Before I give an update I want to say just how proud I am of all the Mamas who’ve contacted me today. You are BRAVE! I knew that many of you were hurting alone, but I had no clue how many and I’m so incredibly proud of the bravery you’ve displayed today in sharing your stories with me. Please let people love you. Even if you only share with one person and give that person permission to share with someone else, you’re opening a door that will lighten your load. Your load needs to be lightened.

Today was a really hard day. The people we know for certain were injured by Sofija today include two doctors, a nurse, the Mom of a patient, another patient (a 16yo girl who is 5’8″ and weighs at least 250lbs – Sofija took her to the ground by her hair), Chad, our dear friends Mike and Martha, and me. I’m missing hair and I have two clear impressions of her teeth on my head.  Like I said, today was really hard.

One of the things that many families live with who’ve adopted older children from hard places is DID. No, I’m not referring to the verb. Although there are plenty of people in our children’s past who DID or DID NOT do something that has contributed to their current state of mind. DID stands for Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly referred to as multiple personality disorder. Children who are survivors learn to develop other personalities in order to deal with the trauma they are experiencing and to protect their true person. I’m not going to share details about what this looks like in our home. If you know us personally and you’ve spent time with Sofija, you know.

I’m sharing this piece of our story because there are many humorous moments resulting from DID. Sofija will often hug me or climb in my lap and say, “Mama, we ALL love you.” And when she doesn’t get her way she will tell me, “Mama, we’re all angry with you.” Today, as I walked into a room that was only occupied by her, she said, “Hey, Everybody! Kaci’s here!” She then high-fived “everybody” and clapped and cheered, “We’re SOOO excited!” The laugh I got from that introduction helped me get through the blood trickling down my forehead a few hours later.

Sofija is not my only child. We have three others who are absolutely frickin’ amazing. Our oldest is a sophomore in college and a barista at Starbucks. If her Starbucks wasn’t four hours away, she would be my favorite child. Our second will be 18 in March. We started homeschooling him two years ago and he finished his last high school final exam yesterday (on a Sunday while his parents were busy with his sister at a psychiatric hospital, no less). He works at a SweetFrog that is one mile from my house. When I need frozen yogurt or a great hug, he’s my favorite.

Proverbs 17:22 A cheerful heart is good medicine,
    but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength.

And then there’s Seth. Seth is 14 1/2, has high-functioning autism, the biggest heart of any human I’ve ever met, and a sense of humor that makes life worth living. Parenting him gave us the courage to adopt Sofija. When Seth was 4 we had a doctor tell us that we needed to accept that he may never be verbal or toilet-trained or able to function in a mainstream classroom. Within two years he proved that doctor wrong on all counts. Seth makes me believe that Sofija’s future will look better than her present. It just will. Today I had some alone time with Seth while my dear hubby kept vigil at the hospital. We had to pick up work from Sofija’s school and on our way he said, “I just loooove my boxers! Not only do they make me look extremely attractive, they keep me from getting a wedgie.” And then tonight, while leaving the hospital, I got a message from my oldest son’s girlfriend. Her family had both boys over to watch the football game and eat dinner. Evidently Seth entertained them. 🙂 Yes, I realize my battery is about to die. I’m going now to plug in my phone and get some sleep. Thank each and every one of you who has taken a moment to pray for our family. The prayers are felt. I’ve attempted to journal all of the instances where we’ve seen God’s hand in the middle of this situation. God has blown my mind! I’ve had everyone from the unit manager to Sofija’s 1-on-1 sitter stop me to say, “You know God is healing her.” Every single person that has cared for her has faith that God is working a miracle in her and we have received unbelievable favor. Go God!

Please continue your prayers as we have our first team meeting on Tuesday at 2pm est to start developing a treatment plan for Sofija. Chad and I have had time to do a little research and we have ideas that we’re hoping the team will agree with. Pray for us to have listening ears and for everyone to be filled with grace and compassion for our daughter.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 …“My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. ¹⁰ That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I’ve read at least a dozen blog posts today on the chaos taking place in Ferguson, Missouri. It seems everyone who has the ability to put their thoughts into written words has attempted to make sense of the senseless.

I sit in our church on a Sunday morning and I look around at the diversity of our church body and I smile. God smiles. It is His Church. We are ALL His children. ALL created in His image. The same diverse crowd that I worship with come to my home. All are welcome in my home. We eat together. We pray together. We laugh together. We do life together.

Why is “together” still hard for so many?

Why does America, land of the free, home of the brave, still have so much ground to cover when it comes to freedom and bravery?

Watching the events unfold in Ferguson and across our nation, listening to our President speak, I could feel it. The racial divide in America just grew wider. I hurt.

I have two teenage sons. The images of tears rolling down the cheeks of Lesley McSpadden physically pain me. My own mother died before her mother. The natural order of the universe is disturbed when a parent buries their child.

My 19-year-old daughter was followed around Walmart, across town, and onto her college campus by a man who ten days later allegedly kidnapped and murdered a girl she graduated with from high school; a girl that grew up in our neighborhood. I’ve imagined the pain of losing my child.

As a little girl in the 1970’s, living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I imagined I would marry a black man. I wanted mulatto babies. In my little girl mind mulatto babies had the power to erase the racial divide. Oh how I wish it were that simple.

My teenage sons are white. Nobody currently living in my house knows what it is like to be a young black male in this country. I do however know what it was like to be a 13-year-old white girl living in a trailer park in the south. I know the indignation that comes when a neighbor with three children of his own thinks the 8th grader across the street must be slutty and willing to sleep with him because, well, she lives in a trailer park. That man’s hands never actually touched me. My indignation lit a fire in me that led to screaming and yelling and choice words shared between me and his wife. For the two years we were neighbors, every time that man even looked my direction, I screamed at him.  I would suspect that Michael Brown’s indignation toward Darren Wilson was not so different.

Speaking of officer Wilson, I also hurt for him and his family. You see… my grandfather, the man I loved most in the whole world before my husband, was a police officer. He was kind and compassionate and he always gave everyone the benefit of the doubt. That man could find good in a skunk. When I was 10 or 11 years old, he gave the benefit of the doubt to the wrong person. Doing so led to him being kidnapped, shot, and left for dead at a construction site. The guy he trusted shot him with his own service pistol and stole both the gun and his police cruiser. That person just happened to be a young black male. I know he was a young black male because I saw the pictures, not because my grandfather described him that way. In fact, as I sat next to my grandfather in the weeks it took for him to recover, every word he spoke towards his attacker was filled with compassion. He questioned what the boy’s upbringing had been and what circumstances led to him making such desperate choices that fateful day. He questioned what he could have done to help the boy make different choices. My grandfather did not see the boy as a young black man. He saw him as a child of God.

When my grandfather’s ordeal happened, I was still a little girl with hopes of marrying a black man. And still, I sat on the side of his bed and begged him to “Be careful..”  I begged him not to trust. My pleas to my grandfather begged the question, “Should a police officer see young black men any differently than the trailer park neighbor saw a 13-year-old white girl?”

I no longer believe that mixed race children have the power to erase the racial divide. Heck, I no longer believe any one person or group of people has that power. What I do believe is that each and every person on this planet was created in the image of God. My God is a flippin’ rainbow! He shows NO FAVORITISM! It’s us humans who’ve messed everything up. It’s us who put people into little boxes with little expectations and say, “See. I told you so.” when they meet those little expectations. Michael Brown had little expectations when he approached officer Wilson’s police car. Officer Wilson had little expectations when he interacted with Michael Brown. The people who witnessed the whole mess had little expectations of everyone involved and in the end everyone was left saying, “See. I told you so.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of little expectations and “I told you so”s. While I’m under no false pretenses about my ability to change the whole world, I do believe each and every one of us has the power to do something. I have to believe that. I have to believe that when I sit in church on a Sunday morning and experience not only the presence of God, but his pleasure in the diversity of His Church; that I’m witnessing the transformation of little expectations into big expectations. I have to believe that when I have the opportunity to tell a young black male (that I dearly love) that one bad choice does not define him, that I’m planting seeds of big expectations. I have to believe that when I see a 17-year-old black boy and believe that he has the exact measure of potential in him as my own 17-year-old boy, that I’m planting seeds of big expectations. I have to believe that when I thank a police officer for his service in front of a group of young people, that I’m changing expectations. I have to believe that this one big set-back in Ferguson, Missouri does not define America.

We still have so much ground to cover.

I challenge you today to let go of the “little expectations” you have for someone in your path. See that person as a child of God. See them as your brother or sister. Love your neighbor.

Mark 12:30-31  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. … LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF. There is no other command greater than these.”

I LOVE football! Specifically, I love LSU football. GEAUX TIGERS!! There’s a famous run from a game LSU played against Ole Miss on Halloween night 1959. LSU was losing 3-0 and Billy Cannon returned a punt 89 yards to score the only touchdown of the game and clinching a 7-3 victory for LSU. I’ve seen the video at least a hundred times. It still makes me stand up and cheer. He broke 7 tackles along the way and ran the last 60 yards untouched.

In sharp contrast to that beautiful run, I have spent the last several years of my life either catching balls in the end zone for a momentary high or taking a helmet to the gut as I desperately look for someone to pass the ball to. High highs and low lows…

If you’ve followed our story you know that back in June, a two and half year season of misery came to an end. If you haven’t followed, click this link and catch up before reading on.

We partied. We celebrated. We cried and shouted for joy. We planned for the future. It was the highest of highs.

And then, last Thursday, October 23rd, our doorbell rang. Looking at my calendar I realize now that I missed my daughter’s school physical that morning. I shouldn’t have even been home to hear the doorbell ring. But I was.

My son announced that a man and woman in business suits were standing at our door. I was still in pajamas and I yelled for him to point to this sign outside of our door and tell them to go away.

As he opened the door they flashed badges and asked for me. They were investigators with the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. Because I was honestly curious what they wanted to talk to me about and because I can sometimes have very blonde moments, I threw on a pair of pants and hoodie and followed them to their car. If you need to pause for a moment to laugh at me or make jokes about how dumb I was at that moment, feel free to do so.

Anyway. I sat in the front seat of their car with the door propped open and my foot hanging out and asked them what they were there for. They were here to question me about my husband and when I looked over at their clipboard of questions it became perfectly clear that they were trying to find something to incriminate him. They had tons of personal information about our family and had questions typed out about every paycheck I’ve ever received and my children’s inheritance and who we communicate with. I felt violated. Since June we’ve been holding the ball and waiting to run. Those two investigators showing up rammed us in the gut with their helmets. They knocked the wind out of me.

I quickly ended the “interview” and walked away from their car trying to catch my breath.

What? On Earth? Just happened?

Once my diaphragm was able to expand again, I read through all the documentation we have confirming that the investigation is indeed over. We have this very formal letter called a declination of prosecution. It includes one paragraph that I have read over and over.

“The U.S. Army has no intention of preferring charges or taking any other adverse actions against Lieutenant Colonel CC based on the lengthy and thorough investigation completed by the Criminal Investigation Division and the Eastern District of Virginia.”

Now I’m angry. The investigators have accessed our financial information and all of our personal communications for naught. They showed up on our doorstep. They brought with them fear and doubt that I completely let go of back in June. I had a choice. I could put on the skins of fear and doubt again or I could stand firm in the truth that my husband has been exhonerated and I could take the ball that I’ve been handed and run with it.

My ball? The gift I’ve been given to score with? I can write.

So that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been writing down every detail of our story and I’ve shared it with people that I believe will use our story to shine light in dark places.

In the last few days a couple of news articles have been released concerning the type of corruption that led to the accusations made against my husband.  If you’re curious… http://www.stripes.com/news/us/inside-washington-profiting-from-the-failure-of-the-army-s-intel-fusion-network-1.310697

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268798/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=r3iNWBzV

I don’t know how long this run will be, but I know I’m done being sacked and I’m not going to keep waiting for someone else to pass me a ball in the end zone. My husband is an extremely honorable man. It made him physically ill to see the access that government contractors had to the general he worked for. Our prayers since the day he stepped foot in the G2 have been for darkness to be exposed. John 1:5 The light shines in the darkness,
    and the darkness can never extinguish it.

I run.