It's October...

October is upon us.  Do you know what this means?

Pumpkins.  We love them.  Eating them, that is...pies, cakes, pancakes, soup, cookies, roasted pumpkin seeds, etc., etc., etc.  My favorite is pumpkin pie for breakfast (Pumpkin pie is FULL of vegetables and milk.  I even steamed the pumpkin myself, rather than just opening a can.  I think pumpkin pie fits into the category of "super food" right along with chia seeds. Breakfast of champions. Just sayin'.)  Oh, and NG ate FIVE bowls of pumpkin soup at dinner tonight.  Onions and all.
 
R's birthday.  THIRTEEN!  Coming up in just two days.  Could it be...I'm a mom of a "teenager"?  I'm finding out just how sweet being mom to a "teen-aged" girl can be.  What a precious gift God gives us in having the privilege to not only watch our children grow, but to see His grace growing in them.

Jim's birthday is in October, too.  I won't announce his age, but I love celebrating him.

Fall camping!  Next weekend!  (Oh, how I hope it doesn't rain.  Or dip below 40 degrees at night.)

Apples!  (See pics below).  God is so good.  Okay, you might think I'm a bit overboard here with all of this reveling in the fall stuff, but God is just so good...how can you miss seeing His goodness in apples and pumpkins, and the fall leaves, and in celebrating birthdays, and...well, I digress from the apples. Delight in it! Delight yourself in Him!  DELIGHT!

I can't believe that we're only a few weeks away from going to Ethiopia.  So much to do, so much to process, so much prayer.  Pray with me, please. God is blessing my socks off with His perfect provision and preparation for this trip.  If you're interested in seeing the whole team, plus reading a bit more about the trip, check out this post on the blog Family From Afar.  Karen is the coordinator of this trip, and a huge advocate for the children we'll be serving.

I know I'm horrible about writing here.  I love to write, I love to share what God is doing.  Just working on finding the time.  More soon!

        

Happy Birthday, Sweet Boy

It's raining today, and I'm sitting in the kitchen with the rain sound soothing me, and little Y just laid down for a nap upstairs.  We've been singing "happy birthday" to him all day, and I know he doesn't really know what a birthday is, but he knows it makes him happy.  He keeps asking if he can "open" his birthday.  I know he means he wants to open a present, but I don't correct him, because I understand and I too want to "open" the day; unwrapping the layers of it with the anticipation of joy.  He's never celebrated a birthday before, and I have never looked into those brown eyes and celebrated with him, remembering the long string of days and years leading up to that special day the way I have with the older children.  The ones who grew inside of me, with all of the days of their lives laid out behind us in a familiar path. 

Last year I had only known him for a few short weeks when his birthday came, and we passed the day with little fanfare because we knew he wouldn't understand, and we didn't want to further confuse him or his sister when there was already so much adjusting to be done.  And I...would have struggled to celebrate the way I can today.  Because I was struggling to "find" him.  I was looking into little eyes which often looked back at me with cool detachment.  I was holding and hugging and carrying a little body which melted just as easily into the arms of any stranger.  But now ...now I have days and weeks and months...adding up to more than a year...of knowing him.  Knowing him. He has become familiar to me.  His eyes look at me with delight and trusting expectancy.  His arms reach for me. His little voice calls for Mama, and I know it's not just a word...no longer just a label that he uses to have a need met.

I carried him upstairs to his nap just now, singing to him as we went.  And I sang as I laid him on his bed, and his eyes were on mine the whole time, and they were twinkling with the pleasure of it.  The pleasure of "happy birthday" sung again and again, and the pleasure of the moments alone with Mama, and of snuggling into the bed and me stroking his soft blanket against his face because I know he likes that.  And I knew that he wanted the fan on, and I knew that I would turn and walk away and make it almost to the door before he would call me one more time.  And I heard the words he always says..."Hug, Mama."  I go back and hug him one more time, with him smiling  and his eyes sparkling because he knew I would come back and hug him again.  And I looked down at him and realized, tingling, that it had happened.  I had wondered for so long if it would ever come, and now I saw that it had come upon me...like a soft blanket placed on a sleeping child, because I had never been aware of the moment it came, but only relaxed in the warmth of it.  The warmth of feeling that he is mine in a way that is sure and safe and abiding.  That the invisible, steely bond that existed from birth between me and his older brother and sisters, now holds him to me as well.  I looked down at him and had a strange soft shock of remembering that he did not grow inside of me...but knowing that he is just as much part of me as if he had.

And now I sit and ponder all of this (I'm thinking about Mary, and how she "treasured it in her heart"), because I am seeing once again how we prayed that God would bring us children from Ethiopia; children who needed love and healing, and that He would let us love them, and help us to help them heal and grow. And then how He brought them here, but that He has just as surely been healing  and growing me.  Because all through this last year God has been showing me that I was living like an orphan.  That I didn't really know how to love Him.  That I sometimes look at Him with that same cool detachment with which little Y once viewed me.  That I too often look for my sustenance and support from arms other than His.  I am learning to know and trust the invisible, steely bond that has always been there to connect me safely to my Father.  I have placed my trust in Him again and again as I walked the hard path of the last few years, and He has never failed.  I am learning to know that "Father" is more than just a label for a distant being who holds authority over my life.  He loves me.  I am safe in his arms.  He sings over me...delights in me.  He will always be there when I call to Him.  Can I ever, ever teach Little Y (or MJ) anything that compares with what I have learned through having them in my life?  I can't...but I will be a vessel through which their Father will teach them.  I can trust Him for that too.

The rain is not darkening the brightness of this milestone for me, or for my littlest son.  I have had some moments of grieving and praying today for Meselech (the children's Ethiopian mother), but this date on a calendar is not something that she is aware of.  This day is for Little Y and for us, and it's a gift.  We're going to keep opening it all day long.

(By the way, I've dropped the children's "blog pseudonyms" and I'm just using their initials.  If you know us in real life, you'll know who I'm talking about without having to remember the nicknames...and I won't have to keep up with the nicknames either!  If you don't know us in real life, their initials are under their pics on the sidebar.)

A birthday, a good cry, and a sovereign God

Today is Gracie's birthday.  This day has been greatly anticipated at our house for weeks.  Not only by Gracie (who announced in frustration one day last week, "Mama, my birthday is NOT coming!"), but also by all of her brothers and sisters. So finally it is here.  And I spent the early morning hours crying at the kitchen table.  That's probably not a big surprise to those who know me well.  I'm a cryer.  But these tears honestly took me by surprise.  I did cry when Boo turned five last year:  I cried because she was my baby, and five just feels like the end of "babyhood" to me.  Five is such a...well...a big girl.  But I was looking forward to Gracie's birthday with no hint of any such feelings.  Then last night before bed, Boo started asking me to tell her what she was like when she was one.  And what she liked to do when she was two.  (She was in the mood for some bonding time with me, and she knows just what buttons she can usually push to get it!)  I answered her questions, but I did it quietly, and with some discomfort, because I was so aware of Gracie in her bed on the other side of the room.  I had just given her the "last hug as a four year old."  And as I reminisced with Boo I was all too aware that I could never answer those same questions for Gracie, although she has already asked some of them.

So this morning I sat down at the kitchen table, making a list for an early morning run to Kroger to take care of Gracie's special requests for her birthday meals.  I wasn't thinking about anything deeper than whether I should buy a cake mix or make it from scratch, when a wave of images and grief washed over me.  This is the day when we are celebrating her birthday.  The images that were hitting me hard and fast were of a precious baby born in a hut in rural southern Ethiopia.  A dirt floor.  A sweet cry.  The grandmother (who I know was present at her birth) holding up the baby in satisfaction.  Damp, warm brown skin.  Curling tendrils of black hair.  The tired mother smiling.  The father clapping his hands together.  Even as I write it the tears are coming again.  I want to be there.  I want to hold that sweet baby, and drink in the smells and sounds...breath the warm African air of her true birthday.  And I want to see her take her first steps across that dusty ground, and hear her first laugh (I love that laugh so much) and her first throaty words.  But no matter how vivid my imaginings are, those memories will never be mine.  They belong to Meselech, Gracie's first mother.  The realization that hits me, though, is that no matter how deep my longings are, I would never truly wish for anything different.  I have to often remind myself that God's plan for Gracie is perfect, and better than the easier, less painful way I would have planned for her.  Those first four years in Ethiopia have formed this child and made her who she is now.  And it cries out to me of her Maker.  Did anyone ever wonder why I call her "Gracie" here?  She is truly a picture of God's grace to me.  God has carried her through poverty and hunger and loss and grief, and He has protected her and drenched her with His grace.  She is a joyful, cheerful, funny bundle of little girl.  Having experienced losses and hardships I can hardly imagine, she is not bitter or angry of afraid.  She spent 6 months in an orphanage which, by many reports, was rife with abuses, and seems to have been surrounded by angels there.  She accepted the new family God gave her with hardly a glance backward...with a joyful abandon that has continued to stun and amaze me.  I have so much to learn from her.  Oh God, if I could face trials without being afraid, or without ever holding onto bitterness.  If I could let go of what You take, and latch on to what You give, and be truly thankful and joyful throughout it all.  

So I am sitting here now and relishing the knowledge of the amazing grace that God has lavished on my daughter and on me.  Our family is memorizing Psalm 139 right now (we're only up to verse 4 so far!), and really I chose it for Gracie and Little Man.  I know she doesn't understand a lot of those words, but she is parroting them back right along with her older sisters and brother.  And I'm praying that some day these words will be as meaningful to her as they are to me when I consider God's path for her life:

For you formed my inward parts;

You wove me in my mother's womb.

I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Wonderful are Your works,

And my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from You,

When I was made in secret,

And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;

Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;

And in Your book were all written

The days that were ordained for me

When as yet there was not one of them.

Happy birthday Gracie.