tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65433693549001545982024-02-19T04:16:36.828-08:00seriously.Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.comBlogger125125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-45770952781443503952013-06-26T05:01:00.000-07:002013-06-26T05:01:12.049-07:00nomadI've moved around my entire life, across states and continents, and this kind of nomadic lifestyle has gotten in my blood, my bones. I suppose it has impacted every part of me--including blogging! Silly, i know, but that's the only reason I can attribute to the number of blogs I've had over the years and this consistent need to pack up and start over as the seasons change.<br />
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The seasons have changed in our lives. Our nomadic lifestyle has come to a halt, as it seems probable that we'll be in Virginia for the long haul. Ren has been home for nearly a year now, and we find ourselves settling in to a new rhythm and a new journey.<br />
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I started this blog as a way to document our adoption journey, and now that Ren is home, I find that new dreams and thoughts and ventures lie before us. I need a new place for all of this. A clean slate. And, so, here it is. I'm hoping, like our move to Virginia, that this one will be the last...<br />
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<a href="http://libbykurz.com/">http://libbykurz.com/</a><br />
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Thanks for reading.Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-65397139197206111012013-06-04T19:11:00.000-07:002013-06-04T19:18:13.704-07:00weeknight musings.It's funny how music can take you back, isn't it?<br />
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I'm listening to the soundtrack of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It became <i>my</i> soundtrack during the cold and quiet winter of 2009. We lived in Salt Lake City that year. Chris was busy, working like a dog every day during his fellowship. He came home exhausted. Many of his nights were spent writing ophthalmology research articles. Tess was on the cusp of turning two years old and it was just her--she was my one and only. I had just started working on my MFA and this music was the constant backdrop to quiet afternoons spent at my computer while Tess napped. I still remember the scene, looking out my desk window at the snow falling and slowly accumulating on the ground.<br />
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It's funny how things change, isn't it?<br />
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Now I'm here in Virginia. My three children are upstairs sleeping. Chris is finished with his training and is in a steady job in private practice. His hours are better, and in so many ways, all those countless hours and years of hard work have finally started to pay off. There were many times when he doubted they ever would. Tonight I sit on our screened in porch. It's a cool night and spring is quickly yielding to summer. The trees have exploded and we are surrounded by green, by life, light, and fullness. There are still some afternoons when Ren naps that I sit at my computer, but the scene outside my window is not snow and my soundtrack has changed. I still haven't finished my MFA, almost five years and counting. But here I am right now, enjoying the memories and how music makes them so tangible.<br />
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It's funny how much we remember, isn't it?<br />
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I started seeing a therapist here in VA several months ago and it's largely been a journey of remembrance. It's astonished me how much our minds and hearts can hold without realizing it. When given the opportunity though, the memories come flooding back, little pockets of them start to come out of hiding and I have begun to realize how mysteriously tied together they all are. Seemingly random associations between past and present suddenly become an intricately woven web of memories, stories, and sensations. And somehow, this intricate web forms the woman I am today. It is intertwined with my blood and bones, with each cell of my body.<br />
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It's funny how mysterious we are, isn't it?<br />
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Sometimes I think of how little we really know about one another. I mean, how little we really know about ourselves! It's a constant journey to find out who we really are in life, let alone other people. We never reach the end of the source. As much as we know of one another--even the closest people in our lives--we know so little! How do other people experience life? How do they see things? What little thoughts run through their mind on an idle Thursday morning as they drive to work? We all have so much to learn from one another. I have often struggled with the belief that the way I experience life is somehow different or flawed from other people. Maybe it's different, but I'm learning that it's different for everyone, not just me. We are all so different and flawed, and yet, at the end of the day, we are all so common. The really important things that link us together are the same. Our need for hope and community. Our desire to be known and understood. Our desire to love and be loved, our unquenchable need for God.Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-26086200706754046492013-05-31T13:17:00.000-07:002013-05-31T13:17:46.409-07:00yo-yo.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
There's this feeling that I experience just about everyday of motherhood. It's a scattered feeling, a sense that I have one foot in and one foot out of life, a kind of yo-yo sensation in which I am constantly swinging back and forth and up and down.</div>
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As I sit here and type this, I'm sharing the couch with piles of laundry I've not yet folded. The dishwasher needs to be unloaded and it's almost 3:30pm and I should really get the littles up so they can go to bed before 10pm tonight. I need to start cooking dinner because Ren will start asking for it as soon as he's up from his nap, not to mention the slew of other things on my to-do list that I haven't tackled. There's always something.</div>
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But that's not even it. I've become accustomed to the reality that there's always something to be done around the house and that nothing is ever truly finished. The thing that I have a hard time with is stepping out of my domestic bubble and extending myself to others, into the rest of the world, and getting involved in people and places and ideas that I'm excited about. It's hard for me to strike that balance in this stage of life. I feel like I can peep my head out of my little world for a while, but soon enough, I must retreat again and give myself 100% to my family. </div>
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The thing is, there are so many things I love in life. I love to read and write and paint. I want to finish my MFA, I would like to go back to work as a nurse, I want to be a part of the big and exciting things that God is doing through other people all around the world. I want to contribute to that and make an impact beyond the domain of family life. And, so, when I feel as though things are going smoothly at home, I sense the freedom to start stepping out into the world more. When my intuition tells me that the coast is clear, I feel as though I can start to spread my wings again. However, it's inevitable that I can only stay there so long before I have to tap out and hunker down here again.<br />
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And, so, I often feel as though I'm just spinning my wheels. Choosing to do something creative means that the domestic duties go undone, or get postponed until they pile so high that I get buried beneath them. I can't keep up with all of it. Choosing to do something creative with my time means that a price must be payed, whether it means that I'm more tired or the house is more of a mess or the kids are grumpier because I can't accommodate all of their preferences. I'm learning that it's usually worth the price, because the state of my soul is more at rest and happier when I'm doing something creative, whether it be writing a little blog post, writing a poem in my journal, refinishing a piece of furniture, playing with my acrylics, or doing Google job searches for part-time nursing positions in our area. However, sometimes I get so tired of the red-light-green-light, the stop and go, the in and out. I can fall prey to giving up and saying "why bother?" But, I've learned that this resignation is the precursor for depression, and so I'm determined to keep trying, despite the frustration and the frequent sense of mental whiplash.<br />
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I read a Donald Miller blog post a while ago that mentioned how humans are healthier when we are working towards something--aiming toward some goal or passion. We need forward movement and growth in order to stay psychologically healthy. Stagnation is a bad thing.<br />
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This is a rub for me. Some days I feel as though one hundred percent of my energies go toward maintaining the status quo around here--just meeting our basic daily needs of food and clothing and sleep and potty. I suppose that the rearing of children IS forward movement--but it's a very, very long term endeavor that never seems to end and often gets swallowed up in the dailiness of life. It usually doesn't feel like movement at all, since so many domestic tasks get undone so quickly. Trying to do anything "extra," as in, working towards some goal outside of this, sometimes feels ridiculous and impossible.<br />
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And sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I have pockets of time and energy at my disposal to give to things I love and enjoy outside of my family. I suppose the struggle here is being okay with the zig zagging unpredictability of trying to keep a hand in all of it. Most days, my life feels like an intricate web of loose ends; a pile of half-finished projects and endeavors. I try to keep my eyes on the process, not the end result, and accept the fact that this is reality: a constant and ongoing mix of progress and set-backs, of moving out and stepping back, of always being in that scattered and blurry space between. "There is no easy answer."<br />
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Do you ever feel like this?<br />
How do you navigate the "yo-yo" effect of life or parenthood?<br />
What goals or ambitions do you have outside of your primary duties?<br />
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excerpt from <i>Gift from the Sea</i> by Anne Morrow Lindbergh</div>
Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-6059507275166741912013-05-24T03:32:00.001-07:002013-05-24T03:32:30.881-07:00sign here, please.I woke up early this morning, around 5am. I had to go to the bathroom and saw that it was already getting light out. I couldn't get back to sleep, so I decided to come downstairs and get coffee, steal away a few extra moments before the day begins.<br />
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I was randomly looking back through old things I've written and came across this post below. I think I was meant to find it...you know, one of those coincidences that's not really a coincidence. I wrote it exactly one year ago today, the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. I forgot that I'd written this, so to stumble back upon it today was special. I wanted to share...<br />
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<i>2:30pm, the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. I sit at my desk in silence, drinking coffee, of course. The girls are napping. The house is empty. The sun is shining. Chris is at the bank as I type this, signing our closing documents on our house in VA.</i></div>
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<i>When he's done he's going to call me and I will wake up the girls and drive to the bank. Chris and I will trade off and I'll go in and sign my portion. Then we will whisk our fat stack of signed and notarized closing papers off the the UPS store and overnight them to VA.</i></div>
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<i>Gosh...what a familiar scenario...the document signing, the notaries, the taking shifts with the girls in the car while they watch a DVD and the other spouse is inside signing their life away. This has all played out with the adoption thus far...the background checks, the immigration documents, homestudy documents, etc.</i></div>
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<i>2011-2012: the years of signing our lives away.</i></div>
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<i>I've never seen so much paperwork in my life.</i></div>
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<i>Tonight, I suspect, if everything goes as planned, we will come home and grill some chicken and open a fantastic bottle of wine to celebrate our new home and the next chapter of life that's becoming more tangible every day.</i></div>
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<i>The Lord has been GOOD to us. We know His Voice better now that we did two years ago. We know how He protects and provides for us in deep and intricate ways better than we did two years ago. We understand that the more we open our hands and give everything to Him, the more He carries us and blesses us.</i></div>
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<i>Please God, let it all be for you, everything we do, let our lives be a constant proclamation of Your goodness, love, and glory.</i></div>
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It's crazy how much difference a year makes. Now I'm sitting on the screen porch of our Virginia home. We are finished with the paperwork; the paper pregnancy has ended and Ren is sleeping upstairs in his room. It's crazy how good God is. </div>
Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-16123687135276101752013-05-17T13:46:00.000-07:002013-05-17T17:52:22.911-07:00swim.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Everything feels lighter in the pool. My body, my muscles, my bones...my mind, my anxieties, my irrational worries...the heaviness seems to dissolve as soon as I immerse myself in the water. I am certain that water has healing properties. It relieves the pull of gravity and makes me buoyant even when I feel like a ton of bricks. There's a sense of tranquility I feel after a swim that I don't experience with other forms of exercise.<br />
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I started swimming as a last alternative. I guess that sometimes the only way we can come upon new blessings is in the face of loss. Over the past month I've been coming to grips with the fact that I just can't run anymore. Perhaps it's just the season of life I'm in and one day my body will embrace the road again, but for now, it's too much pounding. My body was rebelling in new ways every time I attempted even a light jog, so I finally had to throw in the towel. This was hard for me. Running has always been my thing.<br />
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Last December I got mononucleosis. The acute stage consisted of several weeks of fevers, the worst headaches of my life, body sweats, chills, a whacked out GI track, and an extremely inflamed liver. Once the acute stage subsided, I was told to except a long and slow recovery that could take up to a year. I believe I contracted it because my immune system was so knocked down after the stress of 2012 and I was more susceptible to getting sick. It has indeed been a long and slow recovery process, one that has required a lot of patience, support, and prayer. I reached a very low point back in February when I felt like I just wasn't getting better--a lot of fear and depression and anxiety plagued me. I ended up in the ER with severe GERD and gastritis--who knew that could cause so much pain? One week later I ended up on an antidepressant and was surrounded by the support of healthcare workers, a therapist, and a faithful group of soul sisters who diligently prayed for me. (The irony here is that China will not approve you to adopt a child from their country if you take antidepressants...but you are likely to need them once the whole process is over.)<br />
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I was at the end of my rope. I'd been running on adrenaline every since we'd left California (almost a year ago, now). Adrenaline helped to sustain me through the move, the trip to China and back, and most vitally, the long and strenuous process of adjusting in the aftermath of those big events. It's kind of ridiculous how far and long adrenaline will carry you. The human body is a remarkable thing. It's also incredibly humbling when your adrenals have had enough and they are no longer a sufficient source of fuel to carry you. There are no more endorphins left. Caffeine makes you sick. All you can do is REST. All you can do is wave your white flag and surrender to your terrifying weakness and limitations. This year has taught me that REST can be very hard.<br />
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This is how I ended up in the pool. The pool is a great place for rehab and rest. There's a water-arthritis class that is taught each morning when I show up to do laps. The older ladies who participate jive to jazz music as they move their bodies slowly and gracefully through the water. They can't take the pounding of gravity either, and they faithfully commune in the pool several times a week. I've started becoming a regular at the indoor pool at the YMCA and I'm starting to meet people and learn a few things about swimming. Some of the women I've met also started swimming because they couldn't do anything else. There's a lady I share a lap lane with who recently had back surgery and needs hip surgery, so swimming is really the only exercise option for her. She used to be a runner. Another lady named Laura is in incredible shape--she teaches some swim classes during the week--she also walks with a limp.<br />
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I used to swim every summer on the swim team between ages 5-10. I wasn't a huge fan of it. I competed in swim meets but I never felt that swimming was my strong suit. Still, that experience taught me the basic strokes and technique, however I've been learning a lot just in the past few weeks.<br />
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For one, God didn't design our bodies to move through water. We don't have fins and super sleek scales like fish. We need to come up for air. Our extremities are made for walking--for moving through air--not primarily through water. So, I'm learning that swimming is all about form and efficiency. You can waste a lot of energy and wear yourself out if you don't have good technique down. Most of it is just learning how to move in the water, getting a feel for it. It's all about smooth movements, precision, long strokes, and taking it easy.<br />
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This past year has taught me to slow down, mainly because I've had to. Your body will let you know what it needs, and mine started screaming out for help last November. I have started listening to it, and for now, it is happiest when it's fully submerged in water. What once started out as a dreaded and temporary alternative to running has now become my most cherished part of the week. When I swim laps, I don't listen to music. I am alone with my thoughts and it is quiet. The water doesn't conduct sound very well. Being alone too much with my thoughts has historically been a bad thing for me, but somehow my mind is soothed by the rhythm of the water and prayer comes more naturally.<br />
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Swimming is teaching me that exercise, and life, does not have to be an intense or radical event that leaves you sore and exhausted in order for it to be meaningful and beneficial. There are seasons that require intensity and action and edge--but just as much, we need seasons when we learn about grace and rest--when we learn to refine our movements into smooth and fluid patterns and repetitions, one stroke at a time.Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-77695859084118643152013-05-15T11:09:00.000-07:002013-05-15T11:10:03.498-07:00Late SpringI'm just coming here today with a poem I'd love to share--one of my favorites. It's called "Late Spring" by Robert Hass, and I always think of it during this time of year. I think it's about how our lives become marked by routine and tradition. It's about celebrating the change of seasons, living in the present, and how quickly yet mysteriously time passes when we are engaged in the dailiness of life.<br />
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I hope you enjoy it. May the light enlarge your days this spring; may your evenings be full of wine and story-telling until long after the sun has descended. ~Lib.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">LATE SPRING</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And then in mid-May the first morning of steady heat,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the morning, Leif says, when you wake up, put on shorts, and that's </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">it for the day,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">when you pour coffee and walk outside, blinking in the sun.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Strawberries have appeared in the markets, and peaches will soon;</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">squid is so cheap in the fishstores you begin to consult Japanese and </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Italian cookbooks for the various ingenious ways of preparing <i>ika</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and because the light will enlarge your days, your dreams at night </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">will be as strange as the jars of octopus you saw once in a </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">fisherman's boat under the summer moon;</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and after swimming, white wine; and the sharing of stories before </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">dinner is prolonged because the relations of the children in the </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">neighborhood have acquired village intensity and the stories take </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">longer telling;</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and there are the nights when the fog rolls in that nobody likes — </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">hey, fog, the Miwok sang, who lived here first, you better go home, </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">pelican is beating your wife —</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and after dark in the first cool hour, your children sleep so heavily in </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">their beds exhausted from play, it is a pleasure to watch them,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Leif does not move a muscle as he lies there; no, wait; it is Luke who </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">lies there in his eight-year-old body,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Leif is taller than you are and he isn't home; when he is, his feet will </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">extend past the end of the mattress, and Kristin is at the corner in </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the dark, talking to the neighborhood boys;</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">things change; there is no need for this dream-compelled narration; </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the rhythm will keep me awake, changing. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--Robert Hass</span></div>
Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-4232441637019697822013-05-12T18:40:00.000-07:002013-05-14T04:35:30.895-07:00where we are, right now.Mother's Day is one of those occasions that prompts a lot of reflection. I find myself pondering the many seasons of life and how much life can change throughout the years, how many different seasons we walk through as women, and how our lives are weaved with both life and loss simultaneously.<br />
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There are many moments when I feel uncomfortably in-touch with the fragility of life. So many things we cling to dearly seem to dangle by a fine thread that can be broken so easily. I feel it each night when I check on my kids before I go to bed, their small bodies breathing heavily in sleep. The chaos of the day has subsided and in the silence I am somehow able to grasp the brevity and delicacy of life, how fleeting each moment is. It's a bittersweet realization, that the moments we hold onto are so precious and yet precarious.<br />
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Today, however, I was struck by the opposite feeling, a feeling of permanence and certainty. Not certainty in circumstances, but in what life is all about, in how I have been shaped by it, and how my heart has been permanently marked by the people in it, the experiences I've been through. It stormed last night and when I woke this morning the air was still heavy with moisture. It was almost as if time passed more slowly, as if each moment lingered in space a bit longer, with more time to absorb the weight of it all.<br />
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Chris brought a tray up this morning with coffee and cards from the kids. They crawled into bed with us, anxious to open their own cards for me. Tessa's had a beautiful picture inside. She'd drawn an elaborate picture of herself with me, both of us surrounded by a brilliant rainbow, of course. Her drawings are intricate and exact, with bold lines and colors. Lucy's card was covered in different colors, all scribbled across and over each other. She's an artist like Tess, but perhaps more like Jackson Pollock, she doesn't mind if her strokes are outside of the box. In fact, she prefers it. And Ren's card, sweet boy, had a couple little markings on it. He would rather be pushing and pulling things--discovering the limits of the physical world--than playing with crayons or markers.<br />
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As the kids squirmed around on the bed with us, I found myself thinking about where we are now, versus years past...<br />
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Last year we were in California and Ren was still in China. I was still an expectant mom, anxious to bring her son home. This year is my first Mother's Day with him. It is a sweet feeling that I can't truly express in words. I've thought about how two hearts can be woven together by love, regardless of biology or blood. I have thought a lot about his birth mother, where she might be, what her life is like now. I don't know that they celebrate Mother's Day in China, but I imagine that not a day goes by when she doesn't think of him.<br />
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Two years ago I was alone with the girls in California. Chris was actually here in Virginia Beach, interviewing for a job.<br />
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Three years ago on Mother's Day, Chris left for Afghanistan. He left the house around 4am that morning. I'll never forget that day, the anxiety, the mind-numbing fatigue, and also the relief that the anticipation of the inevitable was finally over.<br />
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Four years ago on Mother's Day we were living in Utah, preparing to move to California. I was pregnant with Lucy and sick as a dog. I don't remember what we did.<br />
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Five years ago on Mother's Day was hard. I was pregnant, but the week prior at a routine ultrasound appointment, we discovered our child didn't have a heartbeat. I was scheduled to have a D&C the next day, the Monday after Mother's Day. I will never forget that Mother's Day and how torturous it was to live through it, knowing the child inside of me was no longer alive. I know that Mother's Day can be a very painful day for many women, and that year, it was for me. Two weeks later we left our home and community in Texas and moved to Utah.<br />
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Six years ago was my first Mother's Day and little Tess was about three months old. I remember coming home from a 12 hour shift in the OR that Sunday. Chris had made me dinner. It was a sweet day and I felt special for having received the gift of motherhood. People told me "Happy Mother's Day" for the first time. It felt odd but wonderful, kind of like when you first get married and get to refer to your man as "my husband" and refer to yourself under your new, married name.<br />
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A couple of weeks ago one of the pastors at church talked about how important it is to remember the stories of our lives--to remember what God has done and His faithfulness. It's important to document where we are right now, so we can look back after many seasons have passed and remember our story. It's easy to forget. That is part of why I like writing and reflecting. It keeps me more aware of the big picture, which brings these present moments into finer focus. I am soaking up His faithfulness today. I am remembering the stories. I am so grateful for what He has given us and who I am becoming because of Him. For the most part, life has been too chaotic and challenging this past year to document in writing, but all of those difficult, daily moments are now a part of me, and they make the sweet moments that much sweeter.<br />
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Last week my dear friend, Kelly, came to visit us. It was our first visit from a non-relative since we've been in Virginia Beach. This month marks ten years since we graduated from UNCC with our nursing degrees. We met in nursing school and we've remained friends throughout all these changing seasons. Her presence was a reminder, too, of God's faithfulness, and how friendships can endure strongly through distance and time and change. The people in our lives...we can connect with their souls...and those connections aren't easily broken. As fragile as life often feels, there are many things that are lasting. Memories. History. Soul Connection. Love.<br />
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One day when she was visiting, we went out the beach with Ren. Tess and Lu were at school and we had the beach to ourselves. Kelly snapped some photos of Ren and I. These images reflect where we are at right now...<br />
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Grateful.</div>
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In awe.</div>
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Discovering and frolicking in the vastness of God, </div>
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His beauty, and His faithfulness.<br />
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At church today we sang one of my favorite songs, "Come and Listen." I'll post it here because the lyrics speak so beautifully to the thoughts and emotions inside of me. </div>
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<i>Come and listen</i></div>
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<i>Come to the water's edge </i></div>
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<i>all you who know and fear the Lord</i></div>
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<i>Come and listen</i></div>
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<i>Come to the water's edge</i></div>
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<i>all you who are thirsty, come.</i></div>
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<i>Let me tell you what He has done for me,</i></div>
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<i>Let me tell you what He has done for me,</i></div>
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<i>He has done for you,</i></div>
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<i>He has done for us.</i></div>
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Where are you in life right now?</div>
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What has God done in your life?</div>
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How have you experienced His faithfulness?</div>
<br />Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-43267220398968371372013-03-26T07:36:00.001-07:002013-03-26T07:45:03.944-07:00decompress<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I love Tuesdays. For about three hours in the morning, all of my children are at school/preschool. They are out of the house and in good care, and I have some time to get things done and just breathe. </div>
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The scenario each Tuesday morning is pretty similar. I wake up around 6:15am, get some coffee in my system, get Tess up, dressed, fed, and out the door for kindergarten, pack lunches for the littles, unload the dishwasher, get dressed, get Ren and Lu up, get them fed, dressed, loaded into the car, and dropped off at preschool/Mom's Day Out. In the midst of all of this, there are multiple temper tantrums to diffuse and exhausting toddler power struggles to disengage from. It can feel like a volatile emotional obstacle course every morning. </div>
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When I arrive back home it's around 9:30am and I feel as though I've been sprinting for three hours. I walk into the house. It is eerily silent and still. Texanna is at the door to greet me. She sits at my feet and stares at me, as if to say, "Is it my turn now?" I rub her ears and pet her head and tell her we can both just relax. I look around the kitchen. Dried, crusty yogurt remains on the kitchen counter from where the kids ate breakfast. Dirty dishes are stacked in the sink. Bits of last night's rice float around in the pots of cold dishwater. I start to wonder what I'll do with my precious window of time, whether I'll tend to the laundry, the dishes, the dinner that needs to be cooked, the errands that need to be run, the pooch that needs to be walked, the appointments that need to be scheduled, the emails to return, the floors to mop, etc.</div>
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Instead, I always find myself standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring blankly around, and the only thought on my mind is coffee. First things first. I measure out the coffee grinds, take a big, deep breathe, and as I exhale, the over stimulation of the morning starts to diffuse out of me. I can feel my spirit start to unwind and I begin to relax into the silence. It's time to decompress.</div>
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And that's what I'm doing now. In this moment, I'm here with my coffee in the big white chair in our sunroom. It's cold and sunny outside and I love the way the light pours into this room, especially in the morning hours. It's my favorite room of the house. This is sacred time. It is precious because I do not have it in abundance. Sometimes I just sit and sip and stare out the window. Sometimes I like to write in my journal or write a letter to a friend. Sometimes I like to paint or read. I will start into my "to-do" list later, but for now, I can just BE, and I am grateful.</div>
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How do you decompress? What does that precious window of time look like for you? What would you want it to look like? If you are a working mom, how do you find this time for yourself?</div>
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<i>"Certain springs are tapped when we are alone. The artist knows he must be alone to create; the writer to work out his thoughts; the musician to compose; the saint, to pray. But women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves: that firm strand which will be the indispensable center of a whole web of human relationships." --Anne Morrow Lindbergh</i></div>
<br />Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-7947299814044419862013-03-22T13:46:00.001-07:002013-03-23T06:24:35.225-07:00resilience<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
He stands at the front door each afternoon and waits for her.<br />
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"Tessa...school bus!"<br />
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He says it again and again until he sees the big yellow bus pull up in front of our house, anxiously awaiting the arrival home of his big sister and the resumption of play and laughter and noise. His little heart seems to cling to these regularities, the assurance of a familiar schedule, when the people he loves come and go with predictability, and when those who leave always return to him again.<br />
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My son inspires me. He is a daily reminder of the great beauty and strength of the human spirit. He reminds me of our God-given capacity to withstand great heartache, fear, and trauma, and still live on. We can overcome, we can press forward, hopeful and resilient. We live with scars and also possess the ability to heal and recover, changed and refined by our hardships, and somehow, miraculously, wiser and kinder in spite of them, because of them. We need not be ashamed of them, for these things make us beautiful and unique.<br />
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My little boy has a strong spirit, a determined spirit. He is a fighter and will not easily give up. His capacity for love is fierce. He is a protector, a willful little guy who knows what he wants, how he feels, and is unafraid to show it and defend it. He feels things deeply, both grief and joy. His smile lights up an entire room.<br />
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Children accept things with an innocence that moves me. Their eyes perceive and understand the world with a simplicity that I often find disarming. I remember one day, last summer, shortly after we'd arrived home with Ren. The children and I were playing in the back yard on the swing set and a neighbor came over to meet us. Tess proudly introduced Ren to our neighbor friend. She said "This is Ren. He's my brother. He's from China!" She stated it matter-of-factly, as if it was the most natural arrangement in the world, as if she'd always known him and loved him and been bound to him by blood. No questions asked. She sees all the things that bind them together, not the things that make them different. We are family. Genetics, ethnicity, heritage, culture. These things are irrelevant. The biggest ties that bind are made of spiritual matter.<br />
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My son puts his little hand against the glass door, listening for the distant hum of the school bus as it turns onto our street. The first thing he says when we wakes in the morning is "Tessa? Lucy?," as he inquires after the whereabouts of his sisters. He drapes the full weight of his body over mine at night as we rock and sing, his arms and legs wrap around me like a koala. His head lies heavy on my shoulder and I can feel our chests sink into one another as we breath. When Chris is home on the weekends, Ren is his shadow, trailing his heels, a little man in the making, intrinsically tied to the physical, adventurous, and playful domain that his dad inhabits. My boy displays an ability to love courageously in places that have been previously hurt. I have watched him begin to rest and settle into us with time.<br />
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In a world full of ample reasons to remain cynical, untrusting, and isolated, my children are daily reminders that there is always another way, a better way. The resilience of the human spirit, its ability and trust and hope again, to overcome and live, is perhaps the most powerful thing of all.<br />
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<br />Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-79170939011915139552013-03-19T13:05:00.000-07:002013-03-23T06:25:40.526-07:00will be bornWhere do I even start? I wondered if I would ever write in this space again. I feel so full of so many things and hardly know where to begin. There are WAY too many gaps to fill since I last wrote, about nine months ago, so I'll just begin with where I am now.<br />
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Life has felt too overwhelming and raw to write in this space since returning home with our boy. No one and nothing could have prepared me for the massive transition we faced when we brought Ren home to a new place that essentially wasn't home. There were far too many moments when I wondered, "where am I, who am I, and what has just happened to me?" I think that every member of our family, especially Ren, was wondering the same thing at some point during the transition process. The impact of losing our community during such a pivotal and stressful time was more significant than I could have anticipated.<br />
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As I picked up my laptop to write this morning, it felt foreign. I thought about how often I wrote when we were living in California, but so much has changed since then, and more pressing things have squeezed out the time I have for writing. Still, I want to get back to it. It has been on my heart to gradually start breathing some life back into this dormant space--I know it could use a major facelift and I'm looking forward to the process. So...here it goes. I guess I'll just jump right in with the present.<br />
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March is a hard month for me. It always has been. It's like September. It's a transition month, a month when I am desperately ready for a change of seasons, but nature doesn't seem to move at the pace I would like. In September, I'm craving cooler temperatures but it's still dreadfully hot. In March, I'm craving warmer temps, but there are still so many days that feel like winter. There are buds on the trees but they have not yet bloomed. Just the word March makes me think of springtime, yet it still feels like winter. It's a big tease. The reality doesn't match the expectation. That's why I don't mind January and February too much. The weather is drab and dreary, but it's expected because it's still technically winter. It's harder to get disappointed because there isn't any hope attached to things changing for the better. But March? March is officially the beginning of spring, of more light, longer days, of flowers and warmer temperatures. Or so it should be. But change doesn't happen overnight, and so this is a month of backs and forths, ups and downs, when one can feel the painful pulses and contractions required to birth new life. It all requires so much expectation and energy, and I often find it all a bit exhausting. We know that spring will be born, but March is that uncomfortable and temperamental space between, a time of wondering and doubting and wishing, a time of longing and excitement, like that third trimester of pregnancy when a woman wonders if she'll remain pregnant forever. Of course, no woman has remained pregnant forever. The child WILL be born. But, in those final few weeks, the pain and discomfort are real and that irrational thought does not seem preposterous.</div>
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It was Easter weekend, one year ago, that Chris and I came out here to go <a href="http://seriously-therealstory.blogspot.com/2012/04/when-it-rains.html">house hunting</a>. When we first walked through this house last year, I did not think it would be our home. I had a difficult time envisioning us here. I suppose I had some other preconceived idea of what our Virginia home would be like. This home needed a lot of tender loving care and it still does. I knew it would be a hard, long, and expensive process to transform it from its current state into the vision we had for it. It had a lot of potential, but it would not realize this full potential without a liberal amount of patience and perseverance. It's strange to stop and think that now, one year later, this home is ours, and we have made slow yet tangible progress in claiming and transforming it into our own. It's hard to fathom how much can happen in one year, and it's mind-blowing to think about where we were one year ago and how our lives have fundamentally changed since then.</div>
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Yesterday I bought a bunch of ranunculus at Trader Joe's. They are gorgeous. I love how unruly their wavy stems are. They have petals that are soft and intertwined like roses, but they are a bit more bohemian and wild; a little less uptight and pretentious. Just my style. They caught my eye immediately because <a href="http://seriously-therealstory.blogspot.com/2011/04/oh-what-up-spring.html">I remember first buying a ranunculus</a> two years ago when we were in California. I planted it in a pot and sat it on my desk--something pretty to look at as I worked on the stacks of adoption paperwork to bring Ren home. Two years later, the paper pregnancy is over and we have a son. As I went to check on him last night before heading to bed, I stared for a long time at his sweet body, breathing heavily in a deep sleep in his crib, in his home. <i>He is home now. </i></div>
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The child WILL be born. The flowers <i>will</i> bloom. Spring <i>will</i> come. It has come already in so many areas of my life, and this is always cause for celebration, even amidst the many other areas of existence that can still feel drab, dreary, dormant, or just plain dead.</div>
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I put the ranunculus on our dining room table. The dining room wallpaper has finally been stripped (good riddance!) and we painted the walls a pale shade of indigo, a true blue with slight hints of violet. </div>
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I hung my Matisse painting on the wall and displayed some of my favorite pottery, all of which has touches of indigo in it. </div>
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We hung the big, bold oil painting that Chris's cousin, John, painted. I smiled as I took it all in yesterday. This place is starting to come together; it is beginning to reflect my style and what I love in life. </div>
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I stood in the middle of the room yesterday and started thinking about the future groups of women who might gather here during Red Tent Dinners...future meals we will share with dear friends and family who come to visit...future family dinners when we teach our children what it means to connect over a nice meal (and have decent table manners)!<br />
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I'm so grateful for those places in our homes and our lives that feel like spring has come. I'm grateful for the progress we've made over the past several months and that the massive upheaval we experienced in 2012 is starting to settle. I'm grateful for the change of seasons, for new life, fresh starts, and that after months and years of waiting, life WILL come...life DOES come. And, I'm thankful that we don't have to go back and do it again. God forbid! I am looking forward to what lies ahead. The first day of spring is tomorrow!<br />
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BTW, just to give you some frame of reference, here's a "before" photo of the dining room, taken on the day we got the original 1980's wallpaper stripped. We've made progress, indeed!<br />
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Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-61601368183923545172012-06-27T19:36:00.000-07:002013-03-23T06:26:19.165-07:00here we go.<div style="text-align: center;">
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It's hard to believe that it was only three weeks ago that I last posted. It feels more like three months ago. June has been a time warp. I'm pretty sure I just over-dosed our dog on her heart worm medication because I was convinced it had been at least six weeks since I last gave it to her. In reality, it's only been half that time.</div>
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What's even harder to believe, though, is that tomorrow we start our long journey to get our son in China. It has been a long road and it feels surreal to be so close to meeting him for the first time. It's almost too much to wrap my mind and heart around.<br />
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I think I have cycled through every possible emotion over the past few days: doubt, fear, excitement, elation, strength, weakness, boldness, sorrow, panic, peace, shock. Most of this just results in a lot of tears because I don't know how to hold all of this emotion simultaneously. Waterworks, for real.<br />
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Overall, I've felt pensive. So many thoughts and feelings, but the words have been hard to come by. We got our travel approval eight days ago and it's just now that I've felt capable of putting any words down. The quiet, detached, brooding Lib has shown up a lot over the past few days. She's the same girl that used to show up at track meets right before my event was called, right before it was time to run as fast as I could towards the finish line.<br />
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Today is our last day as a family of four. I've been trying to soak in these last moments with the girls before leaving them tomorrow for about two-and-a-half weeks. I've never left them for that long and the momma-bear in me has a hard time letting go. Last night, Chris said, "Babe, it's like you're going into labor, only the hospital is in China and you won't be home for almost three weeks." I can't say I've ever had a labor experience like this before, and I'm pretty sure there's no epidural for what lies ahead.<br />
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Yet despite the fear and insecurities that show up on a regular basis, I am SO ready to do this. My heart is full of excitement. I am ready for this. I am ready to go get our boy. BRING. IT. ON.<br />
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In church last Sunday morning we watched this movie put out by <a href="http://www.gospelproject.com/">The Gospel Project</a>. The movie depicts the grand narrative of the Bible as one story, the story of redemption through Jesus. This three-minute video has been floating around in my mind all week, and each time I think of it, I get so pumped up. It reminds me of how our journey to get Ren has been a powerful manifestation of the gospel story in my own life. It's been a story of light shining into darkness, a story of awakening, a story of fighting against so many lies that tell me I can't or shouldn't have embarked on this journey. It's been a story of love and freedom and hope. It's a story of a grand adventure with my God, the master Story Teller, and this is just the beginning. I feel so grateful to be a part of it all.<br />
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We leave at 7am tomorrow morning. The first leg is dropping off the girls with my parents. Then we fly back to SFO, then to Beijing, and then from Beijing to Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, where Ren is (in red).</div>
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We will meet Ren for the first time on Monday, June 2! We will meet him at the civil affairs office in Zhengzhou and we will get to keep him with us for the remainder of the trip. We will be in Zhengzhou for the rest of next week, and then we fly south to Guangzhou (next to Hong Kong), where we will apply for his US Visa (the US Consulate is in Guangzhou). On the way home, we will take a bus from Guangzhou to Hong Kong, then fly out of Hong Kong to Tokyo, then Tokyo to SFO. We will be back in the US with our son, Lord willing, on July 14th!</div>
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His crib is an arm's reach from my side of the bed. It's all made up and ready to go for our big R! It's crazy to think that his sweet body will by lying there soon enough. I can hardly believe this is all happening!</div>
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Thank you all SO MUCH for your love, support, encouragement, and prayers. A MASSIVE thanks to my parents--this would not be possible without you both! Thanks to all of our friends and family who have consistently uplifted us with encouraging words and prayer over the past year and a half. We love you and we are so grateful for you! We covet your continued prayers over the next few weeks.Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-66099118931175649262012-06-06T14:50:00.000-07:002013-03-23T06:27:40.604-07:00when it countsWow. Well, life is getting pretty intense around here. Things are changing and happening so quickly, which I am grateful for. After existing in a place that has felt like purgatory for a long time, I'm so thankful that the wheels are finally turning faster on this journey towards our son. We aren't out of the woods yet, but we are starting to make out the faint edges of our destination on the hazy horizon. We are embarking down the final stretch of this journey, and despite the fatigue, our legs are carrying us faster in anticipation of the finish line. In Dr. Seuss terms, we are preparing to depart from the dreaded "Waiting Place." Praise God, <i>for real</i>. We can't wait to experience what He has in store for us on the <i>other side</i> of this terminal.<br />
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So, here's the latest. We got an email a few days ago from the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China, notifying us that our Article 5 (another big bunch of paperwork) had already been processed and was being sent on to the CCCWA (China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption), which is the LAST LINE OF APPROVAL! If everything goes as anticipated, the CCCWA should issue our travel approval sometime within the next couple weeks, and then we will travel to China about three weeks after that. According to this timeline (which our agency assures us is pretty reliable), <b>we will be departing for China sometime in early-mid July!</b><br />
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We are getting so excited and already making preparations for travel. I have a million to-do lists scribbled in my steno pad. I am buying boy clothes and have already started a suitcase for Ren boy. (So far the clothing theme seems to be "surfer dude"...I found him some dope Hurley duds!) I'm setting our travel paperwork aside in its own folder and I'm going to get my immunizations for China later this week. I got Chris and I a new pair of summery closed-toe walking shoes, as flip-flops aren't very culturally appropriate in China. I also ordered a brand new ERGO to carry Ren around in...and get this...so cool...within an hour of it arriving on my door step...my neighbor and dear friend Jami came by my house to bring me hers...she doesn't need it anymore! So, I returned the one I ordered and got my $$$ back. Every little bit helps and sweet gifts such as these mean a lot!<br />
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Lucy and I decided to try it out on a walk to the park...we loved it.</div>
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I also FINALLY got our travel visas for China after multiple trips to the Chinese Consulate in downtown San Francisco. The second trip there was not without drama, as my car got broken into that morning...the whole passenger window smashed to smithereens.<br />
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They only took my $5 iPhone charger...</div>
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and whatever money we saved by not hiring a courier was negated...and then some...from damages.</div>
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oh well...you win some...you lose some...</div>
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and thankfully it was perfect weather for driving home with the windows open. </div>
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I've never been so happy to leave SF in my life!</div>
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We<b> </b>also had our travel call with our family care coordinator at our agency on Monday, who briefed us on what "Gotcha Day" will probably look like and how to be prepared. She spent a lot of time discussing what this massive transition will be like for Warren and described this whole ordeal from his perspective. We know that as elated as we are to see him, he may not feel the same way about us, and she talked through how to handle all of that. As she was talking to us about what it might be like, I started imagining the scene in my mind and my eyes started to well up. To be honest, I've pictured that scene a million times in my head already, and every single time it chokes me up, but something about hearing someone else describe it really got me. I'm going to be a mess! It's going to be intense. It's going to be awesome.<br />
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I have a lot of doubts and fears. I hope I will respond in the best way possible and do everything I can in those critical moments to show our son love and tenderness while allowing him to feel all that he is feeling. He will have had to say goodbye to his foster mom already, as they move the foster children back into the orphanage about a week or two before their adoptive family comes to get them. He will be grieving that loss and change, only to be hurled into another massive transition when they hand him over to us crazy white people who speak funny and smell weird and keep trying to give him candy. My heart hurts as I ponder what might be going through his little mind amidst all of the scary transitions.<br />
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All of this kind of reminds me of when I was a nurse, taking ACLS and BLS classes, studying over and over how to respond when someones's life is on the line. You memorize the numerous algorithms--the drugs and doses and procedures for how to resuscitate someone--but you always wonder if you'll remember it when it really counts. Will you remember to open the airway before you start giving rescue breaths? Will you remember which medication corresponds to which arrhythmia and how many minutes apart to administer it? Will you freeze up or will you be able to apply the training to a real life situation? I've been reading and learning about all the text-book rules for encouraring attachment with Ren, but will these translate to reality--in the chaotic moments when it really matters?<br />
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The good thing is I know I don't need to be perfect, and I know that this is going to be a journey (aka: a ginormous learning process) for all of us. I know there is help along the way when we need it--praise God--because I know I'm going to need it. A massive thanks to you guys for reading and supporting us and praying for us. Please pray that our travel approval comes promptly...and in God's perfect timing...because if I've learned anything from this whole endeavor, it's that His timing really is perfect...in ways I can't even begin to describe.Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-89531249135290394782012-06-02T16:33:00.000-07:002012-06-03T06:24:01.415-07:00a tree in a story about a forestSeveral weeks ago I said that I wanted to spend some time talking about books that have meant something to me over the past few years. I thought I'd continue that discussion today.<br />
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It's difficult for me to do really thorough book reviews, because when it comes to books that I love, it's hard to know where to stop. I could probably talk for days on end about all the ideas, thoughts, and dreams that get stirred up inside of me when I read a book that I love. One little blog post is insufficient to relay what a particular book means to me, because I think that a good book becomes a very personal thing and intersects with some deep emotional places within us.<br />
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Anyhow, moving on with my insufficient blog post. The book I want to talk about is <i>A Million Miles in a Thousand Years</i> by Donald Miller. I've actually written a post about this book before, a few years ago, closer to the time when the book was released. But the other night I couldn't get to sleep and the book was flashing at me like a strobe light from the dark book shelf. So I picked it up and started to read it again.<br />
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A friend of mine once said that you know what your favorite book is by the number of times you've read it. I think this is true. My favorite books are those that never get old no matter how many times I've read them. They become new each time and I connect with the characters or the message in new ways, depending on what's going on inside of me. So, I suppose this book by Donald Miller should be added to my favorites list, right along with <i>Family Happiness</i> by Tolstoy and <i>East of Eden</i> by Steinbeck.<br />
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The first time I read this book, I was about eight months pregnant with Lucy. I read it in bed as I felt her perform gymnastics inside of me. I think it got her excited too. I was so pumped up about the premise of the book--the idea of "living a good story"--and I was excited about how this book converged with so many things I'd been studying in my MFA program. The book planted a big seed inside of me...a seed that started to germinate about a year and a half ago when we started the adoption process.<br />
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I picked the book up for the second time when Chris and I were fervently praying about adopting. The words in this book were the push I needed to start the process when we did. It inspired me and told me it was okay to be afraid. It reminded me that if we wait for the perfect time to start living a good story, we never will. So we jumped in with both feet, hoping and praying that God, the Author, would work out the kinks in timing. Suddenly I felt like Chris and I were making an intentional and calculated move to live a better story and this was exciting. Something deep inside of me that had been dormant for a long time--perhaps forever--had opened it's eyes and started to see clearly.<br />
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And now, here we are, only about 6 weeks away (Lord willing) from getting our little guy, and I'm re-reading this book again. The adoption journey has been it's own story, one that is just beginning in so many ways. I think I understand words like "process" and "waiting" and "patience" and "trust" better now than I did a year ago, and I also better understand what Donald Miller means when he writes that "you become the character in the story you are living, and whatever you were is gone." I'm starting to wrap my mind around the idea that it's not necessarily about the conclusion, but how the character is changed by the story at hand, and I can see a lot of ways that this story is changing me.<br />
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I read a part of the book earlier today that really hit me, so I wanted to spend some time talking about it. It's so in line with so much that I've learned just in the past month so it got me really psyched when I read it. Donald Miller writes (paraphrased),<br />
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<i>I was a tree in a story about a forest and it was arrogant of me to believe any differently...and the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree...and I asked God to help me understand the story of the forest and what it meant to be a tree in that story.</i><br />
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I mentioned in a recent post that I had the opportunity to speak at Celebrate Recovery several weeks ago. I was so scared. I seriously thought I was going to hyperventilate before getting up on stage. But one thing I kept telling myself as I sat in that chair in the auditorium, my hands sweaty and my heart palpitating, was that <i>this is not about me. </i>My sponsor kept telling me that too. "This isn't about you," she'd say. And I knew it was true. It was about God and the story He was telling through my life, and it was just my job to put it into words and to speak those words into a microphone so that other people in that dark sanctuary could hear about it. It wasn't my job to know how my words might impact the story that God was telling through other people or to worry about whether or not my story was important enough to be told. It's kind of my story because I'm living it, but ultimately, it's not about me.<br />
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This thought did help me push through my fear of public speaking. It silenced the voices in my head that tell me my story isn't extreme or important enough to be told. When I could view my life as a small chapter or sub plot in the epic, eternal tale that God is writing, then it freed me from caring so much about what people thought of my story or what judgements they'd make on me. It really took a lot of the burden off and made me excited to share about what God had written in my life so far. It allowed me to take myself seriously enough to speak, but not so seriously that I'd buckle up in fear. It made me want to speak so that I could bring Him praise, and I am learning that life is so much more meaningful when it becomes about Him--when it stops becoming about striving to bring myself praise for a story that's not really mine anyhow.<br />
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I read this verse the other day:<br />
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"Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." Heb 13:15-16<br />
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How is praise a sacrifice? I thought about it. It felt like a sacrifice to get up on stage that night and praise His name. I feel like it should be easy to praise God in front of other people, but it was hard. I was nervous about it all week. I didn't sleep well and I spent a lot of time preparing and praying about what I wanted to share. It feels like a sacrifice to write on this blog sometimes, putting things out there for the faceless and nameless public to read. But regardless of comments or site-meters or popularity, something inside of me keeps spurring me on to share my life and my story with other people, even if it's just in this quiet corner of the blogosphere. It's not always up to me to control who hears...just that I keep offering the praise, the fruit of my lips.<br />
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I guess He's created us all to bring Him praise in different ways...sometimes we speak this praise, sometimes we write it, sometimes we sing it or play it on an instrument. Sometimes we run it, sometimes we draw it, sometimes we cry it, you fill in the blank. We live it in the stories He's writing for us and it's vital that we share it in the way He's designed us to.<br />
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Overall, I think that incredible things happen when we are open to sharing our tree stories with the other trees around us, because this gives us a deeper understanding of the forest story and how our tree fits into the forest.<br />
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Tess came home from preschool a while ago saying, "Sharing is Caring." How true that is. Sharing <i>is</i> caring...and sharing is sacrificial and scary too...and sharing gives our lives meaning.<br />
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I'll conclude with the words of the brilliant Mary Oliver:<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"I don't want to live a small life. Open your eyes, open your hands."</span><br />
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What are some of your favorite books?<br />
How does your tree fit into the forest story?<br />
How is praise a sacrifice for you?<br />
How do you share your story with others?Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-76637435579648980152012-05-24T13:23:00.001-07:002012-05-25T22:28:22.463-07:00sultry summer.I made a new playlist the other week. It's called Sultry Summer. The title just kind of came to me. The mix has been playing on my iPod almost constantly. One of the songs on the playlist is "It's Time to Move On" by Tom Petty; track three from the album <i>Wildflowers</i>.<br />
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<i>It's time to move on</i></div>
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<i>It's time to get goin'</i></div>
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<i>What lies ahead</i></div>
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<i>I have no way of knowin'</i></div>
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<i>but under my feet, babe</i></div>
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<i>the grass is growin'</i></div>
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<i>yeah it's time to move on...</i></div>
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<i>Story of my life</i>. I remember first listening to the song as I rode along I-26 on the bus ride home from our 8th grade school trip to Seabrook Island, SC. I was fourteen years old. It was the end of the school year, the end of my first year back in America, and I was about to switch schools again...I was about to start high school.<br />
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It's funny, the things we remember, isn't it? I've carried that moment on the bus with me me all these years. The song always triggers that memory. It signifies the sultry heat and salty tears associated with saying goodbye. The folky tune is what I imagine change sounds like.<br />
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Historically, summer has meant a lot change for me, and this summer is no different. It seemed that the big moves my family made often took place during the summertime. When we lived oversees in England, we'd come back to the States for the summer, and for those six weeks back in my passport country, I was struck each time with how much I was growing and changing apart from it. Each time I returned, the harder it was to identify with my native land. Going back to England at the summer's end felt more like home...and yet it wasn't quite home either.<br />
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The end of the school year in also England meant saying goodbye to friends forever--not just for the summer break. Friends who were from Sweden or Japan or South Africa were going back to their native countries, or perhaps onto another foreign land, and good-bye truly meant good-bye. "See you later" was not in our vocabulary.<br />
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When we finally moved back to the States, I transitioned into a tiny private school with a class size of about 32. Most of the kids had gone to that school since kindergarden and they all knew each other. At age 13, I was struggling to fit back into a country where I suddenly felt like an immigrant. I made some friends but I felt that there was this huge part of me that was hidden and isolated. I didn't know how to incorporate my overseas experiences into this new environment. I might as well have been from Mars.<br />
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I only stayed at that school for a year. Then I went to a different school for my freshman and sophomore years of high school. Then we moved again to a different city where I finished off junior and senior years. Then I was off to somewhere new for college and then I transferred to another school after freshman year. Then, eventually, I joined the military, go figure, and for the past decade, the cycle has repeated from one time zone to the next to the next.<br />
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The other night, Chris and I were driving home from Davis. We were talking about relationship stuff and Chris said to me:<br />
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"You really have some sort of outsider complex."<br />
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Gulp.<br />
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I just kind nodded my head and said, "Yeah, I know."<br />
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The outsider. That girl who is a part of things and yet still remains apart from things. I suppose I feel like her, standing alone, always with one foot in and one foot out. She sort of belongs...but not quite.<br />
<br />
Change has been almost constant for me. Playing the role of "the new girl"and trying to break into pre-established circles of friends that are sometimes rooted deep in years of history is a pattern in my story. It leaves me feeling both motivated and isolated, both challenged and tired of trying. I learned this pattern during a crucial time in my development, and as an adult, I think I've learned to perpetuate it.<br />
<br />
I think I'm coming to realize that it's okay to just be me though. Gosh, that sounds cliche, does it not? But in the flux of so much change and transition, I have not known who "me" is. I am slowly starting to figure it out though, and I'm learning that who I am at the core is not determined by which country I happen to live in, which circles of friends I currently run in, or whether or not people understand every aspect of me.<br />
<br />
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***</div>
<br />
A few years ago the term "Third Culture Kid" (TCK) was introduced to me through an essay one of my classmates wrote. A TCK "is someone who has spent a significant period of time in one or more culture(s) other than his or her own, thus integrating elements of those cultures and their own birth culture, into a third culture." These changes typically take place during the highly formative years of childhood/adolescence.<br />
<br />
Anyhow, Chris's outsider comment got me thinking about the whole TCK thing again and I started reading a bit more about it. I've been astounded by how much it resonates with my experience. <a href="http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/2065.pdf">Something I recently read on the subject</a> struck me:<br />
<br />
"...one of the major areas in working with TCKs is that of dealing with the issue of unresolved grief. They are always leaving or being left. Relationships are short-lived. At the end of each school year, a certain number of the student body leaves, not just for the summer, but for good...<i>Most TCKs go through more grief experiences by the time they are 20 than monocultural individuals do in a lifetime."</i><br />
<br />
I also read that TCKs "cope" rather than "adjust." We adapt, find niches, take risks, fall and pick ourselves up again...we feel at home everywhere and nowhere...and most of us never truly adjust back to life in America. And then there's that part about how we don't learn problem-solving skills in relationships because we can always simply leave a problem without resolving it. We carry our baggage to the next location and watch it play out in new relationships...until we can leave again. (Ouch.)<br />
<br />
The more I come to understand this part of my story, the more I am starting to understand where my identity struggle/outsider complex comes from. This doesn't explain everything, but it does explain some things. I can understand more of why making new friends can be easy and painful at the same time, and why I become detached when I have to say goodbye to people. So many meaningful relationships have been woven in and out of my life so many times...and most of them are only for a season. Sometimes it feels shamefully easy to let go of them...but only because it's so incredibly painful to let go, if that makes sense.<br />
<br />
But, despite the growing pains, I am also seeing the beautiful things that God has written into my story as a result of these experiences. The book I was reading through states that "while TCKs are cultural outsiders in their own passport country, 88% can relate to anyone, regardless of differences in race, ethnicity, religion, or nationality. They generally credit their third culture background with positively influencing their adult lives."<br />
<br />
I know that my childhood and adolescent experiences burned a passion into my heart to reach beyond the limitations of my native country. There is this energy and drive inside of me that longs to identify with others who know what it means to leave people and places that feel like home and start over in a place that feels foreign. I tend to relate to those who feel like outsiders...who tend to lurk on the fringe. And while I realize that the scenarios of our stories are incredibly different, one name kept coming to mind as I've pondered all of this:<br />
<br />
Ren.<br />
<br />
When we receive him into our arms he will have to say goodbye to everything he has known. At such a young age he will know profound grief. This will be part of his story.<br />
<br />
While I understand that in many ways I cannot possibly know what this is like for him, I can recognize a few ways that I can. I also know that on some deep, guttural level, loving him will perhaps soothe the sense longing and grief that I carry inside of me because of the story God has given me. The further I travel this journey to my son, the more I hear God whisper:<br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<i>This is your son and I have equipped you to be his mother. I created you to do this.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
If things continue to go as planned, we will be in China within two months, sweating in the sultry July humidity, our lives forever changed for the better. I can't wait to be overseas again, and far more, I can't wait to hold my son in my arms.<br />
<br />
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***</div>
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<br /></div>
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Quotes taken from "According To My Passport, I'm Coming Home" by Kay Branaman Eakin, online at <a href="http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/2065.pdf">http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/2065.pdf</a></div>
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<br /></div>Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-15398287926914223322012-05-12T16:34:00.000-07:002012-05-12T16:34:16.885-07:00endings and beginnings"To live in this world<br />
<br />
you must be able<br />
to do three things:<br />
to love what is mortal;<br />
to hold it<br />
<br />
against your bones knowing<br />
your own life depends on it;<br />
and, when the time comes to let it go,<br />
to let it go."<br />
<br />
from "In Blackwater Woods" by Mary Oliver<br />
<br />
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***</div>
<br />
I came to the end of my journal yesterday. I have gone through two journals in the past ten months, a new record for me. Writing on the last page of my journal yesterday felt symbolic--it was an image that captures the season of life I am currently walking through--a season of many endings which are quickly bleeding into a wild sea of change and fresh beginnings. <br />
<br />
I bought a new journal at Target last week. It is bright pink and spiral bound. This morning was the first time I wrote in it. There's nothing like a new journal, a fresh page to write on, a book full of emptiness waiting expectantly to be filled with words, impressed by pens, and crinkled by fingertips. I wonder what will be written in this new journal. Amidst the clamor and chaos of this morning, feeding and clothing the littles, I only got to write one thing in this new journal, but I believe what I wrote is significant given the upcoming adventures this journal will contain. Exodus 33.14:<br />
<br />
"My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."<br />
<br />
Regardless of the changes, uncertainty, and chaos ahead, I hope I am able to cling tightly to my God and find continual rest in His Presence.<br />
<br />
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***</div>
<br />
Endings make my heart full. They are a time to reflect, commemorate, and celebrate. Sometimes it's hard to see growth and progress when you are in the thick of the journey, and I'm thankful for the moments when I can look back on the trail that was often too dark or windy to understand and slowly start to make sense of it. I may not know all of the "why's" but I can see how the girl who started the journey has been molded into a new creation. These moments are a gift and often become pillars of faith to cling to when the road dips into a valley again.<br />
<br />
Last night was one such moment for me. I have been involved in a ministry called Celebrate Recovery for about a year now. This has been a trying year for me, one of immense change, soul-searching, and growth. At times I wanted to give up, throw in the towel, and say the whole thing was pointless. But last night I got to stand up on a stage in front of a lot of people and give praise to my God for the supernatural changes He's worked inside of me. There are so many changes and I feel butterflies in my stomach thinking about it all...all the possibilities ahead...all the ways the trials of this year have better equipped me as a mother to Ren and my girls.<br />
<br />
But, as I shared up on stage last night, the biggest change I've experienced over the past year is coming to believe more deeply than ever that God loves me. This sounds like a pretty basic thing to believe as a Christian, but I've been a Christian for over fifteen years, and I would say that it's only in the past year that this truth has become alive and real to me.<br />
<br />
My friend <a href="http://tracyawesome.typepad.com/my_weblog/">Tracy</a> shared this quote by Dan Allender on Facebook last week:<br />
<br />
"To meditate is to chew something over in your mind until it runs wet and sweet into your heart."<br />
<br />
And so I would say that the biggest change over the past year is that I have learned to meditate on God's love for me...His love has been in my mind for years, but has now run wet and sweet into my heart...into my bones...into every breathing cell of my body...and every other positive change in my life is merely a ripple effect of His love.<br />
<br />
Coming to know God's love more deeply is setting me free. This belief is so central to everything else. Believing this frees me to trust Him, which in turn frees me to stop trying to control my life and the lives of others. I can give this heavy burden back to the One who was meant to carry it all along, and I can rest in His goodness and His plan. Receiving His love is allowing me (like Mary Oliver says) to love what is mortal...to hold it against my bones...and to let it go when the time comes. This year has been a time of letting go of a lot of things...things and people I was meant to love fiercely but never meant to grasp so tightly...never meant to carry...never meant to try and save. Letting go is sad...at first...but then there is freedom. Last night signified the end of a journey I've been on over the past year...but in many ways I realize that this is only the beginning. In a way, it feels like life is really about to start. My hands are open.<br />
<br />
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***</div>
<br />
"And now, with God's help, I shall become myself." --Soren Kierkegaard<br />
<br />Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-8796080537735434522012-04-28T11:23:00.000-07:002012-05-12T16:34:47.161-07:00don't force it.It's French press Saturday again and the house is silent. Even the washing machine has stopped running and all I hear is the faint hum of the refrigerator, a few birds outside. Ah, yes.<br />
<br />
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<br />
I've been thinking lately about how our lives gradually unravel, like threads in a tightly wound cord. With each slow turn, the threads become a bit loser and begin to separate. Eventually, one can start to see each individual strand and how it fits into the whole.<br />
<br />
Or perhaps our lives are more like books that can only be read one paragraph at a time. We cannot skip ahead to read the final outcome. We cannot know how the plot will twist and turn or how our character will be shaped by the events and people that weave in and out of our trajectory. We can only know the part we are reading now, in the moment, and each paragraph gradually alters how will things will play out in the future.<br />
<br />
This is how life has felt lately for me. I am an odd one. I like to read books and magazines from back to front, or sometimes I like to plop myself right in the middle and skip around from there. This drives my left-brained, linear-minded husband absolutely mad. But me, I am not so linear. My mind likes to flit and float around, jumping associatively from one topic to the next. It sometimes resists a neat and orderly narrative.<br />
<br />
But there is no jumping around in the narrative of my life, no option to read from back to front or to start somewhere in the middle. There is only here and now--there is only the sentence that God is currently constructing, one word at a time, and each word is formed based on the one that preceded it. Sometimes the process feels painstakingly slow. Yet it is in the slowness and stillness that I'm learning to listen to His voice. I'm learning to slow down myself, to trust that He will uphold my character through all of the peaks and valleys, twists and turns ahead. I don't need to rush the story or try to force the action before its due time.<br />
<br />
<i>Don't force it</i>. That's what I keep telling myself. I'm aware that I've tried to force many things in my life, and I'm equally aware of how unnecessary it is. I don't need to have it all figured out. I don't need to make decisions before I'm ready to or before I'm required to do so. Wait and trust, wait and trust, I say.<br />
<br />
I dropped my last poetry class a few weeks ago. It is the very last class I need before I can begin my thesis. I am so close, yet so far away from finishing this MFA. I knew in my gut that I needed to drop it. I knew that with everything that's going on in our lives right now, I would not be able to get my mind into it. I need to be fully present and engaged in what is happening right now--with God, with myself, with my family, with Ren. I can't do that and school. Besides, if required to write poetry at a time like this, I'm pretty sure my poems would end up sounding a little something like this:<br />
<br />
The cat sat<br />
on a mat<br />
and then it<br />
ate a rat.<br />
What do you<br />
think about that?<br />
<br />
So, as of now, I'm registered to take my next class this December. I'm thinking that our lives might be a bit more "stable" at that point, but who knows. Most people say that the first year post-adoption is insanity, so I will have to cross that bridge when I get to it. If I don't take the December class, then I'll be dropped from my program and I'll have to reapply again if I want to complete my degree. If this happens, I'll also be required to take three extra classes that weren't required when I originally started the program. And to be honest, I'm okay with all of that. I want to finish this degree...I have come so far...but I am also at peace if for some reason it doesn't work out and I can't finish. I don't want to force it if the timing is not right.<br />
<br />
Sometimes other things come along and get in the way of our plans. Sometimes, something big, like Love, gets in the way, and our trajectory is forever altered, our original plans get modified, and who we become is no longer compatible with the dreams we once had. We become different and maybe we learn to dream even bigger dreams than before.<br />
<br />
Who knows what lies ahead in my narrative? Only God. Who knows if I'll ever finish this MFA? Only God.<br />
<br />
But one thing's for sure.<br />
<br />
I'll never stop writing. <br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ-5XZZb17mgW9AHLuMIjAZYu8w_ng0boBR5QuY_oO-9vLw54Mvp-fLI5_23g-of9MKYFarfsV3n5amyCdnr0RAJsmLgCPolj9dMfwTuMBbzhI5Af-G5H2c7KcWU809ydxwToZxwwaT3H9/s1600/photo-62.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ-5XZZb17mgW9AHLuMIjAZYu8w_ng0boBR5QuY_oO-9vLw54Mvp-fLI5_23g-of9MKYFarfsV3n5amyCdnr0RAJsmLgCPolj9dMfwTuMBbzhI5Af-G5H2c7KcWU809ydxwToZxwwaT3H9/s320/photo-62.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-74039010271990865322012-04-27T14:25:00.000-07:002013-03-23T06:28:34.256-07:00strength, redefined.I was talking with a friend/mentor of mine about strength last week. She is a very intelligent, perceptive, and wise woman, and she was discussing the relationship between strength and rest...more specifically, that strength comes from rest. Like this:<br />
<br />
REST ------>>> STRENGTH<br />
<br />
There are all of these examples in scripture of this connection between strength and rest, like the way that Jesus went away to rest and seek solitude before he had to be strong before the multitudes. Anyhow, we talked about how much our culture twists this relationship between strength and rest. Our culture tells us that if we need rest, then we are weak. It tells us that activity, accomplishment, busyness, perfectionism, and stoicism equals and breeds strength. But really, all of this stuff depletes us. It makes us frazzled, fragmented, and exhausted.<br />
<br />
I was thinking a lot about this today because of something that happened last night. I've mentioned before that I've been involved with a ministry called Celebrate Recovery over the past year. Last fall I started an intensive study that guided me and a group of other ladies through the twelve steps of recovery. It's been a season of breaking down the blinders of denial, doing an inventory of my relationship with God, with myself, and with others, and of learning how to surrender my life to God and to really, really trust Him. Anyhow, last night was our night to celebrate the progress we have made and to give Him praise for the victories we have experienced. We all sat around a big table and ate together and shared our stories.<br />
<br />
I wrote over three-pages, single spaced, to share with our group, and about half-way into the first paragraph, I started to cry. I am a crier, a big crier, and once I start, it's hard for me to stop. I thought I was doomed when the tears started coming so early into my story. <i>I'll never get through this</i>, I thought.<br />
<br />
But I did...eventually. I had to stop to blow my nose a few times and I felt horribly self-consious. I was a blubbering, shaking mess by the end, but I got every word out. I gave it all that I had; I held nothing back. I hoped that my words might touch the other women in my group and give praise to Jesus, the ultimate Author of it all. It was a powerful night and I felt pretty proud of how much our group has grown and learned over the past year.<br />
<br />
This morning, however, something very typical happened. I woke up feeling horrible. The feeling is familiar...a tinge of nausea combined with a lurking sense of shame. I felt embarrassed and stupid about how emotional I had gotten. I wondered, <i>why can't I be one of those women who can speak the words without my voice quivering, without tears blurring my vision, and without my hands shaking as I clench the words on the page? Why must I be so...so...emotional?</i> (I'm slowly and stubbornly learning to accept that maybe God just made me this way and I need to stop comparing myself to people who can speak in public without losing total composure.)<br />
<br />
Anyhow, I say all of this because I think I'm realizing that maybe my embarrassment over my vulnerable, emotional display last night is that our culture tells us that this type of behavior is weak. In the same way it tells us that rest is weak, it also tells us that tearful displays of emotion are weak. It tells us to stay locked up inside, to not show our hearts, to protect ourselves, and to keep it all together.<br />
<br />
Over the years, I've learned that sharing our stories with one another takes courage. It takes courage to be vulnerable. It takes courage to struggle. It takes courage to fight against resistance, and it takes courage to open yourself up to change, to share your brokenness and neediness.<br />
<br />
So, all of this is to say that our culture has got it all backwards. These hard, stoic images that we somehow get in our heads of what it means to be strong are false illusions. Practicing rest gives us strength. This is where we can refuel and listen to God and to ourselves. And then, from that rest, we can go out and struggle hard and boldly share our broken lives with one another--we can share our stories--we can share all that we've heard in our moments of rest.<br />
<br />
Throughout my MFA program, this question is commonly asked:<br />
<br />
<i>What makes a piece of writing good?</i><br />
<br />
The answer is usually unanimous:<br />
<br />
<i>A good piece of writing evokes an emotional response from the reader/hearer.</i><br />
<br />
So, I guess I needed to write this for myself, to remind myself of what strength is, where it comes from, and that it usually doesn't show up in the way I think it should. Perhaps my level of emotion last night doesn't mean that I'm a weak, histrionic basket-case. Perhaps it means that God is writing a pretty incredible story for me as I yield my life to Him...and He is teaching me to share it...tears, quivers, shakes, and all.Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-48224300077894282412012-04-26T12:49:00.000-07:002013-03-23T06:29:13.542-07:00Codependent No MoreI've been thinking a lot lately about books that have impacted my life over the past few years and I'd love to spend some time talking about them over the next few weeks...<br />
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I'm not really one for self-help books, but <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Codependent-No-More-Controlling-Yourself/dp/0894864025">this book by Melody Beattie</a> is an exception. I've been reading it and re-reading it over the past year, and in conjunction with a lot of support from my recovery group, mentors, therapist, and friends, it has revolutionized the way I approach life and relationships. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I think all humans struggle on some level with issues of codependency. If you struggle, like me, with perfectionism, control, seeking the approval of others, maintaining healthy boundaries, feeling guilty about being who you are, feeling responsible for other people's feelings and reactions, having a tendency to rescue and people-please, and/or struggle with addiction or love someone who struggles with addiction (to name a few), then you will probably like this book too. </div>
<br />
Some things I have learned over the past year...quotes worth sharing...from <i>Codependent No More...</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
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<i><br /></i>
"We don't have to take things so seriously (ourselves, events, and other people). We blow things out of proportion--our feelings, thoughts, actions, and mistakes. We do the same thing with other people's feelings, thoughts, and actions. We tell ourselves things are awful, terrible, a tragedy, and the end of the world. Many things might be sad, too bad, and unpleasant--but the only thing that's the end of the world is the end of the world. Feelings are important, but they're only feelings. Thoughts are important, but they're only thoughts--and we all think a lot of different things, and our thoughts are subject to change. What we say and do is important, what others say and do is important, but the world doesn't hinge on any particular speech or action. And if it is particularly important that something gets done or said, don't worry: It'll happen. Lighten up. Give yourself and others room to move, to talk, to be who they are--to be human. Give life a chance to happen. Give yourself and opportunity to enjoy it."<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
***</div>
<br />
<i>"</i>I believe...that our low self-worth or self-hatred is tied into all aspects of our codependency: martyrdom, refusal to enjoy life; workaholism, staying so busy we can't enjoy life; perfectionism, not allowing ourselves to enjoy or feel good about the things we do; procrastination, heaping piles of guilt and uncertainty on ourselves; and preventing intimacy with people such as running from relationships, avoiding commitment, staying in destructive relationships; initiating relationships with people who are not good for us, and avoiding people who are good for us...We can find endless means of torturing ourselves: overeating, neglecting our needs, comparing ourselves to others, competing with people, obsessing, dwelling on painful memories, or imagining future painful scenes...We scare ourselves, then wonder why we feel so frightened. We don't like ourselves, and we're not going to let ourselves get any of the good stuff because we believe we don't deserve it."<br />
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***</div>
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"We need to refuse to enter into an antagonistic relationship with ourselves. Quit blaming ourselves and being victimized, and take responsible steps to remove the victim. Put the screws to guilt. Shame and guilt serve no long-term purpose. They are only useful to momentarily indicate when we may have violated our own moral codes. Guilt and shame are not useful as a way of life. Stop the "shoulds." Become aware of when we're punishing and torturing ourselves and make a concerted effort to tell ourselves positive messages. If we should be doing something, do it. If we're torturing ourselves, stop it. It gets easier. We can laugh at ourselves, tell ourselves we won't be tricked, give ourselves a hug, then go about the business of living as we choose. If we have real guilt, deal with it. God will forgive us. We don't have to punish ourselves by feeling guilty to prove to God or anyone else how much we care."<br />
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***</div>
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"Codependents are oppressed, depressed, and repressed. Many of us can quickly tell what someone else is feeling, why that person is feeling that way, how long they've felt that way, and what that person is probably going to do because of that feeling. Many of us spend our lives fussing about other people's feelings. We try to fix people's feelings. We try to control other people's feelings. We don't want to hurt people, we don't want to upset them, and we don't want to offend them. We feel so responsible for other people's feelings. Yet, we don't know what we are feeling. If we do, we don't know what to do to fix ourselves. Many of us have abandoned or never taken responsibility for our emotional selves."<br />
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***</div>
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Anyhow, I'll stop here before I end up quoting the entire book. There are so many great truths throughout this book and Beattie writes with such an encouraging, honest, confidant, and firm tone. If any of these quotes resonate with you, I think this book would be worth reading.<br />
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Has anyone else read this book? If so, what were your thoughts on it?Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-79570415351250755612012-04-16T21:51:00.001-07:002012-04-17T08:13:09.696-07:00Homecoming<div style="text-align: justify;">On Easter Sunday Chris and I had some downtime before we needed to be at the airport to head home. So, without a doubt, we headed to the beach. There's a quaint breakfast cafe in the Belvedere Hotel right on the boardwalk of VA Beach. We got a booth right by the window and this was our view.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIXHgATYMFsn_vZHHRT7Mk89nclEHGabYmkgL5dYu1cjYSjpKZ8IM0nMIC7oopsTvIg_gF_TBmkU5yVvwJAIu8tijETp4C8wPbKy_St7FPBhdrEyeJPPDHxoBqu7ZIHCtR9GVcCKnvum94/s1600/photo+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIXHgATYMFsn_vZHHRT7Mk89nclEHGabYmkgL5dYu1cjYSjpKZ8IM0nMIC7oopsTvIg_gF_TBmkU5yVvwJAIu8tijETp4C8wPbKy_St7FPBhdrEyeJPPDHxoBqu7ZIHCtR9GVcCKnvum94/s400/photo+2.JPG" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">Chris was commenting on how much the VA Beach boardwalk felt like Huntington Beach, CA, where he grew up. I had to admit, it did feel a bit different than the beaches I grew up going to in South Carolina, yet it's still the same ocean with the same warm water that I swam in as a girl. VA Beach has its own vibe, which seems to be a perfect blend of Chris's and my past. In a way, we both feel like we are coming home. He's got a surfing spot...or as good of a surfing spot as you can find on the east coast...</div><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">and I've got my grits again.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje-SuDAJcfEd_pM-VoNFGEcZ19bmwY91YPrqFiTP-ayNthUfHUBq2GvdGa-fmHD8aJqt-7Z_5NcbzyfJJvHm8YNBwLC0Nz0XEutVjd2vgJ92MwGxv1e7-B4GlBrhx-h3PFaPrqnoMlcmnA/s1600/photo+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje-SuDAJcfEd_pM-VoNFGEcZ19bmwY91YPrqFiTP-ayNthUfHUBq2GvdGa-fmHD8aJqt-7Z_5NcbzyfJJvHm8YNBwLC0Nz0XEutVjd2vgJ92MwGxv1e7-B4GlBrhx-h3PFaPrqnoMlcmnA/s400/photo+3.JPG" width="300" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">I think we're going to like this place.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">When we walked through our new home for the first time, we entered through the garage. Right away, the same thing struck us: surfboard racks. Tons of them, hanging from the ceiling. From the beginning, Chris could start to envision us in that house. He could see us coming home from the beach, stowing our boards away in the garage, and rinsing our sandy feet off in the outside shower on our back patio. I love seeing my man's eyes light up like this. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">By the ocean, my surfing and sailing stud is like a boy again, full of adventure and passion and play. He's worked so very hard to get to this place, to finally be at this season of life where he can call the ocean home once again. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">So, this poem, this is for my man and for the new season of life we are about to plunge into together...</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Ocean" by Mary Oliver</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I am in love with Ocean</div><div style="text-align: left;">lifting her thousands of white hats</div><div style="text-align: left;">in the chop of the storm,</div><div style="text-align: left;">or lying smooth and blue, the </div><div style="text-align: left;">loveliest bed in the world.</div><div style="text-align: left;">In the personal life, there is</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">always grief more than enough,</div><div style="text-align: left;">a heart-load for each one of us</div><div style="text-align: left;">on the dusty road. I suppose</div><div style="text-align: left;">there is a reason for this, so I will be</div><div style="text-align: left;">patient, acquiescent. But I will live</div><div style="text-align: left;">nowhere except here, by Ocean, trusting</div><div style="text-align: left;">equally in all the blast and welcome</div><div style="text-align: left;">of her sorrowless, salt self.</div>Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-54483467400673179642012-04-15T22:09:00.036-07:002012-04-16T08:03:34.950-07:00when i miss what's right in front of me...Chris and I have really worked ourselves up this week amidst the stressors of buying a home on the other side of the country and adopting on the other side of the world. The problematic details that each of these endeavors present have swallowed up our minds. We start projecting into the future, feel burdened about all the things we can have no way of knowing or planning for, and try answering questions that are basically unanswerable. As two individuals who equally despise uncertainty and instability--or any situation that disables us from relying on our own self-sufficiency--it is like the blind leading the blind. Thank God we have good people and a good church to knock some sense back into us.<br />
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Sometimes it's a bit jarring to hear how vastly different peoples' perception of me is compared with the way I view myself. Last night I had my <a href="http://seizedbyhope.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7%3Ared-tent-dinners&Itemid=5">Red Tent dinner</a> and I ended up gushing and purging all of my angst and built-up tension regarding the upcoming changes in my life. I can tend to focus on all the negative things, the hard things, the things that feel like impossible mountains to overcome. But as I talked and shared and cried last night, I got to hear myself speak, and I got to hear my friends speak in response to me. They are all so excited for me regarding all the changes ahead...the new home, the fresh start, the beautiful boy who will be our son. As I've chewed on their responses today, it's become apparent to me how much I've been totally MISSING a lot of the beauty, excitement, celebration, and blessing that's right in front of me. Yes, there are many stressors ahead, and yes, there is a ton of uncertainty, but I am also aware that these potential stressors are linked to a life of immense blessing and privilege. It's easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. All of this was reinforced this morning in church, where the message was on "Trusting God...Even if..." Oh, how often I need to be reminded of His goodness, His love, and His sovereignty! It's incredible how easily I entangle myself in the myriad of stress-inducing details rather than focus on blessings at hand.<br />
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Gratitude reframes my perspective on life. It rewires my heart and mind. It is a choice that allows me to see the goodness that's right in front of me everyday, and it cures my festering tendency to cocoon myself inside of my own flawed and often pessimistic mind...the one that says "whoa is me, no one understands, I'm so alone, blah, blah, blah." Gratitude says that that's just a bunch of hogwash. Gratitude says, "DUDE...WAKE UP...SMELL THE COFFEE...SEE THE GLORY THAT IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!!!"<br />
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I'm not alone. I'm blessed. And even if I think that people don't understand my situation completely, who cares? Understanding is sometimes over-rated. We each live different lives and no one can totally understand our life except God. But we can walk alongside one another and listen to each other, accept each other, and speak truth to each other regardless. Shoot, I barely understand myself anyways.<br />
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Today I'm thankful for a weekend of rest and renewed perspective. I'm thankful for the exciting times ahead, and I'm thankful for relationships that get me outside of myself.Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-67528759888703956072012-04-14T11:20:00.002-07:002012-05-12T16:35:37.461-07:00French Pressis becoming a habit. I used to only pull it out for special occasions, and then one day I thought, <i>that's silly...why not use it everyday?</i><br />
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I like the little swirly thing the coffee does with the different shades of brown. You don't get that effect with regular drip coffee because the filter catches all the oils from the beans.<br />
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Coffee is one of the greatest gifts of God to man. I have needed a lot of it to keep me going this week. Chris is at the gym with the girls and I stayed behind to recharge a bit. This quiet time at home on Saturday mornings is becoming my time to make French press and write and reflect on the week.<br />
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This week we have been recovering from the intensity of our house-hunting trip and the girls have been adjusting too. I think we are still all settling back in. Chris and I got home around 11pm on Easter and we hit the ground running on Monday. Our LOC showed up on our doorstep on Monday afternoon, so the rest of this week has been like a return to this time last year, when I was up to my ears in dossier paperwork. The arrival of our LOC launched the last leg of paperwork to get our boy, including another massive stack to be sent to US Immigration and another stack to be sent back to our agency. We are in the final round of getting immigration approval for our boy and also applying for his visa into the country. This process has so many steps and layers, it's hard to keep track, but it's all becoming very real. I mailed out the I-800 and LOC package to immigration on Thursday. I checked and rechecked and re-re-re-re-re-checked that sucker. We can't afford for it to be sent back to us and redone for minor errors. It's meticulous and tedious and it makes my head hurt just thinking about it, but I pray that every box was checked, every "i" dotted and "t" crossed. Whew!<br />
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I just got to thinking the other day that I should probably start buying boy clothes. I suppose I've waited because 1) I didn't really know what size to buy for Ren, and 2) It just didn't seem real yet that we'd actually end up with a son at the end of this process. Perhaps this sounds strange, but I've been staring at papers for over a year now, and I think there's still a part of me that wonders if we'll just end up with a big stack of paper at the end of this...a paper child, so to speak. I suppose it's similar to carrying a biological child and feeling like you'll be pregnant forever...that no child will actually come out of this whole deal. But this past week I started to wrap my mind around the reality that there WILL BE a BEAUTIFUL flesh and blood BOY when this is all said and done. And he will need boy clothes...and boy toys. My denial is waning. Move over Barbie, it's time for some planes, trains, and automobiles!<br />
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In the midst of regrouping, unpacking, doing laundry, and paper-chasing, we have also been bidding on a house all week. Chris and I have been searching for rental properties as a back up plan, or just as a potentially better plan than buying, but each and every house that we found had "just been rented" to someone else. These properties had also "just been listed," so it seemed like God was closing the door to renting. Long story short, after a long week of praying and counter-offering, we have agreed on a sale price with the seller of this home and we are under contract! We still have some hurdles to get through...the appraisal and the inspection...but we are really excited.<br />
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Sometimes I don't like writing "update" type blog posts...it can tend to feel tedious and tiring...but I want to remember everything that's happening with us and how all of these events are transpiring. There's so much more to share, so I hope to write more in the coming days and weeks. That's it for now. Gotta clean house for my Red Tent Dinner tonight!Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-20396236994391302602012-04-10T09:29:00.007-07:002012-04-10T19:28:51.469-07:00when it rains...<div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(I wrote this two days ago on the journey home...just getting a chance to post it now!) </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I’m typing these words on Easter Sunday from high in the sky, somewhere over middle America, chasing the sunset as we fly west. The colors are like a rainbow, with the sky a deep blue, fading slowly into golds, oranges and reds at the horizon. </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">We are about two hours into a six hour flight from DC to Sacramento, and I am two chapters into <i>The Hunger Games</i>. I decided to take a break from Katniss’s fatal circumstances to write a bit, to process through the roller coaster of events and emotions we have experienced over the past week. There’s a big part of me that wants to shut down and stop writing when things in life feel hectic and overwhelming, but I know I always feel better when I take the time to write. For some reason, the act of writing helps me to stay more engaged with myself and the people around me. It’s good therapy. It helps me stay present and keep a positive frame of mind.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">So, here’s the scoop...</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Four days ago we took a red-eye flight from Sacramento to Atlanta and then on to Norfolk. We got into Norfolk around 9am EST, got our rental car, and drove south to Virginia Beach, our future home. We met with our realtor, Patti, by 11:15 that morning, feeling a bit delirious from minimal sleep and sustained only by prayer, adrenaline, and a hefty dose of Starbucks. We saw about twenty houses over the course of Thursday and Friday, and by Friday evening, Patti cut us loose to go pray and sleep over the big decision we needed to make in choosing our future home. As we left her office, our eyes were glazed over and all I wanted was a martini and to fall into an HGTV-induced coma in our hotel room.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">But alas! We had to go to church. It was Good Friday, after all, and we were cordially invited by the doctor Chris will be working with in VA to attend a church service that evening with him and his family. We gathered into the sanctuary, into old wooden pews that conjured so many memories of the southern churches of my childhood. The room was completely dark except for one candle that burned dimly in the front of the church. There were at least 150 people gathered there, all of us completely silent as we sat in the dark chapel, reflective of what the day symbolized.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">I tried to focus my mind on the significance of the day but my mind kept reeling with details from all the homes we’d seen over the past two days. They ran through my head like a film strip, one image after another, all of them starting to blur together. But as I sat in the silence of the chapel, I noticed there was one house in particular I could not stop thinking about. I kept trying to envision how we would fit our furniture into it, how painstakingly difficult and stressful it would be to renovate, and how potentially impractical it was for our growing family. I repeatedly caught myself thinking about it and tried to refocus my mind on God and pray that my thoughts would be on Him instead. I prayed that He would show us which house He had for us, that He would guide us into a decision. But this house, like a high school crush, I could not get out of my mind.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">As the service ended and Chris and I walked out to the parking lot, I told him that I felt a bit guilty because my mind was so distant from what was happening during the service.I told him that I could not stop thinking about this one house in particular. He said he felt relieved because he was thinking about the same house too and couldn’t get his mind off of it. The fact that we both felt so strongly about this house was very validating for us. We felt that perhaps God was already starting to answer our prayers by giving us clarity and unity about the decision.</span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2WSZLlty0hnspVDjUe_BLTIZquB4kCif66d3sehkeLZjWv1-TmGtBez2GX2WYCCpl3mNuVsxNC6NH2qAR2JsGww3PVGFRxkJrxikwIl3nmCM64FomAlDvlu-f32eZ-zw252Dcs5Mcgf9/s1600/photo+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2WSZLlty0hnspVDjUe_BLTIZquB4kCif66d3sehkeLZjWv1-TmGtBez2GX2WYCCpl3mNuVsxNC6NH2qAR2JsGww3PVGFRxkJrxikwIl3nmCM64FomAlDvlu-f32eZ-zw252Dcs5Mcgf9/s400/photo+1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The future family K beach home?</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Long story short, we went back to view this one particular house again on Saturday and we have put an offer on it. Our offer is remarkably lower than the asking price, which was quite over-priced based on market comparisons. This charming home is 1.3 miles from the beach. It is in a beautiful neighborhood, reminiscent of our Alamo Heights days, and is in a recommended school district. But...the inside needs <i>a lot</i> of work. It needs a family to come along and pour love and beauty back into it. And I am hoping that family is us...but apparently, the seller is “in shock” over our offer and may not be willing to come down significantly on the price, in which case we will walk away. We should hear more by tomorrow. We are trusting that God will direct us to the right decision and that He will provide a rental home if this house is not for us. There are no other options for us to buy...not that we feel good about. So we wait, again, trusting in His plan and timing and provision for it all. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">In other news...</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">On Thursday afternoon we stopped for a quick coffee break in between our house showings. It was a cold and rainy day and I was starting to crash and burn after so little sleep, so I ran into a Starbucks to get some caffeine for Chris, Patti, and myself. As I was waiting in line I pulled out my phone to check email and a new message downloaded. It read...</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE RECEIVED YOUR LOC FROM CHINA!</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Really? Really, God? <i>Now?</i> </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Stimulation on top of more stimulation! </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">When it rains it pours! </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">I brought our three coffees back to the car and told Chris. We both laughed out loud because before this house-hunting trip we’d said to ourselves, “Wouldn’t it be typical to get our LOC during this trip?” Anyhow, Tiffany from our agency called about an hour later and started rattling off a massive list of things to do now that we have our LOC. She was speaking in another language, talking about the names of all the forms that needed to be completed and so forth, and I tried to explain that we were out of town, running on about 2 hours of sleep, and on input-overload from house-hunting. I wish I had been more excited than I was, but in that moment I was so far beyond my threshold for mental and emotional engagement. </span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJSCUQKGRJeLpLpLr8DJrhL_isU9tQDTT8HB4dJ1hefj60Vw8CEaMq0tkdDOhfAPDldsUDKrxZwpNp0OQAjg4l0UEFQzcKC03W4C6g8sv4j8hbuM7uBWWEMzO5o1N8lKjqA0gJ-C10kSGG/s1600/photo+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJSCUQKGRJeLpLpLr8DJrhL_isU9tQDTT8HB4dJ1hefj60Vw8CEaMq0tkdDOhfAPDldsUDKrxZwpNp0OQAjg4l0UEFQzcKC03W4C6g8sv4j8hbuM7uBWWEMzO5o1N8lKjqA0gJ-C10kSGG/s400/photo+2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">So, when we get home it will be time to fly back into paperwork mode, the last batch to conquer before we can get our boy! Based on the timing of our LOC, we expect to travel to China around the middle of July.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">And...</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">You all probably heard about the F-18 crash in VA Beach on Good Friday. We drove by the sight of the crash a few minutes before it happened. It is a MIRACLE that no one in town was hurt, a true God thing. It feels significant that it happened on Good Friday, as this event was such an illustration of how God’s love and mercy still shine through and overcome...even on the darkest of days. </span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB7MLkmh-8fQxCMecyoW7jVCx78eCvtV6Yr4W-hASXQY4IYrewjQXzeIe4vqBuBZTqh2gS3Onove19jeTlMMWXG3mNvZpb3UnvFo8BQ2OCvmcYx5VUtvbuL7wnOOxeqPhN6dvriDZQHPHo/s1600/120406052739-jet-crash-close-up-vertical-gallery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB7MLkmh-8fQxCMecyoW7jVCx78eCvtV6Yr4W-hASXQY4IYrewjQXzeIe4vqBuBZTqh2gS3Onove19jeTlMMWXG3mNvZpb3UnvFo8BQ2OCvmcYx5VUtvbuL7wnOOxeqPhN6dvriDZQHPHo/s400/120406052739-jet-crash-close-up-vertical-gallery.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Chris and I are also starting to get weirded out by the number of disasters that seem to occur when we go out of town. Two years ago today, we were in southern California for a little getaway before Chris deployed, when suddenly the beach house we were renting started to sway back and forth. I thought it might be from the AmTrack that ran right behind the house, but Chris’s eyes met mine as I looked at him in fear, and he said, “Earthquake! Go get Lucy.” He grabbed Tess and I ran to get Lu and we held our breath and our girls tightly beneath a door frame as the ground rolled beneath us.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">And about one year ago we were in Hawaii during the devastating Japan tsunami. We heard the shrill alarms and pounding on our door at midnight, telling us to evacuate. We woke up our girls and packed some basic belongings we thought we might need for survival and got in our rental car and made our way for higher ground. After sitting in a hot car for about an hour with two screaming girls, we found a youth hostel that would take us for the night. Overall, Hawaii was spared.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">And now, this spring and Easter, a fighter jet fell out of the sky and crashed near an intersection we’d driven by minutes earlier with our realtor. F-18s fly daily over the VA Beach area, and something like this hasn’t happened in 20 years.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">We are starting to see a pattern here. Maybe we should just stay home. It kind of makes me scared for our China trip! But...we have made it out unharmed each time, praise God.</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Well, it’s back to <i>The Hunger Games</i> for now...</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">On a closing note...here are some things I’m thankful for today...</span></span><br />
<br />
<ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Jesus...His life...Life to the fullest...Amen.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">My husband, who understands words like “escrow.”</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">My parents, who are the BOMB grandparents, and who have flown out to Cali to keep our girls for us so we could do this house-hunting trip.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The opportunity to buy a home and make it ours over the long haul, even if it doesn’t work out with this house.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The ocean.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Sour Patch Kids: the perfect plane snack.</span></li>
</ul></div>Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-10838702323762023992012-03-31T12:01:00.002-07:002013-03-23T06:31:14.874-07:00my map<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Where you come from is gone, </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>where you thought you were going to never was there,</i></div>
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<i>and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it.</i></div>
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<i>In yourself, right now is all the place you've got.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>--</i>Flannery O'Connor</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirt7Gigm92V-4DF-o2fJENA9emE856mSO9RHed-jGxAWjY-9jblKHertaPVANdROtUPF3-fJzgF9Uf_koaiL1AYSwigFlTTZtQIpuhM9DmRPF1LtnPCdN0AWe9A7JMFBQr84mutj1C4muo/s1600/photo-57.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirt7Gigm92V-4DF-o2fJENA9emE856mSO9RHed-jGxAWjY-9jblKHertaPVANdROtUPF3-fJzgF9Uf_koaiL1AYSwigFlTTZtQIpuhM9DmRPF1LtnPCdN0AWe9A7JMFBQr84mutj1C4muo/s400/photo-57.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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I find myself again in that obscure place, approaching a major intersection of life, walking down one road that will soon diverge into another, preparing myself to part ways from those on this current path with me, reflective of past roads I've traveled before this one, all the while trying to make out the hazy horizon before me. It is familiar territory, a situation I sometimes wish I didn't know so intimately.<br />
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But I do. Hellos and goodbyes are deeply engrained in my story. Change is something that often feels more familiar to me than consistency and sameness, and I struggle between conflicting desires for both. I love a good adventure, newness, seeing new landscapes and meeting new people. And yet I hate this part of it...the gearing up to say goodbye, the wanting to detach from community as I watch people grow closer together while I prepare to part. For me, being "here and now" is difficult when so many preparations must be made for the future, when I feel like I have one foot in and one foot out.<br />
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As I drive around northern California, I look at the land, the hills that grow greener each day with the spring rain. I take note of my favorite stretches of I-80, my favorite bends of Hwy 29, and the daily drives that make me say <i>I will miss this</i>. As I drove to meet a dear friend for lunch in San Francisco several weeks ago, I took a photo of my favorite part of the drive, the hilly section of highway between Fairfield and Vallejo, right around American Canyon, where the pavement digs into the landscape and the view begins to open itself up to the bay.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlL9ZMdiCgtmXumExsmZ2XwpzR3-oTPQA4KIxZqkoVp8ZlnM5yOfXJSjFL3s3QbYxv0NPxu5TQ2nDMArbj0dHHC83ksIjS3W5xlnPZeqV0W_RjBu842BotRdc9HfOLb2cAWVrohPbsBP47/s1600/photo-58.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlL9ZMdiCgtmXumExsmZ2XwpzR3-oTPQA4KIxZqkoVp8ZlnM5yOfXJSjFL3s3QbYxv0NPxu5TQ2nDMArbj0dHHC83ksIjS3W5xlnPZeqV0W_RjBu842BotRdc9HfOLb2cAWVrohPbsBP47/s400/photo-58.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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And then there is that stretch between our home and Sacramento, where the hills subside into flat farmland. Vineyards become orchards and hills become plains, the cool marine air turns drier and warmer. I know this stretch of the road well, the part that's paved with memories of picking up and dropping off visitors at the Sacramento airport, especially during the long, hot summer of Chris's deployment. It is the route I drove to take our dossier to Sacramento, the day I put the final touches on the paperwork that would lead us to our son. It is also the stretch of road I drive to go to Dixon for therapy each week, a time when my thoughts and emotions are raw and accessible as I pass fields of sunflowers and corn, walnut orchards, and pegboards of trees meticulously planted and preened.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvrBvpHyQgED_97RLk2K38ZVkCaeHEH6uVCz18AM0O85C9mIi_rhHbg8alYd3wKaGpF4R_IPji7wtwjUNLguhwVzWy9anp1hoCVUNqWBqSUL6zEUrW2nxT4B4eFog-4xZIqnoGFdSN7tAI/s1600/photo-59.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvrBvpHyQgED_97RLk2K38ZVkCaeHEH6uVCz18AM0O85C9mIi_rhHbg8alYd3wKaGpF4R_IPji7wtwjUNLguhwVzWy9anp1hoCVUNqWBqSUL6zEUrW2nxT4B4eFog-4xZIqnoGFdSN7tAI/s400/photo-59.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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This is my map, the part of the earth where I have been planted, nourished, and pruned over the past three years. Parts of who I am reside in this land. Segments of my story will forever be tied to this place and the thought of leaving it feels as painful as losing an intimate part of myself. Fragments of my heart will be left here, just as they were in the many other places I have lived, and so I suppose it's no wonder that I can feel this way. Fractioned, pieced apart, a little less than whole.<br />
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My journey to this part of the country began nearly ten years ago. I have traveled and resided in all four time zones of the United States, one at a time, and this long and gradual trek of cross-country self-discovery will end here, the final destination, the opposite coast from where I came, which is ironically where I have felt most at home, most like myself. The West is full of open spaces and drier air, room to breathe and blossom into my own person. I have needed this space, and now, a decade later, I prepare myself to return, to venture back home, a far different woman than I was when I left.<br />
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So for now, I am soaking up the moments left with the people I love and the landscape I love. I want each day to celebrate with all of my senses the journey God has led me on over the past decade. This era is quickly coming to a close. Everything is about to change.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Here before me now...my map, of a place and therefore of myself, and much that can never be said adds to its reality...just as much of its reality is based on my own shadows, my own inventions.</i></div>
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</i></div>
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<i>Over the years I have taught myself, and have been taught, to be a stranger. A stranger usually has the normal five senses, perhaps especially so, ready to protect and nourish him.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>--</i>MFK Fisher, <i>Map of Another Town</i></div>
Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-79777444060539594732012-03-30T20:20:00.006-07:002012-03-30T21:26:23.811-07:00Acceptanceis a hard thing to attain.<br />
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takes months or years of struggling to find.<br />
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is an ongoing process...just when I think I've arrived at a place of acceptance, I often find that I have to start back at the beginning and go through the grief process all over again.<br />
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is the key to living a life of peace, grace, love, and kindness.<br />
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is easier said than done.<br />
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is at the heart of embracing who I am, both the lovely and ugly parts.<br />
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is at the heart of embracing who others are, both the lovely and ugly parts.<br />
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goes hand in hand with gratitude and humility.<br />
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is mutually exclusive with denial.<br />
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comes with experience and maturity.<br />
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is often the result of running out of options, resources, and control...of beating my head against the wall so hard and long that I'm finally sick of the headache.<br />
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feels scary...until I let go and allow myself to gently settle into it.<br />
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helps me love myself, God, and others.<br />
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keeps me from comparing myself to others.<br />
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eludes me a lot of the time, but I am very thankful when I feel like I can wrap my mind and heart around it.<br />
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sometimes disguises itself as weakness, yet is a force more powerful than we often understand.<br />
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honors boundaries and limitations.<br />
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thrives in the present tense.<br />
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is super-natural.<br />
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is where I want to be.Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6543369354900154598.post-73861729934652929092012-03-29T14:43:00.002-07:002012-03-29T15:16:14.570-07:00ultimatum<div style="text-align: center;"><i>Freedom from myself will be the sweetest rest I've ever known. --Chris Rice</i></div><br />
I tend to give myself ultimatums. I do it in my head without even realizing I'm doing it, though lately I've become more aware of the ridiculousness.<br />
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For instance, if it's been a long time since I've been able to post a blog, I say to myself, "Well, I haven't posted in a while. I'm such an inconsistent blogger. I should just cancel my blog. Either that, or I need to commit to writing at least four times a week."<br />
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Or take Facebook, for instance. I can't tell you how many times I've said in my head, "Facebook is lame. I'm gonna cancel my account FOREVER!" While I know that breaks here and there are beneficial, I also know that FB is a part of our culture today and I don't want to be that extreme about it.<br />
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Sometimes these extremes also translate to exercise. For instance, a few weeks ago I started waking up at 5:15 to go to the gym before Chris left for work. It gave me some alone time with God before the day got crazy, and gave my mind some endorphins to run on for the rest of the day. It was a great routine, and I said to myself, "Wow, this is great, I'll get in better shape and feel more positive about life now. I'm <i>always</i> going to do this!"But I've already stopped waking up at o'dark thirty. After a couple weeks I realized that the early morning routine made me crash around 4pm, which made me worthless to the girls and Chris in the evening, the time they usually need me to show up most.<br />
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As I become more aware of all the rules I make for myself in my head, I realize that it's just another attempt by my inner Eve to gain control of my world--to figure life out on my own. If I can cling to things that I <i>always</i> or <i>never</i> do, then there is predictability in my life and something that I can feel proud about.<br />
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The longer I live, the more leery I am of the words ALWAYS and NEVER. The rules in my head are lame and they are a major time-suck. <i>I really know how to wear myself out!</i> As I start to identify and expel some of my rules, I'm kind of overwhelmed by how much extra space there is inside of me for listening, resting, and just being. My days open themselves up to new and exciting possibilities when I'm not trying to cram them into my narrow and prescribed idea of how everything must play out.<br />
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It's kind of funny how things converge. I read this today, which is so in-line with what I've been thinking about lately...<br />
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"Stop trying to work things out before their times have come. Accept the limitations of living one day at a time. When something comes to your attention, ask Me whether or not it is part of today's agenda. If it isn't, release it into My care and go on about today's duties. When you follow this practice, there will be a beautiful simplicity about your life: a time for everything, and everything in its time." --Jesus Calling.<br />
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Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Living outside of God's agenda makes me frazzled and tired. I want this type of simplicity in my life. I want this single-mindedness, this wholeness. It flies in the face of everything our culture tells us, it completely demolishes the rules and ultimatums I've made for myself. It requires that I be still and LISTEN. It requires that I trust my gut and hear what my mind and body are telling me.<br />
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What ultimatums do you give yourself? Can you relate to these internal shenanigans?Libhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00699453631223643641noreply@blogger.com1