bitching

–verb (used without object)

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:  Who, being in very nature God,  did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.  Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.  Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing. But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.

Um-hmph.  Think I’m gonna be chewing on that one for a while.  Did you catch that “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.”?

After reading over this about a dozen times I started seeing exactly how it is written.  I’ve always loved the Lord’s Prayer because I believe it is the example of how we should pray.  God gave us a very specific order in which to come to Him with our thanks and our apologies and our requests.  It is a model.  The book of Philippians was written by the apostle Paul while he was in prison.  It is written to the people of Philippi, which was a Roman colony.  The Philippians sent Paul a gift in prison and Paul wrote the book as a thank-you letter to them and to report to them his circumstances.  He wrote it to them with the intent of giving them a model for living peacefully with each other.  With this bit of Biblical history in mind, I read this chapter and gained a little perspective.

I’ve always liked the number 8.  It’s fun to draw and I love that it’s the symbol for infinity when turned on it’s side.  Here’s an eight-step program for you that should lead to a peaceful household.  I’m just starting the program today, so I’ll have to let you know how it goes.

1. If my family is united in our love for Christ, we must be united in our love for each other.  Period.

2.  Be as humble as Jesus. (this should naturally result in the other steps)

3. Stop acting out of selfish motivation and vain ambition. Be a servant to those around you. (ouch!)

4. It is okay to think about your own interests, but you also must think about the interest of others. (this one shouldn’t be too difficult.  everyone in my house is pretty good about voicing their needs and wants.)

5. Don’t complain about what you have to do. (yea. yea. got it,God.)

6. Don’t argue. (bummer.  I really like to be right and so often the people around me are wrong)

7. If you do the first six, you will shine like stars amongst a depraved generation. (My kids and hubby would probably tell you I’ve been a big dark cloud lately, so I think I can handle bringing a little sunshine to my world.)

8. Be glad and rejoice. Pretty humbling and convicting seeing that Paul was in prison when writing this and commanding the people to be glad and rejoice “with him”.

I’m a little worried that this program might be a little harder to stick to than a new workout or diet plan.  Wish me luck or pray for me.  I’ll take either.  I’ll probably need both.

di·vine
/dɪˈvaɪn/ Show Spelled [dih-vahyn]
–adjective
1. proceeding from God
2. addressed, appropriated, or devoted to God
3. of superhuman or surpassing excellence

This word has floated around in my head and inside my mouth for the past couple of weeks.  It’s a fun word to mouth.  Try it.  I like the feel of the ‘vvvvv’.  Just typing that made me realize that I might just have a touch of autism myself.  Hmmmm?

Definition 1:  Proceeding from God.

My kiddos last day of school was June 24th.  For months we have planned to leave on that Thursday afternoon, drive the entire eighteen hours from here to Baton Rouge,  and arrive at my grandmother’s house in time for breakfast on Friday morning.

My grandmother is one of my favorite people on the planet.  I have never seen her as just a grandparent.  She is my friend.  My mentor.  My confidant.   The last time I saw her was in May of 2008 and I have been beside myself with anticipation over going home.  To sweeten the deal, my great-aunt planned a family reunion for our first weekend home.

On the night before we were planning to leave, my husband and I began to argue.  It was pointless and unnecessary and it somehow quickly escalated into one of the worst ‘word wars’ we have ever engaged in.  There were several times between Wednesday evening and Thursday afternoon that both of us said we would not make the trip.  “I’m not riding across the country with you.”  ” I don’t want to be stuck in a car with you for eighteen hours.”  You get the idea.  My whole point in sharing is that we almost missed out on a divine trip by allowing our hard-heads, egos, and mutual desire to have the last word, get in the way.  God was sending us to Louisiana for a very specific purpose.

The fight delayed our departure and the breakfast arrival I had envisioned turned into a late lunch arrival.  On Saturday, we dragged our exhausted butts down the road for the family reunion.  I come from a large family of God-lovers and it felt great to spend a little time swimming in that gene pool.  And yes, it was also quite fun to show off our new addition.   She did have a couple of full-blown meltdowns and she did bite one of my uncles on the butt.  Otherwise, she was amazingly well-behaved.

The reunion placed us in the same room with the people that God wanted to use to show us purpose and to bless our socks off.  An encounter that we would have completely missed out on if we had let our fight dictate our plans.

If you’ve followed our story from the beginning, you know that we have been on the road to financial freedom for the past year.  We sold our Honda Odyssey in January and took the $4000 in equity that we had in it to an auction and paid cash for a Kia Sedona with 116k miles on it.  In the process, we eliminated more than $10,000 of debt.  The Kia has been comfortable and has met our needs for the past several months, but it has been spending quite a bit of time in the shop and we’ve reached the point where we don’t want to put any more miles on it or money into it.

We have been paying ourselves a car note every month  into a money market account since we eliminated the payment on the Odyssey.  Our plan was to sell the van, withdraw what we’ve saved and take the combined money back to the auction with the hope of finding something with less mileage.  We would drive that vehicle for 10-12 months and then trade up by doing the same thing all over again.

Our kids are constantly asking us to pick up their friends for various activities.  With a family of six, we’ve been coming to terms with the fact that the only way to be involved in transporting our kids and their friends is in a very large vehicle.  An eighteen hour trip with seven people packed into a Honda Pilot was confirmation of that fact.  We now clearly understand the meaning of the phrase, “like a can of sardines”.

It was only a few years ago that I was driving an Acura MDX.  The day we bought it, my husband told me I looked like a “kept woman” behind the wheel.  I liked that look.  About the time of my cancer diagnosis, we got rid of it, along with my husband’s super-sexy platinum edition F-250.  We swallowed our pride and simplified our lives.  I really hoped that going from an MDX to an Odyssey was enough of a lesson in what matters in life.  But no.  God took me from being okay with a Honda mini-van to being really excited about a Kia mini-van (there’s nothing quite like paid-for to make a car lovable).  Since our return from Serbia He’s taken me from loving my Kia to longing for a big ol’ ten, twelve, or even fifteen passenger van.  God does indeed have a sense of humor.

The blessing our socks off was a financial gift that we were told to use for purchasing a larger vehicle.  It was completely unexpected.  But guess what?  We now have enough to purchase that big ol’ van.  We hope to sell the Kia this week and we’re hoping to find a Dodge Sprinter, but we’ll be happy with whatever God leads us to buy.

Definition 2. addressed, appropriated, or devoted to God

Our blessing-givers are living out definition 2.  Their will and their actions are devoted to God’s purpose.  Because they are living a divine life, they don’t miss out on divine interactions.  At the reunion we discussed our adoption process, including the where and when.  When they learned that we adopted from Serbia, they had perfect clarity about one of those divine interactions.  They met a woman in Houston who just happens to be from Serbia.  When they met it was clear that their meeting was divine, just not the actual purpose of the meeting.  They agreed to keep in touch.  The minute I said where Sofija was from, the purpose of them meeting was revealed.

Our financial blessing came three days after our family reunion.  Within minutes of receiving that blessing I was blessed in more ways than I can even describe.  I was placed on the phone with a woman who began to put together the pieces of a puzzle that God has been crafting for ages.  She has raised money for and spent time in the orphanage where my daughter lived in the early years of her life.  She told me over and over that it was no accident that God sent us to Serbia to adopt.  She was right.  She said He could have sent us anywhere in the world.  She was right.  She said that God is doing something BIG.  She is right.  I don’t know where God is taking me and I don’t know exactly what He will use the two of us to do together, but I know I don’t want to get off this ride.

Definition 3. of superhuman or surpassing excellence

We are now fully engaged in summer fun and I have half a dozen stories to tell about my kids.  Our trip was packed full of answered prayers and unexpected joy that I want to share.  Maybe I’ll write about all of that tomorrow.  Those things are not at the forefront of my thoughts tonight.  Tonight I just needed to document how big God’s love and power are.  I am still trying to process what He has already done and what He is putting together.  When we committed to adopt Sofija, we did not even know what country she was in.  We knew she was in the Balkans and we knew that we had an urgency to get her home.  No one in my house had ever met anyone from Serbia until we landed in Belgrade on April 14th.  And all along, God was in charge.

Without us having an iota of awareness, He put a woman from Serbia and a man that I dearly love and respect in the same BBQ restaurant in Houston, Texas at the exact same moment.  He gave them both a desire to establish contact and gave them both perfect clarity in the fact that their meeting was no accident.  He gave the woman an unexplainable urge to share her life story with this man, in the middle of this restaurant.   It was divine.

Six weeks after we returned from Serbia, on the one year anniversary of my cancer-free day, He put my butt in a seat in an audience of people who all sat and listened to Christine Caine describe what was happening with the sex trade and human slavery throughout Eastern Europe.  After that sermon, He gave me the opportunity to speak with her about my daughter, and Serbia, and my desire to see what she has inspired in other European countries spread to my daughter’s birthplace.  That conversation was divine.

One week later, he put my family in the same building with the lovable respectable man that met the lady in the BBQ restaurant and in one big swoop, He  showed us all what “superhuman and surpassing excellence” looks like.

Ephesians 3:17-19
…And may you have the power
to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high,
and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to
understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness
…of life and power that comes from God.

I don’t know that I’ll ever fully grasp it, but I am getting an idea of just how wide and how long and how high and how deep His love is.  It’s immeasurable.  It’s too big to even articulate.  It makes me full.  My soul feels like I just made one too many trips to an all-you-can-eat buffet.  His love is truly divine.

Four days ago, on June 15th, I began the fortieth year of my life.  Isn’t it funny how birthdays always force us to take inventory?  This birthday, my thirty-ninth, knocked me to my knees.  On my thirty-eighth birthday, my husband had been home from Iraq for twelve days.  Five days after his return, I was sent to Walter Reed for biopsies on the lymph nodes in my neck.  The biopsies were scheduled because blood-work, scans, and an ultrasound all led my doctor to believe that the cancer I had been diagnosed with two years earlier had spread to my lymph nodes.

My husband held my hand as person after person was called in to see if they could find the ‘nasty ones’.  They were not there.  They had been there in an ultrasound one month earlier, but on the day of the biopsies, they could not be found.  Not by the first ultrasound tech.  Not by the second.  Not by the radiologist.  Not by any of the three pathologist.  They were gone.  The pathologist eventually decided to take samples of the only two lymph nodes he could see.  My thirty-eighth birthday was spent awaiting the diagnosis of those samples.

Yesterday, June 18th, was another birthday for me.  It was the day that I stopped and acknowledged that one year earlier I received a phone call that lit a fire inside of me.

I hit the talk button and said, “Hello.”  My doctor said, “I have your biopsy results.  I don’t know why your tumor markers showed up and multiplied and I don’t know what happened with those lymph nodes, but YOU’RE CANCER FREE!”

This birthday was so much bigger to me than the one celebrating my birth.  It was a celebration of just how big God loves me.  It was a celebration of my acceptance of that love.

To cap off my cancer-free birthday, Christine Caine was speaking at our church.  If you ever have a chance to hear her…GO!  She crams more of God’s truth into every breath than most people will in a lifetime.  The first time I ever even heard her name was after we returned from Serbia.  It turns out that she was adopted and that she was not given a name at birth.  It also just happens that she has a ministry that is stopping human trafficking in Eastern Europe.  I was broken by how much significance there was in the fact that God put me in a seat in that building to hear what she had to say.

She started her message in Deuteronomy 1.  Verse 2 tells us that, “It takes ELEVEN DAYS to go from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea by the Mount Seir road.”  Verse 3 tells us that it took the Israelites FORTY YEARS to make that journey because of one act of doubt and disbelief.

I awoke this morning and read the whole chapter. In verse 6, Moses tells the Israelites,

The Lord our God said to us, “You have stayed long enough at this mountain.”

The healing that took place in my body last year was insignificant in comparison to the healing he has been done in my spirit since my cancer diagnosis.  I suppose that every person who is diagnosed with cancer changes in some way.  You just can’t ever look at life through the same lenses after you hear that word applied to your body.  For me, I saw my diagnosis as a pinnacle.  I spent thirty-eight years trying to climb a mountain with the weight of a lifetime of wounds on my back.  I was dragging pain and guilt and shame and self-defeat and all the ugliness of the world along with me.  The weights never let me climb more than a few feet before I tumbled back down again.

In May of 2007, when a doctor avoided eye contact while telling me that I had pretty advanced thyroid cancer, I was given a chance to leave my weight on that mountain.  God was saying to me that I had been there long enough.
The fire that God planted in me with my diagnosis was really just a big seed of urgency. We have no tomorrows promised and if we have any hope of fulfilling God’s plan for our lives, we need to do it with urgency. God has a purpose for me that can never be accomplished with a bag-full of junk on my back and I never again want to take decades to get somewhere that should have taken eleven days. 
I had to wait two years to hear that I was cancer-free and it took just about that long for me to leave some of those weights on that mountain.
In this fortieth year of my life, I hope to wake up every day with the fire of urgency. I pray that God continue to show me purpose and that He continue to provide me with the strength and character to fulfill that purpose. And I thank Him. For second chances. For freedom from the weights of the past. For victory. For purpose. For life.

While driving home from the post office, Seth looks over at me and says, ” I think I have a curse on me with my singing.”  I very quickly responded with, “Don’t ever say that!  Curses come from the devil and gifts come from God.  Your singing is a gift.”  Seth: What other gifts did God give me?  So I started naming them and he started counting.  You’re very smart.  One.  You’re very funny.  Two.  You’re caring and loving and compassionate.  Three, four, five.  You’re very loving.  Six.  You bring people joy.  Seven.  Don’t forget about the singing.  Eight.  You’re always thoughtful. Nine.  You’re VERY handsome. Ten.  He then puts out his hand as if telling me to stop, bows his head, puts his hands together under his chin and begins to pray.

“Ten gifts.  Wow.  God, you’re the best gift-giver in the whole world.

I love you, God. (a few moments of silence)

(and then…directed at me) I heard His voice.  He said He loves me too.”

Yes.  I cried.  Once again I was reminded through my child exactly how amazing my God is.

After getting everyone else off to school and work this morning, Sofija and I headed out for Bethesda.  A month ago, an appointment was scheduled for her at the developmental pediatrics office at the National Medical Center.

Last week the office sent me a stack of questionnaires to fill out prior to our arrival.  So last night Chad and I split the stack and attempted to fill them out.  What I submitted today was pretty pathetic.  I tossed one whole assessment because it was supposed to be filled out by her primary caretaker from birth to 36mos.  Uh, yeah.  Not gonna happen.  The eleven pages I did submit were pretty much just a chain of question marks and n/a’s.  My lack of knowledge concerning my child did not put me on the road this morning with the best attitude.  Making me just a little more jolly was the fact that I ignored the little voice that told me to pack her a change of clothes.  I pulled into the parking garage with no time to spare and pulled my dripping wet daughter out of the carseat.  I stopped and threw out her underwear and tried my best to dry her off.  In the process I got pee all over the questionnaires and myself.

I walked into the doctor’s office with my panty-less daughter, information-less questionnaires and the sweet smell of urine all around me.  And just to add a little icing to the cake, Sofija ran straight up to him, shook her finger in his face and began screaming, “Na more shots!  Na more shots!”.

Things had nowhere to go, but up.

I began praying while we were still in Serbia that God would send Sofija to doctors and therapists who would be ideal for meeting her needs.  Once again, God delivered.

The minute I said that she was adopted and that she’s only been in America for six weeks, he tossed the questionnaires.  He spent an hour and half with us and filled me with hope for my daughter’s future.  All of his evaluations place her at age-appropriate development.  She will undergo genetic testing, an MRI and an EEG at some point in the next two weeks and he requested that they all be done at one time, and under sedation (no shots).  Thank you, God!

He looked at her teeth and asked me if I knew about the pediatric dentistry available at the hospital and told me that they do everything under sedation and that it’s covered 100% by our health insurance.  I almost fainted.  I have beat down doors in an attempt to have Seth’s dental work done under sedation.  His teeth have cost us a small fortune and I have put off the work that he needs done right now because he has panic attacks when we even say the word ‘dentist’.  I explained all this to him and he offered to put in a referral so that Seth can have his work done there too.  We will be able to get all of their dental work done at no cost!  Thank you, God!  He also put in referrals for her ears and eyes and for a behavioral therapist to start treating her in our home.  Another big…Thank you, God!

The doctor gave me an attitude adjustment.  It doesn’t matter what I know about the first five years of my daughter’s life.  The life she has ahead of her will be blessed and I am privileged to be a part of it.

¹le·git·i·mate

Pronunciation: \li-ˈji-tə-mət\

This word and it’s many applications have been on my mind for quite some time.  My parents divorced when I was five years old.   I was born a legitimate child, but by definition, I was illegitimate from that point on.  I still had a Dad and I still had a relationship with him, but the minute my parents stopped living together, I lost my filial rights.

How’s that for a word of the day.  Just so you don’t have to open another tab and look up the meaning of filial (like I did), it’s an adjective meaning:  of, pertaining to, or befitting a son or daughter.

Anyone who has grown up in a house with a single mom knows what I am referring to.  When you ask your Mom for anything that she can’t provide, you can’t just walk across the room and ask your Dad.   When your mom’s busy cooking dinner and your bike breaks or your ball needs air or you can’t find something, you either learn to take care of it yourself or you do without.  You avoid confrontations in elementary school just because you don’t have the “wait till my Dad comes up here” card to throw down.  At school, church or scouting events that include an invite for your dad, you either find a way to stay home, try to disappear at the event, or tag along with a friend and ‘borrow’ their dad.  This latter option is probably the most torturous.  No, it is indeed the most torturous.  I know not just from my own experiences, but because I’ve discussed it with others and anyone who’s been there will tell you that it sucks.  There is nothing quite as difficult as being the third wheel on a parent/child date.  This is a great place to use my cool new word.  The third wheel has no filial rights.  The third wheel always waits for the dad to help out their own child before they get a turn with the ‘borrowed dad’.

For the last week, I’ve thought alot about my own illegitimacy.  My Mom was always quick to tell me that God was really everybody’s father and that I should be dependent on Him.  There was just one big flaw in that lecture.  I had no clue what that looked like.  The concept of a strong fatherly figure being there to care for me on a weekly, daily and hourly basis was foreign to me.  I felt like a temporary guest in my Dad’s house and looking back I can see that I also felt like a temporary guest in my Father’s house.  It was nice to visit, but I didn’t feel comfortable digging through the fridge and getting fed.

I can’t say that it happened at one specific moment.  It was definitely a process.  But in the last decade of my life I came to know what the picture of God as my father looks like.  Being a parent has painted a pretty clear picture, but the process took more than just loving my own children.  Just typing it makes me wince a little, but… I had to give up control. I also had to learn to be dependent.

1 John 3

What marvelous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it—we’re called children of God!

Psalm 68:5

Father to the fatherless, defender of widows – this is God, whose dwelling is holy.

In the five weeks that Sofija has been a member of our family, I have watched her struggle with this same concept.  She came into our family not knowing how to be dependent on anyone.  I’ve mentioned before that she called anyone that she thought would give her what she wanted, “Mama”.  I’m not gonna lie.  It hurt.  I cannot count how many times I’ve watched her run to complete strangers and grab onto them while calling them by the name that should have been reserved for me.

Every time my name slipped through her lips, aimed in someone else’s direction, I have thought of the 1st of the ten commandments.  “You shall have no other gods before or besides me.” The persistent whisper of that one simple sentence brought with it conviction and consolation.  God knows exactly what it feels like to desire dependency from your child.  He knows what it’s like to listen to others being called by the name that should be reserved for you.  He knows what it feels like to give unconditional, unanswered love.

Who knows?  Maybe I needed a refresher on just how badly God desires to be my primary caretaker.  This recurring theme prompted me to dig for more scripture on the subject.  There are dozens of verses between Genesis and Revelation that reiterate just how strongly God feels about being numero uno in our lives, but this one really grabbed my attention.

Deuteronomy 4:35

The LORD wants you to know he is the only true God, and he wants you to obey him.

Perhaps it’s because I so desperately wanted my daughter to acknowledge that I am her only mother and because I want her to listen to me when I give her direction.

One day last week I was praying about my desires for her to see me as her primary caretaker and I realized that during all the years  I lacked dependency on God, the real issue was a lack of trust.  It wasn’t as simple as me not depending on Him.  I didn’t trust Him to be dependable.  Too many years of my life were spent missing out on the fullness of the blessed life that God had in store for me simply because I didn’t trust Him.

I am one of those people who saves lists of ridiculous campaign promises and crosses them off the list as they are broken.  Being a list person, I put together this list of gifts that are promised to us if we give God our trust.  Guess what?  I’ve never had to cross anything off it.

• You will be happy – Proverbs 16:20
  
• You will not walk in darkness – but in God’s light – John 8:12
  
• God will direct your paths in the life – Proverbs 3:6
  
• You will prosper wherever you go – Joshua 1:7-9
  
• Your mind will be at perfect peace  – Isaiah 26:3
  
• Your heart will remain steadfast in the Lord – Psalm 112:5-8
  
• You will have no want – you shall not lack any good thing – Psalm 34:8-10
  
• You shall be safe in your surroundings – Proverbs 29:25
  
• You shall possess the land – Isaiah 57:13
• You will have the desires of your heart – Psalm 37:4
  

Proverbs 3:5

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”

You can’t depend on someone that you don’t trust.  Period.

Sofija’s nesting is all about her lack of trust.  Her testing us with violence is all about her lack of trust.  Her self-soothing rocking is all about her lack of trust.  It all goes back to her not knowing what the picture of dependency looks like and not trusting anyone to paint that picture for her.

So…about a week ago, my prayers and my behaviors changed.  Okay, my behavior didn’t change all that drastically, but I am now making a very conscious effort to build her trust.  I am also praying with her as often as possible.  I want her to have a very clear picture of what it looks like to trust God.

Something funny happened when I finally allowed God to occupy the role of primary caretaker in my life.  It got a whole lot easier to navigate and accept all of my other relationships.  With my dependency and trust in the right place, it makes it easy to just love the people in my life and to let them love me in return.

The day after my prayers changed from asking God to fulfill my own selfish desires to asking Him to change me and show me how to be trustworthy in my daughter’s eyes, my Dad, my step-Mom, and her Mom came to visit.  On Friday we toured the Pentagon.  I think everyone was amazed at how peaceful and cooperative Sofija was throughout the day.  We arrived home and found that her citizenship certificate had arrived from USCIS.

To my surprise, they even spelled everything correctly.  I guess I still have a few trust issues with that whole agency.

We spent Saturday walking the paths of Arlington cemetery.  Sofija had no idea just how significant this sequence of events was, but I could not overlook it.  The day after she became an American citizen, she walked the paths that wind through the graves of those who gave value to that citizenship.  She is now a member of a nation that guarantees her many freedoms that did not come free.

Sunday morning was the pinnacle of our weekend.  My family came here not only to sight-see, but to witness the dedications of my nephew and my daughter.

On Sunday night I climbed in bed unable to escape my thoughts about what had taken place in three short days.  On April 27th, Sofija became legally ours.  Chad’s name was placed on the paternal part of her birth certificate, but it wasn’t until after her dedication that I began to think about what a big deal that is.  She is about the same age that I was when my parents divorced.  At the age where I lost my filial rights, she gained them.  She is now an American citizen.  We, as her parents, have dedicated ourselves to raising her in a God-first home.  We are committed to steering her toward God’s purpose for her life.  By every definition of the word, she is legitimate.

On Monday morning I had some alone time with God before everyone else was awake.  I was in the middle of thanking Him for being the “father of the fatherless”, when I realized something.  During the week before her dedication and throughout the weekend, Sofija encountered hundreds of new people.  New faces had been in and out of our home every single day and we passed new faces every place we went.  Not once had she called someone else by my name.  For more than a week now the word “Mama” has been reserved for me.  I am legitimately her one and only mother.  A week ago I felt pretty convicted for asking God to take care of that desire.  But you know what?  Giving us the desires of our heart is one of those promises he can fulfill when we whole-heartedly trust Him.

On Monday evening I saw my Dad off.  We didn’t exchange lengthy goodbyes because we know we will see each other again in a few weeks.  As he hugged me, told me he loves me and said how great the visit had been; my heart was full.  His name has always filled the paternal part of my birth certificate.  I have felt comfortable digging through his fridge and being fed in his home for many years now.

And…my Mom was right.  God really was always there filling the role of Father.  All the filial rights and Biblical promises were there for the taking too.  I just had to trust Him.

And one more thing.  I really hope it pleases God just as much to hear me call Him, “Father” as it pleases me to hear Sofija call me, “Mama.”

I will not be memorializing the Memorial Day of 2010.  It was a beautiful holiday weekend full of opportunities to enjoy good company and participate in outdoor activities.  Saturday was a wonderful family day and on Sunday, we celebrated the fact that Sofija not only got excited about going to church, but she actually behaved herself for the entire service (Thank you, God!).  On top of that, I got to squeeze in some great fellowship with friends and bask in some estrogen throughout Sunday afternoon and evening.  The actual holiday was a completely different story.

Yesterday started at 5:58am with a slap across my head and screaming in my ear and it spiraled downward from there.

While Sofija did have a pretty bad morning, please don’t start thinking she is the one to blame for our difficult day.  Well before noon I stopped counting how many things she had destroyed and how many times she had hurt the people and animals in the house.  The incision from her surgery has bothered her and we have had no success in keeping her still so that she can heal.  When she does something that strains her abdominal muscles she reacts with rage.  I had very little sleep the night before and when she threw things at me and attacked her brothers, I felt myself boiling inside.  I screamed.  Alot!  At everyone.  Kira and Chase were being teenagers and trying to stand their ground and I began taking everything that they said as disrespect.  When Chad tried to hold me accountable for my screaming, I screamed at him.  We all tried to stay busy and to stay out of each other’s way (actually I think everyone was just trying to stay out of my way), but even avoidance didn’t keep me from being irritated by everyone in the house.  And NO, I’m not pms’ing.

I made some pretty pitiful apologies throughout the day and went to sleep fairly disgusted with myself.  By the time I awoke this morning, the three people that I hurt the most yesterday were already gone to school and work and my conscience wasn’t any clearer than it had been when I fell asleep. To make matters worse, instead of starting my day with my usual routine of prayer and devotion, I let myself wallow in guilt.

Those old church wounds that I’ve referred to are rooted deeply in the absence of grace.  I grew up without a clue of how big the grace of God is and even though I am now fully aware of just how all encompassing it is, there are still moments when I regress and refuse to accept it.  This day started off with one of those regressive moments.

This is the point in my usual cycle of running from God where I shut down and shut everyone out.  I know from past experience that this is how the devil works.  He loves to isolate us.  Just a few days ago I wrote about how important it is to surround yourself with a body of people who believe and worship as you do.  I just preached to the world how you cannot grow or even maintain without your own personal Christian community.  The Bible says over and over again how important it is to reach out to one another and to encourage one another and lean on one another and when I know that I’ve screwed up my first instinct is to do exactly the opposite.

Somewhere close to 9:15am, in a faint whisper that I wanted to ignore, I heard this verse:

1 Corinthians 12:26-27

If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.  Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

My guilt and self pity were not just hurting me.

Since my number one accountability partner is the person I lashed out at the most yesterday, I needed to call on someone else.  So, driving down the road, sobbing like a baby (no lectures on safety please), I called a member of my body who knows my heart.  She listened, encouraged and gave me an assignment to help mend the fences at home.  She promised to pray and to check on me.  She did not judge me or lecture me.  This is an area that God has really done some work on in me over the past two years.  Here’s what the Bible says:

Galatians 6:1-3

If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.

I can’t say that I’m always successful, but I try really hard to keep critical comments to myself and to reach out gently to those around me who are struggling.  When God first started working on me in this area, I assumed the term struggling referred to the big stuff and that pretty much got me off the hook from having to reach out at all.  I don’t know anybody who’s murdered someone lately or committed armed robbery and while I’ve reached out during affairs or alcohol and drug abuse, I could easily just avoid my friends that were struggling with those things.

But what about all the other stuff?  What about the person who calls me just to gossip about someone we both know?  What about the friend who is constantly tearing down her husband?  Or the shopping buddy who is putting her family debt?  And….What about the Mom whose fuse is too short with her kids?

What I started seeing is that, as Christians, we are responsible to reach out and lift up any member of our church family who is struggling with anything that is not a reflection of Christ.  James 4: 17 says that “Anyone then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.”  Kind of expands your definition of sin there doesn’t it?!

As soon as I got home I spent some time with God.  Here is what I read:

Psalm 32:3-5

Before I confessed my sins, my bones felt limp,  and I groaned all day long.  Night and day your hand weighed heavily on me, and my strength was gone as in the summer heat.

So I confessed my sins and told them all to you.  I said, “I’ll tell the LORD  each one of my sins.”  Then you forgave me and took away my guilt.

Thank God His grace is so much bigger than my yelling and screaming.  That doesn’t get me off the hook with my husband and kids, but it’s certainly the right place to start.

After my fessing up and the Psalmist confirming that my apologies were accepted, my dear friend called me.  She had been praying for me and my family and she had three words for me…”Jesus loves you.”

Within five minutes of her phone call, I was putting Sofija down for her nap and as I asked her to pray, she began to sing.

Psalm 84:1-6

What a beautiful home, God-of-the-Angel-Armies! I’ve always longed to live in a place like this,
Always dreamed of a room in your house,
where I could sing for joy to God-alive!
Birds find nooks and crannies in your house,
sparrows and swallows make nests there.
They lay their eggs and raise their young,
singing their songs in the place where we worship.
God-of-the-Angel-Armies! King! God!
How blessed they are to live and sing there!
And how blessed all those in whom you live,
whose lives become roads you travel;
They wind through lonesome valleys, come upon brooks,
discover cool springs and pools brimming with rain!

Such a beautiful Psalm.  I remember reading it a couple of years ago and thinking that it referred to the way we should feel not only about belonging to God’s greater family, but to a specific church family.  At that time God was doing some work in me and healing some old church inflicted wounds.  As I read the verse, I saw that I needed to see the church as not only a nest for me, but a place where my kids would grow and be nurtured.  I firmly believe that a person’s personal relationship with Christ has to be vertical and two-way.  It has to be between you and Him (or me and Him).  It cannot be a threesome with the church in the middle.  That being said, I have also come to believe that the two-way vertical relationship cannot strengthen or grow or even be maintained, without the church.  That’s the beauty in the psalm.  Those who have God traveling with them on their roads of life are blessed AND those who build their nests and live and sing in a church family are blessed.

Wow. That’s really not at all what I set out to write about, but after I typed out the psalm I was reminded of its significance in my life.  The real reason I had to write is just to document the happenings around our house.  Do you remember that episode of the Brady Bunch where stuff kept disappearing and everyone was fighting and blaming each other and it turned out that Tiger had been taking all the stuff out to his dog-house and building a sort of ‘nest’?

Well, we’ve got a Tiger.  In the past two weeks we’ve lost Chad’s deodorant, both of our daily devotionals, a pair of sunglasses, a bottle of nail polish remover, two necklaces, two of Kira’s dresses, a toy dump-truck, a birthday card, and Seth’s backpack.  The backpack just about did us in.  He had it after school on Thursday. He packed it up in the afternoon and put it by the front door.  I recall stepping over it shortly after he placed it there.  On Friday morning it was gone.  We searched almost every square inch of the house, but we had no luck.  I devoted a large majority of Friday to searching for it and by the time I went to bed last night, I was feeling pretty defeated.  How does a backpack just disappear?

As Kira and I have blamed each other and fussed about the missing items, Chad kept saying that he thought Ana Sofija was taking things and stashing them somewhere.  We’ve all joked about the fact that she has a hidden nest somewhere around the house.  This morning we all got busy working on the weekend’s chore-list.  We  have a large laundry room with two washing machines and the one that we do not use is  at the far end of the room with shelves full of paint and paint supplies in the corner between it and the wall.  Chad went to put something on the shelves and called for me.

Yep, you guessed it.  Our little feral cat has been nesting.  She had things that we did not even realize were missing and she had them all gathered into a neat little pile that was not visible unless you stepped behind the machine to look for it.

Should we find it amusing or sad?  She has built a nest for herself in our house and she has filled it with items that belong to each member of her new family.  As her mother I would like to find it amusing and sentimental that she has been collecting things that remind her of the people who love her and because our home is where she has landed and because she feels safe and secure here.  As someone who holds a degree in psychology, I find it hard to see her nesting in a positive light.  I believe that she is probably trying to create something that is uniquely hers because she has never had that.  She is probably building a nest for the same reason that she walks in other people’s shoes.  She doesn’t know how to be dependent.  She is storing up because she thinks she has to take care of herself.

I can only pray that someday soon she sees herself blessed to be in this family.  That she realizes that her Mama and her Tata have already built her a nest and that all she has to do is grow here and let us nurture her.

Psalm 127:3

Sons are a gift from the LORD,
children a reward from him.

Ten years ago today, I gave birth to a 9lb 11oz baby boy in Seoul, Korea.  It was awful!

I was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday afternoon and he was not born until Friday morning.  My due-date had been May 12th and my first two were born early, so I never expected for him to be two weeks late.  After 48 hours of every possible measure to speed up my labor, I was given a sleeping pill to take before bed on Thursday night and promised that I would be put on a pitocin drip first thing on Friday morning.

In typical bratty expectant mother fashion, I demanded that my dear husband drive to the Navy Club on the other side of the installation and pick me up an order of quesadillas, complete with jalapenos, sour cream and salsa.  Yes, I knew it was a bad idea.  However, I was roughly the size of a hippopotamus and I felt deserving.  Besides, I was about to give birth to an almost ten pound baby and he was hungry too.

Long story short…I wolfed down the quesadillas, took the sleeping pill, had a quick hot shower, climbed in bed, vomited all over myself and my water broke.  And yes, those last two did take place simultaneously.

This is where the real fun began!

It was Memorial Day weekend and the hospital was working with a skeleton crew on that Friday.  Guess what was not included in the skeleton crew?  An anesthesiologist!  I don’t think I’ve mentioned that it was also about 100 degrees outside.  The windows in the hospital did not open.  And…the post commander had not yet allowed the A/C to be been turned on for the summer.  It took me nine hours, but I puked my son into this world.

He is worth every horrific second of my labor and delivery.  The minute he was born, all I could think was that he was the most beautiful newborn baby I had ever seen.  I had no clue just how he would change me or impact my life.  I was handed this little person with the most beautiful eyes and nose and mouth and skin and hair and I was instantly head over heels in love with him.

Seth Joseph has changed me.  He has broken me in such a wonderful rewarding purposeful way.  From the moment I began suspecting that there was something different about him, I knew that the something was spectacular.  I have been privileged for the past decade to watch him find himself.  To watch God destroy the cage that he was born into.  I will always be his biggest advocate and his biggest fan.  He teaches me about myself and about the world and about God on a daily basis.  He has no filters.  He has a hard time blocking any of the stimuli coming in and he never blocks what’s coming out.  His truthfulness is a gift that I wish all people I encounter possessed.  His kind of honesty and wisdom could change the world.

Almost two years ago, he put his hand on my cheek and said, “Mama, maybe you’re just antistic like me.”  Son, I aspire to be antistic like you!

You are my gift and my reward.

Happy Birthday, Baby Boy!

I’m off to bed….I’ll add pictures tomorrow.

Sofija is doing great after her surgery.  She is resting alot and watching tv (hooray!).  We had to put socks on her hands and towel around her belly for a while when the lydocaine began wearing off around her incision because she wanted to squeeze and tug on it.  Now that she can feel it though, she’s leaving it alone.  Pray for a good night’s rest!

Unless we’re sleeping, there is always music playing in our home.  And unless one of us has created a new playlist that we just can’t stop listening to, the music playing is usually Positive Hits 90.5.  We have iHomes throughout the house so that you can hear the music no matter where you go or what you’re doing.  As a result, the members of our family are often caught singing or humming a song that’s been getting frequent airplay.  Last week, I was skipping up and down the driveway with Sofija and realized that she had been singing “this is buv vauvin” for several minutes.  Although my older two are crazy about Toby Mac, I don’t tend to play close attention to his music.  I continued to hear her singing that phrase over and over again for a few days before she added additional lyrics and I got it.

“Be ock yown, nod yown foe-yeva.

Use a way, gid back up again.

Dis is buv vauvin, buv vauvin.”

Much like the rest of her vocabulary, her pronunciation of the lyrics has improved greatly in the past few days.  As we walked through the commissary today, she begged for strawberries, watermelon, grapes, crackers, cookies and yogurt, by name and in nearly perfect English.  And in the car on the way home, she began singing along as Toby Mac belted out,

“May be knocked down, but not out forever.

This is love callin’.  Love callin’. Out to the broken.

This is love callin’.

This is love callin’.  Love callin’.  I am so broken.

This is love callin’.

The first frequent airplay song that my daughter has learned is one that declares that she is broken.

Mere coincidence?

I think not!

Romans 8:29-30

God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

What a promise!  She is being called by name by the greatest love.  He brought her here and made her a part of this family to give her a solid foundation.  Yes.  That’s a somewhat daunting responsibility.  But it’s God job, not ours.

This afternoon, I was standing in the kitchen, while talking to Tata on the phone.  He asked me what Sofija was singing.  Until that moment, I had not been paying attention.  It was Chrissie’s song.  Okay, it’s really Kutless’ song, but to those of us who feel in love with Christyn Joy Patterson, the song is hers.  This is the part of the song that my daughter was singing:

“I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end
Even when the sky is falling
And I’ve seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That’s what faith can do
That’s what faith can do!”

Sofija’s English song repertoire now consist of Jesus Loves Me, Get Back Up Again (Love Callin’), and That’s What Faith Can Do.

A few days after Seth explained to me how the caged peacocks were like him before God destroyed his cage so that he could spread his feathers and be beautiful, I realized that he probably understood the most important thing he would ever learn in life.

This afternoon I started thinking that Sofija may not need to ever learn another song.