IF...

If you dread Mother’s day.

If you think about skipping church on that Sunday.

If you cringe when the pastor says “Would all moms please stand and be recognized?”

If you have to remain seated.

If you pretend you are praying along for those who stood when you are really hiding the tears forming in your eyes.

If what you want most is to belong to such club but the invitation never comes.

If that Sunday only reminds you of the emptiness you carry around in your womb and in your heart.

If you refuse to skip it because you will not let infertility define you.

If you have to skip it because the pain is just too great to bear.

If the innocence of “when the time is right…” is long gone from your life.

If you avoid babyshowers.

If you have to work at being happy for your pregnant friends.

If you circle around the baby section of department stores, going out your way to avoid them.

If you dodge new moms at church so you don’t have to hold their baby.

Please just know…

You are not alone.

We’ve gone before you.

We’ve hurt right with you.

We’ve been there and we’ve done that.

We’ve felt the same emptiness.

We’ve felt the same pains.

And there is One who is always near…

He holds all your tears in a bottle.

He knows you by name.

He sees you.

He hears you.

He loves you.

He created you.

He adopted you.

He is your ABBA.

Reach out to Him for He cares for you…

Cry out.

Pray loudly.

Whisper softly.

Raise a fist.

Raise a question.

Speak your doubt.

Speak your pain.

Give him your sadness.

Receive his peace.

Because the One who cared for…

Sarah.

Rebekah.

Leah.

Michal.

Hannah.

Elizabeth.

Me.

Will also take care of YOU.

We Did Not Choose Transracial Adoption

Here is the latest post for Adoptive Families Circle. If you are not a member you won't be able to comment, but if you would like to comment, please come back here and let me know your thoughts. I love to hear from you all. It makes my day!

"Most adoptive families encounter intrusive questions that biological families don't typically have to deal with. My husband, my children, and I belong to three different races, and our family is always being asked how we came to be together. I have yet to understand why that seems to matter to strangers on the street. I think that many people have a need to "figure out" any situation that looks strange to them.

This need to categorize our family also appears to include understanding why we chose to adopt children of a different race. We have been asked all kind of questions on the subject. We've been asked if we were trying to take a social stand against racism. We've been asked if we preferred black children to white or Hispanic children. We've been asked if we could not "get one" who "looked like you." We've been asked if we thought we would wait less time if we chose a child of color. We've even been asked if our children were "cheaper," which always bothers me."

Will come click over here to continue reading? And if you know anyone who would enjoy reading it, please share it or tweet it. Thanks, y'all!

Let Freedom Ring.

Can I be honest with you?

I am a people-pleaser. And a peace-maker. They sound like a good combination, right? I don’t like to disappoint or hurt the people in my life and when I do, I have no pride in apologizing to make it right and restore the relationship. But I also often speak without thinking, which means I apologize a lot. And I over-analyze conversations and blame myself for saying things that did not really cause strife, so I often apologize without a real reason to do so. Which leaves me feeling like all I do is apologize.

And I’m a pastor’s wife so I feel the burden, real or imagined, of the implications of the role, impossible as they may be to meet and yet impossible to ignore.  And because I want to be helpful and make people happy, I tend to volunteer to do things I really don’t want/have time/feel called/desire to do.

And I worry. I worry that I am not a good wife. I worry that I’m not a good mother. I worry that I am not a good friend/daughter/Christian/person/name-the-role, I worry. And I worry not only for my sake but for the sake of anyone who may possibly be looking at me for advice, example, or leadership.

Do you ever feel this way? Please say I’m not the only one…

Lately God has bombarded me with a theme…a thought that keeps creeping into my readings of Scripture, blogs, and devotionals…a driving force that threatens to shape my year and direct my path for the next twelve months. And as I wrestle with Sharon Jaynes’ challenge to stop asking God “What do you want from me?” and begin asking Him “What do you want for me?” the fuzziness begins to lift and the word begins to take shape. He has given me a WORD.

Would you be surprised that my word for this year is FREEDOM?

FREE…dom.

Freedom from impossible expectations.

Freedom to accept that I am doing the best I can every day. I am prayerfully, carefully, thoughtfully, analytically the best mother/wife/friend/daughter/person/Christian that I know how to be. Freedom to seek to grow, and to learn, and to change but only as He guides, believing that who I am is enough for today and letting go of the worry and the guilt.

Freedom from trying to please everyone.

I have a big heart, a big mouth, and a lot of flaws. I am deeply loyal and deeply selfish all at once. But I was fearfully and wonderfully created as were you. You may like me or love me or not be able to stand me but Christ is giving me the freedom to live to please the only One whose approval matters, believing wholeheartedly that as I do, I will love you, treat you, and commune with you in the ways that He intended.

Freedom from over-extending myself.

Freedom to prayerfully consider opportunities to take on ministries, volunteer for causes, and accept invitations. Freedom to say no without feeling like I’m letting you down, or damaging our relationship.

Freedom from my need to control my world.

Freedom from my own self, from my need to plan, to organize, to make sure everything is in place, to control my environment. Freedom to let go of the fears that affect my relationships and rob me of joy. Freedom to find the beauty in flexibility and the trust that it implies not to always know what will happen next but to know the One who holds my tomorrows.  

Freedom to explore my relationship with Christ on his terms.

It is not a checklist, it is not a set of dos and don’ts. It is a relationship. An intimate, loving, peace-full relationship. Freedom to find out what He has in store for me this year without worrying about doing it “right” or getting it “right.” Freedom to let Him define what "right" means for us.

Freedom to fully explore the question that started it all:

Lord, what do you want FOR me this year?

Has God given you a word this year? If you want to read more about 2012 WORDS read what these four amazing women have to say.

Heather at Every Day Evans has chosen to serve.

Natalie at Mommy on Fire is seeking self-control.

Sarah at The Best Days of My Life is also praying for freedom.

Michelle at Graceful is learning about surrender.

When you are six...

When you are six, you may be a little shy around grown-ups and everyone would understand. When you’re Isabel, you will learn their first names so you can scream at them joyously “Hi, Ms. Rose! Hi, Mr. Peter!” and steal their hearts in the process.

When you are six and you have a play date, your friends may dress up, or play dolls, or draw, or even build a fort. When you’re Isabel a small gathering will surely turn into a wild dance party, conga-line included.

When you are six, you may love to sing the songs you hear on the radio at the top of your lungs. When you’re Isabel you will sing all day long, about all kinds of things, with made up music and made up words. And you will expect everyone else to know and sing along to the newest song you’ve invented. And you will despair and huff because your silly family cannot learn their part quickly enough.

When you are six, you may prefer to go to MacDonald’s for your birthday lunch so you can play in the playground, or to Chuck-E-Cheese to see the giant mouse, or even to a pizza place where they sell your favorite toppings. When you’re Isabel, you will choose to go to the Japanese place, where they cook on the table because there’s fire and volcanoes made out of onions, and the chef likes to scare little children into giggles.

When you are six you may be glad to see visitors come to your door, especially if they bring little children to play with you. When you’re Isabel you will assign a theme song to each person that darkens our door to show them just how glad you are to see them.

When you are six you may be compassionate and sensitive and tender-hearted. When you’re Isabel you will cry at the thought of one day leaving your family and growing up, you will pray every night for God to give your birthmother everything she needs and worry that she may be sad because she does not get to live with you, and you will ask the Lord to help your friend be a better sister to her siblings.

When you are six you may know about God and you may know the stories of the Bible. When you’re Isabel you will devour the tales of Jesus, you will thank him for going to the cross for you in your prayers, and you will remind the rest of your family of how He taught us to live when you witness the ugly that we can be.

When you are six you may be the most wonderful, wild, crazy, sweet, amazing little girl to your mom and dad as every child should be. When you are Isabel you are all that and you were also hoped for, prayed for, waited for, longed for, years before we had ever seen your face.

Happy birthday to my little girl who turns six today. May this year be full of wonder, happiness, and learning for you. We, your parents, love you more than you can imagine and we thank the Lord each and every day for the joy your presence brings to our lives. 

Life in A Glass House in 2011: A Year in Review

Dear friends,

This is a year in review, a virtual Christmas letter if you will, to look back at the best of 2011 in our family's life, as recorded in this blog. I'm linking with Mama Kat this week, who provided the prompt for her Writer's Workshop.

Isabel was born in January. Her birthday always stirs in me a mixture of joy, pain, and gratitude. Perhaps because of the monumental decision her birthmother made, I felt compelled to write on a topic I would rather leave to better writers, or deeper thinkers. I prefer encouragement to discord but January saw me a little braver and able to take a stand. So in honor of my children, I wrote this.  

At Christmas I was given one of my favorite gifts of all time: my first sewing machine (or musheen, as Isabel calls them). I loved it so much I named her. Sally Maria Brother. 

Had I known the grief and frustration she would cause me as I tried to learn to sew, I would have named her Child of Satan. I wrote this in February after completing my most challenging project yet: a quick-sew-but-nothing-quick-about-it, make-in-two-hours-but-it-will-really-take-you-weeks fleece jacket for Noah. 

March brought me a crisis of discontent. We had gone through yet another infertility treatment, against our will, by doctor's orders, and, as usual, it failed. So I lost all perspective and, like a whinny child, began to complain about the things I lack. Patient as always, the Lord reminded me gently of his love and provision. This is what came out of my heart that day.  

On my birthday, in April, I experienced an overwhelming feeling of being loved, thanks to the magic of Facebook which allowed so many happy wishes from so many people in such a short time. It inspired me to think about the impact I can have in someone’s day by just taking one minute out of mine and I wrote this.  

Isabel started her first season of YMCA soccer in May. She was unsure and scared but she was blessed with the most wonderful coach we’ve ever known. This gentle man deserved his own ode here.    

In June my husband and brother in-law talked me into going camping for the first time in my life. On the beach. In a tent. But the experience began on the way there with a stubborn fly inside our van. Read about it here.  

I learned a hard lesson in July. One that I needed to learn and one that was embarrassing to admit, but one that is foundational to loving my neighbor as I’ve been commanded.  

In August we joyfully announced our new paperwork pregnancy like this. I have not updated much yet for the process is boring to tell, but when we have exciting news I will shout it to the four winds (and the blog world!).

I got my feelings hurt like a silly child in September, and, after crying and pouting, I turned to the Lord for help. Here is what I learned about his compassion.  

After eight months without a working stove, in October we finally bought a new one; only to have a frustrating and scary encounter with the Sears’ collection department. But we learned about God’s mercy for us in spite of our mistakes and because of our obedience, when He intervened here.  

Half-way through the first year of officially homeschooling my children, the constant questioning about homeschooled children’s social skills finally got under my skin enough to prompt me to write this in November. You be the judge!  

After a wonderful and full year, December brought our eleventh wedding anniversary. While this has been an amazing decade as Matt’s wife, as I looked back on it, I realized our life has not become what we thought it would be. Yet, it is so much more than we ever imagined: we embody a Proverb! This one.  

Have a happy new year and may your 2012 be filled with the love of family and friends, and many blessings. Above all, may you grow deeper in your relationship with Christ and, if you don't yet know him, may you come to know him and love him as He loves you. 

The Johnson clan.

Dear Pier One...a re-post

Last year I posted this as a response to Pier One's new slogan for Christmas: Decor that Speak to You! As we decorated our tree this year, once again I felt it speaking history to me so I thought it is still a very appropriate post for Christmas. 

Dear Pier One,

I saw a commercial you aired a few days ago. Your new slogan for Christmas ornaments is “Décor that speaks to you.” The commercial encouraged us to buy new Christmas decorations if the ones we have no longer speak to us.

Tonight, after my husband and kids finished trimming and decorating and generally having a blast, I assessed our artificial tree and smiled at the horrified look I would get from your “experts” on what Christmas should look like.

This is our second tree. Our first one was a small, beautiful, pre-lit, used one that we set it up on the reception hall of our wedding chapel. Since we got married the week before Christmas we asked our friends to bring to the wedding one ornament to help us decorate our first tree. And they did. By the end of the night the little scrawny tree was glittering like any of the proudly displayed on your storefront. It was a joy to behold, mainly for all the love and good wishes it held in each branch in the shape of an ornament.

We still have those ornaments and have added many more over the ten years of our marriage. I don’t know about the ornaments you sell in your store. To be honest, I have never even been inside one because I can’t afford most of what you sell, but I do know that I don’t need to buy your decorations. My ornaments not only speak to me, they also touch me and tell me stories.

There is the silver disco ball we gave away as wedding favors and the snowman figures we gave our wedding party. They speak about the promise we made that day before so many witnesses to be together in sickness and in health, in poverty and in wealth, in the good times and in the bad times and about the people who honored us by standing next to us as we made our vows to the Lord and to each other.

There is the one we bought on our honeymoon in New Orleans the night we saw Harry Connick Sr. (the famous Junior’s dad) playing in a hole in the wall where I sipped on a virgin strawberry daiquiri that turned out not to be virgin after all. This one reminds me of the adventure that were our first years married when we could go anywhere and do anything because we were young and carefree.

There is the one for The Parents-to-Be that Matt’s parents gave us months before we knew Isabel was a reality. I remember how this one brought tears to my eyes for it spoke of hope and promise. I look at my children today and this ornament now speaks to me about a family built on initial disappointment, lots of prayer, lots of waiting, and a God who keeps his promises.

I see the many Baby’s First Christmas ornaments that were given to us. Most of them pink, because Noah’s first Christmas was a whirlwind of moving, new church, and new life. They take me back to another baby’s first Christmas more than two thousand years ago and my mother’s heart understands how Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

There is the one Isabel’s foster mom made for her when she heard Isabel had found her forever family. It is hand stitched with her name, and the year. It reminds me of how she spent two months of her life waiting for her mom and dad to find her, but how she was loved and cared for by many people even before we met her.

I spot a globe in the shape of a baseball that was given to Matt by his beloved granddaddy, his name-sake and his hero, who is no longer with us. It speaks of three generations of men who loved Jesus and chose to make their life’s work and vocation to make His name known.

There are some that mark a time when we were just two. Then there are the ones that belong to this new era of our lives like the Noah’s Ark with all the animals and Mickey Mouse ears from last year’s trip to Disney. They talk to me about the passage of time, how it flies, and how we move from one stage of our lives into another almost without notice.

And there we have the ones that speak of what Christmas truly is for us. The ones that portray the Holy Family. We have several of those for those are the ones that speak the loudest to our hearts. We have one that shows Santa Clause bowing to the Child Christ and one that shows a Christmas tree on one side and a cross on the other. We have Nativities all around the house as well. We have wooden ones, metal ones, ceramic, and plastic. We have toy ones for the kids to enjoy, fancy ones that should not be touched, gorgeous ones that stay out all year, and the one we collect a piece at the time year after year. These are the most valued decorations in our house as we try to teach our children in no uncertain terms what Christmas is all about.

Ten years of Christmas represented on one tree. It is not the same scrawny one we had when we first started. As has our family, the tree has changed and grown and last year we had to buy a new one, a fatter one to fit our larger living room, our many decorations, and our extra helpers.

Dear Pier One, if I were to change my hodge-podge of decorations for your beautiful, expensive ones, my tree will no longer speak to me. It would be a silent, large, green, glittering blob in my living room with no history, no meaning, and no purpose. I am sure it would be beautifully chic, but I think I will keep my tree as it is, and continue to let it serve its purpose as our family’s historian, reminding us year after year about the wonder that has been our family’s journey.

**As a side note, I have nothing against Pier One. Their new slogan just compelled me to defend my poor tree!**

The best laid plans...

Eleven years ago today, on the coldest day of December, I walked down the aisle dressed in white and married the best man I know. We were too young to understand a decade long marriage and we were too new to even imagine where we would be then. We knew the basics: kids, house, jobs, church, love forever.

(photo credit: Wallace Photography)

I woke up this morning and assessed our life together and I had to laugh out loud as my soul whispered to my heart: You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail (Proverbs 19:21). 

My life has become a living proverb.

When I beamed at my soon-to-be husband as I approached the altar all those years ago, visions of our future were blurry at best. But never, in my wildest dreams, would I have imagined what the reality would be.

That we would have three kids was a given. 

That two would be adopted, African-American, eighteen months apart I would never have believed. That we would be praying and waiting for a child we are yet to meet, whose name, gender or age we don’t know, who lives in one of the poorest nations in the world, whom we already love, would have made me laugh.

That we would have jobs was obvious. 

That I would work part time in front of a computer so I can be a stay-at-home mom would have made me call you a liar.

That I would be a teacher was the plan. 

That I would teach my two children myself would have sent me screaming from the room.

That we would own a house was undoubtedly true. 

That we would live in a small town in the deep South, in an old house that has more bathrooms than bedrooms would have been hysterical to hear.

That we would be together forever was the idea. 

That we would have had a year when we thought we had reached the end of the line was never a thought for us.

Life has not turned out as we planned. At all. 

Nothing has gone as we thought, really. This decade has not been easy and without pain. Marriage is painful, infertility is painful, adoption is painful, sacrifices of wishes and things we thought we needed are painful. We have not had a stress-free, problem-free, tragedy-free life.

And yet…

We have never been happier; our marriage stronger; our hearts fuller; our needs more provided for; our cups overflowing further. 

Commit your work to the Lord, and then your plans will succeed (Proverbs 16:3). 

Your plans...your....plans. We had plans and we had hopes but above all we had surrender and in surrendering we gained infinitely more than we seemingly lost. We let our plans become His plans and the Dreamer, who dreams bigger than we can, fulfilled our dreams. Those we longed for and those we didn’t even know we had.  

A young bride thinks she knows what a successful life should look like. A decade later, a seasoned follower of the One who said: I know the plans I have for you, knows only to plan to obey.