"Close Only Counts in Horseshoes, Darts, and Hand Grenades"

         My fifth grade teacher, Mrs. McCallister used to be a fan of the saying, “Close only counts in horseshoes, darts, and hand grenades.”   At the age of ten, I had no idea what she was saying except that being near a hand grenade was not something that sounded like a good idea.  I’ve been hearing Mrs. Mac say that phrase in my head a lot over the last few weeks and I think I would reply with a resounding, “Amen, Sister!” if she were around today.  Close doesn’t count when you are a few weeks away from going to get the child you’ve hoped for and prayed for every day for the last six months.  We are so close, so very close, but not really close at all to that little boy whose world is about to be turned upside down.  In fact, we are seven thousand four hundred miles away from close.  Close doesn’t count when the little one you dream about holding is still just that, a little one existing only in your dreams.  

          Close also doesn’t count when you are trying to get what feels like your 300th official piece of paperwork sent from one government agency to another government agency and you realized that they misspelled your name.  

And not even your really strange, hard to pronounce my-parents-are-theology-nerds first name.  No, they misspelled your nice, normal easy-peasy last name.  And so you have a small breakdown and want to collapse on the floor in a puddle of  tears and “Why me, God?!”  -until your wiser than her years ten year old daughter reminds you, “This is just a small setback, Mom.  Some people wait years to get their children.  Think about those people and how lucky we are to be going to get Carter so soon.”  BOOM.  You’ve just been schooled in the most important lesson in life by your daughter.  Who is in the fourth grade.  

(Yes, that's a hamster peeking out of her pocket.)

             But, close DOES count when your heart is weary and your mind is tired from endlessly racing from one task to another and you find an inexplicable sense of peace arise from unexpected places- like washing the dishes.  Close does count when you get an email telling you that your little boy loves to be outside and is happy when he is looking at your pictures.  Close does count when you start to complain about yet another snow day keeping your kids at home until you realize that you’ve been given an amazing gift of fifteen extra days at home together, as a family of four, before it all changes for good.  

          Close counts when you are standing in the laundry room, folding the first of what will surely be thousands of loads of baby laundry, realizing how much you didn’t miss trying to match tiny baby socks, trying not to cry at the realization that you are folding size 9 month clothes for your 19 month old son, and then finally crying because this is the first tangible thing you’ve done that connects you to that tiny body on the other side of the world (and because tiny socks make you think of tiny baby feet that maybe have never been kissed).   

          Close counts in these moments because these are the moments when God has reached down and whispered into my heart, “I’m here.” 

       God, who said, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Mt 11:28&29) 

 Wait, did he really say rest?  Twice in two sentences?  Does he know how tired I feel?  Heart and soul tired?  

The funny thing about rest is that it requires you to be still.  To stop racing and pacing.  When you are still, that is when you notice just how close that the gentle-hearted Creator God is to your own tiny little self.  
Close.  
Close in the way that really does count.  

From the mouths of children...

Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. "It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’"

The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them.

 But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,”they were indignant.

"Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.

“Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read, 

“‘From the lips of children and infants 

 you, Lord, have called forth your praise’"

Matthew 21:12-16

"I don't eat vegetables."

"I can count to infinity. "

"I like you. "

"Are you a princess?"

"My new mom and dad came to pick me up from the foster home and brought me to my new house- I flew the coop!"

"My daddy lost his job and we might have to move. "

"You are pretty."

"Hey, you're not my doctor. You're a girl."

The best part of my job is getting to listen to kids talk.  Four year olds are my favorite. The worst, very bad, no good day can be turned around when a little one says something beautiful and true. Children speak truth.  Truth as they see it. Truth as they've been told. 

Hidden in the gospel of Matthew is a story about children doing just that- truth speaking. I'm not sure why I never noticed until recently. Maybe because we move through the Bible from important event to important event and skim past the parts we don't think matter too much, like stories that involve children.  On Palm Sunday we celebrate the story of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem by having our children wave palm branches in church. We all know that story. Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem while the crowds waved branches and cheered. They sang, "Hosannah to the Son of David!"  They were proclaiming Jesus as the messiah. He was on his way to Jerusalem. The time had come. God was going to do big things. Maybe they thought Jesus would free them from Roman oppression. Maybe they thought this would be the beginning of a new golden era for God's chosen people. I don't know what they thought Jesus was heading to Jerusalem to do,  but I can bet that it wasn't to go to the temple and start throwing tables around, attacking their own way of life. I'm sure they didn't think this new Son of David would go to the temple just to be surrounded by the lame and the blind. Where's the glory in that? How does God's mighty power show up in a man who is telling them they themselves are corrupt (not the Romans) and he wants to hang out with the beggars and broken ones (not the rich and powerful)?

All those people who were waving palm branches and singing praises to Jesus just moments before were now speechless. Their singing stopped. Their questions began.

 But here is the rest of the story- The children kept singing. They watched everything Jesus did in the temple and they kept shouting, "Hosannah to the Son of David!"  The children didn't stop singing when the messiah they praised in the parade was not the messiah that actually showed up at the temple. 

Jesus heard the children proclaiming him to be the messiah and these may have been the sweetest praises he had ever heard, sweeter than the angels own songs. I think his heart was filled with deep, overwhelming joy at the sound of these tiny sons and daughters of God,  declaring the truest Truth for all to hear. They were speaking words of Life. They were prophets, echoing what Simeon and Anna had declared in that very spot decades before.

 Jesus heard them and he knew that they knew.  They knew who he was. For real. 

When the Pharisees tried to turn the children's praise into a mockery Jesus said, "No."  

In that moment, these little ones were the voice of God. The Spirit had given them a song to sing and the praises of  children were called forth from God's own holy dwelling place. 

I believe that's really all that God wants from any of us. To sing God's praises no matter what, without expectations, without agenda. 

Can we still sing God's praises even when God has disappointed us?

When God has not lived up to our ideas of who God is supposed to be?

When God takes us down a path that looks so very different than the one we imagined? 

When God takes a whip to the greed in our lives? 

When God heals some but not others? 

When the miracles are nowhere to be found?

When they mock him? 

When they  mock you for believing in him? 

   When you can see the cross looming in the distance?  

            And you know that there is no way around it.

  

                             No way to skip from Palm Sunday straight to Easter.

In Matthew's gospel this marks the point where Jesus begins to make more enemies than friends and the plans are set in motion for ending his radical ministry here on earth.   God came to be with us, but it was not the God we expected and so we said, "No thanks." Shortly afterwards,  Jesus would be arrested, beaten, betrayed, and hung up on the cross.

 I believe there was a reason that the  last songs of praise Jesus heard were sung by children.  

Could it be that the Spirit-God knew that God the Son, through his suffering and solitude would need to have those sweet little voices singing a song of the Father's love, echoing in his heart? 

Could it be that the Spirit knew Jesus would somehow find comfort in praises from perhaps the only ones among us who are able love without condition? 

Could it be that it is still this way?

 That in spite of all our best planned worship, our most impressive singing, and most inspired sermons, it ALL falls short of what true worship is meant to be.  

Could it be that it is still the children who are the only ones among us who are singing truth, speaking love, and pointing us towards God's own heart? 

LOA and what comes next...

"LOA! LOA! LOA!"

After waiting 72 days, our LOA finally arrived!  Technically it is called a “Letter seeking confirmation”  and was sent by China to us saying that all of our paperwork has been reviewed and we are officially approved to adopt our baby boy.  We are supposed to check the box saying we will accept him as our son, sign it, and mail it back to China.  There is actually a box to check saying that we decline the match.  Can you believe it?  I couldn’t imagine after all this time, checking the “No” box.  

So what’s next?   Now we go through a very convoluted and confusing process of applying for Visa approval for Carter to enter the country as our child (at which point he will become a U.S. citizen.)  After this approval, the US Visa Center, the US Consulate in Guangzhou, and the Chinese government have to communicate to each other that this approval has been granted.  After the last two steps will be when we receive “TA” or travel approval from China to travel to go get our boy.  After TA, we schedule our appointment with the U.S. Consulate in China where all of Carter’s final visa paperwork will need to be issued.  Our trip will be scheduled backwards from our consulate appointment.   (So hypothetically if our consulate appointment is on May 19th, we will leave on May 8th and get Carter on May 11th)

Confused?  That’s ok because you really need an advanced degree to follow all these steps.  Here is a chart that I borrowed from a friend’s blog (not sure where it originated from) that lays out all the back and forth steps.  Essentially we are at step #9, waiting for #10 (I800 approval).  

The short of it is, now that we have LOA, we are past all the big waiting times and should be leaving in about 9-10 weeks! (Maybe longer depending on whether or not we run into a road block during these next few steps.)  We won’t know our exact dates of travel until about 1-3 weeks before we actually leave.  So, if you see a crazy lady in a black SUV running around town in March and April, please just look away.  It is hard to believe but we are in the homestretch of one of the longest, most emotional, and amazing journeys of our life.  It is also hard to believe that on the other side of the world is a precious little boy who is busy being a toddler, learning how to walk and talk, and completely unaware that his family is racing towards him with our arms wide open. 

Please pray that the next steps go smoothly, that we get an update from Carter’s orphanage soon (with pictures!) and that Carter’s heart is somehow ready for our arrival.  I don’t know that you can prepare an 18 month old for something as traumatic as being scooped up and carried away from the only world you’ve ever known.  But at the very least I am praying that all of the pictures we have sent are being shown to him every day so that when he sees our faces he will think,  “Oh, there you are.”  I am also praying for his foster mother who has been caring for him since last summer.  If she loves him (which I believe she does) then this must be incredibly hard for her, too.  I have been praying for her every day since we found out Carter was moved into a foster home.  I know that the day that can't arrive soon enough for us is likely the day she is hoping won't come for a long, long time. 

I Love You More

I have one child who was born wanting to be perfect.  She did everything the way babies are supposed to do.  She latched on immediately and made me think breastfeeding was easy.  She slept through the night and made me think I was the wisest mother in the world.  She walked early, and talked early, and potty trained early.  She was fiercely independent by the age of two and refused to let me pick out her clothes, hairstyle, or shoes from that point on.  We have toed the line in battle about one issue or another for along as she has understood the word “No.”  In many ways she has been seeing herself in my eyes as I have seen myself in her eyes since the moment she first landed in my arms.  In her I see myself as a girl with the same determination, the same independence, the same seriousness, the same anxieties, the same insecurities, always trying to earn love.

I have another child who was born already thinking he was perfect.  He loved people and accepted that people loved him.  If he saw you, he smiled and then you smiled and then everyone smiled.  He is tenderhearted and can get his feelings hurt in a heartbeat.  When that happens he needs my hugs and kisses and I am his soft place to fall.  But just as quickly he is up and running off again, smiling and laughing and talking.  He moves through the world as if it is his playground and everyone loves him because why wouldn’t they? When he came home from his first day of kindergarten I asked him if he had made any new friends and he said incredulously, “No. I’m already friends with everybody, Mom.”  I am perpetually perplexed by this little fireball of a boy and how he lives life in such a self-assured and fearless way.  For him, love isn’t earned.  It’s expected.

And then there is the third child.  The one I love but haven't even met.  The one who will need to be taught over and over again that love does not end, love never fails, and love will make us belong to him forever.  Our love story is waiting to begin.

Be fair.  Be even.  Don’t play favorites.

This is the cardinal rule of good parenting.

Or is it?

I have heard my sweet baby girl complain time and time again that her brother gets away with too much.  We take his side more than hers.  We punish her first.  We don’t see how much he torments her behind our backs.  He gets away with EVERYTHING.  We love him more.

Time and time again I have tried to make her see how this simply is not true.  We don’t have favorites.  We do punish them both.  We do make him leave her alone.  We don’t take sides.  We love the same.

And then one day I heard her say the same thing about her friends.  They don’t want to play with me.  They don’t want to be my friend.  She picked her to be a science partner, not me.   She had a sleep over and didn’t ask me.  She likes her more.

Somehow, somewhere, for some reason, my beautiful and brilliant daughter believes what most girls eventually accept about themselves.  She’s not good enough.  She’s not pretty enough.  She’s not smart enough.  She’s not athletic enough.  She isn’t enough.

I realized that I wasn’t ever going to make her think that I loved her the same as her brother.  If I keep aiming for fair, she will always see unfair.  I have to convince her that I love her more.  In order for her to get past fair, she has to believe she’s the special one.  (The flip side is that my son will probably always believe that he is the favorite.  That’s just how he is wired to see things.)

This is my new philosophy of mothering: when two children have different hearts and different ways of seeing themselves in the world, fair is not what they need.  They need ALL the love you have to give.  They need to be convinced that the fullness of their parent’s love is there for them no matter what.

Then I realized that this is exactly how God loves us.

Story after story in the Bible tells us this truth.  Jesus told those parables for a reason and one reason was to stop getting people to think of God’s love as a commodity that can be earned and equally divided like a big love pie in the sky.  In the story about the prodigal son, the older brother has a point.  His brother squanders his inheritance and then returns and is welcomed back as if nothing has happened! This isn’t fair and deep down we all agree with him in some way. The younger brother had his piece of the pie and he threw it away so why should he come back and take what belonged to the oldest son all along?

God’s love is not the same for you or me.  God’s love isn’t even very fair.  God loves us the way we need to be loved. God loves us when we need to be loved.  God meets us where we are and showers love upon us.  God lavishes us all with love but some of us need more lavishing than others.  Some of us have been broken more than others.  Some of us have had our hearts battered and bruised to the point that we don’t even recognize true love when we see it.  “My grace is sufficient for you” means just that.  God’s grace is just what you need.  Not your predetermined allotment of grace.  Not your evenly distributed share of grace.  Enough grace for you.  Enough for you.  Enough for me.  Enough.

I checked my daughter out from school for a doctor’s appointment today and told her that she needed to keep it a secret, but we were stopping for lunch and a manicure on the way.  “Don’t tell your brother. This is just for us.”  The look on her face said it all and I have decided that she needs to hear more “Don’t tell your brother” and less “I love you both the same.”  Instead of trying to convince them that my love is equal, I want each one of them to think they are loved the most.  My love will never be enough, but maybe it will point them towards the one whose love is overwhelming, can never be earned, is never fair, but is always enough.

 

A letter to my son about the beginning of things....

Dear Carter,

Beginnings can be mysterious things. Especially when there is no one around to tell the story of how things came to be. Your beginning will always be clouded in questions. We will never really know for sure all the answers to our when, where, who, and why questions. You should know that you are not the only one with a mysterious beginning. Other children have stories very similar to yours. Stories of loss and loneliness and missing pieces of their heart. Other mothers have stories like mine. Stories of hope and faith and loving a little one she has never met. The truth is, the universe has a mysterious beginning, too. We can ask when or how this world began but we will never really know for sure. The stories in our Bible weren't told to give exact answers to unanswerable questions. They were told so that parents could give witness to their children about the God of the universe, the three-in-one Creator- Father, Spirit, Son. This is the God I love. And this is my story for you about our own mysterious beginnings, yours and mine, and my faith in a God who is both father and mother to us all....

In the beginning the Spirit-God brooded over the deep waters of our yet to be world. She wove into our universe codes of possibilities. She danced among the chaos and in her footsteps she laid plans for you and me, imprinting us within the world she birthed. She breathed life. In and out. She breathed love. In and out. She breathed wisdom. In and out. She breathed mercy. In and out. Songs of life for you and me were sung by the heavens in the dawn of time.

On the day you were born, when you were taking your first breath and crying in protest the way all babies do at first, She was there. She breathed love over you and She sang the song that was written just for you that very first day at the beginning of all things. Even then, the stars and angels in heaven were told your name.

When you were left alone by your birth mother, an act of sacrifice that must have shattered her heart into a million pieces, the Spirit was there and Her heart was breaking, too. She heard you crying alone and afraid and She sang her song of love for you. She breathed love in and out again. She wrapped her arms around you, she wiped away your tears, and told the stars to sing your song. When you were sick, when you cried just to be held, when you were cold, when you were hungry, She was there. She remembered Jesus' own pain, his own loneliness, his own hunger and She remembered his death. After all, she had felt the Father's agony and the Son's despair on the cross. Because of this, She knew your heart, and you were never alone.

All that time, on the other side of the world, She was also with us, nudging us down the road towards you. She knew you were there, waiting to surprise us, just around another bend in our road. I imagine that She wanted to say, "Hurry up! He's waiting!" She was there when we saw your sweet face and She told the angels it was time to sing again. And so they sang the Spirit's song for you, that song from the Ancient of Days, and with every prayer we prayed we began to hear the Spirit sing. She breathed Her love for you into our hearts. In and out. And the angels danced when we began to sing along, too.

You, my sweet son, know none of this. Every day I pray for you while you sleep on the other side of this big, big world. I tried to tell the Spirit that this journey needs to end. It has been too long and too hard. You are seven thousand miles away and it feels as if we are walking every single mile, one step at a time, slowly getting closer to this child we are called to love. Doesn't God know you've been alone for too long? You need your mother. You need your father. We need you. But then She reminds me that you are not alone.

You have never been alone.

You have never been alone.

So I pray that while you sleep tonight She will whisper your name in your ears. That She will sing a song of a mother's love into your sleeping heart. That while you sleep you will feel a father's arms holding you tight. That running through your dreams are a little girl and a little boy with yellow hair and laughter full of joy. So that when the day comes and they finally, FINALLY put you in my arms, the Spirit will laugh, and the angels will dance, and you will know that we have come for you, just for you, and we have belonged to you since the very beginning, when the Spirit first sang your song.

Waiting Past Advent

Advent is a season of waiting. It is the time when we are supposed to be watching and waiting for the arrival of the Son. Advent nights are the darkest nights and the longest nights. They are nights of shadow and questions. Nights when we remember what it was like to wonder if God would keep his ancient promises. Would God remember us? Would God send us a Messiah? In our waiting, we imagine what it must have felt like to live in those days before the Son arrived. Before the True Light from True Light came so unexpectedly clothed in vulnerable humility. We imagine how the darkness must have felt before that amazing baby burst through the night proclaiming peace on Earth.

This year I was especially thankful for this time of holy waiting. I was waiting for all things "Christmas"- for my children to wake up in the morning and jump on my bed and beg us to go downstairs to see what Santa brought. I was waiting for quiet evenings by the fire with my family and Christmas carols, and "Smiling's my favorite!"  I was waiting for the arrival of God’s own Son- for His birth and for His return. This year, I was also waiting for something else, the arrival of my own son. My son who doesn’t even realize we are waiting for him.

In many ways, Mary and Elizabeth were my Advent companions. I parked my soul in their stories and instead of rushing past them to get to the babies, I lingered with the women who were the first to understand the profound reality of what was about to happen- that God’s own self was moving in and setting up camp here among us. Like Mary, I am waiting for a child to arrive, hoping against hope that I am prepared to meet him. This is a child who has a history that began long before he entered my life. This is a child who is coming from a place foreign and unknown. This child who is woven into my heart by promises not yet fulfilled. Mary’s story reminds me that while we believe God has blessed us with an amazing gift, there will be questions from those who don’t understand the why’s and how’s of our child’s unconventional origin. But Mary’s story also reminds me of Elizabeth, and Zachariah, and the fact that more often than not there is joy from those who are waiting with you, those who truly love God in the ways that you love God. Mary and Joseph’s stories tell us that God will be with both me and with my husband and God will speak to us both along the way, in different ways and at different times.

While the rest of the world has moved on past Christmas and sweet baby Jesus, I am still sifting and sorting through the lessons I learned during this year’s Advent. I am grateful for a faith that teaches us how to wait and a faith that says we do not wait alone. I am grateful for every gift that was sent to Carter by family and friends. I am grateful that one grandmother made sure there was a stocking with his name on it hanging at her house and that another grandmother wrapped gifts for him under our tree. I am even grateful for every Christmas card that included his name. Those small little gestures were a huge Christmas blessing to this waiting mother’s heart!

So where are we in our waiting? All of our paperwork was sent to China in December and we were officially “logged in” to their system on December 19th. Right now we are waiting for China to issue our official approval to adopt Carter. After that there are several small steps still before we can travel, but my hope is that maybe, just maybe, we will have him with us by Easter!

Introducing Our Sweet Baby Carter!!

I felt like he was looking right at me. Every time I logged onto our agency's waiting child page, I would see this face, not quite smiling, waiting for me to see him. Not to see him with my eyes, but with my heart.

He was hidden behind labels that at first seemed frightening, but when we looked further we realized weren't entirely true. Hidden behind labels like "deafness" and "heart defect", to name a few, we found our beautiful son. He is 15 months old and living in a city called Zhengzhou, in Henan Province of China. We are not sharing all of his medical issues publicly but his most obvious one is called microtia or malformation of the right ear. On that side, he cannot hear at all and it is very unlikely that he will ever be able to hear from that ear. On the left side he is not deaf, but does have mild hearing loss which means he will most likely need to wear a hearing aid. We've had his hearing tests reviewed by two audiologists and were told that his prospects for hearing and speech development are very good.

These last few weeks have been some of the most exciting and terrifying of my life. We spoke to several specialists, trying to get all of our questions answered. We waited, and waited, and finally received an update from China with pictures and good news about his development. There are so many unknowns and so many possibilities tied into this choice we have made. It was not a choice made lightly. We knew that once we took the first step in faith, there would be no turning back. Very quickly we realized that it had become clear to us both that this is our son and we already love him, even if we don't know him yet. As with most children who are adopted internationally, there will always be more questions than answers about the time before they were ours, but this is what I know for sure, deep in my core-

First, God has already been loving him, with an everlasting love, even before he was born,

before he was an "orphan",

before he was labeled and mislabeled,

before we saw his sweet face,

before we claimed him as our son.

He was already claimed since the beginning of time, by the One who is and always has been "a Father to the fatherless."

Second, he is not the lucky one in this story.

We are.

We are still in awe at that we have found him!

He is the one we have prayed for, hoped for, searched for, and now adore.

So now our real waiting begins. It will probably be about five to six months before we can bring our precious baby Carter home. Five months have never seemed like an eternity until now!