The Moments that Make it All Worth It (#1)

So, I know you're not supposed to just copy and paste someone else's blog. . . but since this is from my dear husband, I guess it isn't exactly plagiarism, right?

For those of you familiar with my children, "boy 1" here is Speedy Mo, and "boy 2" is Chatty.

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Creeping Boys and Nighttime Confessions

Last night (about 10:30...well after bedtime) I could hear my two nine year old boys creeping toward the kitchen as I sat with my wife on the couch preparing to watch a movie. Here's how it played out:

Dad (D): Yes?

Boys (B): *silence*

D: Come here.

B: Dad, we want to tell you something. (How many of us dad's have heard this one before? I braced for discovering the inevitable...that I would indeed have to replace something, again.) We've been talking.

D: Okay...

B1: Dad, I'm sorry I haven't been respecting you and mom and not obeying you. Will you forgive me? I want to repent to God and give God glory and not be in charge of my own life anymore. I want to follow Jesus even if it's hard.

B2: Mom, Dad, I'm sorry too that I haven't been obeying and respecting you. Will you forgive me? I want to repent to God and follow Jesus, even if it's hard. I want God to get all the glory.

Mom (M) & D: We forgive you and we love you. Do you want to pray and tell God all of this too?

So they prayed. Then I prayed. They cried. We talked a while longer. It was special.

Instead of having to replace something, God had done that already...and the boys just wanted to tell me about it. God had been pursuing them since they had come to be in our family (B1...adopted almost four years ago and B2...adopted 1 1/2 years ago)...and they finally understood that they were sinners in need of forgiveness and grace (not just from Mom & Dad, but from God). God replaced their hearts of stone with hearts of flesh...softened enough to hear the Holy Spirit speaking to them and courageous enough to "get out of bed" to come talk to us about it.

I'm proud of my boys, praising God for their nine-year old confession, and looking forward to the Holy Spirit's work in their hearts and lives. I think I need God to continue to soften my heart too, so I can keep hearing Him more clearly; that I would be reminded of my own sinfulness; and that I would "repent to God" more often than I do.

Adoption Lessons: Connection Matters More than Correction

Oh, this lesson is SO hard to learn!

How often I find myself correcting, correcting, correcting over and over and well. . .

of course, when the 9 piranas are zooming in

and out taking chunks out of you all day,

I guess the natural response is to swat them and tell them to stop.

Either that or just run screaming.

Yeah.

I suppose neither option is very good.

So what then are we to do with these attachment challenged children

from hard places

that the Lord has given us to parent, to love, to bring up, to teach, to train?

We certainly can't keep correcting them all day, every day because

(as any mother of an attachment challenged child can tell you)

It mostly doesn't work

and

YOU WILL GO INSANE!

really, you will

Correction certainly has its place in parenting

just as the Lord corrects us as His children.

But, HIS desire for us isn't that we would just "act rightly."

Nope.

In fact, He knows this is impossible for us anyways.

We can't do it.

We are wicked, sinful, messed-up people

whose hearts are deceitful and who can NEVER just "be good"

- no matter how many times we try

and no matter how many times He corrects us.

Praise be to God

what He really longs for and pursues with us

is CONNECTION.

He wants a relationship with us!

He wants my heart to KNOW Him,

to long to be with Him,

to understand His ways,

and He is THERE for me to connect with

- always there,

always waiting,

always pursuing,

even when I've blown it.

Why, oh why, do I think my children need anything less than this from me?

Living this with my adopted children reminds me that I CHOOSE to walk in obedience

BECAUSE of His great love toward me

that I now believe, trust, know, understand

and now reciprocate out of my great love for Him.

Jesus said: If you love me, you will obey me.

My obedience flows from my connection with Him.

Our children's obedience will flow out of their connection with us (and Him).

Thank you, Michael and Amy Monroe for reminding me of this once again.

Do you think you can remind me again tomorrow?

Belated Valentine

My wonderful dear husband blessed me with a Kindle today! This thing is amazing. I had no idea that it could do all of the things it can do.

one of the greatest things is that books for the Kindle cost just a fraction of what a paper or hardback costs!

of course, I'm not sure I can fully give up the feel of curling up with a good book made of real paper. . . but we'll see. . . maybe I'll become an e-book convert.

Anyone else have and love, or want to have a Kindle?

Any tips for finding free books on Kindle? I've heard there are a lot available.

How do you use your Kindle for other things like PDF's, magazines, etc. . .

I'm all ears!

Thanks dear husband!

The Ultimate Goal

"The ultimate goal in life for the Christian is to glorify God -

not to pursue happiness or find fulfillment

or be loved and appreciated by others.

Those things are important and have their place,

but they're not to take precedence over pleasing Him in everything we do."

-Charles Swindoll

(from Strike the Original Match Bible Study Guide)

Currently reading this and finding wonderful nuggets of wisdom.

I highly recommend it!

Love U2

Read this GREAT interview with Bono and his take on "Grace over Karma."

Fear, Anxiety, Worry and the Truth (and a link)

Truth.

There is such a thing, you know.

BUT. . .

often, we don't "like" it and so we rationalize it away.

Think about it.

Have you ever said:

"but I just feel like. . . "

"well, I think that. . . "

"they're being so judgmental, it's my decision. . . "

"well, I tried that but it didn't work so. . . "

"well, the experts say that. . . "

"it's just how I am. . . "

or in regards to our children, "it's just how they are. . . "

There are many more ways that we love to rationalize away the Truth and replace it with LIES.

This is sort of funny, since, of course, then we aren't actually BEING RATIONAL!?!?!?

(am I the only one who sees the irony here?)

But I digress.

One area that women, in particular, seem to struggle with believing Truth is in the area of Fear, Worry, and Anxiety.

"Oh, but that's just how I am. It's how God made me. I can't do anything about it. You just don't understand. . . "

REALLY? I don't think so.

Are we going to accept those same lame excuses from an alcoholic or a liar or a rapist?

um, NO. . .

why?

Because those things are SIN (as defined by the Word of God) and as such we still generally won't accept the "oh, poor me" victim-mentality heart-snot* as a good REASON to act that way.

and here's the deal:

Fear, Anxiety, and Worry are sin too.

Don't believe me? Have you read your Bible lately?

"Be anxious for nothing." "Do not fear." "Do not worry about tomorrow."

Yep. I'm pretty sure those are commands.

from God.

which would make breaking them - sin.

Like I said,

we don't really like these "hard Truths."

But, it is the Truth.

Check out Tamara's thoughts on this too.

*and, yes, I said "heart-snot" which I think I just made up because it is exactly what it makes me think of: nasty, green snot coming out of whining, self-absorbed heart.

and, next time I sound fearful, anxious, or worried, please gently remind me to

"Fear Not, for the Lord your God is with you!"

Feeling Condemned and Overwhelmed

Courtney from Storing up Treasures recently blogged about her Midlife crisis?. I CAN SO RELATE!

Interestingly enough, Courtney is 32 (I am 33) and has 10 kids (so do I) and many of them are from hard places (mine too).

I was moved to tears as I read her thoughts because I KNOW where she is.

I have been there.

I was there last September just before my husband and I went to the Together for Adoption Conference (T4A).

I responded in her comment section, but I thought I might post my response here as well just in case any other adoptive mama's are down in that very hard, very dark place and need some encouragement.

Read Courtney's post here

My response: Courtney,

It sounds like you are in what I have heard described as the "dark night of soul." I was SO there last August/September!

You are receiving a lot of advice here and I'd love to offer a few thoughts of my own, but before I do, may I just urge you to use caution as you read all of them. . . many of the ideas are not rooted in Truth but are rooted in secular humanistic thinking - they are lies, but they are the kind of lies that sound VERY much like the truth and are SO easy to believe. Be careful, my dear sister in Christ, to run everything through the lens of Truth, to see if the "ideas" are true according to God's Word, and aren't just worldly wisdom.

When I was where it sounds like you are, I realized a couple of things that (by God's Grace) I believe really helped me to renew my thinking which then eventually led to a refreshment of my spirit.

1. I had lost Hope. I had actually started to believe that there was no light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. I was beginning to think that these kids from hard places would never heal, that life was just caving in on us, that I'd never be able to parent w/o frustration, etc. . . I totally lost sight of the fact that we ALWAYS have Hope in Christ. That He was working out his perfect plan in our lives. That His grace was sufficient for me, and that there WAS light, I just needed to look up. Have you lost hope? That is believing a lie. There is Hope.

2. I was feeling CONDEMNED - I was a bad EVERYTHING! Just like you described. . . , it was this overwhelming feeling of everything being wrong, bad, terrible. A good friend pointed out to me that I was FEELING condemned but the Truth is that there is now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. I was feeling accused. Do you know who the accuser is? That's right - Satan! He stands and accuses us, but Christ says on our behalf, "I have paid for all of that. It doesn't matter. It is gone." Accusation and condemnation are so guilt producing and awful because we KNOW that there is no way we can ever be good enough, be enough. God does not want us to stand feeling condemned and accused. He has declared us righteous not because of US, but because of Him! HOWEVER, conviction is much different. Conviction is from the Holy Spirit and is SPECIFIC (not vague and overwhelming like condemnation/accusation). So, it is totally possible that there is something that the HS is convicting you about, but with conviction, you can see the specific sin, repent, know forgiveness, and move on in freedom (w/o guilt) because you have dealt with it. See the difference. Don't believe Satan's lies here either. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-discipline.

Now, pragmatically speaking, I was EXHAUSTED emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Being a 32 y.0. mother of 10 (many from hard places) will do that to you. (BTW, did you know that we share all of that in common? LOL!)

What REALLY helped to refresh me in body, mind, and spirit was to plan a week long getaway (to T4A and then some other fun stuff) with my husband. WE TOTALLY needed it. It took some work on the front end, but it was seriously the best thing we could have done at that point. T4A was great in many ways - some of which I'm sure you will get in Orlando in a few weeks - but it was also great b/c of the incredible worship times with Aaron Ivy which refreshed our spirits greatly. The time away in a nice hotel and then some time spent with good friends and just time to be quiet (we both know how little of that we get daily) and think was invaluable. I KNOW that the tendency to say "we just can't do it right now" will be great (that's what I thought!), but I think that if you are where you sound like you are (and I was totally there), you HAVE GOT to do this for both yourself and the Rockstar.

AND, you HAVE GOT to keep in touch almost daily with that one good friend who will hear your heart - who you can say "IT SUCKS" and she will say, "Yes, it is hard! AND, it is totally good. Keep it up. Keep it up. I am here to help however I can." Do you have that friend? I am praying that God will bring her to you if you don't.

I would LOVE to talk with you over the phone and to just pray with you. My husband and I will help you get away if there is any way we can help. We know where you are. (msg. me via facebook?)

IT IS hard!

It is GOOD.

There is Hope!

Praying for His peace, and renewed joy as you go through this "dark night of soul" and KNOWING that JOY comes with the morning, Jen