The Lonely

*Linking with Lisa-Jo for Five Minute Friday. You have five minutes to write. Period.*

We hear people tell us how big a heart we have for having adopted. How unselfish we are and how lucky our children are to have us. 

Sometimes I try to set them straight. Sometimes I just shake my head. 

But always, I remember this…

Because we have learned to seek God’s wisdom no matter how obvious the choice may seem, when the call came that a baby girl needed a momma and a daddy, as much as our hearts thumped wildly inside of our chests, we asked for a day to pray. To ask for 24 hours was tortuous when all we wanted was to run out to get her. 

But we did. 

And we prayed. 

And as I laid face-down in the room that would eventually become the nursery, I cried out for wisdom and courage to become what I had been dreaming of becoming for several years: a mom. 

I opened my Bible to my favorite book and my eyes fell quickly on these verses:

“Father to the fatherless, defender of widows- this is God, whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families; he sets the prisoners free and gives them joy” (Psalm 68:5-6, NLT).

I felt the answer wash over me.

Yes, there was a fatherless baby girl. Yes, God was lovingly caring for her life through the adoption agency. And yes, this would be our baby. But you see, the reason we are not saints with big hearts, unselfish people who just wanted to help someone is because the ones who needed most desperately to be placed in a family, the lonely ones the verses speak of…that was us, not her. 

Five Minute Friday: Comfort

When you are five or seven, a broken heart, a monster haunting a dream, a stubbed toe can all be comforted wrapped in the arms of the one who loves you the most. Comfort is the warm lap of the woman who would give her life for you and whose tears mingle with yours because she can't bear to see you hurting.

But where do thirty-five-year-olds go when they are too big for momma's lap, or momma lives too far away, or they are simply too grown-up to crawl into a parents' arms for comfort? Are hearts not broken after childhood? Do monsters not haunt our dreams any longer? Do we not hurt physically and emotionally anymore?

When you are thirty-five, a broken heart, a hurting body, haunted dreams, and shattered hopes can be comforted in the arms of the One who loves you the most. Comfort is found in the Word of the One who gave his life for you and whose tears mingle with yours because He can't bear to see you hurting.

He is your Father, your Abba, your Lord. And like a child you can come and find the comfort you seek in the arms of your Savior.

"But I have stilled and quieted myself, just as a small child is quite with its mother. Yes, like a small child is my soul within me." Psalm 131:2 (NLT).

**Linking with Lisa-Jo for Five Minute Friday**

Home

**Linking with Lisa-Jo for Five Minute Fridays. What can you write in five minutes about Home?**

We've moved a lot. Two states, three cities, and five houses in twelve years. I know to some that is nothing. But this girl grew up well-rooted in the same house her grandmother built. My people stay. They are not the sedentary kind.

I knew when I married him that pastors migrate. That's what we do. We move. So home is an elusive word for me. And having my heart in two countries just makes it harder. Is "home" Ecuador, where I grew up? Is "home" my mother's house in Kansas where I've never lived? Where do I go when I go "home" for a holiday?

My life is not to stay put. My kids won't grow up in the same house and come home from college to the house where they took their first step. That is just not how we roll and it is not what we were called to do, this family.

So home for me is where he is. And where she lays her head at night. And where he plays with his bear. Home is where all four of us gather at night, regardless of continent, state, or house. They are my home because He has moved heaven and earth for a boy from South Carolina to meet a girl from Quito, Ecuador to become parents of two children who look nothing like us.

I am home when I am with them. 

                                                               Any time. Anywhere. 

Bare

Today I'm joining with Lisa-Jo for Five Minute Friday. You have five minutes to write. This week's topic: Bare. 

If I bare my soul to you, would you still love me? If you knew all my shortcomings, my mistakes, my past sins, would you still call me friend? Could you bare your heart to me and trust that I would not betray you or discard you? Could we be that transparent with each other?

There would be healing if we were. 

I would hold you and tell you that you are not alone. You would take my hand and tell me to forgive myself for I have already been forgiven. 

We would cry together and remember that a burden shared is lighter on the shoulders.

But we walk past each other with the mask of a smile. We say “fine” and “great” and “wonderful” when we mean “broken” and “hurt” and “ashamed.” 

And I don’t know why.

Sister, let me into your world. Let me be your safe place and be mine as well. Let me pray for you and feel your prayers over me. I covet your arm around my shoulders holding me up when I want to crumble. I yearn to hear Christ speaking through you with words of peace and comfort and renewal.

And I long to speak such love and healing into your life as well. 

On friends...

There is one that keeps all my secrets even the ones I am ashamed to speak aloud ever again.

There is one who thinks I am funny even when my remarks are less than witty but she laughs anyway.

There is one who holds me when I cry and knows just what to say.

There is one who will spend a whole day shopping with me and tell me frankly when something does not fit.

There is one whom I can call in a pinch and will babysit my kids, come get me because I locked my keys in my car, bring me soup when I am sick, or just spend some time sitting by my side while I heal.

There is one who is honest with me and speaks truth when I won’t listen to anyone else and doesn’t give up on me even when I don’t heed advice.

There is one who prays for me, with me, over me. 

There is one who opens her home to me when I have nowhere else to go and I just need to get away.

There is one who won’t judge me no matter what I am doing and supports all my decisions, even the bad ones.

There is one who has walked in my shoes before me, and now guides me through the valleys and the peaks.

There is one with whom I have fought, reconciled, forgiven and been forgiven by again and again.

There have been seasons of my life when only one friend filled all those roles and other times when I was blessed enough to have one for each need.

Some friends have come and gone and left me a better person, some are right here right now and enrich my world every day, and some have been, are, and will forever be part of my life.

Lord, I am thankful for each one of these women. Please help me to follow your example and be like a friend who is closer than a brother and who would lay down her life for them.

Joining with Lisa-Jo for her Five Minute Fridays...

The Eye of the Beholder

Joining with Lisa-Jo on her (slightly longer than) Five Minute Friday for: Beauty.

Is beauty really in the eye of the beholder?

On a bad hair day, when my curls won’t stay, when the make-up no longer glides smoothly on less-than-firm eyelids, when the skin does not glow like it used to, she looks at me while I try to work magic in front of the mirror feeling less than successful, and she exclaims with admiration I cannot understand:

You are so beautiful!

She observes me, she imitates me, she marvels at me. She wants to look like me, smell like me, dress like me. She asks to borrow my perfume, my jewelry, my shoes.

I am the princess in her fairy tales, Beauty and Cinderella, the belle of her ball.

And I believe her.

In her eyes I’m beautiful. She doesn’t know about perfect weight, perfect features, perfect hair. She loves me and her love transforms me into the lovely creature she thinks I am.   

And she has changed me.

I no longer complain about my hair.

She is listening.

I no longer fuss about my weight.

She is watching.

I no longer berate my features.

I want to teach her the One who made us both makes no mistakes.

I know this awe I inspire in her won’t last forever. She is only five. But for now, I don’t have to look in the mirror to see beauty reflected back at me.

I just look into her eyes.

Be still...

“Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10a

Be still…

Don’t panic.

Don’t fear.

Don’t fret.

Don’t worry.

Don’t try to find your own solution.

Don’t manipulate the situation.

Don’t take matters into your own hands.

Don’t believe that God helps those who help themselves.

Don’t give in to the temptation of making the problem go away yourself.

And know…

And trust.

And have faith.

And never forget.

And realize.

And be certain.

And be assured.

And grasp.

And understand.

That I am God…

I am your creator.

I am the owner of the cattle of a thousand hills.

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.

I am the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

I am the maker of the universe.

I am the keeper of your heart.

I am your redeemer.

I AM.

Be still and know that I am God.

And pray.

And trust.

And wait.

And listen.

And obey.

And follow.

And seek.

And beseech.

Be still.

Linking with Lisa-Jo for Five-Minute Fridays. You have five minutes to write. No more, no less. This week's prompt: Still...

A Proper Welcome!

Linking up with Lisa-Jo for her Five Minutes Friday.

How do you welcome a dream? How do you express the long wait, the deep longing, the desperation of thinking this day would never come? How do you show the deep gratitude and appreciation for the gift you were just given and the way it changed your life?

With the help of your friends and with seven different baby showers, of course!

The phone rang on a Tuesday. She was two months old, healthy, and in need of a family. Were we ready? We asked for a day to seek His wisdom; He said Of Course! We said Yes, yes, yes!

But we had nothing. We were ready but not prepared. So the community of our loved ones and friends rallied around us. They had been walking this journey with us. They had been praying and hoping and waiting just as long. They had been expecting this call with us and, when it finally  came, they rejoiced and celebrated with us. But they did more than just declare Congratulations!

They moved to action. So…

Baby shower #1: from my work.

Baby shower #2: from my students

Baby shower #3: from my department

Baby shower #4: from another group of students

Baby shower #5: from our church

Baby shower #6: from my family

Baby shower #7: from Matt’s family

By the time we were done our house looked like this:

This was everyone’s baby. Impatiently expected by a mob, dearly loved by a crowd, warmly welcomed by a community.

It really does take a village to raise and to welcome a child. And we never forgot the blessings of this homecoming that surrounded us with such generosity.

Every day...

Linking up with The Gypsy Mama's Five Minute Friday today on: Every day.

Every day I get to be there when my kids wake up and I get to feed them breakfast. Every day I get to “walk” them to school and I get to be their teacher!

Every day I get to watch my daughter decipher symbols that once meant nothing and turn them into letters, and words, and stories that make her giggle.

Every day I get to see my son become more dexterous with the pencil, tracing circles where there used to be doodles and drawing pictures where there use to be only abstract squiggles.

Every day I get to hear them pray out loud, recite Scripture, sing to Jesus together. Every day I get to teach them math, science, history, and geography all wrapped in His creation and His love for us.

Every day I get to teach my children about life. Every day I get to see their light bulbs come on, ideas form, thoughts become questions. And every day I get to be the one to answer those questions.

Every day I get to see their mind expand and their world get bigger. This is not a calling or a possibility for every parent, but for me it is a blessing I get to experience every day.

PS: This is post #50 for me! Just thought I would give a little shout-out to my milestone post :)

On forgetting...

Linking up today with The Gypsy Mama's Five Minute Friday (although a little late!)

Is love stronger than oblivion? Does love transcend disease and pain?

My grandfather died four years ago this summer. For the last several years before he died he suffered from Alzheimer’s. He was a career military man, proud and strong. I had not seen him in four years when I traveled to Ecuador two years before he died. I am glad I was able to see him one last time, but I don’t know if he truly knew who I was. He was frail and he was confused and he was a shadow of the man I remembered who taught me history, math, and geography as we walked down the street day after day. But the one person he never forgot, the one whose name he never mixed up, and the one he recognized until the very end was my grandmother. They were married over 50 years and until the day he died she was his sweetheart and that…he never forgot.

The Hard Love

Linking up to The Gypsy Mama's Five Minute Friday.

GO

She raised me alone from the time I was six. After my father left all we had was each other. She worked so hard and started at the bottom, climbing her ladder until she could support us both comfortably. She parented alone, she did the best she could during the tumultuous teen years when I did not cooperate much.

She cried, she despaired, she struggled.

She found the best opportunities and brought us here to make a better life. To further education, to learn another language, and unsuspectingly, to find and be found by the One who would save us and with whom we have both fallen in love.

When times were tough in our new land, she made some tough choices and I will never really understand how difficult those times were.

And yet, now that I am a mother, now that I am a little bit in her shoes, not completely for I have a loving partner to support me, I am beginning to realize how hard a mother’s love is.

How deep, how wild, how savage, how primal.

She didn’t know Him all those years. She only knew Him after I had met Him and helped make the introductions. Yet in the strength of her love, in the sacrifices she made for her only child, in her example of laying down her life and her desires for the sake of her daughter, unknowingly she gave me glimpses of His love and it was not difficult for me to grasp the reality of this Loving Parent when I came face to face with Him for the first time.

STOP

On distance...

Linking up to the Gypsy Mama's Five Minute Friday for a quick writing exercise. Wanna join? You are a click away!

There are almost three thousand miles of space between the two halves of my heart. Seventeen years ago it split in two and I left one piece and took the other. After all this time my heart still cannot find the piece that will make it whole.

It’s in the land of Condors and snow-capped mountains where the earth literally splits in two and you can stand with one foot on the north and one foot on the south. It is a place where the days are as long as they are wide, the sun shines perpendicular and the people speak a language of beauty.

It is only when I land, both feet on its soil that my heart begins to beat as strong as a complete heart should. But of lately, this happens only when I have with me the three people who now own the piece I took for I am not my own anymore.

I am never truly home. I am part of a people of deep cultural past and history and my skin, my dark eyes, my accent are all reminders of my beginnings. But it is in my adopted homeland, the land of the bald eagle and the starts on the Old Glory, that I have found my love, my God and my descendants.

One day, when I finally arrive to my true country, the one of which I am a forever citizen, my heart will finally reunite not only with its other half but also with the One who created it to beat and to whom it was completely given so many years ago.

If you met me...

Linking up with the Gypsy Mama's Five Minute Fridays. Five minutes to write.

GO

If you met me first you would notice my accent and ask me where I am from. This would get me talking about a land far away where it’s never too hot and never too cold, the people are warm, the streets are crowded, and where I left half of my heart almost seventeen years ago.

If you met me I would most certainly mention my two children, ages 3 and 5, boy and girl, mischief and drama in that order. You would probably want to share stories of pregnancy and then you would find out that my children were adopted. When I show you their picture you would probably want to know from where, and I would tell you they are red, white, and blue-blooded children. You would ask how old they were when we adopted them and I would tell you they were both infants. Then you would ask the inevitable question: “are they brother and sister?” to which I would reply with a look of confusion: “do you mean are they biologically related? Yes. Yes, they happen to be.” Because after all, they are siblings because they both share the same parents, last name, home, pet, etc.

If you met me I would ask lots of questions about your kids, your husband, your background, because I would like to get the small talk out of the way (because I’m horrid at it) and get to the heart of who you are so I can really get to know you.

If you met me I would try to find a way to see you again or talk soon because all friends were once strangers.

STOP.

You in? Go find Lisa-Jo and tell us what would happen if we met you.

On Waking Up

It is Five-Minute Friday again. I'm liking up with The Gypsy Mama. You have five minutes. Period. Now write!

Then…

I used to wake up to an alarm. I used to snooze two or three times dreading getting out of bed. I used to have a hard time opening my eyes, get going, get motivated and energized for the day.

I used to wake up to blaring noise in the radio and in my head.

 I used to wake up already stressed, jump in the shower, put on my clothes, put on make-up, be out the door by 6:15 to be at work by 6:30. I used to be tired all day from too little sleep. I used to fight waking up.

I used to wake up only to want to sleep again.

Now…

I wake up to the smell of coffee brewing in the kitchen. I wake up to a day to spend with my children. I wake up to teach Isabel to read and Noah to behave.

I wake up and look forward to the day.

I wake up to a child jumping into my bed and snuggling with me. I wake up to tickling and kissing and calls for help with breakfast.

 I wake up to love and laughter.

I wake up to the Holy Spirit’s gentle nudging to get up before anyone and spend some time in prayer and the word. It will be a long day. You will need it.

I wake up to be in his presence.

Now I wake up to the sounds and smells of the life God dreamt for me more than a decade ago.

More on this next week…

Five Minute Friday: When I look in the mirror...

I'm linking this to the Gypsy Mama's Five Minute Friday. Five minutes to write. Period.

When I look in the mirror I see a woman who feels younger than she is; who still sees a young girl even though the world says she is an adult and often struggles to act like one.

 I see a mother who looks nothing like her children and who often has to explain why.

 I see a wife who shows the signs of ten years of marriage: laugh lines and worry lines intermingled but would not change a single minute of it.

I see a child who loves her momma and still needs her.  I see a friend who is deeply loyal. I see a prayerful sister in Christ.

 I see someone who speaks before thinking, acts before measuring the consequences and often has to take back, undo, and eat words. I also see a big heart who grieves with each of these situations.

I see someone who has made many mistakes in her life but has received much forgiveness and grace. And I see someone who has learned to forgive in equal measure.

I see a person who has much more to learn and much room to grow and who is trusting that “He who began the good work in her will be faithful to complete it” as He has promised.

I see someone who has learned to like what she sees when she looks in the mirror by the love and mercy of the God who created her in His image.

Five Minute Friday: Five Years Ago.

This is linked to The Gypsy Mama's Five Minute Friday prompts. You write for five minutes. Period. Here is what I've got.

Five years ago this month we were pregnant with waiting. We had been for only two weeks and we had no idea how long our gestational paper period would last. We were hoping against hope for less than a year. We knew not the gender of our child. We didn’t know the color of the skin. We didn’t even know how old he or she would be when we were called to bring this baby home. We had no magic sonogram to tell us those things about the child that would be ours. We just knew the Lord knew. We just knew we were praying for this unknown child that was growing in our hearts.

Five years ago we didn’t know that within two weeks we would be called to hop in the car and drive three hours early one morning to pick up a daughter. We didn’t know, five years ago, that she was already here. She had been born last month. She was already waiting for us.

I think about who we were five years ago. We were a family of two. We ached to be a family of three. We were at a strange, unknown, limbo-like place with no end in sight. But the God who goes before us was already there, He had seen her birth, He knew the color of her eyes, He was working it all according to His will. He had plans for all three of us. Plans of hope and plans of future. And He was waiting for us when we arrived at March 10^th and a daughter was delivered to us.

The Waitress

Five Minute Fridays from The Gypsy Mama. This week’s prompt: Sit down, think of the most unique person you encountered while you were out and about this week, and write them into life for us. In five minutes flat.

She was just another waitress.

There were several in the restaurant and she was just one more among the faces that served our large group last night. Short curly hair, combat boots, a few tattoos. She wasn’t pretty, she wasn’t overly friendly, she would not stand out in a crowd. She just quietly kept refilling my glass, asking if we needed anything else, bringing condiments.

I will probably forget her in a few days. Most customers probably do.

But what dawned on me as I watched her was that, while she moved around the tables, each hair on her head was counted. Each thought listened to. Each hope considered. She may not even know it. Maybe nobody ever told her. But as she did her duty, she was marveled over, she was sung over, she was loved.

There is One who knit her together delicately and carefully. One that has recorded every day of her life. One that knows her name, thinks she is precious, and loved her enough to die for her.

I forget sometimes that every person I encounter is one of God’s beloved. I may not know her story, but He knows every tear she has cried.

I pondered all this from the comfort of my bed later that night. I thought about my lack of recognition and the loss of opportunity and I prayed that someone else, wiser and more obedient than I, will see her, really see her, and be bold enough to handle the introductions between the waitress and the God who rejoices over her day after day. 

Together

**Five minute Friday from The Gypsy Mama**

They laugh together, make up stories together, chase each other laughing around the house. They push each other on riding toys, dance together in the living room, jump on the bed together and together they get in trouble for it. They sleep in the same room, whisper late into the night to each other, sharing their stories, their thoughts, their games.

But also…

The squabble, they fight, they kick, they hit, they punch. He spits at her, he swirls toys at her. She pushes him, she pinches him. She runs to me crying: “He bit me!” He comes at me running: “She took my toy!” He knows what buttons to push to bother her; she bosses him and treats him unkindly.

And then…

When they don’t know anyone is watching, when they don’t know the camera is ready, they take each other’s hand and walk across a bridge together.

And my heart melts…

And I pray this is how they face the world for always. I pray they confront the ugliness and salute the beautiful together, hands tied, united front. I pray they hold each other’s hand when crossing life’s bridges even after we are long gone. They have each other and for that I am forever grateful. I hope they remember this too and Give Thanks.