent out of it's position. A seemingly-simple task, right? Not so much. This old vent had been nailed into the floor boards (don't ask me how). I grabbed two sets of pliers and with hulk-like adrenaline strength pulled that darn thing out of the floor.

At this point we discovered the bottom of the duct work was waaaaaay down, all the way in the basement. Kevin set to work taking apart the piping downstairs, but we picked the wrong vent and he came up empty. We're waiting for a maintenance guy to show up and help us out.

Exhibit D: 
Back to the bike ride - I am nearing the construction zone of the "straight shot" portion of my route and I'm hoping I can sneak through anyways. I quickly realize the road is straight-up closed (not just to "through traffic") but I avoid eye contact with the workers and carefully guide my bike through the zone. I make it on time for work, albeit a bit sweaty.

Exhibit E:
The bike ride on the way home from work. Though my friend had offered to pick me up, I thought it would be a nice end to my work week to bike home in the glorious sunshine. Turns out that 74 degrees and 9.2 miles later is not the best thing ever. (Yes, the 7.8 mile ride became 9.2 miles when I opted to take the official road detour and be a law abiding citizen on my way home.) Wow. I was DYING out there.

The ride home took me much longer than 35 minutes--closer to 50--and I was dripping with sweat and felt like Jello.

----
So there is my sob story of a Friday, but friends, I'm seriously thankful for the good countenance the Lord has bestowed on me. I could be in a very bad mood, after all. But God is always good.



Subscribe.

A New Job

My absence can be explained by the addition of a NEW JOB to my already-busy schedule. I am now working as the "marketing girl" (as they call me) at Brown's Berry Patch - a farm, market, gift shop, ice cream and deli, pick your own fruit, barnyard adventure operation located about 10 miles north of our house. 

These days I wake up at 6:10, go for a run in the early morning sunshine, shower, maybe do a load of laundry, put dinner in the crockpot, make breakfast, have devotions with my husband, grab a sack lunch and head out the door for work at 8:40am. I work from 9am to 2pm Monday through Friday. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I promptly head home in time to teach piano from 3:30-7pm. Kevin and I have dinner together (eating late is now the "usual" for us and I don't feel completely famished for two hours while teaching), play a game of Settlers of Catan, watch an episode of Dr. Who, start another episode just in time for me to fall soundly asleep on the sofa. Just before or just after 10pm, I head to bed, read a few pages of my latest Agatha Christie mystery, then off to sleep I go. 

Some days, like tonight, I have teens over for a small group or head to a church meeting. Saturdays are much more valued now in my busy schedule. 

But, as I learned from my 11 Days as a Mom, I had more time in my days than I ever realized. I love the work I do and I love the extra money in our savings account. I'm super busy, but I am thankful. 

Subscribe.

Ten (Thousand) Reasons

This morning my heart is singing of God's goodness, so I thought I should share ten (thousand) reasons I'm counting my blessings.

1) Brownies baking. Nothing like that scent ruminating through the house.

2) Open windows, allowing the warmth of this finally-Spring morning.

3) Filling the clothesline with freshly laundered clothes for the first time this year.

4) Noticing the first sign of growth in my tomato and pepper seedlings.

5) Balancing the checking account, being able to pay bills and taxes, and depositing more blessings to take their place.

6) I actually really do enjoy keeping our detailed financial records. I'm a geek, I know.

7) Having middle school students ask if their brother could have one of the student Bibles we've been giving away. Filling in a teen's name on that first page is such a privilege.

8) Noticing the inside cover of one of those Bibles, given out only a month or two ago, already filled to overflowing with this 8th grader's favorite verses.

9) Planning for the Sunday worship set and finding the perfect song to flow from the a cappella Doxology. Oh, I simply canNOT wait to worship with my people.

10) Coffee with a student who is searching for Jesus. Sharing the story of redemption, the free gift of grace. Explaining God is love. How freedom and healing is found in Christ alone.





Subscribe.

Why is Adoption So Difficult?

The April 8th reading from Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest says,

Our Lord's Resurrection destiny is to bring "many sons unto glory." The fulfilling of His destiny gives Him the right to make us sons and daughters of God. We are never in the relationship to God that the Son of God is in; but we are brought by the Son into the relation of sonship. 

As Kevin and I were reading that day's devotional together, it brought to my mind an answer to question I had been pondering concerning adoption. Why is adoption so expensive, why does the process take so long, why is there so much pain involved? Perhaps adoption needs to be a long and painful process for us just as it was for our God. 

Romans 8:15 (and other New Testament passages) proclaims the adoptive relationship we have Yahweh.

The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”

And how did we receive that Holy Spirit, friends? But through the sacrifice offered by our adoptive Father himself - giving his son to humanity, watching his torturous crucifixion, being forced to turn his back on Jesus because our sin was so black, and then sealing our adoption through the supernatural bodily resurrection and ascension of that same Christ. 

All for us. 

He wanted to invite us into his family, to be his sons and daughters, so desperately that he did more than wait a year or two, sign papers, deal with heartbreak and devastation, sign more papers, and finally bring that child home. No. God waited for thousands of years as his children rejected him, then gave him hope that they might possibly draw near to him, only be saddened again by their disobedient disdain. After centuries of waiting, he offered part of himself - his Son (the son who was already in perfect communion with him, who would never disappoint him or leave him, never disobey him) - as payment for our adoption. 

Ok, so I guess the thousands of dollars, the piles of papers, and the months of waiting really can't compare.

Lord Jesus, if you call us to adopt, please keep this perspective fresh in our hearts. Amen. 

Subscribe.

The Almost Adoption

My heart is in that hurting sort of place. I knew these kind of days would resurface, even after coming to a place of peace and contentment with our childlessness. But it seems to be impossible to completely ignore the desire and if I lost all hope that may not even be healthy, I don't know.

Keeping the balance between hopefulness and contentment is where Jesus must come in. 

But in these moments of sadness and wanting, of deepest yearning and tears, I thought I would share with you another portion of our journey down the road of infertility. (This particular story was hinted at in this post all those months ago.) Come with me, won't you, to June 2012? The days were extremely hot and our house was kept shaded by the closed drapes. In the midst of the heat I wasn't exactly thinking about options to expand our family, but then one presented itself. 

A dear friend of ours said she had an urgent matter to discuss with us and asked if she could come over for a visit. Our minds were racing, scrambling through the possibilities. You see, this friend was one of the only people with whom we'd share our interest in adoption. She was most certainly coming to us with a related circumstance. 

Wasting no time, she laid out the situation - There was a 19 year old girl, from a good family, living in a nearby town and attending community college. She had just found out that she was pregnant, eight months pregnant. This young girl, who was likely scared out of her whits, wanted to give her unborn child a wonderful adoptive home to be a part of and she was wanting to do an independent adoption. The baby could be born within the next four weeks, so if we interested in this opportunity we would have to move quickly. 

Before we knew it, Kevin and I were alone in our living room, staring at each other and wondering, "What now?" 

You should know we had done absolutely nothing to prepare for the possibility of adoption. All we knew was this is normally a long, detailed process, and we weren't sure how to begin. For the next four days we operated in turbo mode. We found an adoption attorney (we had never had any experience with a lawyer of any kind), we paid a $2,000 retainer plus the $500 consultation fee, we communicated with a third party who was speaking on behalf of the 19 year old girl and her family, we filled out the paperwork, we contacted a social worker who was willing and able to do an expedited home study (for an increased sum of money, of course), we had references write letters of recommendation on our behalf, we wrote our own letter to the birth mother.

This was the fastest, scariest roller coaster we had ever been on. There were days (hours, really) that felt extremely defeated. There is no way we are going to be able to do this all in time. Then there were moments of hope. Oh my goodness, we have all of our ducks in a row, this could really be happening. 

And in the midst of all of these meetings and this turmoil, we had to decide whether or not we were going to join the Bible Quizzers for a week in Seattle. Ack. It certainly wouldn't look good to the birth mom if we skipped town at this crucial time. But we had heard nothing back from her or her lawyer since moving speedily forward on everything. We were playing a waiting game and had no idea which direction the mother was going to go. We had made commitments to quizzing (and the money had been paid) and we didn't want to back out of our responsibilities if nothing was going to come of this adoption scenario. Does one of us stay and one of us go? 

For a short while I was considering staying in town to work with the birth mother, and Kevin would go to Seattle. But after over a week of no communication from the family or the lawyers, we knew it wasn't looking good. And so rather hear the devastating news all alone, I opted to go with Kevin to Washington state. 

Thankfully this turned out to be the right decision. We finally heard from our lawyer the day we were flying back to Buffalo - The birth mother had decided to go with an agency adoption. The case was closed. The matter settled. I am still grateful for the lawyer we had chosen to work with. She was generous enough to return our $2,000 retainer since she had done no further work on our behalf. And I was able to spend a week not dwelling on the heartbreak and stress and anxiety of the pending situation. I was with my husband and our teens, and the other leaders on the trip proved to be wonderful encouragement to me as well. 

---

And here we are, 10 months later. We are still interested in the pursuit of adoption, but we're not Dave-Ramsey-ready for that financial commitment. Our conversations on the subject continue and we are trying to make the choices that will be best for us and best for the child we bring home. 

But, dear friends, in the meantime you can pray. And please, if you know of someone who is looking for a Christian couple to adopt their unborn baby or infant, feel free to connect us to them. We are willing to wait for God's perfect timing in this process. 

Subscribe.