For You This Weekend...

(Love the Mardi Gras beads still in the trees here!)

"Let the peace of God

rule in your hearts [...]

and be thankful!"

Colossians 3:15

5 Reasons Adoptive/Foster Families Need Each Other

Yesterday, I admitted it feels as though our family sticks out in Mobile.

Later, I worried over what I'd written.  No one has been rude to us.  (We've been stared down in groceries and playgrounds, yes, but it hasn't felt menacing.) In fact, our church rolled out a plush red carpet and welcomed us with food, parties, acceptance, and warmth.  Every word I wrote yesterday was true... but don't read between any lines.  It is as simple as this:

Adoption is a huge part of my calling and my world.  It feels lonely without others to join me in that. Or at least know where I am coming from.

Thanks to everyone on Facebook who yesterday gave me some leads on where in Mobile I can look for others passionate about adoption.

Why is it so important for me to connect with families similar to ours?  After all, not everyone is called to adopt.  Why can't I simply accept that and not care whether we know other foster or adoptive families?  Well, there are several reasons:

5 Reasons Adoptive/Foster Families Need Each Other

1. For our children.

Children like seeing other families like their own.  It is healthy.  Not everyone looks like their parents or siblings, and it helps our children to see friends who look nothing like their families.  In the teen years, I imagine Caroline will moan with friends over how she was born to such lame parents, and Amelia can moan with adoptive friends about how she and they were adopted by such lame parents.  And I'm okay with that. :)

2. For our sanity.

Every parent faces parenting challenges.  Some doubts and fears are unique to adoptive parents.  We need to call each other and ask, "Do you think she's stuffing wads of food in her mouth and holding it there because she has food issues from the orphanage, or because she's a typical crazy two year old?"  

3. For ministry.

Adoptive/foster parents help each other.  Besides sharing advice, stories, and shoulders to cry on... foster parents swap babysitting duty.  We swap books about attachment.  We encourage each other. AND... we minister together.  We have a common passion to help orphans, birth mothers in crisis, and prospective adoptive parents.  We brainstorm ways to serve the foster system with the light of Christ.  We organize prayer meetings.  We share with others how adoption on earth looks like what God did for us.  We cheer for each other when an adoption is finalized or a milestone is reached, and we cry with each other when a foster placement is lost or our chosen country faces adoption delays or closings.

It is truly a beautiful thing.

4. Because we really don't like being weird.

The nutshell story of how our family chose Uganda for our adoption:
We felt called to adopt.  

We watched too many Lifetime movies and were irrationally scared of domestic adoption.  

We checked our agency's international requirements chart and thought Uganda looked like the easiest route.

The end.  

We didn't set out to adopt outside of our race.  We simply were not opposed to it.

Even those who specifically feel called to adopt outside of their race rarely do so BECAUSE they want to be odd.  Race is simply not a top consideration.  (And then you, blog reader, have to put up with the after effects: weeks of me processing race relations NOW because I rarely put thought into it on the front end of adoption!)

Sure, it seems like our family should be fine with being different.  We chose it.  Okay, okay, so I'm a little over-sensitive this month about the race issue because I'm new to town and just want to blend.  But most of the time, race issues are not even on my radar.  

Even so, it's sometimes nice to hang around people who are the same kind of different as us. :)

5. Because there's just a special bond.

Not long after starting the adoption process, I began to meet other adoptive families online.  There are instant similarities.  Instant bonds.  Instant life-passions and Christian callings that cross in a way that creates friendships where we'd otherwise be strangers.

Then I began to meet other adoptive families in my town.  It was heaven.  I'd never known so many people who I shared so much in common with.  So  yes, I want that to happen again here.

And I think it will. :)

In time.

Help me out.  What did I miss?  Are there any other reasons foster/adoptive families need each other?

(Example: To scour Facebook for you when you move and need to find adoptive families in your own town... Y'all rock! Thank you!!)

My Shut Mouth & Their Gaping Mouths

With any new experience, there's the temptation to whine, "But that's not the way it was done when [fill in the blank.]"  Every substitute teacher deals with children whining, "But teacher does it differently."

How annoying.

And so I find myself in a new town, clamping my hands tightly over my mouth to avoid complaining about the differences I'm not yet used to.  In time, I know, the quirks of Mobile will be the character that builds our home here.

Probably the hardest thing about living in Mobile so far?
Adoption is not on the radar.  

I'm used to a a city at least somewhat accustomed to adoption, including international and transracial adoption.  I am NOT used to the gaped-mouth, puzzled faces I encounter when holding Amelia's hand in Mobile.  (Especially when Brad is not with me.) No one is mean to us.  They are simply confused by us.  It is tiring to be one of the first transracially adoptive families in a town.

I owe some thank you's to the first transracially adoptive families in our old town.  They made life easy on us last year!

Tiring as it is to be one of the first -- (surely we're not the only, right? surely not.) -- Anyway, as tiring as it is, I'm praying that Amelia's precious face is ministering to people here. Changing hearts.  Opening eyes.

Because there was a time when I once stared gape-mouthed at the white mama of a black daughter.  (Hi, Joy Portis!)  I remember thinking, "Wow... that mom loves her daughter a lot.  Hmm!"

I had no idea I was looking into my future.

These days, I resist the urge to squirm under the confused gazes of Mobilians by remembering one important fact:  Sometimes, underneath those wide eyes and tilted heads, seeds are planted.  Some of the people staring at us are actually staring into their future.  They too will be adoptive parents.

God will move in the hearts of some of these people.
Some will choose to care for orphans.
And many will learn that God adopted us.  Loved us.  Children who, although made in His image, don't often look much like Him.  

And maybe then, they'll see that transracial adoption is a lot more common than they thought.

Tennis

I have a real post coming. No really, it's typed out neatly... Inside of my brain... And as soon as I sit at a computer, it's flowing out my fingers and I'll post it.

But, it's a hard life. First I have to play tennis mom. And take the girls to a craft fair. And visit the fire station for fun and safety games. :) Tough living, right?

I love being home with my girls!

Waiting Wednesdays

For those of you who are waiting...

“I am sure God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait.” -C.S. Lewis

Another Great Book for Teaching The Bible to Kids

(I'm awaiting a replacement laptop cord, so this week is once again a series of finger-typed iPhone posts. Lame.)

A few months ago, I posted a list of rocking Bible storybooks. My brother added a new one to my list. I haven't seen it yet, but I hear it's nearly as great as the Jesus Storybook Bible, but with lots of stories that are not in the Jesus Storybook Bible or the Big Picture Story Bible. (The two favorites at our house!)

It's called The Gospel Story Bible. We need it. Do you?

PS- To anyone needing great curriculum for children's Sunday school, I hear AWESOME curriculum can be ordered with this book!

Who Am I!?

I don't know who I am anymore. I love it. It's one of those glorious Monday mornings when I set the girls up with a craft while I sort laundry... Wait, what!? I'm not cursing Mondays as I drive to work??? I'm facing the laundry piles head on? I know CRAFTS!?

Don't hate me as I brag. I'm just still so excited about time with my girls. It's a luxury.

And I'm no Mary Poppins. I get equally excited about breaks from Caroline and Amelia. Shhh. Don't tell them!

Friday Flashbacks: Let's Talk About Sex, My Baby! {Teaching Daughters Sex - God's Way}

Today's Friday Flashback is recent... it's a guest post I wrote for The Uncontainable Truth last week!

_________________________________

There was a midnight feeding just days after I became a mother when I held my tiny, innocent firstborn daughter and wept. Caroline was perfect. Dim shafts of streetlight snuck through curtains, haloing her tiny form as we rocked. A terrifying thought entered my mind: Someday, this angelic infant would become a teenager, and then a college student… and she would face temptations of every kind. Including the sexual kind.

It was probably post-labor hormone imbalance, but the thought made me cry.

And in that moment, my heart became burdened by the hollow platitudes we teach daughters about sexuality.

We don’t teach our daughters about the grace that enables them to live in meaningful, beautiful sexual purity; we teach an empty, moralistic code. We preach “thou shalt nots” and “be respectable.” We fail to mention that, thank God, there is more in it for us than simply giving the “virginity gift” to our husbands and not “causing our brothers to stumble by dressing immodestly.”

As a high school student in the conservative Southeast, my friends and I were inundated with both secular and Christian pleas for abstinence. Several friends wore True Love Waits rings where future wedding bands would sit. We made purity pacts at slumber parties. We knew that two construction paper hearts sensually glued together could not later be separated without each heart losing bits of itself.

Yet in time, rings were quietly removed. Pacts were no longer mentioned. Our paper hearts broke.

How do hearts still break, even in the midst of warnings about teen pregnancy, STD’s, loss of reputation, loss of virgin status, loss of a clean track record to offer your future spouse? With so much to lose, why do warned, educated, Christian youth still fall prey to sexual temptation at a rate EQUAL to non-Christian youth?

The heart of this problem may be that we don't understand the purpose of sex.

The Bible says all things were created BY and FOR Christ. (John 1:3, Col. 1:16) So how do we live according to the truth that SEX is BY and FOR Jesus?

Yeah, yeah. You’ve heard sermons explaining four God-ordained reasons for sex: procreation, intimacy, companionship, and pleasure. Got it. All true. But there is a greater picture… a beautiful metaphor… the scandalous reality that God made sex to depict our relationship to him.

In today’s anything-goes society, hardly any word is labeled as a bad one. Except for jealousy. (and a few others , such as intolerance.)

We think it’s bad to be jealous.

Break up with your boyfriend because he was too jealous. Complain about your jealous wife. We want our gods and our significant-others to be permissive.

Culture says there are as many paths to heaven as there are sexual experiences to be had.  We want to keep our options open.

But the Bible calls God our Husband, and He is a jealous God. God teaches that it is right for One relationship to take precedence over the others.

Marriage on earth should take precedence over other human relationships.
The Church’s marriage to God should take precedence over all else.

It is right for a young girl to save herself for her earthly husband.
It is right for all Christians to be passionately and lovingly devoted to their heavenly Husband.

My husband Brad is allowed righteous rage if I cheat.

Our Heavenly Husband also has this right… although the entire book of Hosea is about how God instead woos His prostituting Bride back to Him.

Sigh.

Rather than (rightfully) annihilating us, God romances us back into His arms.

When young girls are told to remain pure, more is at stake than their body and earthly relationships.

They are living a metaphor. As our daughters finish school in purity, waiting to meet their husbands – should they decide to marry – they ARE the virgin brides from Scripture awaiting THE Husband.

Spiritually speaking, young virgins are urged to remain ready for their Groom. To not distract and forget their Love is coming.

When our girls plan their weddings in excitement, they need to be reminded that a far greater Wedding feast is held in Revelation 20, and that Jesus our Groom held his first earthly miracle at a wedding reception.  As they walk down the aisle towards a spouse, they are to remember that each step on this earth is a bit of the aisle closer to their Husband Jesus.

It’s heady stuff, I know. The marriage metaphor is extensive in Scripture. There is no way to cover it all in a blog post. But I beg you… if you plan to have your daughter educated in Chemistry, Algebra, and fine literature… please, take the time to educate her on the beautiful and complex truths in Scripture that relate to the true reasons she should remain sexually pure.

Learn the truths for yourself, too.

After all, you have a wedding to get ready for. Don’t worry about what you’ll wear… Jesus promised to make the gown for you. (see Revelation 20.)  Don’t be caught off guard. Your Husband could be here any day.

Pictures and Video on the Powerful Beauty of Natural Hair

(All photos in this post are a part of The Coiffure Project, in which photographer Glenford Nunez displays the beauty of natural hair.)

 

Growing up, I believed the myth that racism was over.

We lived in a fairly new community, void of the historic social structures that create labels such as “old money,” “pedigree,” and “the right kind of family.”  Our neighborhoods were too new to have been scarred by wounds from white flight.  Our public schools excelled, so private schools were few and small.  The rich, middle class, and less wealthy learned together, red and yellow black and white, all precious in the teacher’s sight.

College clarified my view of the world.  There, I was struck by the systematic racism of Greek life, as well as the verbal racism of fraternity “good old boys”.  The deep roots of racial hate thrive in settings built on tradition.  In a university setting, we learned generations-old alma maters, football cheers, sports lore… and that whites are not entirely ready to accept blacks.  My generation also was infected by the disease of hate.

In hindsight, it’s ludicrous that I thought black-white race relations were fine as a child.  Yes, compared to the places I’ve lived as an adult, I grew up in a utopia for diversity.  Still, I ignored countless clues as a child that something was off in the way blacks and whites interacted.

• At a fourth grade assembly, my friend LaDonna stroked my hair for an hour, mesmerized because she’d never touched a white girls’ hair.  When we’d chat on the phone after school, her aunt would sometimes gush in gratitude because I talked to her niece.
• Entering middle school, I was devastated that my best friend Teresa stopped hanging out with me in favor of the black crowd.  She thought the end of our friendship was clearly inevitable, as if colorblind friendship was baby stuff.  I hadn’t seen it coming, nor did I find it odd that I’d never once been to my best friend’s house; she’d only been to mine.
• When I was 13, my friend Heather invited me to church camp.  There I had a wild crush on a black boy named Tip.  He was a precious gentleman.  He held my hand at worship, bought us pizza after an inedible cafeteria meal, and asked for a single peck of a kiss at the end of the week.   At church camp, I had no doubt my crush was pure.  But Heather and I carried memories of Tip home like a scandalous rendezvous in Vegas.  What happens at church camp stays at church camp.  When Tip later called me at home, I was terrified someone would discern from his voice that he was black.  I can’t remember what shameful attitude I gave him, but he read clearly between the lines and never called again. Until today, I doubt anyone but Heather knew I once kissed a black boy.

How in the world did I believe black-white relations were equitable?

As members of the white majority, it’s easy to trust all is well with the world.  We’re proud that lynching ceased and that the only remaining KKK members are toothless rednecks.  Our president is black, for heaven’s sake.  The times, they are a’changing. 

The boiling hatred of the 1960’s and earlier has calmed to a simmer.  The white majority stands safely away from the cauldron, while minorities get burned by the steam.  A subtle, constant stream of degradation fills the air.   It took becoming the mother of a black child for me to see it.

Why do I tell you my personal history?  

Because I want you to watch a video, and I want you to understand why I found it so moving.  

It is a simple, five minute video about black women choosing to transition from the chemically straightened hair, which mimics a white ideal, into their natural, beautifully unique black curls.

I nearly cried watching this video, and then felt so puzzled about it.  My own hair hasn't been natural (color-wise) since the seventh grade; why am I so proud of black women doing what I’m unwilling to do?


Sure, I should accept my own natural self more willingly, including my hair color.  But there is an added incentive for Amelia to accept her natural hair:  By accepting her natural curls, her dark skin, her thick and fluffy afro, Amelia is also accepting the attributes of her race.  I can change my hair brown, black, red... I am still aiming at some sort of Caucasion ideal.  And I can live with that, because I am Caucasion.  But if Amelia some day relaxes her hair and attempts to turn it silky straight, and perhaps even adds Beyonce highlights of blonde... then she is also aiming at a Caucasion ideal.  And I cannot live with that.

And so, this video about a movement towards natural hair for black women made me want to stand up and cheer.
Amelia is a girly-girl, and I'm certain she'll work hard towards beauty in life.  I just hope she does so out of pride for who God made her.  I pray she never believe the subtle lie culture tells that black looks less desirable.  She was born Ugandan, and stunning.  May she remain that way for life.


(click here for video)

Waiting Wednesdays

For those of you who are waiting...

"Waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one's thoughts."

— Elizabeth Elliot

"Blackbird"

My dad informed me yesterday that Paul McCartney's song "Blackbird" was written in honor of the United States Civil Rights Movement.

The first six years of my adult life have been in cities haunted by lingering ghosts of racism.  Montgomery was home to Rosa Parks and the bus boycott, Martin Luther King's church, and where the marches from Selma ended.

Mobile, I've recently learned, also has quite a past.  As recently as 1981, the KKK here selected a black teenager at random and lynched him.  And I don't even know how to describe the kidnapped and illegal beginnings of Africatown in Mobile.  (I need a separate post if I ever write about that.  Click here for a fascinating overview.)  Or simply watch the 2007 documentary Order of the Myths, which is all about current racial and social tension in Mobile, especially surrounding Mardi Gras.

I don't mean to make my two most recent homes look bad.  I am falling in love with Mobile and deeply love Montgomery.  Amelia has been welcomed in each place.  But as the mother of a black child, my eyes see the need for further racial reconciliation more clearly than they used to.

And so, I'm moved that Paul McCartney wrote a song to champion this movement.
I pray we continue to move forward in love and unity.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these sunken eyes and learn to see

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly

Blackbird fly

Into the light of the dark black night

Blackbird fly

Blackbird fly

Into the light of the dark black night

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Invisible Here in Mobile {Hidden in Christ}

Well, we're here. We're finally fully living here, in Mobile.

Our erratic schedule is calming into a rhythm, our boxes are unpacked, and today, a new kind of normal begins. Here.

I was aching for so many things I found here.  My life as an accountant in a cubicle in Montgomery left me empty and begging God for more.

Here, I feel like a better wife and mother.  Our family spends more time together.
Here, I pray for my family more than I used to as I clean (surprise, surprise!) and work to turn our house into a home.
Here, I watch Brad dream about our church's potential as he grows as a preacher.
Here, I also dream about my purposes in this season of life... how I can serve God.

Last week, we started homeschooling.
The girls and I ripped open boxes full of books as if it were Christmas morning.  We are having so much fun reading and learning together.

This weekend, we talked long with new friends in love with Jesus.
What a relief to so quickly find partners to share ministry with.

Yesterday, our sweet friend Mike promised to put me in the youth Sunday school teacher rotation.
I loved teaching youth Sunday school in Montgomery.  What a blessing that this isn't over!

Today, I'll call a social worker from our adoption agency (who lives nearby) to find out where I can volunteer in ministry to orphans, or birth mothers, or adoptive families, or foster care situations.
(Now you know that's my passion!)

Tomorrow, we'll eat dinner with a family from across the bay who is considering adoption from Africa.
In this whole city, we've yet to meet (or hear of!) even one transracially adoptive family.  I pray this dinner is the start to a new movement here.

I'm not bragging on myself.
I'm bragging on the Savior who heard our cry in Montgomery.  He knew Brad was ready to preach more.  He knew I needed freedom from accounting so I could fulfill callings at home and elsewhere. (My "elsewhere" wish list is long and rambling!)
I do boast that, while our family is weak, Christ still is giving us the hope of serving Him.
Serving Him here.

Can I tell you something embarrassing?

Even with the opportunities God is lavishing upon us here, I frequently care most about what PEOPLE think of ME.  (rather than caring about simply living for Christ.)

• When new acquaintances ask where we'll send Caroline to kindergarten, I mutter the word "home school" with red face, convinced that they've now imposed a bizarre stereotype on our family. (or I skip the term "home school" and only tell them our plan to send her to mother's morning out two days each week for 4K!)
• When visitors enter our home, I wish I could tell them our old house was large and new and stylish.  Do I think this charming yet small new home conceals our true identity?  Worse still, do I find my identity in a house?
• I make mental shopping lists of "must buy" trend-setting clothing items... something I rarely did when living in Montgomery.
• I wonder whether my style of worship as the congregation sings on Sunday mornings seems eccentric to this traditional church.

I am ready to let these fears go.
I am tired of idolizing the opinions of mere humans.

How will I grow past this?  I think knowing one truth is key:
I am hidden in Christ.

I am safely tucked away in the His Presence. (and His Presence is so good!)

• If I am homeschooling to teach my girls more about Christ -- then there I am hidden in Him and safe from the opinion of man!
• If I'm content in my home because my greatest treasure is Jesus rather than the place I live -- then there I am hidden in Him and safe from the opinion of man!
• If to me, clothes are simply clothes... if I neither idolatrously obsess over them nor moralistically deprive myself of them as a false religion -- then there I am hidden in Christ and safe from the opinion of man!
• If my worship on Sunday mornings is genuine, no matter how it's manifested -- then there I am hidden in Christ and safe from the opinion of man!

Christ is in me.  He is also over me.  Covering me.

And here, in the sweet dark cave where I am hidden, resurrection occurs.  

Here, in the tomb of death to my selfish desires, Christ comes to life in me.

Here, His nail-scarred hands and feet begin to move within my own, and I find myself living in His steps, walking out into His light.

Here, where I am hidden in Jesus, 

I vanish, I die, and my deepest dreams come true...

Jesus becomes visible in me.

I must decrease. 

Christ must increase.

And increase, and increase,

and increase my joy.

Here.

I think we'll like living here.

Happy Father's Day!

(or as Caroline would say, "Happy St. Father's Day!")

Total Faith

Waiting Wednesdays

For those of you who are waiting...

"Beloved, whatever you are waiting for or believing for, God will not be late. The Lord is the the Healer. He is just. He is the dreamer of dreams and He answers prayers. Be ssured that He will bring that prodigal home..... Don't give up hope and one day you will see the resurrection you have been waiting for, come your way!"  - Cindy Jacobs

Owl Sleep Training Night Light + Owl Bedtime Book

(Forgive my random posts... Internet is still not set up at our new house, so all you get is what I peck on my iPhone. )

My girls are sharing a room now. The room has many doors, so the only way to arrange their two twin beds without blocking a door was... to push them nearly together! I was nervous about it. I envisioned zombie children, exhausted from late night giggling. My constant prayer was, "God, we're trying to honor You by living on less so I can be home with my girls, and we thought this was the best room arrangement in our new home. Perhaps You will teach us through the adversity of nightmare bedtimes BUT... is there any way You could make this easy on us? Can You just help our girls sleep well?"

So far, the girls have done great.

Thank You, God.

Still, they lacked:
1) a nightlight in our (scary to them) new house, and
2) an incentive to stay in bed in the morning until, oh, the sun came up at least.
(My alarm clock had become the voice of Caroline scream-whispering, "Sissy! Sissy! Let's get up! Wake up, Sissy!")

So we got them this precious owl nightlight, which glows their choice of yellow, blue, or pink at night. In the mornings, it turns green at the time I designate they can leave their beds. They know to stay put until they see a green owl.

Night light? Check.

The girls understanding when to get out of bed each morning? Check.

Precious new toy the girls adore? Check.

Mama's mornings back? Check!

Genius!

Even better...
Another owl bedtime product to amplify the fun.

My girls love the owl themed bedtime story our friend Jessica bought for Amelia's birthday. Little Hoot begs his parents for the chance to GO TO BED, but his parents sternly insist he STAY UP an extra hour to play like a good night owl. My girls laugh so hard at the irony.

They clutch their glowing owl night light as we read about Little Hoot.

All you sleep deprived parents out there... these products can't hurt!

God, Sex, and My Little Girls

I'm blogging over at The Uncontainable Truth today... Click here to join us!

Thin Walls

It's been storming pretty wildly here in Mobile. I first thought the thin walls of this house were charming, as I'd wake up to the sound of chirping birds. But for two nights now, we've laid awake shivering to the noise of booming thunder and rapids of rainfall gushing off our roof. We've shared beds with our frightened girls as lightening repeatedly illuminated their wide eyes.

A song we sang Sunday morning brightened my perspective on the storms. We sang to and of God, "clothed in rainbows/ of living color/ flashes of lightening/ rolls of thunder".

I could only laugh at the reminder of what a holy, huge God we serve. I'd been immersed in unpacking boxes, finding homes for forks, toothbrushes, extra sheets. How did I let these menial tasks avert my eyes from the God who wears lightening as an accessory?

We moved to Mobile knowing we're meant to serve here. We're meant to think past the walls of this old house. So I sit curled under a blanket this morning, feeling thunder shake the couch beneath me, knowing my girls may wake soon in tears at the crashing sound they just heard...

... and I am thankful. I am thankful for thin walls that cause me to hear the deafening sound of our God. A God whose grace is as big as His frightening power. Whose mercy extends as far as His justice. Whose wrath fell on Jesus, rather than on us, because His love for us is louder than the storm raging outside my door.

This Week

This week we moved to Mobile. A few days later, we drove six hours south to Jacksonville, Florida where ours girls wildly laughed with two cousins and grandparents.

We're driving home now.

Tomorrow, we'll nap. :)