Simplifying the Holidays

Feeling overwhelmed by the holidays? Wondering, like Linus, if Christmas is too commercial? 

Welcome to the club.

My pillow (in the background of the photo) says it in many languages...it's Christmas. In December 2019, just prior to COVID taking over the world and forcing us to a sudden stop, I wrote a note to myself. I just stumbled across it again and felt that it was worth sharing with a larger audience because three years later, it still resonated with me. Oh, the stresses are different (homeschooling vs. finding teacher gifts), but the sentiment is still the same. And the reminder...every bit as pertinent. May you find encouragement in what you read below, and take heart...the Reason we celebrate is greater than the chaos of this world! 

This image is the personal property of C.G. Koens and may not be used without permission.

I'm usually super prepared, with everything wrapped and ready to go at the beginning of November. But this year everything's sneaking up on me...teacher gifts (I have them all, just not wrapped, and as to WHEN they'll be delivered...well...that's anybody's guess!), last week of school events ("Mom, are you bringing anything to...?"), gift card exchanges (Wait, what? WHY?), work projects (right, that's due right after Christmas, and I'm not working that week, so I need to turn it in this week, so...), bills (oops, look what got buried on my desk!), and now a feverish hubby (he's actually used 2 sick days - highly unusual for him) who's also out of commission for parenting, which makes me realize just how much I rely on him to help me juggle things when he comes home after work. And then last night, when the 8-year-old came in and said he felt "exhausted" and didn't balk when I suggested he go put on his pajamas and go to bed at 5 p.m., I knew another one was down for the count. I told the girls this morning that none of them were allowed to get whatever bug this is, and that you had to have a "Y" chromosome to pick it up. We'll see how well that works.

At any rate, after dinner and getting everyone in bed, and checking on the two sickies, I plopped on the couch for a moment and appreciated my new birthday shoes (courtesy of my amazing Hubs, who knows me so well) and the Christmas tree and a moment to be still.

I've seen a number of posts this year from people who are feeling overwhelmed, over-committed, and unprepared. I'm sure Mary felt the same way...but NOT for the same reasons. 

Although I thought I'd intentionally slowed down this year, I find myself feeling like I've been wound too tightly. I just discovered a bag of fun Christmas goodies that I bought because I wanted to be intentional and make some fun memories with the kids...but it was hidden under all the STUFF I need to deal with. Life IS busy, especially with five kids, but last night made me realize I don't want to miss WHY we are celebrating. Don't get me wrong...I love the tree and the lights. I love the music and the food (a little too much on the latter!). I love hunting down gifts that will make the recipients squeal. But in the end, the Grinch was right...it's not about the tinsel and trappings, and it doesn't come from a store.

Two thousand years ago (give or take a few years), a teenage girl said, "I am the Lord's servant," in response to a message that would make her a cultural outcast, potentially end her engagement to a good man, and change the course of her life forever. I am thankful for her example, that she responded in this way and opened her life up in obedience to God's calling, no matter how crazy it sounded to her family and friends. I know a tiny bit about what that feels like (believe it or not, some people thought we were a little nuts for adopting 5 kids at once...go figure!), but being available when God called was, much like Mary, one of the best decisions we've ever made.

And so this Christmas, in the midst of busyness and sickness and holiday folderol I want to stop and say the same: I am the Lord's servant. I don't know what that will look like, but I do know it means being open to being pulled in the directions that He chooses. That might mean getting involved with people who need to see His love this season, or it might mean focusing on instructing the kids in what's eternal and what's of this world. Whatever it looks like, He must increase and I must decrease.

If you've read this far, Merry Christmas, everyone!

The Best Laid Plans...

Oh, what grand schemes were schemed at the end of 2021. Twelve blog posts, twelve big things to focus on, twelve ways to improve myself, our house, and our bank account in 2022. The only thing I can say at the quarter point of the year is that I have managed to write at least one blog post each month, and that's something, right? If you saw my post from March, then you know life threw some curveballs our way, and my pantry isn't cleaned out or organized. In fact, if anything, it has gotten worse and more overwhelming. And while we've had some good news in April, it has also been a month of stuggles, with one child in particular, and weekends spent cleaning at my parent's house while my mom continued to recover from her fall and resulting fracture. 

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble. {Psalm 46:1}

Photo by JOHN TOWNER on Unsplash

Sometimes the view of the road ahead is clear, and other times you can't see around the next bend. At times you are steering in the dark, and then suddenly a ray of light will issue forth and provide some much-needed guidance for the journey. I think the image above pretty much sums up my life at this stage - can't see what's coming next, mostly dark, but with the occasional God rays to remind me that He's still the author of the journey. 

In my "best laid plans" I intended to read 12 books this month. With all that is going on, there are many nights I don't even get to read to the kids anymore, so reading 12 books, whether for myself or to others, seems like a dream at the moment. But since I still want to aim for something - because in the midst of the craziness, I still feel the need for some normalcy and goal setting - I'm revising the April goal to reading 12 minutes a day. 

Are you in a season of life when finding 12 minutes in a day to do something like read for pleasure feels like a luxuary? Let me tell you, you are not alone my friend. If the last three-and-a-half months have taught me anything, it has been the importance of making time to be still with the Lord - not running around trying to purge 12 things (even though that's a nice stress relief too) or read 12 books or spend 12 minutes cleaning out a pantry bin. I don't have time for any of those things, if I'm being honest. Between parenting five kids and working a few hours each week and juggling homeschooling and field trips and aging parents...the hours in my day are rapidly dwindling. 

At the end of the day, sandwiched between bedtime routines of the youngest and oldest, there is just a smidgen of time to "be still" and listen for the Lord to speak. But He does. He always does. And I'm always thankful for those stolen moments, and look forward to the day when they aren't quite so stolen. Maybe you are too.

“Be still and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted over the earth.” {Psalm 46:10}

Hang in there, Mamas...or daughters, sisters, friends...this too, shall pass, but the Word of the Lord will remain forever. Whatever else you do this month, make sure you're making time for the most important of all.  

Summer Stack Update (A What's On My Nightstand #WOMNS Post)

Hello all! As I mentioned in my last post (back in early May), I made the conscious choice earlier this year to spend less time online, specifically on social media, and have no regrets so far with that decision. Not only is there less drama in my life, but I have more time to do other things, like hang out with my kids and read books while they play in the pool. So far it has been a win-win. And even though I still work online, blogging got thrown into the "social media" pot so I haven't been on here as much either, but today I wanted to jump on to highlight one of the books I just finished up from The Stack. I got sidetracked by several ebooks on my Kindle (currently reading Junkyard Planet by Adam Minter - which has been really interesting), so my progress on the Nightstand Stack has slowed a bit. However, I'm still plugging away, and hoping to make the most of the next 6 months. I'll keep you posted. 😊

Today's review is of The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction, by Meghan Cox Gurdon. Now, as I said in my review on Goodreads, I did not need a book to tell me that it's important to read aloud to your kids. That's something I've known since my mother read to me as a child (thus turning me into a bookworm), and was solidified by my own experience of reading to our kids (I'll get into that a little bit more in a second). However, Gurdon does a fantastic job of laying out the research and presenting her reasons for why this is not only important for turning children into readers, but also in their physical development, mental well-being, and even bridging the divide between parents and children as kids move into and through the minefield of teenage angst. 

Our Reading Story

In 2016, the Hubs and I sat in a small, dark office of a children's home (a.k.a. orphanage/care facility) in Latin America, just minutes away from meeting five kids who would eventually take on our last name and become an intricate part of our lives as we all slowly learned what it meant to be a family. In these last few minutes before life, as we knew it, changed forever, I found myself asking the in-house psychologist what each of these kids enjoyed doing. I was trying to discover hobbies, interests, anything that might become common ground in a situation where nothing was common - from language to life experience. When I asked if anyone ever read to the kids, the psychologist began laughing and said, "Read? To these children? Ha! None of them have the attention span to handle that! I tried once or twice, but it doesn't work. You'll never get these kids to sit and listen. All they want to do is watch TV." 

Challenge accepted. 

To put it mildly, the adoption was difficult from start to finish. The oldest was 12, spoke no English, hated the world, and us most of all. I can't say that I blame her - everything in her life had been taken away, changed, or forced upon her, including learning a new language. The first night we were home, I went into the bedroom and found her madly studying Dr. Seuss's ABCs, trying to read the English, and making marks in pencil above words she thought she knew, writing the Spanish equivalent above or below "elephant" or "horse" - words that she could tell from the pictures. I still remember, a few weeks later, when she finally approached me and asked, in her thick Spanish accent, "What does zizzer mean?" I asked her to repeat the question, and then again, and finally said, "That's not a word, where did you hear it?" At which point, in complete frustration, she stomped over to one of the bookshelves in our home library and pulled out the ABC book, flipped to the Z page, and then I got it. Dr. Seuss's nonsense words were lost in translation, but a memory was made. 

I read that ABC book so often, to so many kids, that I unintentionally memorized it. Over and over we would read it together, as they learned new sounds, words, and—for some—even the alphabet. These days we've advanced quite a bit from Dr. Seuss (even though the youngest four, now ranging in age from almost 9 to a newly minted teenager, still request them from time to time during our nightly reading sessions). From Seuss to Tolkien (The Hobbit was a hit), their worlds continue to expand. There are times when the Hubs and I glance at one another during our nightly reading rituals (often lasting an hour or two, depending on the number of books we have going at the moment, and my level of wakefulness), and share a knowing look, as we hear the kids sucking in their breath at a particularly intense part of the book, or chuckling when Grandma Georgina complains again about Mr. Wonka and his antics. My favorite moments are when one of them suddenly gets the subtle meaning or understands a play on words, because it shows a deeper grasp of the English language. If only the psychologist could see them now...  

I think the most surprising part of The Enchanted Hour, for me, was when Gurdon touched on the power of reading to older children, and the way it creates a bridge during adolescence (see quote above, starting with "we blow it sometimes"). I honestly hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about it, but when I read this section, I instantaneously knew she had hit the mark. The oldest's transition to a small private school was made as easy as possible for her, including allowing her to read the Spanish translations of the classroom literature assignments while listening to the English audio on YouTube. But after her first six months the instructors moved her to the same books as her classmates, and she floundered a bit as she struggled to read along. And that's when I stepped in. 

Despite ongoing angst in our personal relationship, during those months, when we spent hours together each night while I read through The Giver, I Am Malala, The Secret Garden, and Sherlock Holmes' The Hound of the Baskervilles, it was more than just getting through a reading assignment. I found myself not only in the role of reader, but also that of history instructor (trying to explain 9/11 and the ensuing war to a child that came to us knowing nothing about anything outside of her birth country), culture and religious expert, and all around encyclopedia (try reading Sherlock Holmes sometime when you don't have a concept of what a carriage is!). Although she has not become a book lover like the other four, I still look back on that year of reading aloud for school, and realize that sometimes, it was the one thing that gave us common ground, even if just for an hour at night. 

With one year left until she leaves for college, we still don't have much in common. She's doing her life, and I'm raising her four siblings. It sometimes feels like I have two different families living in the same house. But the other night she happened to be home for dinner (a rare occurrence these days). And as we all sat around the dinner table, she looked at me and said, "Remember when we read Sherlock Holmes? I'd kind of like to hear more of that. Maybe you should read it to me." I tried not to fall off my chair or look too excited. After all, I knew it was just a fleeting moment, a passing idea, but it thrilled my bookworm heart that it even crossed her mind. Who knows? Maybe one day I'll find myself in her living room, reading Dr. Seuss's ABCs to her little boy or girl, my grandchild. And maybe, just maybe, she'll finally allow herself to sit and enjoy the comfort and connective power of reading aloud. Walls torn down, one book at a time.

Buy the Book

Update from "The Stack" (What's On My Nightstand)

This opening paragraph could also be titled, "Reading Update OR How Many Links Can I Fit in One Paragraph?" But as it happens, I'm plugging right along on my Goodreads goal for the year (as I type this I'm at 10 out of 65 books, but that may be higher by the time this publishes on Friday). If you missed the post I wrote about children's books I've read so far, you can find it here. In the meantime, I've finished two books on Kindle (reviewed here and here), and earlier this week I wrapped up the first paperback from my bedside stack, Boundaries with Teens.

As a side note, I wanted to have someone design a really cute little watercolor of me, snuggled up with a book and a mug of something warm, to use with these Nightstand posts, but since that was going to cost an arm and a leg, and my blog makes no money for me, and the only person who clicks the like button on any of my posts is my husband...I didn't think it was worth losing a couple of appendages. So for the time being, you're stuck with Bitmoji me (and if you don't have Bitmoji, they make life—and text messages—a lot more fun, so you should check them out in the App store, it's free). But back to the book!

The book on the top of my stack when I took the picture earlier this month just happened to be Boundaries with Teens: When to Say Yes, How to Say No by John Townsend. Well, it didn't just "happen" to be on the top of the stack...it was there because I'd been reading it to try to figure out what was "normal" for my teenager and what I should be overreacting responding to, rationally. I was about halfway through the book before Christmas, when I found myself in conversation with a friend who was sharing some of the things she was going through with her teens. After listening for a little while, I paused the conversation, went to our bedroom, grabbed the book off my nightstand, came back out to where she was, and handed it to her. She needed it more than I did. I then had to take a break from that book (since I no longer had it), while I waited for another used copy to arrive, after Christmas.

I finally got around to finishing it this week, and my thoughts on it go something like this...

If nothing more, this book was an encouragement that I am not crazy, as I parent a teen whose mood changes from moment to moment. There were many times when I was nodding my head in agreement, and having "Yes! I'm not the only one," moments while reading, which, especially in the midst of hard moments, is sometimes all you need as a parent, especially when it's your first teen rodeo. But it also had some practical suggestions, that even though some of them sounded stupid (to me) on paper, when I found myself in situations where I could try applying them...it actually changed the tone of our conversations and made me look differently at the way she was reacting in the moment. And changing my viewpoint meant that I could let it—whatever it was at the moment—roll off a little bit easier.

Bottom line: It's a good book for first-time parents of a teenager to read, if for no other reason than to help you know what behavior isn't totally out of the norm, especially if you—like me—were a totally different type of teen than the one you find yourself raising. The one thing I would change would be for the author to update it. It was written in 2006, and a LOT has changed in the last 15 years, including the overwhelm of social media and the prevalence of smart phones. It would be really helpful to have a chapter on both of those, as "taking away computer time" is a bit archaic these days.

Thoughts? Opinions? Have you read it? And more importantly...

What's on YOUR nightstand these days?

The Importance of Getting Outside

I've always been proud of the way that I throw my kids outside on a regular basis, to play, ride bikes, or climb trees. We live on a half-acre in the middle of our small town, so they have room to run and yell and get out all their energy (sorry, neighbors...raising them like it's the 1980's!). But I've recently been reading a book that has challenged my view about how and when I encourage the kids to go outside, and I realized that the words, "It's too cold," or "It's been raining," have come out of my mouth a little too often. As the title of the book suggests, There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather... you just don't have the right clothes. 

Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash

The book, written by a Scandinavian mom who now calls the American midwest home, outlines how the Scandinavian parenting view of outdoor time differs wildly from the protective, safety first mentality that is so prevalent in the United States. When she parked her baby pram outside the backdoor for her girls to enjoy their naps in the fresh air, her neighbors thought she was insane. When she took her kids to a state park to allow them to swim in the stream, she received a ticket for leaving the marked trails. But when she returned to Sweden with her girls for a six-month stay while her dad dealt with health issues, she was reminded of the freedoms that she enjoyed as a child, and had to relearn the art of letting go and allowing her children to experience life - in all it's dangerous glory. 

From birthday parties in the snow to rainy day walks and letting her kids go to the park down the street on their own, McGurk shares how giving children these types of freedoms is not only good for their mental and physical health, but it allows them to develop independence and learn from their mistakes. In general, the book is a strange dichotomy of liberal thinking (think: save the planet) and the rugged individualism that used to be so prevalent in the U.S., but has given way to the cry of "safety above all else!" And it made me seriously rethink the ways in which I viewed outdoor play and encouraged independence and problem solving in my little brood. Which is why I found myself on Amazon, ordering rain boots last week.

When the boots arrived, I brought them out one at a time for the kids to try on. After the fourth one received his pair, I told them that the reason I purchased them was so they would be able to go out and play in the rain and mud and it wouldn't matter. By the squeals and yells of excitement, one would have thought they were headed to Disney World. Who would have thought that rain boots and permission to go out and get dirty would be that exciting? Except...that's exactly the way I grew up...and nothing was more exciting to me than a day spent outside in the rain. And nothing was more cozy than coming inside from that rain, to dry off and warm up in a blanket, with a mug of hot cocoa. And so the tradition continues...

Do you have any rainy day memories?

Upside Down or Right Side Up?

Back when we were still in the paperwork portion of adopting our five, I was freaking out about all the changes that would be coming our way. One morning, after a particularly stress-filled week (or what I thought was stress at the time - HA!), as the Hubs was about to walk out the door, I remember looking at him and moaning, "I like my life the way it is, and they're going to turn our lives upside down!" At which point, as my patient better half grabbed his lunch box and prepared to head out the door, he stopped, looked at me, and quietly said, "Have you ever considered that God might be turning our lives right side up, instead?" 

Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash

Bottom line: it's all in how you look at it. 

Much like a sweater that this same sweet man got me off my Amazon Wish List this past Christmas. It was a last minute add, and I really didn't think he'd buy it, but when I opened it up on Christmas day I was pretty excited that he had, as I was feeling a bit under the weather and the sweater was a lot like wearing a blanket. In fact, when my parents dropped by a few days later, my dad (who was an Army flight surgeon in Vietnam) kindly informed me it looked like I was wearing an Army blanket. Fortunately, since wearing a blanket was exactly the look I was going for, that didn't bother me, nor stop me from sporting it on a regular basis. I liked it so much I even decided to add a couple more colors to my Wish List for 2021. Which is when I discovered that I'd been wearing the sweater upside down the whole time. 

In my defense, it must have been a common error, because Amazon had photos on their sales page for it, showing the "Right Way" and the "Wrong Way" to wear the sweater. The cute, envelope-like folds at the top of my sweater were, in actuality, supposed to be at the bottom of the sweater, and the section I assumed was the collar, was intended to end just over my derriere. Realizing my mistake, I removed the sweater, turned it around, put it on...and hated it. The part I formerly assumed was a collar drew undue attention to my backside, and I missed the little flaps at the top, so back around it went. Because sometimes, as Bob Ross used to say, it's a happy little accident. 

As I was thinking about this sweater and discovering my happy little accident, the U.S. Capital was in turmoil. My connections on Facebook were evenly divided between the Union and the Confederacy 🙈 the those who, four years ago, thought the world was ending and were now calling out the "rich, entitled, whites," and the ones crying foul, declaring conspiracies, and closing their Facebook accounts. Both sides egged on by the media, I might add. I unfollowed a few people, just for my own sanity, and then decided to turn my focus on the One who ultimately wins. Because my hope isn't in a political party or a President, but rather in King Jesus. Whatever happens in the next 4 weeks or 4 years or 40 years, I know I will find peace nowhere outside of Him. And neither will my friends on either side of the political spectrum. 

And since I happened to be wearing my upside down sweater, I was reminded of how many times things that seem like the end of the world as we know it—whether upending a comfortable life by adopting five kids, or trusting that God is still in control when your candidate didn't win—aren't, in fact, actually the end of the world. And looking back on the last four and a half years with the kids that were going to turn my world "upside down," but who actually turned things right side up, just as the Hubs suggested all those years ago, I find myself wondering, yet again, if this apparent tearing apart of our country, the line being drawn in the sand is, in fact, another right side up moment.

I guess it's all in how you look at it.   

Be Anxious for Nothing (The REST of the Story)

Last year I began to share my journey through anxiety and panic, but shut down when people lashed out because I chose a different path to deal with it. No matter how many caveats and disclaimers I added to the blog posts or social media shares, those who disagreed with me (yet didn't know me, or my situation) felt the need to put in their 18 cents and argue against my own personal experience. Honestly, I wished that I had never started talking about it at all. But as another year passed, and as God has continued to work on me, I realized that sharing what He has done for me - whether other people approve of the methods or not - is never a mistake. So for what it's worth, here's the rest of the story...

You may recall that my anxiety took me by surprise, having never experienced anything like it before. You may also remember that after meeting with my physician to make sure there wasn't anything physically wrong, I began taking steps towards recovery that included spending many hours in prayer, digging into God's Word, and - eventually - reading a whole bunch of A.W. Tozer. If you don't know who A.W. Tozer is, you can click here to read a short bio of his life, but for me it's not about Tozer - the great writer, but Tozer - the man who points people to God. God placed his work in my life at a time when I was unknowingly seeking a deeper relationship with Jesus, and his words led me down a path that I had been missing.

In November of 2014, the Hubs started saying to me, "I've been listening to this audio book that I got for free. It's by a guy named Tozer, and I think you might really like it." Now, the Hubs never recommends books to me, and in general we have different tastes in the types of literature that we read, so I ignored his suggestion. But he kept bringing it up (which was also unusual), until I finally gave in and ordered the paperback version of The Attributes of God (Vol. 1). As my panic worsened in December, I found myself unable to do most of the activities that I had always used to relax and escape from the stresses and pressures of life - watching (Christmas) movies, reading mysteries, scrolling through Pinterest. Even sitting in church became a nightmare! I found myself battling against full blown panic attacks while those around me belted out Christmas hymns, and I became an expert at bolting out the door as soon as the pastor closed his final prayer. Everything that had previously brought me pleasure now incited overwhelming fear. Everything, that is, except God's Word and Tozer's book. 

As we passed through the Christmas season, I spent my days curled up in a chair in our living room with my Bible, The Attributes of God, and a notebook. In general I am a fast reader, but it took me a month to read through The Attributes because I kept bursting into tears, overwhelmed by my small view of God. My prayer and gratitude journals during that time are filled with confessions of my own sense of control, my cry to God to be my stronghold, my lists of anxious thoughts and irrational fears.

What is it that makes you happy? What cheers you up and gives your morale a lift? Is it your job? Is it the fact that you have good clothes? Is it that you've married well or have a fine position? Just what is it that brings you joy? That's our trouble. We know that God is so vast that in comparison everything is just the size of a hazelnut. And yet we're not happy people because we've got our minds set on things. We multiply things, and we increase things and put our confidence in things and God. We have our job and God; we have our husband and God; we have our strong body and God; we have our good job and God; we have our home and God. We have our ambition for the future and God, and so we put God as a plus sign after something else. {A.W. Tozer - The Attributes of God, God's Immensity, pg. 28 & 29}

It was during this season that God stripped me of everything that I had unknowingly come to rely on instead of Him, the biggest shock coming when I realized that I had put my husband in the place of God in my life - which I confessed to my Father and asked the Hubs to forgive. As much as he wanted to help, in the midst of my panic attacks, my sweet husband could do nothing to comfort me. His embrace did not make me feel safe, his prayers did not calm my soul, his rational explanation of my physical response did nothing to alleviate my anxiety. When I saw my choice to look to him for my security rather than rely upon God, I was a sobbing, crumpled mess, begging God to forgive my pride and arrogance, my ignorance and foolishness, and to take His rightful place back at the core of my heart. And, my friends, He did. 

In His awesome faithfulness, He began to take my brokenness and remake me. It took time - months, in fact - but God allowed me to see the bigger picture. I stood in awe of His might and power, of His authority and His love. I realized that I had unwittingly put God in a small, convenient box of my own making, one that fit my view of Him. Of course He was God, and yes, He played a large role in my life, but I was still holding onto control of other segments. Or, rather, I held onto the illusion of control. As God did His work in me, I slowly realized that I controlled nothing at all. From something as simple as going out to dinner (and being paralyzed by fear in the parking lot) to relinquishing control on the adoption process that we were in the midst of, God reminded me that my job is to follow His lead, not to attempt to lead Him where I wanted to go. Letting go of control was hard - and can still be a challenge - but it was necessary to move to the next step of recovery.

It's been almost five years since my first panic attack, and I can't remember how long since my last one. Months, at least. On the rare occasion that panic comes for a visit, it usually happens when I have strayed away from fellowship with my Father. When the days are long and the busyness overwhelms the introverted me, when I've set my eyes on my own plans, looking inward rather than upward, then the squeeze of panic begins. Sometimes it manifests itself through unexpected tears (and I'm not a crier, so I hate this, of course!), sometimes it's just unexplained fear. But now I am armed with an arsenal of Scripture, a group of praying friends who are just a text away, and the knowledge that I can let go - must let go, in fact - so that God will increase in my life. Because when He increases, there is no room for the self-focus that drives fear. Yes, I did it without a counselor, yes, I did it without medication, but no, I did not do it at all - I surrendered because I could do nothing else, and God met me with open arms. 

I don't know your story - just as you really only have a limited understanding of mine - but I do know our God, and I know what He is fully capable of doing, as long as you are willing to let go and trust Him completely. What I learned as a result of my experience is that God is sufficient. He is, in fact, more than enough. It is not God who must become more powerful - He already is all-powerful - but I who must acknowledge His power. Fear and panic are not choices - I know this well enough after all the times when I tried to rationalize my way out of them - but surrendering to God in the midst of it, is. I'm thankful for the way God used A.W. Tozer's book on God's attributes to show me my limiting view of Him. I'm grateful for every moment of panic, every fear-filled day, and every gut-wrenching sob that I experienced, because without them, I would still be comfortable in my complacency. God can, and does, use the difficulties of this life to draw us back to where we can best see Him, and for that there are not enough words of thanks. 

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our heart by the Holy Spirit who He has given us. {Romans 5:2-5}

Chaotic Peace

It's been a long, busy week. I'm a mentally and physically drained introvert. I've got a long list of work-related items to knock out today, not to mention a full kitchen sink, messy counters, and the pile of Christmas lights that are still sitting on our bedroom floor because I just haven't managed to get them downstairs into their storage box. This is life. 

Life is messy, it's busy, it's filled with crazy chaos at times. While standing at the free (because our local martial arts studio loves parents!) coffee center at taekwondo last night, waiting to get a small cup of bean juice, I stepped out of character and started talking with the other mother who was getting coffee ahead of me. We laughed about the fact that we wake up in the mornings and our first thought is "how long until bedtime?" Every day this week has been hijacked by appointments (planned and unplanned), errands, and life. I am firmly convinced that God created coffee beans for parents. Step aside perky teenagers and college students...Mama needs her coffee! 

This morning over on Facebook, I've been staring at the blinking cursor after the words "January 18: #iamthankful..." for far too long, my mind drawing a blank. Sometimes it's hard to focus on gratitude in the middle of life...which is exactly why I practice the habit of intentional daily gratitude. One of our girls has put down, "thankful for the chips you packed in my lunch" every day this week for one of her 'thankful for' items. And while I want her to start thinking BEYOND food for her gratitude list, this week I have had to chuckle because sometimes the "bag of chips" is all you can think of -- and you truly are thankful for them!

On Wednesday morning, I was picking out bananas at the grocery store and looked up to see my childhood friend who tragically lost her husband one year ago (and gave birth to their son just hours before the funeral). She was picking out flowers and a balloon to place on his grave. I have watched her over the last year as she has worked through the grief of widowhood and the joy of being a new mom, sharing both the sense of loss and the wonder of new life through her Facebook posts and her blog. Seeing her in the store on the one year anniversary of her husband's death was a stark reminder to me not to take any of these crazy days for granted.

Last night, during all of our running around in the car, I told the kids that I was going to play the audio Bible that I'd been listening to. Although it was for me (and my sanity) and not specifically for them, as the narrator began to read out of 2 Thessalonians and then 1 Timothy, the car became calm and peaceful. As the last words of Paul to Timothy ebbed away, I heard my 7 year old son say quietly - from his seat in the very back of the car - "That was good." Yes, God's Words are always good. They are edifying and thought-provoking. They remind me that this life (and the chaos that often comes with it) are just temporary, and we are to make the most of every opportunity that we are given. Life is a vapor...live it for the Glory of God. And in everything, give thanks.    

Not Lucky, But Blessed

As we wrap up spring break 2018, I've been thinking a lot about the difference a year can make. One year ago, I was stressed to the max, trying desperately to get some sense of the new normal of our lives with 5 new people taking up a large portion of each day. Most days I collapsed into bed either completely exhausted or feeling like a failure... or sometimes both. I lived for the minutes between their bedtime and mine, and wondered how I was going to make it through the next day. We have a photo of my mom with the kids during spring break 2017 when my dad sent her over to help me after I called in tears. She brought lunch, helped them with a craft, and loved on me as only a mom can. 

As only a mom can... it's something I'm still learning how to be. I want to give our 5 the same sense of peace and calm that my mom still brings to me - even at 36 years of age. The way her hugs make me feel like I am loved, no matter how much I screw up, and that everything is going to be okay. I want to be able to do that for our kids, who started out life on the wrong foot, with everything against them, fighting to stay together and finally moving to a new country with people they had known for just 8 weeks, learning a new language, and trying to find their space in this new life. 

There have been many, many times in the last 18 months that I have not been the mom that they needed. The mom that God wants me to be. But I am a work in progress... always have been, always will be. I know I can do better - with God's help. This week I called my mom again, to see about getting together, but this time I did so because my kids wanted to spend time with their grandmother, and we all enjoy being together as a family. What a difference a year makes. 

Not lucky, but blessed.

Thoughts from My Desk

Spring break week for the work-from-home mom looks something like this...

While the kids take over the house, I am earbuds-in, door closed, and working away in my bedroom home office. One thing I never anticipated when I started freelancing six years ago was the freedom that it would give me to continue to use another section of my brain if we ever had kids. In fact, at the time of taking that leap from traditional employment to self-employed, the Hubs and I were happily kid-free by choice (and had been for 12 years) with absolutely no plans on changing that. Unbeknownst to us - GOD did.

Now here I sit with Mozart cranked in my ears, attempting to focus on the writing job that I need to complete by tomorrow while our five (yes, 5!!) adopted kids are hanging out in the basement movie room (directly below my office - and no insulation) cackling over the antics of Cliff and Claire Huxtable and their 5 television children. My, how life has changed. 

As I was saying, the freedom that comes from knowing that if life gets a little too crazy (or boring or mundane, "do I really need to answer the same question five times, or can you not all listen at the same time?!"), I know that I have a way of escape through the work that I do, with the bonus that this sanity saver is also putting some much needed extra change in our savings.

Because I chose to continue to work from home, I can say "yes" to the kids trying new things: taekwondo, ballet, gymnastics, summer camps. Because I use the skills that God gives me, I can model the idea to my girls that being a wife and mom - willingly or not-so-willingly - doesn't mean that they are limited to one or two roles, if God opens a door for them to use their talents in other ways. Because I set aside a few hours each week to write, edit and consult, I can view the ever-growing grocery receipt without blanching because I know God's already provided for it.

When we were about to leave to go get the kids, I took an indefinite leave of absence from the company that had been my primary bread and butter for freelance work, not knowing if I would have the time or energy to work once we had the kids, nor whether they would still have work to offer me if I did. I'd been home about a month when the woman who took me on the first time contacted me a second time and asked if I'd be willing to come back a few hours a week - as needed - in a revised role. You wouldn't believe how fast I jumped at the chance. I needed the normal. I needed the distraction from the chaos that was my life at the time. I needed to be able to zone out from everything that was making me feel completely incompetent and be able to competently contribute to a project. I needed to be someone besides "mom".

It's not always easy - like the juggling that occurs during spring and summer breaks - but I'm still grateful for the opportunity to play multiple roles - wife, mother, daughter, sister, editor, writer, consultant, co-worker. I didn't think I'd be a mom, let alone a working mom (those were rather taboo in the Christian community when I was growing up), but here I am, and I thank God daily for the way He continues to orchestrate every aspect of my story. 

What's On My Nightstand (False Spring Edition)

Last week it was almost 80-degrees in the mountains of East Tennessee. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed having a posy of daffodils on my desk (freshly cut from our very own yard), and my windows open, and the glorious sunshine... but it's only February, and I have lived here long enough to know that it can't last, so it's all a bit of a tease. That being said, I enjoyed spending some time outside in the sunshine, book in hand, and soaking it all in before the cold returned.

Although I still have my stack of ongoing books, I was sidetracked last week by the "new" book from the author of Kisses From Katie, Katie Davis Majors. Yes, she married. Yes, she now has a biological son in addition to her 13 adopted daughters. Yes, she still lives in Uganda. Yes, she's still inspirational.

Katie's first book was one of the many things that God used to soften us to the calling of adoption that He placed on our hearts in November 2012. It took me about 3 days to read Kisses From Katie in March 2013, and I cried the whole way through it. I even recall pounding my fists on the couch cushions and telling God, "NO. I do NOT want to adopt!" Obviously His plan was different than mine!

Much has changes since Katie wrote her first book and I told God no. While the Hubs and I walked the path of adopting 5 siblings, Katie continued to serve with her family in Uganda. She nursed women through the final stages of AIDS, she loved on babies, she provided wound care, she fell in love, married, and added a son to their overflowing household. And though our storylines are so very different, the same God we serve was busy teaching us a very similar lesson: He is enough.

While she sat on the floor of her Ugandan bathroom and poured out her anguish to God, I stood in the bathroom of our Costa Rican rental condo and cried in anger over what God had asked us to do. While she argued with God over the loss of life and the "no" answer to her fervent prayers, I argued with God over His plan for our lives. Both knowing full well that God was still in control, we still questioned and fought and pushed back when we didn't understand - and in the end we realized that it was all a part of the process of surrendering control because in the end, He was enough.

Katie scribbled post-it notes with why she could give thanks and put them all over the walls of her kitchen. I made mental "thankful for" lists while I was driving school runs each day. She clung to passages in 1 Kings, Isaiah, and Habakkuk, while I held onto Exodus 14:14 and Matthew 14:28-31. In Uganda and in East Tennessee, God was working on His children to surrender - totally - to His will, and to trust Him in everything, the good, the bad, and the unforeseen. He was challenging us, changing us, and reminding us, once again, that He would always be enough, for whatever the day held. 

Katie's new book, Daring to Hope: Finding God's Goodness in the Broken and the Beautiful, was released in October 2017, but I would not have been ready to read it then. With each month that passes, things continue to change, little people continue to grow, and I continue to surrender a little bit more to this call of God on my life. February 2018 was the perfect time to read this book (for me), and I was able to have those C.S. Lewis moments of, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one."

Although I loved Kisses from Katie (because of the perfect timing of it in my life), I appreciated Daring to Hope even more - possibly because of the (once again) perfect timing of it, but more because as Jesus has grown me in the last 17 months, I no longer see her as super-spiritual, but I recognize that even though the details are different, her story could be my own. I can finally see how God works in each one of us in such unique and beautiful ways, leading us towards Him and away from our old broken selfish ways of doing things - whether that's a change in your definition of ministry, or the plans you had for your life. His desire for each of us - no matter how He gets us to that point - is to utterly surrender to Him, and to know that no matter what He calls us to do (rescue orphans, write books, help with homework, make dinner), He will be enough.

What are YOU Reading?

What's On My (Kid's) Nightstand

When we first met our kids, we discovered the sad truth that they had never been read to. When I asked a caregiver about this, his comment was that it was basically impossible to keep their attention for any longer than 5 minutes or so, and that when he had tried to read to them (not just our kids, but all the children who lived in that home), it was a disaster. Solution: plop them in front of the TV.

Now, here's the deal...while we do not have cable TV in our house (and our one television is almost 20 years old and sits, unplugged, in the basement), we are not above stealing some breathing space by popping in a movie (from our carefully curated collection - safe for little eyes) and sending the kids downstairs to kill a couple of hours in our movie room (complete with projector and pull-down big screen). So I get that, and I'm not knocking it as a valid way to spend time on occasion. However, as you might have guessed by now, we are BIG proponents of reading around here.

When the caregiver essentially told me that these kids couldn't handle being read to, this English major/bookworm/INTJ took it as a challenge. In the early days at home, it was tough going. For one, they didn't know any English, and my attempts to read to them from the few Spanish books I had, were often met with laughter (for good reason). But I persisted, quickly moving to English-language books, reading them nightly, even when they had no idea what I was saying. The break-through book came in the form of (who else?) Dr. Seuss's ABC.

When we met the kids, the three youngest (at the time ages 4, 5, and 6) did not know the alphabet at all (in either Spanish or English), so this book truly was not only a way to get them used to being read to, but a tool to help them learn the alphabet. Our oldest daughter (at the time of her adoption, age 12) took this book and used it to learn some of her first English words (you can still see her pencil marks over the words she knew). 

We moved on from the basics and the kids were soon hooked on one of my favorite childhood stories, Tikki Tikki Tembo, by Arlene Mosel. If you are not familiar with this book, I highly recommend looking it up and adding a copy to your shelves. My kids love - as I did as a child - saying the great long name, and pointing out that the two boys did not obey their mother when she told them not to play at the well. This book was one of the first that actually helped our kids grasp the idea of consequences - so once again, fun with a purpose! 

We met our 5 kids a little over 16 months ago, brought them home a little over 14 months ago, and have been reading to them nightly for the last 12 months or so. I am happy to report that our home library is well used these days, and nightly reading time is something that - at times - all 7 of us are involved with, sitting around, listening to the stories being read. Current favorites continue to include Dr. Seuss, but this time in the form of much longer books - I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today (and Other Stories), Scrambled Eggs Super!, and The Sneeches and Other Stories.

Sometimes I look around at all of us snuggled up with our pile of books, and I wish that caregiver who poo-pooed our kids ever being able to sit still for reading time could see them now. I wish he could be a fly on the wall when our middle gal pulls books off the shelf and says, "Mom, I think I'm going to read now" (when she couldn't read more than her name 5 months ago!), or when our 9 year old brings out The Young Readers Bible and proceeds to read 23 stories in a row to me as I knit on the couch. I wish he could hear our son, who has some learning and speech challenges, finish his emerging reader homework, turn his face up to me and say, "MOM! I'm READING!" Or when our pre-schooler comes - with book in hand - and says, "Mom, listen to me read this."

They may not grow up to have a book addiction like I do, but if I can at least get them to have a respect for books, and an understanding that reading makes you grow, it helps you to learn, and it's a valid way to pass the time of day... I'll be a happy Bookworm. 

Do you have a favorite children's book?

Maybe It's NOT Writer's Block

When I started this blog in 2009, I did so because I had a plethora of time on my hands. Newly returned to the United States after four years living in various locations around the globe, I was desperately trying to figure out how to fill my days. I'm sure the Hubs would have voted for clean clothes and a tidy kitchen - but those things are so overrated...

We were still using dial-up to access the internet, but as I slowly surfed around I came upon a couple of blogs that I began visiting on a daily basis. Although I had briefly attempted writing a blog while we were overseas, the internet was so sporadic and slow (making our U.S. dial-up option seem fast, which should tell you something), I gave up on it after just a few posts. Plus, I didn't know what to say. How does one make a regular day sound exciting and humorous?

"This morning we got picked up by the work carpool van and managed to avoid hitting the goat in the road. Even though I'm wearing 18 layers of clothing, I never seem to be able to get warm - I suppose that could have something to do with the giant metal hangar where I spend my days without heat. After work we had to cook dinner over our coal fireplace because the electricity went out AGAIN, which made our electric stove, microwave, and hot water pot completely useless. We bundled up and went to bed, hoping that the water wouldn't be frozen in the morning, even though the pipes are installed on the outside wall of the house rather than the inside."

The point is, on days like the one described above, we were usually just trying to make it through without snapping at each other and that really didn't have a lot of reader appeal.

But when we came home and I had a nice warm house and oodles of time to kill, I decided that I might as well join the blogging world again - and who knew? Maybe I would be discovered and become a big time blogger with book deals and lots of cash! Spoiler alert: neither of those things happened. But I kept writing anyway.

In fact, I wrote five posts a week, Monday through Friday, faithfully for about 4 or 5 years, until the job that I had by that point took up more of my time and, you know, actually paid me for writing. I kept the blog URL, I kept the Facebook page, but I wrote less and less often as life got busier. Plus, let's be honest, the blogging market became glutted with options for reading, and when you realize that you're NOT the next big thing and your audience consists primarily of people you know, it kind of kills the motivation for writing. At least, it did for me.

Plus, God started taking us on this crazy adoption journey and, for the first time ever, it felt too personal to write about. You want to know about how dirty my house is or how many dishes are in my sink or why I love books? Welcome in! I'll even show you my closet, and model outfits that no one else wants to wear (who was I kidding when I jumped on that craze?!), but to open up my inside life, to share about the battle that had been raging between choosing to obey God and choosing easy, that was not something I was willing do. And when you have this big, massive thing going on in your life that you know is going to completely change everything about you... but you can't write about it? Well, let's just say it killed the buzz for wanting to write about anything else.

After we finally made our announcement to the world back in January 2016, I started a new blog and began chronically our journey there. I shared ups and downs and it felt authentic and real - though I still had to be careful of the details that I shared because nothing is private on the internet, and we didn't want anything to jeopardize the adoption (well, that's not entirely true - right down to the moment when we were in country to pick up the kids and we thought the adoption might fall through, we were still holding on to this weak string of, "Maybe God really did just want to teach us to trust Him and now He's going to reward us and send us to Paris." Ugly but true fact... and a topic for another day, another blog, but off topic right now.)

However, even that blog slowly faded (despite a larger following than this blog ever had!) because once we were neck-deep in the bog of parent-life (especially when we were wading through the mire of not being sure that the adoption was even going to happen), I once again felt that we had reached the point where it was too personal to share. Close friends and family members knew what was going on, and I used Facebook to selectively share items for prayer, but the blog was too much. I had writer's block because there was too much to say, too much to share, not because I didn't have anything interesting to add to the world. I was overwhelmed with a wealth of information, but underwhelmed by a desire to write about it.

Last year I attempted a few blog posts, both here and on the adoption site, but we were still so far in over our heads and trying to cling to our 2017 Word of the Year (SURVIVE), that blogging was the last thing on my to do list each day. However, about half-way through the year the kids made some significant personal decisions that dramatically changed the dynamic of our household, and as God led us towards, through, and past the one year anniversary of the adoption, life began to feel more manageable. I started taking on work again this past summer, and the kids now know that when Mom says she has to go work in her bedroom, they need to find ways to occupy themselves - and they do!

During the Christmas holidays I started to consider the idea of resurrecting this old blog of mine, but with a more realistic view, like 1 or 2 posts a week, and offering space for others to guest post if they were so inclined. We're the second week into 2018 and I'm on my third post - so far so good!

However, I find myself coming up against a familiar block - how much is too much to share? Even the most mundane posts are giving me pause because our daily life no longer just affects the Hubs and me - it affects 5 other people, one of whom is in Middle School and has friends on Facebook (even though she isn't on Facebook) and knows when I post family photos or tell stories. While I'm all about a little embarrassment, I do want to be sensitive to what I share and write about because it's no long all my story to tell.

So here I am. Post number 3. I don't know what post #4 will contain. I don't know if I'll still be writing in June or if God will have set my sights on something else. But for now I'm here, trying to get back into my writing groove, open to whatever He wants me to share - the good and the bad, the sorrowful and the downright hilarious. Have laptop, will write. 

To God Be The Glory.   

The Sanity Savers

Okay, listen. Jumping straight from, "I never want to be a mom" to "Hello, these are my 5 kids" has not exactly been a picnic for this introverted gal. It's been seven months since we first met the kids, six months since the adoption was finalized, and five months since we arrived home as a family of seven, but during that time I've found a few things that have helped salvage some of my pre-kid sanity.

Sneak the food you love. While we were in Central America to meet the kids and finalize the adoption, we discovered a small Peruvian restaurant within the same compound as our condominium (and right next door to a pizza place). The Lord was definitely smiling on two very tired, very frazzled new parents! While our picky children ate their body weight in cheese pizza, we would sneak to go orders of ceviche, lomo saltado, and ají de gallina through the bedroom window (true story) and polish it off with a couple of cold Inca Kolas (made with real sugar, bottled in Peru). It seems like a small thing, but those were the closest we got to dates during our first two months as parents of 5, and scarfing down food we loved behind a locked bedroom door after the kids were all in bed was about as good as it got.

Sanity Saver Lesson: Go ahead, buy the brie, order the take-out for you and your significant other while the kids eat what they like (even if it's plain hotdogs, like ours), and leave the guilt at the door.

Treat yourself to the occasional indulgence. The reason we've been able to pay our house off, personally finance a good chunk of the adoption, pay cash for cars and home additions, and shop at Fresh Market over the years has been because of our frugality in other areas of life. However, when we found ourselves thousands of miles from home during our favorite season, we were sucked in by the promise of #PSLs (you know, Pumpkin Spice Lattes) from the local Starbucks (yes, they did have one!), and made a few trips out of our way to go indulge. Since our return to the States, we have continued to budget for this splurge, loading money on a gift card and swinging by after a school run to pick up a caramel macchiato or a white chocolate mocha to share or surprise each other with.

Sanity Saver Lesson: Sometimes you just need to buy the $4 mocha and save money in other areas instead.

Make time for what makes you smile. Can a wart make you smile? Turns out that yes, it can! Earlier this year, I discovered that I had one on the bottom of one toe, and as suggested on the box of wart remover, I began soaking my foot in the bathtub every other night for several minutes. Those several minutes for one foot quickly turned into 20-30 minutes for both feet, with a book in hand, and became one of the rituals that I look forward to the most. #ThisRelaxingTimeUnofficiallyBroughtToYouByDrSchollsWartRemover Meanwhile, the Hubs has found relaxation - of all things - in putting together the equivalent of adult Legos. With smooth jazz playing on the radio, we munch on locally made Thai chili hummus and sip on cups of tea while enjoying the silence of bedtime.

Sanity Saver Lesson: Make time for things you enjoyed before the kids - or maybe even discovered after the kids!

Don't stop dreaming, growing, and doing. Set a goal. Listen to podcasts. Start writing again. Keep your passport active. Take a day trip. Being a mom of five is just one facet of who I am at the moment. God called me to adoption, but He also gifted me in other ways, and gave me interests and talents beyond what I do with the kids. As life has calmed down from the initial chaos, I have begun to invest time in developing as an individual again through creative writing, working on my business, creating capacity for personal development, and keeping dreams alive as long-term goals. It's a balancing act of learning how to live in the moment - to be present for the kids, answering their questions, helping them grow - and to plan for the future.

What I have observed is that by keeping my interests active, the kids begin to develop their own. For example, they all know that I love France, and as they hear me talk about my long-term dreams, I now hear them suggest countries they would like to visit someday. When they catch me reading in the school car line, they start to ask if they can bring books in the car. And when education is viewed as an ongoing event, dinnertime talk starts to include career options beyond high school, and shared dreams of attending university and teaching school or becoming a policewoman. The sky's the limit, I tell them. Dream big.

Sanity Savor Lesson: When you take time to invest in your own dreams, you end up inspiring those who are watching to find their own.   

 

Finding a New Rhythm

Hello there, friends. From my calendar reckoning, I wrote my last post on this site just 6 days before starting out on the adventure of a lifetime last September. A lot has happened, so pull up a cup of your favorite beverage (perhaps stored in the cup holder of a booster seat, like mine was this past weekend - hey, necessity is the mother of invention, right?), and let's catch up!

In 2012, God started prodding the Hubs and I towards adoption. And like everything else God has ever asked us to do, it was go big or go home - and we went big! In November 2016, the adoption of 5 biologically-related siblings from Costa Rica was finalized, and after spending two months in the Central American country, we boarded an airplane in the middle of a hurricane on Thanksgiving day and flew home. It wasn't the end to months and years of planning for, fighting against, praying about, and finally submitting to the will of God, it was just the beginning.

We just completed our first 6-month report for the adoption agency, and life is starting to find it's own rhythm. It's not always in tune, and it often leaves us feeling a bit queasy, but it's where God has taken us, and after years of praying that God would allow us to make an eternal impact, the final calling leaves us exhausted, but thankful... most days.

While LIFE was happening, things like work, this blog, and a thing I remember calling, "free time" all went by the wayside. As we are slowly finding our footing as parents of five, we are also learning how to squeeze in time to do the things that we want and need to do - work on the cars, get caught up on laundry, sneak in a movie, write the occasional blog post. People keep telling me that I need to write a book about our adoption adventure - and maybe I will, when we're 20 years out and can see light at the end of the tunnel. For now, I'm hoping to kick start the blogging work again and see where it takes me.

When I'm not busy learning how to be a mom (and taxi driver) to five ESL kids, I'm still dreaming of Paris, sneaking in trips through the Starbuck's drive-thru, and adding books to my nightstand for nights when I can keep my eyes open long enough to read a page or two. I'm also still soft-selling my work as a writer and editor (you can find that side of my life at my professional site), taking the occasional freelance job to help out with the myriad of expenses that pop up these days.

So that's where the rhythm has left me for the moment - wanting to make time for one piece of my former, child-free self, to be able to share my "busy nothings" and offer encouragement to those who might still be hanging around this cobwebbed old blog. If you're here, feel free to say hello. It's been a while...

Until next time,
Carrie

Celebrating the Unique

INTJ (Introversion, iNtuition, Thinking, Judgement) is an abbreviation used in the publications of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to refer to one of the 16 psychological types. 

People with the INTJ personality type are imaginative yet decisive, ambitious yet private, amazingly curious, but they do not squander their energy. Possessing intellect and strategic thinking that allow them to overcome many challenging obstacles, INTJs have the ability to both develop and implement a plan for everything, including their own personal growth. {via 16Personalities.com}

That's a small section of insight into what I (and the Hubs) are like as individuals - apart from our faith in Christ, and our desire to die to self and be formed more to His image. But God also created us as unique beings, with specific gifts, talents, abilities, and personality traits that have helped us survive and thrive in difficult and varied situations throughout our individual lives, and during our 16 years of marriage.

It was this very uniqueness which gave us a calm assurance that God had specifically equipped us to take on a situation (adopting 5 children at once) that others thought insane. We labor under no delusion that it will be easy, or that we will always respond well to the outcome of turning our lives upside down in obedience to God's calling. We are not going through the adoption process to fulfill a personal need, or for the praise of men or the gratitude of children, but because He has led us here.

Although we have been in this process for over 3.5 years now, the reason we didn't tell many people about it until earlier this year was because we were not mentally ready to deal with the influx of unsolicited advice that we knew would flow our way. And, just as we anticipated, it has.

"I have a friend who adopted..."
"There's this book you HAVE to read..."
"You should really consider..."

Believe me, we've heard it all. And each time it happens, I attempt to smile and bite my tongue, trying to believe that most of the people mean well (which, as an INTJ, is not a belief that comes naturally for me). What most of them don't know is that we've spent the last 3.5 years researching and counting the cost of this God-orchestrated story. 

We've talked to those who have adopted, listened to those who have done more than us, researched the best educational methods for children who are adjusting to a new environment and language, and studied the cultural norms and taboos of their home country. Despite assumptions to the contrary, our registry items were selected with care, toys were chosen with purpose, and school curriculum based on the needs of our children and the skills of their teachers (a.k.a. us). In short, if it's a part of the process, we've probably hit it. 

This doesn't stop people from giving their two cents (which even I confess to doing on occasion), but whether you've written me off as an insufferable know-it-all by now or you're still hanging around to see where this is going, here's the thing I want you to take away today...

Every adoption story is as unique as the adults preparing for it, and the child(ren) facing it. Every life story is as different as the individual living it. And the so-called experts may not, in fact, always know best.  

I am not you. You are not me. Relax... and let God write His beautifully unique stories in your life, and in mine. 

Clutter, Stewardship, and The "One Touch" Rule

There's a part of my personality that absolutely abhors clutter - in all it's various forms. Curious thing though, had you walked into our home two months ago (or into our basement for any of the 15 years we've lived in this house), you might have wondered if that side of me had gone into long-term hibernation.

During the days of waiting on adoption paperwork and country decisions, there's not much that these two recovering-INTJs can control. We'd filled out the forms (in triplicate), made copies of everything, shipped it all off to be processed, and were feeling a bit out of sorts with the time we had on our hands. However, it was during this lull in activity that the blinders to the household chaos seemed to come off, and we were truly appalled by what we saw.

Stuff. Everywhere. Stuff in the closets, stuff on the counters, piles upon piles, and enough empty cardboard boxes to move an army. The switch flipped and we went into major purge mode.

For the first time since we moved in, you can walk through all areas of our basement without tripping over Styrofoam coolers, shopping bags that used to hold jar candles but were now just housing the empty paper wrapping, and a plethora of "we might be able to use this some day" mistake purchases.

The result of cleaning out the clutter was more than just peace of mind and tidy spaces, it was a very timely reminder of a large chunk of our lives when we were less frugal than we would like anyone to know.

In the weeks since our purge, we have both implemented the principle of "touch it once" - meaning that when something comes into the house, we aim for the goal of touching it one time. It comes in, and we deal with it. We file it, store it, toss it, or use it immediately. It doesn't find a home on the kitchen counter for the next month. It doesn't get tossed on the basement floor to be dealt with later. If we don't know where to put it, we find a permanent home so it doesn't get flung into a spare closet to disappear for years.

In fact, part of this purge came about when we found out we needed to turn our guest bedroom into a room for a little boy (we were set up for 4 girls, but when those girls had a little brother... bye-bye guest room!). Losing the guest bedroom meant we also lost the last remaining "spare" closet in the house, so everything in there had to either find a new storage home or disappear. It's amazing how much of it left after we realized that we hadn't pulled it out in years. Lack of storage can be a (first world) pain, but an excess of it can be just as bad when it causes you to keep stuff you don't need, don't like, don't want, and don't use. 

Over a month out, our kitchen counters are still clean, our dining table is still free of piles, our basement is actually a pleasant place to spend time, and our wallets are more securely stowed. Developing a habit - good or bad - doesn't happen overnight, but one day at a time. One day at a time, we're choosing to pick up, put away, and deal with the mess in the moment instead of putting it off for later. It makes me wonder...

...what else in my life have I been putting off until later that would free up mental space if I just did it now? 

Something to think about...