Friday 29 September 2017

The Other Shoe

For months I've wondered and prayed, wishing everyday for the fog of uncertainty to be lifted away.  This would be so much more manageable, I think, if only I was more knowledgeable about the longterm.  If the plan were tangible, my emotions would surely be balanceable.  But who am I kidding.  Now that they've said the words out loud - just the possibility that she will be leaving - and the futility of trying to keep a steady heartbeat is laughable.  In all probability, this move is her best imaginable, and so I can hold no hostility, besides there won't be capacity when the she moves out and the grieving moves in.  Just as my heart keeps tripping over itself, my stomach is flipping over itself.  I will spend these unremitting days chipping away absentheartedly at the daily, knowing the other shoe is about to fall squarely on the most vulnerable part of my soul.  Because there is no loophole to this loving business.  When she goes, her being gone is only the tip of the iceberg.  There will be the weight of the grief strapped to my chest where I carried her, the dimness of the room that isn't being lit by her smile, the doorway glaringly empty with no one to bounce the Jolly Jumper.  And instead of it feeling emptier, my home and my heart will feel heavy with her tangible absence.  Now I wonder at my ability to give up comfortable.  How many times is the unimaginable loving and losing a child navigable?

Thursday 27 July 2017

Adoption

My caseworker sits down beside me on the couch and I never know where in the world the meeting is going to go.  Today's agenda is Pip and longterm plans - but I never know this until she pulls her haphazard binder from her overstuffed bag.

It seems that everyone who matters is fairly certain that Pip will not be going back to her parents.  And given the last year, that seems reasonable to assume.  Reasonable, at least, to a reasonable outsider.  Slightly less reasonable to me who has seen who wonky and illogical and mysterious and messed-up the system is.  But in any case, that is what we are supposed to be planning and preparing for.

So she hands me a phone number and says I am supposed to call the adoption intake worker.  I will have to ask for adoption paperwork which we need to fill out as soon as possible.  Then we will be put on a list to attend adoption classes and eventually have our home study completed.  Ya know, again.  Because that makes a lot of sense.

But the thing is, my caseworker can't answer the important questions.  What if the case doesn't go the way everyone thinks it will?  What if Pip goes back to mom and dad?  What if she goes to another family?  How do I fill out stacks of paperwork, attend training, prepare for her to be mine forever and still protect my heart in case it all takes a different direction?  How do I trust in the face of so much uncertainty?  How do I love and not lose my mind?

Sunday 9 July 2017


She screams and thrashes in her sleep at the obnoxious time of just-as-I’m-slipping-blissfully-out-of-consciousness-myself.  Eyes closed, she kicks the side of the crib, tormented.  My words do nothing to soothe her, my gentle touch just makes her writhe that much more.  So I pull her out of bed, change the scenery, distract her with a cup of milk.  She studies my face while seems to wonder what we are doing awake in the dark of night - as do I.  Minutes later her head burrows into my chest and her weight sinks into me with trust and sleepiness.  I would breathe in the smell of her, if her frizzy curls weren’t already tickling my nose.  And I am honoured to be the one holding her in as many of these moments as she needs.

Monday 3 July 2017

Two Daughters

The cry that gets me up of the couch turns out to just be a whimper in her sleep.  I've gotten off the couch an hour into the coveted quiet of evening and tiptoed into the girls' room for nothing.  But it must be one of the very best nothings I have ever been privileged to take in.  One sleeps on her back, arms above her head and lips still parted from where the soother was released in slumber.  I smile at her peaceful perfection in the center of the white crib before turning around.  My gaze searches for the other, pushed up into the corner of her matching crib, bum in the air, blankets gathered and clutched beneath her, curls splayed in the halo of sleep.  I have two daughters.  The words still seems surreal.  I have been entrusted with these two precious, beautiful, valuable, delightful, inherently lovable souls.  May His grace fill me with wisdom and patience and strength.  May His grace overflow to them, for I know I will not ever be enough.

Monday 26 June 2017

Papa, your grace changes diapers and paces with discontent babies.  It comforts a whimpering toddler and patiently remains present to a tantruming one.  It does laundry incessantly and prepares food ongoingly.  It makes bottles and restocks diaper bags.  It hugs and kisses.  It reads and explores and crafts.  It answers questions and finds missing shoes.  It makes soccer snack and refills water bottles.  It tucks in and tucks in again.  It isn't flowery or obscure or lofty.  It is alive and active, living and loving and mighty.  It is present and it is enough.  Enough for me, and enough for these five littles.

Monday 24 April 2017

Heart Transplant

Every moment of anguish vacuums the joy out of the corners of my heart. Tears come or worse, they don't.  Pain gets deeper, breaths get shallower and I wish I had the words.  Any words, dammit.  

It feels empty.  But it isn't, is it?  My grief is not the absence of joy, it is the overwhelming loss of it.  The greater the joy was at the one end of the spectrum, the more encompassing the sorrow is at this end.  I want to wish away the pain, but I fear it would take with it the memories.  Maybe I can't live without either.  Because what-was was wonderful and what-is has to be.  

Truth be told, this isn't the first time I have wondered at His goodness.  Not the first time I have doubted His ways.  I didn't like it last time either or the time before, but oh my soul, did it tangle me up in my Father's love.  

Driven to my knees, sure that this time it was too much.  This time I might not see His glory again, His grace again.  How I long to be proven wrong by His faithfulness, because this time the only thing worse than being wrong is being right.  

It is hard.  Too hard, in fact.  But it is not over.  I refuse to believe this is the one situation He cannot redeem, that this is the one where He washes His hands of me and says 'you're on your own.'  

Most days I beg Him to take this burden from me.  To give me His yoke that is easy and His burden that is light.  Yet I know, in my heart of hearts, that He lets nothing go to waste in the shaping and perfecting of my faith.  I know because of the whispers.  Somedays I barely catch them as they float by on the rhythms of Your glory.  Somedays they arrest me in Your presence and I am known.  

The whispers find the cracks.  Lord, they pour and trickle and puddle in all the right corners of my heart.  And I know that this sorrow today, this is yet another fissure into which You spill Your whispers.  I know it even as I see that my words have morphed into whispers back to You.  

I don't want a heart transplant, I want to see what You do with this one You're cupping in Your hands.  

Friday 3 March 2017

Goodness

I follow three bouncing flashlight beams through the woods and I soak in this gift, consciously breathing in the tingly refreshment and calling it His goodness.

I lean back on the strong chest of the one who has chosen me and we swing, giggling that what is supposed to be fun just makes us feel dizzy and old - and it is good.

Was it only a few weeks ago that I struggled to sing the truths of His goodness, because my tears belied my words?  Stepping into yet another Sunday, both yearning for and dreading what was ahead.  The power in proclaiming things I knew to be true but that did not feel to be true, melting me into a messy puddle - again.

As I walk the sidewalks to school and the hallways of home, I breathe out His words and find I am breathing in His presence.  In time with my feet, my lips quietly recite God whose thoughts are higher than mine, God whose ways are higher than mine, God whose desires are higher than mine, God whose plans are higher, God whose love is greater, God whose grace is greater, God whose joy is greater, God whose goodness is greater.  The power in proclaiming things I know to be true making a crack for the God of those truths to settle a little deeper into my hesitant heart.

Between straining my eyes to make out the edges of His goodness and practicing praise despite my skewed perceptions, I discover that He has let me ease my way back into believing that He is not just good, but also good to me.  

I thank my Father that there are moments of overlap, in which what I know to be true also feels true.  I thank Him that His goodness also feels good today.

And I thank Him that He doesn't leave me there.  Even as those moments of overlap become more frequent, I feel Him reminding me that He isn't finished.  He has broken my heart for what breaks His and even as He heals it, He weaves into it the thread of His goodness that needs to be shared - again.

Wednesday 22 February 2017

God Who Hears (Gen 21:17)

Day in and day out, I question whether I did enough, said the right things, guided without crushing their spirits.  I don't want to be a good enough parent, I want to rock this.  I want them to know love and be able to give it, know empathy and be able to show it, know respect and be able to bestow it.  I want them to find the things they are good at, the things that bring them joy and ignite their passion.  I want them to care for themselves, each other, and the world.  I want them to know and be known by their Creator.  I want them to ride the waves of joy and grief, blessing and loss, and feel securely anchored in God's love and mine.  All of which sounds awesome until I find myself in the midst of tantrums and meltdowns and the mess of day-to-day.  And then He interrupts.  What is the matter?  Don't be afraid: I have heard the boy crying as he lies there.  You are the God who hears, and I am so thankful that you are attuned to the cries of my heart.  But, You are also the God who hears my boys, and I am unburdened as I place them and all their needs in Your bigger, wiser, stronger hands.

Monday 6 February 2017

A Week Without

Day One: Her mom's joy and her dad's pride are enough to carry me through this weirdly anticlimactic day I've been dreading and waiting for for months.  I am not her momma anymore.

Day Two: Texts from her new home fill some of the emptiness in my heart.  As do the countless expressions of support and prayer from family and the reminder of the Truth on which I stand.  I am not alone anymore.

Day Three: The missing grips me and I bury my head in another novel; maybe someone else's story will hurt less than mine today.  I am not strong anymore.

Day Four: I know that only time can heal, but time is not cooperating.  It crawls lazily and nothing I do succeeds in hurrying it along.  I kick it once more anyway, because I have to try.  I am not gracious anymore.

Day Five: It aches below my ribcage but above my stomach.  How does it feel like both a mass and a vacuum all at once?  I am not whole anymore.

Day Six: I slow myself down on the outside, trying to live in each moment.  Maybe if I soak in the goodness of the precious ones around me, I won't dwell on the one who is no longer mine to hold.  It almost works.  I am not calm anymore.

Day Seven: Is it a bit better today or is it just the chocolate talking?  Either way, distractions start to distract and joys start to bring joy.  I am not absorbed anymore.