Big Ren!

It's a rainy, English day here in Nor Cal.  I'm sitting at my desk, watching the raindrops hit my window, wondering how to start this post, which has been slowly brewing inside of me for the past several weeks.

A lot has been progressing behind the scenes in the process to bring our boy home.  Several weeks ago, I got a call from Tiffany, our case manager, who was elated to tell us she got some updates back on our boy.  I was driving in downtown San Francisco when she called, trying to navigate through construction, one-way streets, and cable cars as she told me the latest news on Ren. It was a miracle I didn't crash.

And as it turns out, our little dude...

is not so little anymore...

Big Ren is 15 months old now and is in the 99th percentile for weight (though he was most likely weighed in all of these clothes). He is walking and talking and feeding himself! He is not only pointing to objects he wants, but he is stealing them from the other kids, which means he'll fit in perfectly with Tess and Lu. We submitted several questions to his orphanage/foster family and all of the feedback was great. In their words, he is "smart and cute." We couldn't agree more!

Looking at these photos of him make me light up. I can't help but smile. The joy is unstoppable. It just bubbles up with every glance at him!

As Tiffany and I talked that day, we also realized that there were some glitches with our homestudy, as Ren is slightly older than the age-range we were originally approved for.  Also, his special need fell outside of our approved parameters, so for the past two weeks, I've been working on getting our homestudy revised and resubmitted to our US immigration officer, who will now need to "re-approve" us. More paper-pushing, more $$, but one more step closer to our guy.  

(I've almost got this address memorized)

We don't have any clear dates yet on when we will get him, only that we will most likely be traveling sometime in May--July, right smack-dab in the middle of our move.  The past month has held quite a bit of confusion and uncertainty regarding how we should pray and what we should prioritize.  We've been wondering if it's best to try and get the move done before we bring Ren home, thereby providing him with more stability once we are stateside.  This seemed better than bringing him home to California, only to have to pack up our house and move across the country a few weeks later.  

However, after weeks of trying to get some clear-cut answers from our agency on how our move will impact this adoption process, we feel that God has helped us narrow down our focus.  Long story short, we need to bring Ren home to CA before we move.  If we don't, we'll be required to do a whole new homestudy in our new home in Virginia, which could delay traveling to get him for several months. It could mean the difference between going to get him this spring versus this fall, not to mention that re-doing a homestudy from scratch would be my personal version of living hell.

Since finally pinning down our agency on this matter yesterday, Chris and I feel a sense of urgency and a clear focus on how we need to praying...

Bottom-line: we need to get our boy home.  Stat. 

We are scheduled to move out of our CA home by June 30th, which means we need to be home with Ren from China by then, which means that hopefully, we'll be leaving to get him by the beginning of June at the latest.  In order for this to happen, we need a little piece of paper from the Chinese government called a Letter Seeking Confirmation (LOC).  This document basically means that China officially approves us to adopt Ren.  Once we have our LOC, we will travel about three months later, which means we must get it sometime within the next couple of weeks in order to be on track.

COULD YOU PLEASE JOIN US IN PRAYING FOR THIS?

We feel like this is our top priority right now--to get our boy home--and we will deal with the details of the move after that.  So much of this is out of our control. We are at the mercy of Chinese and American bureaucracies, but we know that God has control over it all...even the multiple rolls of red-tape still before us!

Thanks so much for your prayer and support. We are excited to see God work and so excited to hold our big guy in our arms!

celebration

"Our word holiday comes from the practice of "holy days." We often think of "discipline" as abstinence from pleasurable things, but Nehemiah commanded the people to set aside a time to revel in them as a discipline for personal transformation. "Eating the fat"--in other translations called "choice food"--can be every bit as much a discipline as fasting...When we celebrate, we exercise our ability to see and feel goodness in the simplest gifts of God...Our capacity for joy increases."

--John Ortberg; The Life You've Always Wanted

 

Chris and I got away this weekend to celebrate seven years of marriage. 

A lot of planning goes into getaways when one has young children...even if they are only for an overnight. The added stress of preparing for such celebrations can sometimes feel like it's not worth it...

until...

 you finally get out the door, back out of the drive way, and start driving! 

We drove a few hours north, all the way up Hwy 29, past Calistoga, into Alexander Valley...then west into Dry Creek Valley, and then down into Sonoma. The further we got away from home, the deeper I breathed and the more I realized it was ALL worth it.

As we drove along, I wished I could bottle it up, all of this beauty, but even the camera couldn't do it justice.

So we just drank it all in, drank it deeply, enjoying each taste that these short 28 hours away had to offer.

We remembered that it was just US, me and Chris, before our kiddos came along, who by their sweet little natures, threaten to consume us daily! Even one night away can feel so reviving.  It was the sort of thing where we didn't know how badly we needed it until we were gone...away from the dishes, the messes, the diapers, Barbie dolls, laundry, grocery lists, and cotton Hanes-Her-Way panties.  We started to get sneak peaks back into the girl (and the lingerie drawer) and the guy we used to be...both as individuals and as the fun, young, carefree couple.  

It takes time, effort, and intentionality to celebrate. But in celebration, it seems that we start to remember who we are. We remember what started it all, and we are filled with joy as we recognize all the goodness there is around us, especially in the simple things.  We appreciate the little things even more.

Saturday afternoon, after three wine tastings and lunch, we (barely) made it into quaint Healdsburg, where we got a much needed cup of afternoon coffee. We found a local coffee shop called Flying Goat Coffee, where they brew fresh French press to order.  Liquid perfection. Pure poetry.

We got a seat right by the window and looked out at the park square, at the people passing by, drinking in the richness of the afternoon sun and the simplicity of the moment.

We didn't talk about the adoption or the move or the precarious future before us.  We didn't talk about Tess or Lucy or Ren. We talked about the differences between espresso and French press, which pastries we liked the best, which wines we liked the best that morning and why. We talked about what we've done each of the past seven years to celebrate our anniversary and how we'd like to celebrate in the years to come.

In the past, I have not viewed joy or celebration as essentials. Somehow, melancholy and sadness seemed easier to settle into...they even seemed more righteous and holy. But I am seeing how insane this belief is, and I am coming to understand more deeply than ever that God is a God of joy, and that joy for me is not optional, it is essential. I am learning that JOY and CELEBRATION are spiritual disciplines as important as any other.  They are how we're intended to live, they are good for the soul, and when we practice them consistently, they will change us for the better.

So thankful for this getaway, and that joy is an option every day.

If we are going to know joy, it must be in this day--today.

 --John Ortberg

"This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep...Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." Neh 8:9-10

words, words, words...

How many words do we really need?

I find that Americans are excessive on almost every level, even the way we use language.

There is so much traffic and commotion on the internet.  Run-on blog posts, tweets, status updates, opinions. Words, words, words.  We have a lot of them. I realize the irony of this post, as I am merely adding to them.

But what are we really saying?

I know that in my own experience, it sometimes requires a lot of words and a lot of talking in order for me to pin down what I want to say--the heart of my message.  But once I get to the heart, can't I start to cut away the excess?

This is what a love about poetry--the condensed language--"the best words in their best order."

I'm wondering how this would translate to the way that I live--what would my life look like if I knew the heart of my message--the message that God wants to speak through me--and started to delete the rest of the clutter?

My favorite poet, Linda Pastan, says--

"I'd like to write long narrative poems. I'd like to write a novel. And any time I start anything long, I keep trying to take out anything extraneous, anything that doesn't belong, and I end up with a small lyric poem that just happens...But each poem of mine goes through something like 100 revisions...I want every word to have to be there. I want a certain kind of impact on the reader or on myself when I read it, the sort of condensed energy that can then go out."

Simple. Concise. Condensed. Powerful. The core, the meat, the good stuff. Nothing else.

In his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller writes about living a good story.

I'm wondering what it would look like to live poetry.

Jesus spoke in poetry. His parables were metaphors, and as Tony Hoagland says, "metaphor is the raw uranium of poetry." Those simple, short metaphors carried so much density, meaning, and mystery, that they eluded most people. They still elude us. Perhaps that is why they're so brilliant. We try to pin down their meaning, but despite all of our thick commentaries, we can't.

Jesus chose His words wisely and His words were few. He didn't need a lot of them.

He is the Word.

Word...as in singular.

I can find nothing superfluous, excessive, or wordy about Jesus or the way He communicates.

I am taking notes. The implications are profound.

FIVE

It's a quiet afternoon, President's Day, and I sit at my desk, yet again, with a cup of coffee, my third one of the day.  I am grateful for a down day after a FULL weekend of celebrating my Tess, who is currently passed out in her bedroom amidst an explosion of Barbie dolls, Polly Pockets, new dresses, stick-on earrings, and fake eye lashes.  We are all recovering from birthday-cake-induced sugar comas.

We had three birthday parties for her this weekend--it was a bit much if you ask me--but it just kind of evolved that way. We did the family thing on Friday night, then the party with Tess's cousins, Zoey and Sophia, on Saturday night.  The Kurz girls have birthdays on Feb 17th (Tess), Feb 18th (Zoey), and Feb 20th (Sophia)...(and Chris's and my anniversary is on the 19th, crazy!)  BAM, BAM, BAM.  It's fun. It's intense.  Lu and I had to skip out on the party on Saturday, as Lu's been battling a nasty sinus/ear infection.  

And finally, we had Tess's big birthday bash for all of her preschool friends last night. We rented out a massive bouncy castle room and cut them all loose to play for an hour before doing cake and presents. By the time Tess was blowing out her third set of candles, she was too tired to even look at the camera, let alone eat her birthday cake. (Lucy looks pretty over-it too). Ah, well, you only turn five once, right?  A half-a-decade-old is kind of a big deal.

On Friday afternoon we gave Tess her big present from Chris and I...a new bike!  Chris taught her to ride her bike without training wheels this past fall, and ever since, we have not been able to keep her off of it.  Her new bike is bigger. It's better. And of course, it's covered in princesses. But the best part is the pink plastic basket in front, where she can buckle a Barbie doll in.  This pink Ballerina Barbie has been cruising around the cul-de-sac with Tess all weekend.

Before I got in bed the other night, I snuck into Tessa's room and watched her as she slept. As I sat on the edge of the big iron bed that used to be mine, I wondered if I'm too hard on her. Sometimes she seems so much older than she really is. She is already five...and she is still only five. So big, yet so little. I look at her long body, at all the growing that body has done in five years, and I'm overwhelmed with emotion. In the darkness of her room, I am aware of my failures as a mom, the patience I lack, the moments when I've never felt anger so acutely, but I also feel my heart swell with love, wanting to be better each day, aching over the innocence she still possesses but will one day be lost. I am proud of the good things I have been able to give her, and know that I will still let her down. Parenthood is a constant conundrum of conflicting emotions.

I think the best way to end this post is with this poem. The imagery in this poem captures so well that tension we live in as parents, nurturing and teaching our children to become independent, yet being so scared to let go of them. I suppose this tension will only become more and more pronounced the older my children get. As I've watched Tess do laps around our cul-de-sac this weekend, pumping the pedals as hard as she can, the wheels revolving faster and faster, my mind keeps coming back to this one by Linda Pastan (oh, Linda, you are a poetic goddess). 

To A Daughter Leaving Home

When I taught you

at eight to ride

a bicycle, loping along

beside you

as you wobbled away

on two round wheels,

my own mouth rounding

in surprise when you pulled

ahead down the curved

path of the park,

I kept waiting

for the thud

of your crash as I 

sprinted to catch up,

while you grew 

smaller, more breakable

with distance,

pumping, pumping

for your life, screaming

with laughter,

the hair flapping

behind you like a 

handkerchief waving 

goodbye.

We love you, Tess!  HAPPY #5!!!

Becoming

It's Friday night and Bon Iver calls.  This music has been playing from my computer in the kitchen for the past hour as I've been washing up the remains of Tess's birthday celebration.  It's funny, what music does to a person.  This album reminds me of last summer when I purchased it.  I listened to it non stop, in my car, in the shower, in my bed, or at my desk while writing and critiquing poems for class.  It's strange how different life felt back then.  It seemed we had all the time in the world.

I recently read that Bon Iver was nominated for something like four Grammies this year.  I was annoyed when I read the news because I assumed this would eventually bring the band instant fame, thereby ushering them away from Indie rock and into main-stream-manufactured-trash.  I feel possessive of bands I love, especially during that phase when they are still unknown by the masses.

I felt this way about Coldplay in the early days, with their first big album, Parachutes.  It was the summer of 2001, and that album was my summer soundtrack during train rides through Italy. It played as I sat in our Florence apartment, sipping cheap wine and painting still lifes of fruit for a watercolor class.  That album is steeped in memories from my sophomore and junior years of college.  But look at Coldplay now. They became a big deal, and now they are doing duets with Rihanna.

In Bon Iver's favor, I will say that they refused to do a sell-out musical performance at the Grammies.  They said they thought the awards show was ridiculous, and that everyone should just go home.  They've got guts. They know who they are. It made me love them even more.

This is the sign of a true artist...someone who is all about their work, about being who they are and expressing that to the world. They are willing to uphold their integrity at all costs, even if it means losing popularity. They are not about the accolades or the praise of it. They do it because they have to--it is knit into every fiber of their being, and they do it whether they are publicly acknowledged for it or not.  It's just about being who they are.

I read a quote the other day that struck me.  It relates to all of this.

"Now, with God's help, I shall become myself."  --Soren Kierkegaard

It's funny how one little sentence--eight simple words--can sum up the arduous journey of a person's soul.  I've been journeying through the terrain of my own heart and mind over the past several months, searching for that answer.  Who am I?  Who is "myself?"  Parts of her have gotten lost in some places along the way.  I've started traveling back to find those fragments that I disposed of, some of them as a child, some during my teenage years, some during adulthood and motherhood.  I've held some of them up to the light and invited them back into the whole.  The strange thing about this journey, though, is that the basis of it has been surrender, a letting go of my life into God's hands.  I have had to ask Him to show me who I am, who He made me to be, and to give me the courage to be it. As my friend Heather eloquently wrote yesterday, "I love the thought of surrendering ourselves to find ourselves."

A couple of weeks ago at church they showed a video of a woman making a beautiful clay bowl on a potter's wheel.  The clip was creatively done, and its purpose was to illustrate the process of transformation--mainly, the process of God transforming and molding us into something beautiful.  As our pastor later stated, God is an artist.

God is an artist.

That sentence resonated with me.  It still resonates with me.  I've heard it before, but sitting in church that morning, it really hit me.  For a long time, I've recognized myself as an artist.  I've been painting, drawing, or sketching for as long as I can remember.  Now it manifests itself in writing.  What I'm coming to acknowledge, though, is that it's deeply ingrained in me.  I was born this way. It is not just what I do.  It's how I see the world, how I experience life, how I experience God, what I'm passionate about, and how I engage with people. Perhaps it's also the way God intended me to reflect Him.  In the past, I've thought that the "artsy" part of me was something to put in the background--it was always so impractical, so I couldn't justify spending a lot of time developing it.  Now I am understanding how backwards this approach is. After all, how practical is God?  In my mind, if He was practical, He wouldn't be so concerned with relationships, and He certainly wouldn't have bothered creating us.  Love is perhaps the most impractical thing of all.

Over time, and with God's help, I am starting to name and accept who I am.  It might take the rest of my life, but every day, I peel back more layers of myself and settle into that deeper, rawer skin. I feel okay saying that I am an artist, a writer, a poet, regardless of whether I gain acknowledgement for these things or not.  I have received one rejection letter so far, and I expect to receive many more.

I wonder why it feels so foolish to name who we really are.  I wonder why it feels so scary to let other people see it.  (Even this post feels really scary to write.)

What would happen if we stopped covering up the unique person God created us to be?

the space between

It's an idle Monday and I sit in the family room with my companionable cup of afternoon coffee. I kept Lucy home from school today--she's got a low grade fever and a nasty cough. She's taking a nap and the house is quiet.

I love days like today. I am thankful for them, the simple days with no agenda other than the familiar, daily rituals of tending to a home and family. Things feel like they've calmed down a bit since last week. Now that school is over for awhile, there's more space inside of me to think and feel all that is in my midst. I am starting get reacquainted with my home and the world around me.

The cold, gray morning spit rain against my windshield as I drove Tess to school. On our way through the neighborhood, I noticed these trees starting to blossom already. It seems too early for the little pink and white petals to start showing themselves. I remember it wasn't until mid March of last year that the trees behind our home were in full bloom.

Ever since 2012 hit, I feel as though someone pressed the fast-forward button on life.  Despite the almost-unbearable stagnancy of last summer and early fall, I knew time itself would speed up once the new year came. I didn't know that even the trees would feel it, rushing in with their spectacular colors almost a month early. The early signs of spring are already here, but the calendar and the chill in the air tell another story.

Life seems to be neither here nor there.  We reside in the space between, a sort of purgatory between winter and spring, between the tangible present and the unknown future. This space is obscure and painted in shades of grey. It is laced with conflicting emotions, the hopeful expectations of what is to come, the grief of what will be lost, the confusion of where to land in the midst of it all.

As I vacuumed the house this afternoon, I was suddenly aware of a shift in my perspective. Looking around our home, I now survey each object in the context of an upcoming move. Walking around in the girls' bedrooms, I thought about our tenants' children and how their belongings will soon occupy this space. It will no longer be ours. I imagined our furniture being loaded onto a moving truck, the picture frames around our house being wrapped in light brown paper and stacked in cardboard boxes, our lives soon to be uprooted, transported, and deposited in one more place, potentially for one last time.

I'll probably spend quite a bit of time talking about all of this in future posts--the conflicting emotions involved in becoming attached to a place and its people, only to have to leave and start new somewhere else. It's a pattern stamped deep into my story, and I'm aware of the cycle repeating itself as I soak in the things I love most about our life here during these final months.

gloriously unaware

We're not what we were 

Nor are we what we're going to be

So where does that leave us right now

Except gloriously unaware of how

this will turn out.  --Josh Pyke

I've been composing some sort of Kurz Family FAQ blog post in my mind for a while now. There are so many questions to be answered about our future. We field many of these questions on a daily basis...

When are you moving?
Where are you moving?
When are you going to China to get your son?
Will you get him before you move?
What are you going to do with your girls during all of this?
What are you going to do with your current house?
How are you dealing with all of this?

While God has miraculously answered a few of these questions, the answer to many of them remains...

WE DON'T KNOW!

We obviously know we are moving to VA Beach, and we know that Chris's final-out with the Air Force is July 7th. We do not know where in VA Beach we will live, nor do we know if we are going to buy or rent there. We don't yet know when we are going house-hunting in VA Beach or what we are going to do with our girls during that time. We are in the process of finding a realtor right now. Your prayers are coveted!

We have been told that we will travel to get Ren in about four-five months from now, which means we'll be traveling to get him right around the time we'll be moving. We don't know how we are going to move across the country and travel half way around the world to get our boy. We don't know if we'll get to come back here first, or if we'll take him straight to our unknown home in VA Beach. We don't know how we are going to get a house moved and re-settled in the midst of all of this. We don't know how the chaos of all of this will impact our girls and Ren. We don't know all the details that come attached to this, like what are we doing to do with the dog, and will we need some sort of temporary housing for a while, and will I go ahead and move with the girls ahead of Chris? There is no way to know how these intricate details will all weave together.

We do know that my parents will take care of the girls while we're in China, but we don't know whether that will mean they come out here, or if the girls will go to them in NC. We don't know when to tell them to prepare to watch the girls.  We don't have a set two-weeks on our calendar that we can pencil in our travel dates, and we won't know this until about two weeks before we actually travel.

All of these unknowns are heaped upon an ever-amassing pile of unknowns inherent in this adoption process.  In the midst of all of these unknowns, however, we have felt God showing up for us in concrete and miraculous ways.  Because of the bulk of uncertainty in our future, it is astounding to see Him answer some of these questions for us, without much effort on our part.

A couple of weeks ago, Chris decided to go ahead and list our house for rent on a military housing website.  I said, "Really, babe?  This early?  We aren't gonna have trouble renting it, and it's not even going to be available until this summer."  But Chris is a planner, and he wanted to go ahead and do it.

He listed the house on a Saturday night and on Sunday morning, on our way to church, we got a phone call from a non-military family who wanted to come see the house ASAP. They came by as soon as we got home from church and brought their own renter's application and reference list. They were more ahead of the game than we were! It turns out that this family has a 13 yr. old daughter who is best friends with our neighbor's daughter across the street, who sometimes babysits for our girls. It also turns out that this family used to rent a property from these same neighbors, and our neighbors came by that same Sunday to tell us that this family will be fantastic tenants, that they actually made improvements to their house while they lived there. It also turns out that this family wanted to sign a five-year lease and wanted to move in exactly when we needed to move out.  It also turns out that this family wants to eventually buy our home. A lease agreement has already been signed, and the monthly rent will cover our mortgage payment!

The big question of how are we dealing with all of this...well, the answer is simple.  One day at a time. ODAT! One moment at a time. Many times during the day I have to reel my mind back in and say, I trust You, Jesus. There is absolutely no way I can know what's ahead, and the only way I can experience peace and rest is to trust and wait on God, to seek His presence in the moment, and ask Him to help us work out all of these details in a way that only He can. This is where the rubber hits the road of our faith journey. I don't have a lot of answers.

As I write this, I'm reminded of a quote from the movie The Matrix, which Chris and I watched again around Christmas time.  It's one of my favorite movies because of it's vivid metaphors for the Christian faith journey.  We feel like we've swallowed the red pill, and at times, we are wondering what on earth we've done.  Sometimes the blue pill looks really good. Anyhow, the quote, spoken by Morpheus to Neo...

"There's a difference between knowing the path and walking it."

We assume we need to know the path in order to walk it, but we don't.  All we need to do is walk it, one foot in front of the other, trusting the One who has placed us there. When we don't know the path, then we're free to enjoy the provision, love, and mercy of the One who provides for us as we sometimes doubtfully, sometimes gloriously, follow along.

recovery

The day after we received our referral for Ren, I decided to dig up the flower pots in our yard.  I'd had a strong urge to do it for weeks, even though some of the flowers were still holding on. I wanted a clean slate. I wanted to till the dry soil with my hands.  I wanted the dirt bare and able to breath.  So I set out with my little hand shovel.

Faith, hope -- a melody with no words

Is making its way through these dark times

Echoes the sound that you heard

I cleared away the dried fall leaves and dug up my dead basil and oregano plants. I pulled up withered clumps of Queen Anne's lace, which I planted last spring. The soil was dry and caked at the surface.  I chopped through it with my shovel, digging up the cool, moist dirt from the bottom, mixing it with the rest.  

No one told you that faith would come easy

No one promised the way would be clear

Turn the ground in the fields of your story

While you're sowing the seed of your tears

It was a balmy, clear winter day.  The trees were stunning in their barrenness.  I loved the simplicity of their naked, silver limbs against the backdrop of the bright blue sky.

Under skies wide and blue as the ocean

Make your peace with your own history

So much more than the sum of your longings

Are the good and the bad - all this beauty and tragedy

The pots are still bare and I don't know that I'll fill them with new flowers in the spring. My hands must plant and nurture life in other ways. The trees are still bare as well, but the delicate cherry blossom buds are already forming on the gangly branches.  Spring is coming.  It is coming quickly.

Put your sorrows in the ground

All the broken pieces wrapped up in shadows of places and people you've known

Weeping shapes and sounds all strung together like a crown

Lead a heart out of stone with a melody making you new

** lyrics by Jeremy Casella

first things first

I'm trying something new on this blog.  Trying to write in the moment, more frequently, without preconceptions.  Little snap shots of my thoughts and my day.  It might be less polished, but I am hoping it gets me writing more frequently.  My mind tends to feel like an inflated ballon on the cusp of popping, but I also feel like I can't vent the air out until all the molecules are arranged in a neatly packaged format.  The problem with this is that the ballon just keeps getting fuller and fuller, because the thought of bringing order to chaos makes me want to abandon the whole thing.  So, if my posts feel a little more random, or perhaps even sloppy, this might be why.

I woke up this morning feeling frazzled.  I've been out of school for almost a week now, and as the days have worn on, I've become more and more aware of the overwhelming backlog of housekeeping issues to tend to. Take the car to the mechanic. Get the dog more flea medicine. Make doctors and dentist appointments. Start looking for a house in VA Beach. Respond to emails that have been sitting in my inbox for over a month.

Every corner of my home contains a pile of black dog hair mixed with dust.  The toilets are growing black, moldy rings. I cleaned out my desk this morning, an unintended use of my time that came about after trying to organize our ever-amassing heap of adoption paper work. I came across Dell and Compaq user manuals from my old laptops, three empty iPhone boxes (yes, I've drowned two of them already!), old checkbooks, old receipts, etc, etc, etc..  Trash, trash, trash.

We accumulate. We acquire. The chaos is ever present.  The backlog of things to do is never done.  There's always room for more cleaning, more organization, more laundry, more, more, more.  And our hearts are tired and frustrated. Or, at least mine is.

Right now I sit on the leather sofa in our family room.  I've just downed a cup of  hot coffee.  It's never tasted so good.  I drank it fast. My body is tired from a full yet satisfying week. I got some things done.  Other things, I didn't.  As I drank my coffee, I pulled out my reading for today. The verses are from Luke--

"Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things.  But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her."  10:41-42

One thing is needed.  

Time with Jesus.

The other night, as Chris was falling asleep, I asked him,

"Hey babe, what do you think is the meaning of life?"

Poor guy...he kindly asked if we could have the conversation in the morning.

I said, "Well, I just think that the whole meaning of life is to be with God.  That's it.  Just being with Him, spending time with Him.  I think it really is that simple."

Chaos swirls around me and a long list of unknowns awaits me in the future, but right here, right now, it's all okay.  Spending time with Him sharpens my focus, gives my frazzled mind rest, and restores my energy.

I also read this today, which is just so awesome, I wanted to share it...

"Because I am omnipotent, I am able to bend time and events in your favor.  You will find that you can accomplish more in less time, after you have given yourself to Me in rich communion.  Also, as you align yourself with My perspective, you can sort out what is important and what is not."  --from Jesus Calling

First things first, right?

Gotta run.  I'm off to the girls' schools to gorge on pink frosting and sprinkles...Valentines Day parties!

red and blue

I bought Ren his first two outfits yesterday.  I have to admit, I felt like a bit of an impostor in the boys' section of the store.  My life has been colored in all shades of pink and purple over the past five years.  Red and blue still feel like they belong in someone else's crayon box.

Despite the unfamiliarity, I was so excited.  We got our "pre-approval" from China several weeks ago, which basically means that they've given us the green light to adopt this specific boy, our Ren boy.  This also means that we are able to request updates on him and send him care packages.

So, I've got two outfits so far, and I'm adding a few more things to his first package.  It's strange buying clothes for your son and not being sure what size he wears.  Parenthood, in all of its brands and variations, never seizes to amaze me.  I decided to get 24-month outfits, which will give him a little room to grow.  I also plan on printing out some family photos and putting them in a little photo book for him, so hopefully he can start looking at our crazy white faces before we come get him.

Last night, Chris came into our bedroom and told me my nightstand is looking like a busy disaster.  I said, "Yep, well, it reflects my inner world."  Actually, I've felt at peace lately, but I do find my mind spinning in transition, switching out of school-mode and back into reality-mode.  My poetry text books have been put back on the shelf and replaced with a thick stack of adoption books.  To be honest, I'm having a hard time ingesting all of the information in these adoption books, because no matter how much I read, I know there is no preparing us for what's ahead.  Only God knows what's ahead of us, and while I'm attempting to do what I can, I'm trying to rest in Him, which usually just translates to putting one foot in front of the other, talking to Him, listening to Him, reading Him, writing my heart to Him, and staying present in the moment.

What else is there, really?

brewing.

It's Sunday night and I'm waiting for Chris to finish his Mandarin lesson on Rosetta Stone so we can watch a movie together.  "Moneyball" is on the menu tonight.

I don't have a lot to say for now.  I just had the urge to post something, to say that a lot of thoughts are brewing up in this brain of mine and I'm looking forward to sharing.  I finished another class yesterday, and it seems that I always have a massive purge of thoughts after I finish up a course.  A lot of stuff gets contained while I'm school because I don't have the time or energy to get it out, so I'm looking forward to releasing some of it in the weeks to come.

That's all for now.