A New 4 Letter Word

There’s a new 4 letter word that has taken up residence and my brain is starting to take root. I feel like it’s been put there by God or at least he is confirming it to me so it’s probably not one of the 4 letter worlds that you’re thinking that I’m thinking. I don’t want to leave you with dirty words hanging out in your brain so I’ll just share it with you.

 

Mend

That’s a pretty good one, huh? I don’t remember where the first place that I heard it and it caught my attention was, but I remember that when I heard it I thought about it for a minute and just felt a little sigh of contentment in my soul, the word “mend” and I had a specially little moment together. Then I heard it in a song. Then I read it in a book, “Torn” by Jud Wilhite, (and I’ll have more to say about this book later). Then I heard it in a totally different song. Then I found and read my Bible and randomly started in Jeremiah 31 and while it doesn’t actually use that word I think you could make a case for it being the theme of the chapter anyway. It was so reassuring and promising that I’ve read it every day since that first time.

I’ve been making plans for this summer (and I believe summer to be June 1-August 31 without regard for what the calendar tells me because I’m wild like that) and my plans have a lot to do with mending (little and big) hearts that have been torn over the last 25 months. I hadn’t thought of the plans in light of “mending” until I heard the word the other day, but really, that’s the goal.

I had high hopes for these plans according to what I wanted to see by the end of the summer, but I was also nervous because things haven’t gone that smoothly since we brought Boohoo home. It’s just been hard, followed by more hard, topped off with more hard and the result has been torn hearts, rips in our family, stretched seams, fraying hems, and outright holes in some places. We need some relief and even as I was planning and trying to get that for us, I was afraid because disappointment hurts. We know that you don’t always get what you want even when you pray for it and it would seem to make sense. Just because my plans were pointed toward mending and restoring us doesn’t mean that’s what we’d get, we could just get another dose of hard and so sometimes that makes it easier (not right) to aim for nothing because we can hit that.

But now, I have a little more confidence, more confidence than I’ve had in a few months because God keeps bringing the word “mend” around. It feels like it’s confirming my plans, my desire, the pull of my heart to restore my family. We are ready to be mended.

Ecclesiastes 3:1,7a

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to tear and a time to mend….”

A brief vision

I normally only see what’s in front of me…except for when I don’t see it and I walk straight into a pole or something, but luckily that hasn’t happened ever for awhile. I don’t normally hallucinate. I don’t normally have visions either. I might have had one today though.

I looked at the table and I gasped (out loud) because this is what was in front of me. It wasn’t the mess that surprised me. Messes rarely surprise me these days.

But what I “saw” was a table with three “big kids” around it and instead of playdough the table was scattered with papers, books, backpacks, and the clutter that will be three simultaneous teenagers and then I saw three “grown children” and a table full of coats, wallets, a purse, and an infant seat for my grandchild. I know it’s crazy, but it just might be going that fast. I don’t believe in savoring every moment because seriously, I had poop on my arm this weekend, but I might love this picture of sweetness for the rest of my life. No matter what it feels like day in and day out when they are this age they are getting badder bigger every day.

Pulled Apart

 

This is the next post in what I think is probably my unofficial series of “Mother Heal Thyself”. I’m not saying that because I think any healing has taken place in my heart, but because maybe this is removing the rocks from my tomb. At any rate, it’s certainly my wondering how we get from Here to There.

Baked Dirt Heart

Here I Raise MY Ebenezer

Finding Some Strength

Just something quick that I have rattling around in my brain, two ideals, playing against each other, opposites.

I feel myself pulled in two different directions, for me, I think it boils down to the pull of the world versus the pull of my faith. In my life I boil Christianity down to love. In Matthew 22: ³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’^{[a] 38} This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^{[b] 40} All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” And then there’s John 13: 35, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another”.

Besides the fact that so many people in the church have forgotten love, oi, I know that I am called to love, actually love, Boohoo. I have not and do not believe that I’m called to “fake it til I make it”. Love. I am Boohoo’s mother. I don’t believe that I was “called” to adopt, but I do believe that as someone that loves and follows Jesus that I am called to love. Love. Love. Love. I’m called to love without counting the cost to myself, to love at my own loss, to love even when it’s a sacrifice, to love when it would be easier, safer, explainable, and understandable not to, to love when I don’t want to, to love because He first loved me, to love because He is love, to love because in Him I am new.

I feel that call. I feel it beating in my heart and pulsing through my body. I feel it strengthening my arms and empowering me to reach out, to calm down, to smile, to speak nicely, to show love. I feel the call to love expanding my boundaries.

If the call of Jesus is to love then I feel that the song the world is singing is self-preservation. It tells me that it is good, right, acceptable, logical, and my duty to take care of myself. I need to follow my goals, my dreams, my path and that if it comes at the expense of anyone else that’s okay. It’s my right, it’s my life, it’s my will that matters. If I can do some good along the way then all the better, but I don’t have to, shouldn’t, step too far off my path in order to do that good. The tune of self-preservation is catchy and once it’s in my head it’s hard to get it out again. And those outstretched arms? They wither and tremble when self-preservation is in control, to self-preserve you have to pull back, stay guarded, protect.

I’m trying to dance to two different tunes and I’m getting mixed up (like my examples) and I’m tripping over myself since I don’t know which song is the one I’m supposed to be listening to.

Love.

Self-preservation.

And me.

No controversy for me, thanks.

Here’s a crazy original idea: an inflammatory article about breastfeeding/parenting/motherhood designed to create a division between mothers, drive up ratings, and take the guilt and shame that so often come with motherhood and spread it on a little thicker. What? Not original at all? Huh. The next thing you’re going to say is that ridiculous and divisive political ads are status quo around election years. Oh, that’s right, now we’re wading through both. Super.

What if we just didn’t fall for it? What if we all just gave Time’s article* the Mom Glare because no matter what kind of nipple you used to feed your baby I know we’ve all got the Mom Glare down and refused to lower ourselves to them? I’m just idealistic enough to believe that if we didn’t let them divide us, if we didn’t let them make us fight with each other and we started fighting for each other we could get some stuff done.

Personally, I don’t care. My reaction is really more of an internet eye-roll than being riled up by this. This is what I want to know about how you feed your baby: that you’re doing it. As long as you feed that baby, do it however you want. Do I have an opinion? Yes. But it doesn’t matter. Parenting. Be respectful, treat your child like you’d like to be treated. Obey the laws. Don’t make CPS come after you. There. Got it covered. Do I have more opinions? Sure. Do they matter? Eh, to my limited circle, maybe. But c’mon, this is nuts.

There are issues in this world involving women that are so much bigger than this that actually have a right and a wrong side for us to rally against. Here’s just a few suggestions in case anyone is listening:

1. Women (in the United States and around the world) are still being coerced into letting their children be adopted.

2. Women’s health care rights are constantly being hacked at, dismantled, and swept away.

3. Women still earn less money than men in the same profession.

4. Women are still being beaten, abused, and sold into slavery.

5. Women are bombarded by social messages telling how we should look, think, and act differently than we are because we’re not enough as we are, but if we buy this, say this, do this, have this ONE.MORE.THING. then we’ll be okay until the next fashion/phase/stage/technology/class/fad comes along and then we’ll have to add that one to our repertoire too.

Those are just the first five legitimate women’s issues that I thought up. I only heard about all this within the last hour so this is just a gut level reaction. But my gut says that I’m tired of the media crying wolf and trying to get me all riled up. There are plenty of things worth being riled up over. This just isn’t one of them.

 

* I linked to the part about the cover shot because, in my opinion, they were clearly just looking for the controversy from the picture to the title.

Birthday Letter

Dear Boohoo,

I need to say it now while the house is quiet and I’m not pulling my hair out…in fact, since everyone else is asleep there is no hair pulling happening at all right now. Tomorrow will be another normal day here. It will be loud. You will be loud. The boys will be loud. I will lose my patience and my temper and I will be loud too. But right now it’s quiet so I need to say this.

I am sorry and I am grateful.

This was the picture that began my undoing tonight.

This was two years ago. You were two years old (or so we’re told) and you’d been home for two days. You look so lost. I know I felt so lost and remembering those days I know you did too.

I am sorry. I’m sorry that you needed to be adopted. I’m sorry you couldn’t stay with your mom. I’m sorry that I wasn’t stronger for you. I’m sorry for the tears you cried that I couldn’t stop. I’m sorry for the ones that I didn’t even try to stop because I was crying myself by then. I’m sorry this hasn’t worked out the way we expected it to. I’m sorry it hasn’t worked out the way you deserved it too. I’m sorry that you are hurt in places that I haven’t been able to reach in two years. I’m sorry that I wonder if I’ll be able to reach those places if we had a million years. I’m sorry for my hurts that get in the way of me helping you. I’m sorry that somehow I wasn’t better prepared, better informed, better able to receive you with grace. I’m sorry that I didn’t do better by you.

I’m sorry that so many of the memories that we have of these first years are so painful and just so damn sad. I am sorry for the pain in your life, the pain that wasn’t my fault and the pain that was my fault. I’m sorry that I can’t take it away. I’m sorry that it’s hard for you to share me with the boys. I’m sorry that sometimes it’s hard for me to share me with you. I’m sorry you didn’t get the perfect for you family I see in my head. I’m sorry I can’t do all the things that I know I should do. I am so sorry that you’ve been hurt by life and I’m sorry because I know that there are hurts yet to come, more that won’t be my fault and more that will be my fault, more that I won’t know how to heal, more that I can’t heal, and more that we could work out if we both weren’t so stubborn.

I’m sorry for the days that we stalk around each other and throw punches because we’re both hurting. My punches are all figurative, but sugar, sometimes yours are for real. (We’ll just consider it practice for teenage boys start coming around and not worry too much.) I’m sorry for the days that I don’t see the source of your behavior as sadness. I’m sorry for the moments when we can’t put words into the memories so we can talk our way through them together, but instead we let them divide us. I’m sorry for the helplessness I feel. I’m sorry for when I let it take over and I’m ready to give up. I’m sorry for the times when I’ve blamed the behavior on sadness and really you were just being ornery. I’m sorry for the times when I said you were just being ornery and it was really sadness. I’m sorry for every step that I’ve gotten wrong in two years.

I look back at our first two years and I am so sorry. They’ve been hard years and I don’t want to do them over (HARD! YEARS!), but if I ever did have to get to do them over I would do them better. I’m sorry I didn’t do them better. I’m sorry.

And I say I’m sorry and I sit here and I cry and I sniffle and I mean every word of it. I. Am. Sorry. but I’m grateful too.

I can look into our toy closet right now and I see an excavator, a monster truck, two helicopters, and a fighting dinosaur, and right in the middle of all that I see a pink princess hat with ribbons. There were no princess hats in this house before you. I’m grateful for that hat in our closet.

When I do laundry tomorrow I’ll wash a load of bright clothes and two years ago I could go through and pull all the brightest colors and prints as my own clothes, but tomorrow I’ll have to be more careful. Your shirts are pink, purple, bright flowers, rainbows, sparkles, and yellow sunshines and flowers. You love bright colors and I’m grateful every time I see them because I think they’re better than one more dinosaur shirt, but don’t tell your brothers.

The next time we go to Target the boys will close their eyes and moan and whine while we walk through the “girl toys” (get a life, Target), but we will carefully scope out the best for possible shopping sprees later and then we’ll walk through the “boy toys” and we’ll scope out the best ones there too. I’m grateful that you are the best of both worlds in the toy store.

There’s a new game in our house and you invented it. The brothers would have never thought of it and even though most times I have to stop the game because it gets too rough (and none of you are allowed to play that when you’re older!) I’m grateful for it too. It’s called “the kissing game” and you tackle your brothers and you kiss them. We played games before you were here. Games like tag, tackle, chasing, and even tickling. But no one thought about a tackling hug and covering the opponent with kisses until you and I’m grateful for it.

I’m grateful for the tea parties, the doll babies, the dancing, the princess shows, the singing, the affinity for pink, purple, sparkles, glitter, and coloring. I’m thankful for your girly spunk in what would otherwise be turning into a house full of navy blue, dinosaurs, and tiny little boxer briefs. I’m grateful for your heart, for your pride, for your silliness, for your giggle, for your words, for your trying, for your hugs, for your kisses, for your happy in the morning personality, for your quick drop off to sleep, for your singing, for your perseverance, for your patience, for your stubbornness, for your smile, for that spark in your eye, for your attempt to try and fake me into thinking you REALLY don’t like certain foods just so I don’t make you try them, for your excitement about oatmeal in the morning, for your goofy run, and the way you know your own mind.

You bring a measure of balance into this house of boys. Sure, one of you can out balance both of them, but nothing is better than a girl with personality, and Sunshine, YOU HAVE PERSONALITY. I’m grateful for you. I’m grateful for your strength and the strong woman you are going to become. I’m grateful that you are awesome in both a twirly skirt and dirty “play in the yard jeans” with holes in the knees. I’m grateful that you try to pee outside like the boys and then come inside to watch Cinderella. I’m grateful that you love babies and dresses and someday we’re going to pick out your wedding dress (first!) and then (many years) after that we’ll hold your newborn baby together. I’m grateful for the funny stories that I’m going to have to pester you with when you get big and think you’re too cool for mom. I’m grateful for the opportunities for growth that you bring to all of us and the opportunities that you’re going to have as well.

I’m grateful for two years full wonder and worry and grateful that we are still here and looking down into two more years and then two years after that and then two years after that, and so on (but I’m sure when the time comes I’ll be grateful to send you off to college too). I’m grateful that we have this life together and sorry that it’s come at such an expense to you.I’m grateful I haven’t given up and neither have you.

And tomorrow when the chaos is reaching a critical level, whether I’m the one who is about to lose it, or whether it’s you (I hope it’s not both of us, that’s always harder!) I’m going to try and remember where we’ve come from and maybe just suggest we go outside and take some more pictures like this:

And dream about how great we’ll be in another two years.

Happy birthday, Boohoo.

 

Love,

Mom