Day 5

Dear God,

I re-read a bit of my stuff from the last 4 days and you know what? I talk too much.

Father, I don't fully understand grace. I am trying. I am trying to understand this gift, which comes to me in spite of the myriad ways I fail you on a daily basis. It feels like I should have to do something. Like if I can mind my p's and q's (or even find my p's and q's) that I will be more worthy of your love. And yet, I know that I am never going to be worthy.

I am wondering if it was a mistake to read Isaiah this week.  Isaiah is hard. It's obscure, it's symbolic, a little incoherent in spots, not easily relatable to where I am at right now. And it is mainly (I think -- I'm only 5 chapters in) about repenting before judgement comes. Judgement I understand; do this or suffer I get completely. It's grace I am struggling with.

Wednesday we went and saw Les Mis in the theatre. Now, I've seen Les Mis on the stage twice, and listened to the soundtrack any number of times. I thought I knew that musical inside and out and I was going to the movie because I wanted to see this particular interpretation. But what struck me, what I think I never really noticed before, was the theme of grace that runs throughout the play. One man shows grace to Jean Valjean -- grace absolutely undeserved, grace in the face of blatant sin -- and that grace changes everything. It sends Jean Valjean on a completely different path, it remakes him as a person, he is reborn as a new being: "the old has gone, the new has come."

And the grace ripples outward: because of the first act of grace, Jean Valjean extends grace to Fantine, to Cosette, to the man who is arrested in Valjean's name, to the poor of Paris, to Marius at the barricades, even to his enemy Javert, whom he sets free instead of killing, knowing that Javert will never stop hunting him, knowing that freeing him means he himself will be imprisoned again.

Grace is a force. If a person can accept it, it changes everything. If one cannot accept it, as Javert cannot, he is destroyed.  How to accept? How to take it in on a soul level? Brennan Manning says "Do nothing. Just accept that you are accepted. " In another quote from somewhere he says (in Latin) "in loving me, you made me lovable."

My heart is so weak, my fears (though much calmed yesterday -- thank You) are still very much in evidence. I can feel my own weakness hovering on the edges of my consciousness, waiting to rush in, to drown me.  Remember when we bought this house, Lord? Remember how I very nearly broke down when we made the offer and then went on a 3 day crying-jag? Remember how paralyzed I was when we moved? How I only barely functioned for the first year we lived here? That was a dark, dark place. And I can still see it from here. And it is what I fear most right now. The possibility that I may end up back there terrifies me.

I am trying to balance this against what I think you are calling us to do. I think we are back to the question "will you adopt him?" and I want to be the sort of person who says yes and runs uninhibited toward the future with nary a backward glance. But I am not that person, however much I would like to delude myself. I look back a lot, I am so very good at extrapolating every possible scenario, particularly the ones that spiral straight into the pit of despair. I have so much fear. How do I accept that I am accepted? How do I trust that you are good, that you will not let me go, that your strength is made perfect in weakness -- because this isn't weakness, it's weakness.   This is a boat full of holes that you are asking to put to sea. And no sails. And the oars are lost. I'm not seaworthy, Lord. Do you know that?

I know, I know: "My strength is made perfect in weakness."

Lord, there's still a lot of noise in my head. I ask still that you bind Satan. That all the ideas and fears and crazy thoughts that aren't from you would be banished in the name of Jesus. I ask that you would fill me with your Spirit -- the Spirit which is not of fear, "but of power and love" (2 Timothy 1:7). I need power and love here so I can offer grace.  And I pray for my husband, that he would be a leader here, a prop to me and that we wouldn't feed each other's fears but lift each other up and encourage one another. I need assurance, Lord, that you won't leave me lonely on this.   I need courage. Guts, grit, moxie.

Love,

me

Day 4

Okay Lord, you lost me.

I read Isaiah 4 today. It's very short. And I would be lying if I said I understood it. It speaks of the glory of the Lord and the cleansing of the people of Jerusalem.  I understand the words, but I am not seeing a connection.

So instead I looked up "fear" in the bible. I wanted to see what You said about it. Because frankly, Lord, I spent last night choking on fear. It washes over me in freezing waves and it acts like a drug on my brain, sending it into overdrive. Incessant, constant motion, none of it good.  In the day I am okay, but at night when the distractions are gone it's an endless chorus of "What if, what if, what if?"

Here's what the Bible says about fear, condensed version:

Old Testament:  lots of "fear of the Lord" here. Many times used when people chose to do the right thing over the popular thing, or even the legal thing, like when the Hebrew midwives feared God more than Pharaoh and refused to kill the Hebrew baby boys. Sometimes used to describe how people felt in tight spots -- like Abraham in Egypt, or Jacob when he knew Esau was coming. These powerful patriarchs felt fear. There is also quite a bit in the Psalms about fear -- especially the idea that because God is in charge we have no need to fear. Also, much about how God's eye is on those who fear him -- in a good way. In the Proverbs, the fear of the Lord is wisdom. It's smart to fear God above other things. In Isaiah, lots of messages from God "Do not fear, I will help you."

New Testament: God-fear is good fear. In Acts it speaks of people "living by the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Spirit." And this, from Romans: "The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.'" 

Then I looked up "afraid" and found that in the OT, fear often leads to sin --Adam lying to God,  Abraham lying to Pharaoh, Sarah lying to the angelic visitors, Moses ( fearing conviction for his murder) fleeing Egypt. And many, many places where God says, "Do not be afraid" mainly because he's got it under control. Later Elijah tells the widow, "don't be afraid " to use up the last of her oil and flour to feed him -- God is going to provide. And Elisha tells his frightened servant "Don't be afraid" and his eyes are opened to the chariots of fire all around the invading army. And so, so much in the Psalms -- "The Lord is with me; of whom shall I be afraid?" "When I am afraid, I put my trust in You." In the NT there are many places where Jesus tells the disciples "Don't be afraid." I like the reminder in Matthew that "you are worth more than many sparrows." And these words: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."

Speed reader version: Fear of God is good, but God doesn't communicate to us through fear. Every time he asked people in the OT (or New) to do something, the message was always "Don't be afraid." Always.

All of this is a long-winded way to ask you, Lord, to calm my fears. They came so thick and fast last night, so like a firestorm, that I felt like I was under attack. Perhaps I am. If that is so, then in the name and by the blood of Jesus, I ask you to bind Satan in this. I pray for a hedge of protection around my thoughts and emotions. Help the noise in my head to fall away so I can hear you clearly. Purify my heart so I can obey steadfastly. And, I need to be able to sleep, Lord. Really sleep without disturbing dreams or periods of wakefulness in the wee hours when I am so vulnerable. Like Elisha's servant, I need eyes to see the chariots of fire all around me.

Love,

me

Day Three

Dear God,

Feeling slightly hollow today. Reading Isaiah 3 left me a bit...perplexed. I think this was the warning to Israel that because they had turned away from God, all the things they turned to were going to be taken from them. They would be leaderless, a people without a rudder, begging for someone -- anyone -- to take charge. In a way, it's like God was telling them that since their hearts weren't seeking him, he was going to remove all the things that were distracting them, all the false idols that consumed their love.

I guess, Lord, that I could make a loose connection here.  My heart since last May has been far from you. And I see how certain things in my life have fallen to pieces. Ironically, it's a lot of house stuff, which maybe other people might just deal with and move on, but which I absolutely loathe dealing with. Windows, siding, a moldy bathroom that needs to be gutted. Everything a big job, nothing we can really do ourselves, all of it expensive and intimidating. Ugh.

But there's other stuff, too. I haven't felt in sync with my husband in a while. It's hard to pray with him, so we just haven't done it. Sometimes things with the kids seem to have run off the rails.  I think the two of us praying about it would help, but we're not praying together.  And I have felt trapped by the life I have held onto so fiercely because change scares me so much. When I was trying to hide from you last summer, I had a week where bible verses just flooded my mind -- verses were all but dropping from the sky. I recorded them in an earlier post because I hadn't really ever had something like that happen before. Almost every verse was whispering "trust me". Over and over. Again and again and again. But we didn't act. I didn't act. I couldn't. I was paralyzed.

And then it was like I couldn't hear you at all.

God, how frustrated you must get with me. So slow I am to figure things out. So reluctant to pry my crabbed, aching fingers off the steering wheel so you can drive. So cocksure that I know the way I should go that I won't even consider your plans. I waited so long, that the little boy we thought maybe possibly could be you wanted us to go get just disappeared. That, we thought, was that. 

I sort of wanted to see if we could find him, but Tim said no. Only if he showed up on the list again. Then we'd go get him. "Um, you realize that's almost impossible, the least likely scenario in the universe," I said. "Do you think God can't do it?" he shot back. "Of course God could do it" I answered (but he won't was what I thought).

So for nearly 5 months I have lived, grieving my own pigheadedness, my fear, my brokenness, my selfish heart. And I've lived with a ghost child, who haunted my thoughts with such a burden of might-have-beens that it has sometimes been hard to enjoy family activities.

Did I come before you, Lord? No. I dorked around for 5 months until this week. This week I wanted to hear from you. I wanted to know your heart. I wanted to see with your eyes. I wanted all the brouhaha in my head to fall away so I could see and hear clearly. That's what I prayed for.

And yesterday I found him again.

Were you waiting for me to be ready, Lord? To want you more than I wanted my own comfort? Were you waiting for me to finally be still so I could hear you? To take my fingers out of my ears?  I realize that all of this represents a level of trust that I have only rarely (okay, never) aspired to. Step one is going to be getting Tim on board. I know what he said, and You know what he said, but I don't know how he's going to respond when I tell him I've found our little guy again. You're going to have to show up here, Lord. And you're going to have to show up big, because Tim feels the stress of providing for our family at a very deep level. The ability to earn is his greatest insecurity, just as change is mine. This whole process is a trust whammy for both of us, in completely different ways.

Undertake, Lord. There is nothing too difficult for you.

Love,

me

Day Two

Dear God,

This week I am reading Isaiah, mainly because that's what we're supposed to be studying in church next week and I needed a starting point, something to stick to all week rather than jumping around in the Bible. Yesterday I read this in Isaiah 1:

17 Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.

And I thought "There it is again." You see, I can't read the Bible, or a Christian blog, or a Christian book, without encountering this idea -- that we are to help the vulnerable ones. The orphans, the widows.

Today I read this in Isaiah 2:

7 Their land is full of silver and gold;
there is no end to their treasures.
Their land is full of horses;
there is no end to their chariots.
⁸ Their land is full of idols;
they bow down to the work of their hands,
to what their fingers have made.

And I am thinking -- this is me, this is us, this is my culture, my country. We have so much we can't even see the ones who have nothing. We are consumed with our stuff, mesmerized by it, in love with it. We spend all our time either taking care of it or planning how to add to it.  But the reality of all that stuff is that it's nothing. In the end, we can't take it with us. Though to judge from grave sites and burial mounds, we've been trying to do so since forever.

God, I am trying to be still this week. Again, I ask you to help me cut through the noise, the incessant demands of my day, of my stuff, so I can hear you. I want to hear your heart. What I really want is an engraved letter from you spelling out in extremely clear terms exactly what you want. And then I wonder what means I will use to rationalize that away.

Maybe I already have such a letter. Maybe it's the sinful nature of my heart to try to argue that when you said "orphans" you didn't mean orphans. You were speaking metaphorically, you weren't calling us to personally do something, to personally take in an alien, a stranger. You certainly didn't mean that.  I suspect I may be rather like the pharisees, parsing the law into all its dos and don'ts so I know juuuuuusssssst how far I can walk on the sabbath before it constitutes work, so I can focus on all the little letters of the law and miss the spirit of it entirely (of course you can pull your sheep from the pit, but you cannot heal people. No sir).

And now I'm just talking again instead of asking for the help I need so much. I don't know if I can ask to be free of fear. I want to not be small. I want to be in charge of my fear instead of limited by it. I want to be so convinced of your power, your call, that I am unafraid to put myself in a position where you have to show up or I'm sunk (oh Francis Chan, why do you skewer me to the wall like this?). I want to be the kind of person who can take that kind of risk, but instead I feel like Much Afraid.

Okay God, here it is. I need to see the path clearly -- I need to have all the noise in my head fall away, everything that isn't of you fall away. Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask you to bind the hissing, insinuating fears, the petty, selfish ideas,  the loud opinions of the world, the doubts, the anxieties. I need to be able to look at things with your eyes so I can say without a doubt "That's just selfishness -- doesn't affect the decision" or "That's the world's view, not God's; doesn't affect the decision."

And I need to know, believe, that you won't abandon me. I don't know where I get this idea but I always worry that when it really counts, I'll be alone. This lie goes so deep in me -- and I don't know why. I have a good family, a family that has always been there for me. I have a good husband, who I know loves me faithfully even when I am pretty difficult to love. And I have a God who has come through for me any number of times. I have never been left flat, and yet I fear. Father, help me weed out this thinking. Help me destroy it, stem and root.

God you are faithful. Great is your faithfulness, no matter how unsteady I may be.  I am surrounded by idols, Lord. But my idols are less about stuff and more about controlling my environment and relationships so that I am never more than minimally inconvenienced. Forgive me, God, for no trusting you more. For not being willing to put it all in your hands. It's all in your hands anyway, and my control is never more than a beautiful delusion.  Intellectually I know that, but emotionally I am still hanging on with both hands.

Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Love,

me

Day One

Dear God,

For 5 days I am coming before you. I should be doing this always, but I find my thoughts so fragmented, my ideas so slippery, that I cannot seem to focus long enough to pray. Except for those short, beseeching arrow prayers that have no actual form, that are really just more of an inarticulate cry.

Lord, I can no longer tell what things are from you and what things are born of my own selfishness and fear.  Am I being wise, or am I being disobedient in the most rationalizing way I can muster? Those weeks, Lord, last May, when I hid from you because I was so afraid of obeying....those I can now see were all ME. I can see so clearly how I ran from you like Jonah from Ninevah. And in some ways I have been in my own fish for the last 7 months.

It's dark in here, Lord. More than ever I can sense the smallness of the life I have created for myself. Remember that scene in the Last Battle? Where the dwarves were sitting in the middle of paradise, but to their eyes they were in a tiny shed, dark and hemmed in, trapped? That's me. I've made myself a shed that I am afraid to leave. It's small, but I know it well. It doesn't throw me any curve balls, but it doesn't hold any surprises either. What's more, I can sense that there's more outside of it than in. That if I could open the door, could step out, amazing things might happen. Will happen. But I'm not sure what the door is. Or where it is. And to be honest, I'm afraid of the amazing things a little. Or a lot.

Why am I afraid?  Change. All my life, uncontrolled change has gripped me with fear. If I can't predict it, map it, plan for it, extrapolate, it fills me with anxiety. I know. Trust is hard for me. But I am afraid of you, too, Lord. Of not pleasing you, of angering you, or exasperating you. I'm afraid you will leave me, throw up your hands in disgust and be done with me. My husband says this is a false idea. I believe him. But the feelings are still there.

The adoption thing won't fully leave me. I still harbor this crazy idea that the little boy I think now you had selected for us will somehow appear on a list somewhere and we will be able to have another chance.  I feel so clearly that we should do this, should adopt, when I am in church, when I am praying, when I am reading my Bible. Other times I feel more fearful, more like there is just no way I can ever do it, fearful as I am of the unknown.

Five days of prayer. Today is just me trying to lay out where I am . Lost. Wandering. Confused. I feel alone, though I am pretty sure that's because I have moved away from you and not the other way around.  So I am back, God. I just want to sit at your feet and be. I want the noise in my head to fall away so I can hear you clearly. I want to be able to discern what is from you and what isn't. I want my path to be clear.

Lord, you are holy and perfect, you are slow to anger (thank you for that) and abounding in mercy (and for that, too). There is nothing too difficult for you and you have promised not to leave us or forsake us ever. I am so grateful that you love me, that I am yours no matter how I fail and fail and fail again.

Lord, help me hear your voice. Help me believe only what is true and help me see the lies for what they are. Five days, Lord. Show me what you want me to do.

Love,
me

Quote to Chew On:

“But God doesn't call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn't come through.”
                                         
                                                                            -- Francis Chan

Confused

Tried, really tried, to convey how I'm feeling to Tim Friday night, but I'm not sure he really gets it.  I am still being bombarded by the same message over and over again: Trust God. Honestly, I am so bombarded with this theme that I am beginning to feel a little paranoid, so for the record: I hear you, Lord. I do. I am just not sure what you want me to do about it.

What's really stunning to me is that Tim sits through many of the same things and doesn't detect the theme. Until Sunday.  Sunday he really couldn't ignore. Sunday, the pastor (and it's his favorite pastor, the one he truly respects and admires) got up and preached an entire sermon on trusting God -- even if what you're being called to do seems crazy, even if you aren't sure where it will end up. Bonus: the Sunday School lessons we were teaching were also about trusting God.

Now do you see the theme? Oh yes, there it is. Thankyouverymuch.

Still, I am left in limbo. I am just hanging here, wondering what God wants me to do with this. I know we blew it a few weeks ago, I know our inaction was a sin. I know this, like I know my own name. I also know what I think we should do, but my husband doesn't agree.  His take? He says the "sign" that we shouldmove forward would be if the little boy we were considering would appear on the list we were watching again. Again. This is tantamount to a miracle, because once they're gone, that's usually it.  I think maybe if he appeared on any list at all that would qualify, but again, so unlikely as to require divine intervention.

This is where I am murky. Can God do this? Absolutely. Will he? Not sure. I know he is abounding in mercy and slow to anger, but let's face it: we blew it twice on this same issue. How many chances do we get? Do I even dare ask for one more? I asked for a second chance and we got it and failed. Miserably, spectacularly. I am of the opinion that if by some miracle we were afforded a third chance, I would have to push the issue. I think -- and this is really just a hunch -- that Tim is avoiding looking this whole thing in the eye because he really doesn't want to act. He'd rather feign ignorance than commit.

And I am trapped in my grief, my guilt, my two-pronged worry over disobeying God and turning our backs on a child in need. Depraved indifference, I think it's called.

God, we are so pathetic. We are so guilty of promoting our own agendas, of exalting our petty, selfish desires over your greater good. Of substituting the things of the world for the higher things of your kingdom.  I am so sorry, Lord. How aware I am right now of my need for forgiveness, of my essential brokeness. Father, forgive. Father, heal. Father, help. I don't want to fail You again.

And Along with Entropy Came

guilt, pain, and sorrow. The perfect trifecta of failure.

Hindsight is 20/20, my mother always says, and in this case she is so very right. I know -- I knew -- God was speaking to us. I couldn't pick up a devotional or hear a sermon that didn't reiterate over and over "trust ME."  I could barely read a blog that didn't hammer home the same point. Again and again and again.

How arrogant of me, how wilfully obtuse, to say I wasn't sure what God wanted me to do. I might as well have stuck my fingers in my ears and sung 'La la la, I Can't Hear You."

Most galling, most humiliating, is that this is the second time I've done this.

But, you say, God is loving and kind, his mercies are new every morning. True dat. But I am wallowing a bit right now and not ready to cut myself any slack.  I need to really feel this; grieve it, even. I am broken right now over my sin. And I think being broken in this way is not necessarily a bad thing.  And yes, God knew how I (we) would react in this situation. This hasn't caught him off guard. Me it walloped upside the head, but God already knew about the fault lines in my character, my faith, my heart.

San Andreas, baby. So big, and so unstable.

But there is hope. It's buried right now, but I know it's there, even though I can't see it or feel it. God promises he will "redeem the years the locust has eaten." Ha (and you can make that a bitter, cynical 'ha' if you like). I thought that verse, which has been swimming around in my head for about a month now, was about adoption. Turns out it was about me.  God knew I was going to need some assurance that I am not entirely ready for the scrap heap just yet.

Will we adopt? I don't know. I am really murky on this one, mainly because I was more invested in this one particular child than I realized or wanted to admit. The question has really been "will you adopt him?" And now that door appears to be firmly shut. If you wait long enough, if you waffle and procrastinate and fail to decide, God will find someone to fulfill his purposes  in your place.  So take that, Sir Lather of Indecision - you've been punked.

So where do I go now? Nowhere. I am going to sit with my sackcloth and ashes for a while yet. For whatever reason, I have to fully experience this. Maybe it's necessary so I can die to my self-life all over again. I see now, really see with sharp, painful clarity, that this is a process I am going to struggle with until I am with Him. 

Entropy

Confused emotions right now. Second chances have evaporated because we couldn't get on the same page long enough to do anything. Instead we did what I hate about us most: we dithered around, talked it all sideways, hemmed, hawed, extrapolated, worried, waffled and did nothing.

We looked at this opportunity and instead of taking it, we slid back into the homogenous mass that is the rest of the world. We refused to stand out, to be different, to do what most people wouldn't dream of doing. Instead we played it safe, chose the easy road; when in doubt, we didn't.

All I have in my cup right now is anger and shame. Oh, and frustration. Lots of that.

For Posterity

Last week was a week of struggle. I wrestled with some things that I needed to see about myself. Some ugly things that did not increase my self esteem.

My fear.

My obsessive need for security and control.

My lukewarm attitude toward God.

And of course, how connected these things are. A leads to B, which leads to C. I had to really face a crossroads: knowing these things about myself, was I going to continue on, giving God my leftovers, or was I going to step out and take a risk for God, do something that demanded a level of faith and trust that I wasn't at all sure I could handle?

Now, normally I cannot spout Bible verses, particularly when I need them, but last week God started throwing verses in my face. So many verses that I started writing them down because they were utterly relevant and I did not want to miss what God was saying to me.  Here's what they said:

"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the Lord Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room for it." Malachi 3:10 (When was the last time you read Malachi? Right. Me too.)

"Blessed is the man

who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked

or stand in the way of sinners

or sit in the seat of mockers.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord,

and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water,

which yields its fruit in season

and whose leaf does not wither.

Whatever he does prospers."  Psalm 1:1-3

"Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." James 4:17

"I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you." John 14:18

"Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it." Psalm 127

"If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?" 1 John 3:17

"I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

"Nothing is impossible with God." Luke 1:37

"The Lord will restore the years the locust has eaten" Joel 2:25 (this last one seems to have been specifically designed to counter my fears about coping with a child who has suffered so much loss)

The last piece of the puzzle for me was this blog entry by Shannan Martin, which absolutely laid bare my argument about "not having peace," -- which was really code for: scared to death and looking for an out. If God doesn't speak to us through fear, then all this brouhaha churning around in my soul has only two possible sources: me and my own frail humanity, or the enemy.  Take your pick. I am certainly flawed enough to be entirely at fault, and I am certainly weak enough to be vulnerable to attack. Drat my overactive imagination...my worst-case-scenario-extrapolate-to-doomsday mentality.

My feeling now is that we need to go forward until God stops us. Tonight, Tim and I will hammer this thing out and see if we can reach some kind of consensus. I see so many ways -- opportunities -- to trust God in this: for finances, for travel, for transitions, for parenting skills, for the growth and faith of our current children...it's all just out there, out of our control. If we do this, we will have to rely on Him, because it's totally beyond our experience and expertise to do any of this. We will be living out our trust in God in a visible, tangible way. I think there could be great power in this, for us and more importantly for our kids.

Not to mention the huge difference it would make for one small boy in Chin@.

Second Chances??

Let's be extremely honest. I have not blogged in a while -- a long while -- because I have been running away from things. Blogging - writing, really -- is one way I process stuff and therefore doing it would be facing the things I have been trying to avoid. So I have spent the last 2.4 months hiding from myself, my husband, and most especially my God.

This does not work out as well as you might expect.

What, exactly, have I been hiding from, you might ask? Adoption, I would have to answer. And no one would fault you for wondering what the heck I mean by hiding from something that all my previous writing would indicate that I have yearned for for several years. Why, then, when everything seemed in train to get the proverbial ball rolling, would I suddenly flee in the opposite direction as though pursued by rabid wolves?

Indeed.

In my arrogance, I thought I could step up and do this thing. I had a very "Go Big or Go Home" mentality. But when it came down to it, when an actual child was in front of us, when the question wasn't "will you adopt," but "will you adopt him?"  I did not "go big."  And part of what I've been hiding from is the realization that I am much, much weaker than I would like to admit and that as much as I would like to blithely tell everyone to "just trust God," I appear to have a long way to go in this department.

The other part of this shindig that I've run away from is God. Hiding always seems like a good idea when you are afraid you will be asked to do what you are not sure you can do. I did not want to see or hear from God, just in case He was a little too clear on what he wanted me to do.

Then there was my husband, who finally got on the bandwagon only to find a wife who quite literally lost it. That does a little number on your confidence, let me tell you, and doesn't exactly build up the confidence destroyer, either.

It all came to a head about 2 weeks ago. I had been hiding so efficiently that my husband didn't even know what was going on. For some odd reason, I got on the photolisting page of the agency we'd been working with and discovered that the little boy we'd been considering was gone. This meant he had probably been matched with someone else.  I should have felt relieved.

Instead, I felt annihilated. All the failure, the spiritual duplicity, the ugly facets of my personality that I had been trying to hard not to see, burst wide open on me and I knew, without a doubt, that I had failed God utterly. With all the clarity of hindsight, I looked back over the whole situation and saw a child whose medical needs were negligible at best, who was as close to perfect as we could ask for, and who I had rejected out of fear and a pathological need to control things in my life.

Epic fail.

The dam burst one evening and I sobbed to my husband all the crap I'd been holding inside, the failure, the knowledge of my own weakness and fear, the smallness of my faith,  I told him I felt like I'd failed a major test -- that God had called me and I turned away, indifferent to the plight of His children, consumed with my own selfish junk, afraid to step out in faith into what was patently not my comfort zone.

For I week I lived like this, bowed down under the weight of my failure. In the midst of this, I prayed for a second chance. I knew the child we'd been considering was lost to us, but I thought maybe in a few months we might find another child that we could commit to.  I wasn't terribly hopeful -- I just hoped God wouldn't give up on us, on me.

Then, a chance peek at the photo listing again and there he was -- our boy.  Back on the list for who knows what reason. A second chance?  It sure feels like it.

But now I can't get my husband to even consider it -- and this may be where the real damage lies. My sin may have submarined everything. This I know: God doesn't need us to carry out His purposes. But what  a privilege it would be if we could be part of them.

So here I am, in limbo again.

Gut Twister

After my prayer/letter/vent yesterday, I actually felt a certain calmness overtake me. For most of the day I felt okay -- lighter and even slightly happy. I also felt a rising confidence that we could actually pull this thing off.

Then, the email.

It was short -- an update that had recently come through, just translated, and it said essentially 2 things:  1. he is not interested in studying and 2. usually a steady temperament, but occasionally tantrums to the point of "convulsions."

I got cold all over.

The first part is just confusing. I know nothing of the expectations in a Chinese kindergarten. We are talking about a 4 year old, after all, and I have no clue whether this means he can't sit for 2 hours and copy characters or he would prefer to play, or what...?  I wouldn't expect many 4 year olds to "study." But my over-thinking brain immediately began throwing up alarming possibilities: ADD? Delay? Oppositional/Defiant Disorder? Impairment? (see? I am really good at this). WHAT COULD IT MEAN? I mean, really: what a weird thing to say about a 4 year old.

The second part was frankly disturbing. The agency said the translator says the word is not the one used for seizures. So I guess that's good, but they are going to try to get some clarification on that because even the translator wasn't sure what they meant. And certainly all kids have tantrums from time to time. But again, WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?  Everything up to this point said "quiet child, shy child, good learner, sweet disposition, etc." Now this. And of course, no context to help fill in details. Has he been removed from the foster family? Are the tantrums as a result of a major transition? Are violent tantrums something new?  Is there another trigger for this behavior?

All my peace, all my courage, blown to smithereens. Because the truth is, it could mean something, or it could mean nothing. And I am VERY uncomfortable with ambiguity. I like surety, accuracy, definitive statements, verified facts. 

Not much of that here. We're operating off about 8 minutes of video and one written report dated nearly 2 years ago. And of course, the update.  That's all we have on which to base our decision. My stomach has been in a knot since yesterday evening.

The truth is, I don't know how this will play out. And I am on tenterhooks. Undertake, Lord. Your servant is weak and I can't see my hand before my face. I need you, your insight, your assurance, your guidance. I really really really can't do this alone.

Intervene, Lord Jesus. Be a light in this situation so that we know what to do.

Wrestling, Part Deux

Irony: You pray about adopting a little person for literally years and when your husband finally comes around, gets so on-board with the idea that he is looking for a local instructor so he can learn Chinese to communicate with his new son, and you suddenly fall prey to a huge, paralyzing case of the I-Can'ts.

Oh yes. I did.  Please understand, God, that I don't like being this way. I hate this over-developed Fight-or-Flight response that I seem to have, the one that makes it almost impossible to sleep at night, the one that is giving me both heartburn and diarrhea (TMI? sorry.) The one that makes me feel like I can't quite breathe right and may break into a bout of hyperventilation at any moment. The one that has driven me to the treadmill every day for the last 9 days in a desperate attempt to simply exercise myself into some kind of Zen.

God, you know my heart is in the right place. I so want to do this, but ACTUALLY DOING IT is looming very huge right now. I can't even explain why I am suddenly wracked with fear.  Here, though, are some of the highlights:

Conflict.  I cringe in the face of conflict. Loud voices and unhappy people make me want to curl up in a ball. This is not my invariable response, but it is in my repertoire. God, I am most afraid of how our children will react.  I am most afraid of how our son will react since he is most likely the one getting a roommate and he can have an explosive temper and he is the one most like me -- not at all down with change. He is often deeply suspicious of anything different or new. As am I.

Change. Oh Lord, I fear change. If I sit down and lay it out I can sort of see how it would be overcomeable, but change of this magnitude frightens me. I can't form a picture in my head of how it will all be, once the ship has sailed. How will our family dynamic be altered? And you know, Lord, that this is not just an adoption thing. I went through this every time I discovered I was pregnant and every time I brought home a new baby. And some of those changes were cataclysmic. How I envied people who just gave birth and went right back to their normal lives with barely a hiccup. Why did/does it always have to be like an F5 tornado for me?  I am afraid of this blowing-apart of our family and the corresponding era of reconstruction which can (and has) taken upwards of a year to complete. I am afraid of being in flux for so long, of that devastating disequilibrium.

Conspicuousness. We are going to look different, this I know. Mostly I am okay with this, but I am having bizarre flashbacks to high school where I simultaneously and somewhat desperately wanted both the spotlight and complete invisibility. I am fearful of how I will handle the looks, the inevitable questions, the possibly-not-intentionally-rude comments.  I am somewhat fearful of how I will handle a child who has (as yet) no history with us. Those nights when I tell my children about their baby years will not include him -- I don't know anything about how he liked his first taste of baby food, or what silly things he might have done in the middle of a store, or how potty training went for him. What will I say? How can I help him be all right with that vacuum?

Lord, last night I felt you were talking to me through Ephesians. You spoke of reconciliation, of creating one heavenly family in the church, of breaking down walls that separate people. I so much want to move forward here, God. I want to be obedient. I want to be joyfully obedient. I badly need your peace, and with your peace, some courage. And joy too, Father, would not come amiss, but I will settle for peace and courage and be content to wait for joy.

And then there's this: "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9

I do not want to suffer from depraved indifference. There's a little boy -- a baby, really -- in China who needs us. He needs a mama and a daddy. He needs people to pray for him, to bring him to Jesus, to train him up in the way he should go. Who will go, if not us? Lord I am claiming Joshua 1:9: be with us here. Be obviously with us here, because your servant is weak and small and fearful. Because I think you have designed this whole thing to underscore the fact that I cannot do this life alone, though I certainly act sometimes like I can. Well now, I totally can't and I am falling at your feet every day, every hour, to tell you I need courage, I need peace. I need you.

Amen.

In the Balance

Reviewing some files this past week. Children's files. Actual people.  I do not know why this feels so weird, but it does. Looking at kids' histories and pictures, weighing needs and potentialities, trying to get a feel for the long term.

But these aren't used cars, they're kids. This is part of the process, no matter how you approach it. At some point, someone is going to make you nail down what you are willing to deal with. What you believe you are capable of handling. And this part, to me anyway, is ugly.

Not, let me be clear, because of the kids. The kids inspire nothing in me but compassion. A tearing, anxious compassion that wants to sweep them all into my embrace and volunteer to raise everyone, Every. Last. One.

The ugly part is what this process exposes in me. It lays bare all my pettiness, my insecurities, the things that pollute my heart. The part of me that wonders if I can handle a child with a very visible need, a need that may never be totally fixable. Club feet are ugly, but fixable to the point that you'd never know they were there. Heart conditions are often fixable, the scar hidden unless you go to the pool, where I have it on good authority that a truly wicked scar is not actually a handicap. But what about the more obvious things? Missing fingers? Limbs? A pronounced limp? I don't know.  I am trying to feel this out, imagine myself with a child like this. Imagine being even more conspicuous as a family than we would be anyway with an Asian child.

I am unsure.  Not rejecting outright, you understand, just unsure. And anxious.

It's just that I have always taken my children's physical health for granted. I have never wondered whether they would be able to play any sport they felt like trying. Never worried that others might make fun of them for the way they walk. Never contemplated the stares, the possibly rude and intrusive questions or comments that might arise. Never ever, not once, had to consider how I would help my child cope with all these things.

And now I am being called to do this. And it is hard.

And the craven, cowardly part of me wants to bury my head in the sand and say "no way, God. This...this is more than I can do. I am not actually this big of a person. Look at me, Lord!...I am very shallow and small and weak. I don't tolerate embarassment well, I mostly like people to not notice me, I have a deeply private streak in me that really resents intrusion. I am not the one for this job."

But if I'm not the one for this job, then who is?

And let me add this little tidbit: two nights ago these children invaded my dreams. And in my dream I was chasing a child. Not just any child, but one of the little boys we are considering. One who is so darling, and yet whose needs cause some anxiety (see? -- more anxiety. It's a theme). In the dream, he was walking along the sidewalk and he turned and this deep, booming voice (not my voice)  said "He's perfect." And some other part of me, the watching part, agreed -- "perfect."

Whaddaya think? Voice of God? Might be. I don't discount these things lightly.

Full Plate

The musical is over and I thought my week would relax a bit, but the crazy, hot mess that is my life continues to steamroll ahead, dragging me along with it.

Gack. I am so tired of feeling one step behind myself.

All conversations with my better half are on the fly. A maximum of 5 minutes, sometimes quite intense but always very short, is what we've been reduced to. He managed to pick a fight with me at bedtime last night, so that took care of any pillow talk.

Stony silence ensued.

I hate it when we are like this. I always feel like part of me has been severed, or has ceased functioning. Like having an arm you can see, but can't get to work. I suppose this is a good trait if you're going to be in a marriage, this very low tolerance for disharmony.

Ultimately, I think this is what Satan wants -- discord in the body, any part of the body. It all contributes to breakdown, to misunderstanding, to entropy. We get so bogged down in our petty crap, we stop moving forward, stop praying, stop looking out and turn our eyes on our own junk which is naturally so much more important than anyone else's critical issues.

And I move so slowly anyway, for heaven's sake. I'm not what you'd call a barnburner.  I have to think, and meditate, and consider, and rethink. So today I am even slower than my normal slow crawl.

Unfortunately, today has a lot of demands that are going to require a little more zip than "slow crawl."

Sigh.

A Night and a Day

Bad night, really. Fell asleep but woke up 1.5 hours later and couldn't turn off the brain. Staggered downstairs to have my mild panic attack without disturbing Tim. Staggered back upstairs an hour later, sure that I could now rest, and spent the next half hour telling myself to relax everytime my shoulders tensed up. Finally asleep by 2 or so. Tim woke me at 5:40 for who knows what reason. Awake another 1/2 hour. Maggie bounced in at 7. Even with a LARGE cup of coffee, I still feel a little groggy.

Weather is not helping today -- it's so cloudy, even with all the lights on it feels a little like I'm underwater. So much to do, more errands to run, places to go. No desire to go anywhere at all. No time to TALK with my husband, just talk. Am seriously thinking of hiring a babysitter for Saturday night so I can have time alone with Tim.

Some kind of virus is messing with me, but not enough for me to curl up in bed and  be truly sick. Just enough to make everything more of an effort than usual. And to make frequent swallowing both necessary and unpleasant. Really trying to get on top of the cleaning, but just found out that my dad co-opted my husband's time tomorrow (cleaning day) and the really awful trouble spots (which are his) will probably not get cleaned.

Troubled in a vague way by the multitude of undone projects around the house. From where I sit, I can see two of them. Three more (mostly painting) are waiting for completion upstairs. Bleah. Stunning what an absence of sun and a lousy night's sleep will do to me. I think a little more coffee is in order, but this is always a deal with the devil. I will feel better for a little while, but the crash will be spectacular.

Is it wrong to want to just curl up with a book and ignore everything?

Swamped

I am drowning in kids' activities this month. This week alone, I have 7 separate scheduled activities for my children. If you add in allergy shots and a costume fitting which positively must take place, the total rises to 9.  We have had one day -- one short, blessed evening -- with no activities. That was yesterday. Today I fully anticipate some sort of implosion around 6 pm. That will be my head, caving in from all the pressure of trying to be 3 places at once.

In the midst of all this chaos -- and let me tell you, next week is looking even hairier than this one -- we are trying to pull our heads together to get this adoption ball rolling. But there is hardly a spare minute in the day to really talk about it, so I am faced with the prospect of acting unilaterally or not acting at all.

I am finding it hard (understatement) to make these decisions by myself. The two biggies we have to deal with immediately are a) which agency? and b) which special needs?

These are not small issues.

The agency decision is tough -- it's hard to get a 'feel' for an agency over the Internet or even in phone conversation with someone. I've read surveys, haunted web groups, stalked various adopter's blogs, but I still don't feel a pull toward any particular agency. Since this is kind of fundamental to the process, we kind of need to get on it.  Tim is of no help in this area at all. His response? "You've done the research, just make a decision."

Um, what?

The second big deal is going through the list of special needs we would be willing to consider. This is just daunting. There's really no other word for it. It's one thing to look at kids and another thing to look at labels. Labels are way scarier. And while it's responsible to Google these things to get a bead on what they are, the information that throws up ranges from nerve-wracking to earth-shattering, in about equal measure. It all boils down to this: nearly every need could be no big deal or a Very Big Deal Indeed. It all depends. So confronting this list of needs is a mind blower. My knee-jerk reaction is "none of them -- they're all more than I can cope with." I think about things like how well I would deal with a lot of needles and blood and procedures. Could I handle surgeries? Is it in me to deal with something long-term -- maybe forever-long-term? I just don't know.

This is where the rubber meets the road. Because living for Christ means I have to die to me. And my secret identity? -- is Much Afraid. Much Afraid doesn't think she can do anything. She has a very narrow range of what she feels she can handle and she is so busy burying her head in the sand that she can't see her savior's hand held out to her, beckoning her into the wider world (or rather, she is pretending not to see it). All Much Afraid ever wanted was to be married, to be a mom, to have a house and a little garden. She would have these things and live happily ever after, the end. But then Jesus started messing with her heart. He was so subtle about it -- a news story way back in the early '90s about abandoned babies in China; a flyer in a church bulletin about adoption in 2000; a little difficulty getting pregnant with #1 -- just enough to make adopting a definite option; a Steven Curtis Chapman concert in 2005; a giant billboard right on the way to preschool where she had to see it every single day for 8 months; sobering statistics that floated in from who-knows-where about children alone, in need of families; a little boy's face on a waiting child list a few years ago; the desperate need for families for boys just because they're boys. And now she's here, unable to turn away from the reality that is the orphan crisis, knowing that this is the path to take, but shaking in her shoes nonetheless.

The thing is, Much Afraid is still fearful. She is mostly fearful of making a mistake, especially as she begins this whole process. What if I choose the wrong agency? What if we say yes to a  need that's more than we can handle? What if we are referred a child and we don't like him? (don't judge -- just keepin' it real). What if ....what if...what if. What if God doesn't show up? What if He drops the ball on this one and we are left hanging out to dry?

Let's let God work, my husband says. Let's do this and let him bless us in ways we would never see if we didn't step out in faith.  Let's go, and let him undertake.

What this means, really, is take a step. Letting go, right now, means taking a step forward. Don't sit still, don't hide, don't choke, don't throw it into reverse.  Go forward. The hand is held out to you. Take it.

Just take it.

Getting My Head Straight

Trying, really trying, to sort through the stuff in my head regarding adoption.

We have prayed and prayed, we have asked God for the big arrow, the This Way Please sign, the DO THIS NOW pop-up, but nothing is there.

But nothing is NOT there, if you know what I mean.

A friend of my husband's said, "Just go until God stops you. If it's wrong, God will let you know."

This was interesting to me, in the same way that people landing in a spaceship in my front yard would be interesting. Normally, I do not operate like this. My mother instilled in us this principle: When in doubt, DON'T.  And I have lived by it for pretty much ever.

This morning, the thought occurred to me: what if we're not hearing anything definitive from God because He has already spoken? What if God is tapping his fingers on some heavenly table, saying to himself: "When are they going to get it?"  I know I do this with my kids all the time: I say it and it rolls off them like water off a duck's back. Ten minutes later they ask me the same question again and I roll my eyes and say "Hello?" 

Maybe God is waiting for us to get a clue. Maybe this whole thing is such a gigantic yes, that there's really no need for Him to roll out the red carpet and send us an engraved invitation to get our butts in gear.

Check this:

 ³¹ “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. ³² All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
³⁷ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
⁴¹ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
⁴⁴ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
⁴⁵ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
⁴⁶ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” -- Matthew 25: 31-46

And this:

²² Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. ²³ Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror ²⁴ and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. ²⁵ But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. ²⁶ Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. ²⁷ Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.   -- James 1:22-27

So maybe the blinding clarity has already been provided. Who is supposed to help the orphan crisis?

We are.

There is absolutely no dodging this.  We are the answer. We are the workers. We are the ones called to do something. And that something is not to sit in front of our TVs  watching  Dancing With the Stars. It's to engage with this problem. Engage with it. Not observe it. Not bemoan it. Not shake our heads about it and turn away with a sigh because it is just so big that what can we do? I'll tell you what we can't do. We can't do nothing.

And I don't think our convenience is an excuse. Jesus didn't say, "You fed me when you had extra money," or "you clothed me when you needed to get rid of all the crap in your basement." He didn't say "Fund your 401K first, then see how things look," or "Do what the Bible says as long as it doesn't interfere with your vacation plans."

Would another child be inconvenient? Heck yes; but keep in mind that the three I have are inconvenient on a daily basis. And this troubles them not at all -- they take it as their God-given right  to have needs and demands that totally interrupt my needs and demands.  And they feel not the tiniest iota of guilt when they a) wake us up too early, b) vomit on the furniture (or car upholstery, or carpeting, or whatever), c) have to be taken to Target at 8:30 p.m (right in the middle of Person of Interest) because they forgot about a project requiring a large piece of posterboard, some Model Magic, and a box of toothpicks.  Believe me, I know from inconvenient.

My biggest fear here is being a role-model. I am very, very leery of this because I know what an epic failure I am at most things. I am purely incapable of keeping my house clean, of being consistent with discipline, of remembering to fill out school paperwork. I get tight when I have to check the online banking statement because WHAT IS MY PASSWORD AGAIN? So I am more than a little fearful of having other people watch me parent an adopted kid and think to themselves -- "wow, she sucks at this!" On the other hand, maybe someone watching would think "If she can do it, I certainly can." I cannot abide scrutiny. Maybe I should just get a sign that says, "Let's Agree I'm No Good at This and Move On." I do not want to be the poster family for international adoption. What if I can't represent?

These are the thoughts that I think may be what James means when he says "keep oneself  from being polluted by the world." These are the things that chip away at my resolve, that wake me up at night. The nasty little thoughts that sneak up on you and simmer away in your head -- "You aren't good enough, you haven't got the mojo for this, you will be forever different, it will ruin your family, God will not provide..." and on and on it goes.

My sister once said, "service requires sacrifice." And this strikes me as very true -- if we only do what is convenient and safe, how are we different than anyone else? "Even the pagans..." Really, the money here is the smallest part of the sacrifice: the real sacrifice is time, and love, and support, and all the things you invest in your kids for the rest of your life because they are yours and you are theirs, you are family. Selah.

Engage with it. Engage. When you engage, you step in. You enter the mess. You connect. You cannot observe and connect at the same time. Observation implies -- demands, even -- a degree of distance. I think we are being called to close the gap. What if we were in the thick of the fight? How would that change us? How will it change the battle when we attach an actual human being to the problem? A person we can touch and smell and invite in and promise to love?

Now I have to go breathe into a paper bag because I have made myself lightheaded.

Out of Control

Yesterday's sermon was interesting. Interesting if you like being pinned to a corkboard like a helpless butterfly.

Well, maybe not that bad.

But have you ever sat through a sermon and suddenly recognized yourself? Suddenly realized, right down to the core of your being, that this is me? Have you ever discovered the true meaning of blinding clarity?

I did.

The sermon was on anger. Now, I have heard many sermons on anger. Sermons where the pastor unpacked the whole episode in the temple, the righteous anger of Jesus, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera (say that slowly, with a British accent.  Better?) I didn't really think I was going to get much new info. In fact, I was preparing to enter that zen-like state of receptiveness in which  I look attentitive and can even take notes, but in which nothing really "sticks," if you know what I mean. 

I know. I am not all I should be.

But then the pastor started talking and inside -- inside, I started squirming. I had that sort of "get that light out of my eyes!" feeling.  But I hung in there and was given a whole plateful of stuff to chew on. Stuff I am still chewing on 24 hours later. Stuff I may be chewing on for weeks.

I am an angry person. You wouldn't know this if you met me. I don't foam at the mouth or  tear my hair out. I don't throw chairs or purchase assault rifles. But I have this well of frustration in me that can errupt without warning. KABOOM. Mount St. Mom. I have always regarded this in two ways: 1) as a product of my upbringing, having been raised by an angry parent (but also by a non-angry parent) and  2) as a deep-seated and shameful character flaw. And #2 explains #1 -- I had both models and, being weak, tend to lapse toward the bad.

But I have a new insight into this anger deal: what if my anger has to do with my very deep need for control? What if anger is my response to things which are out of control, or even just out of my mental picture of how things should be? What if my anger is an expression of selfishness, of protecting my interests? What if it's an expression of my inability to be on top of every little detail, every eventuality, every possible permutation of every situtation that I may ever be in ever?

Maybe you're laughing and thinking, "Jeez, who wants that much control?"

I do.

Maybe not every day, but basically, yes, I want to manage all the little strings of my life. And the fact that I can't make the actual people and situations in my life match the pictures in my head often makes me feel like I am going to implode. Except that I don't. I EXplode instead. And I make myself nuts, feeling like I am responsible for the WHOLE WORLD AND WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE LISTEN TO ME YOU HORRID ROTTEN PEOPLE?

I am exhausted, playing Atlas. So why, then, can't I just lay it down? Why can't I give it to the One who actually can manage all the details?

Because being out of control, placing that control in someone else's hands, is the scariest thing I can imagine. Even though I know that person loves me and knows me so much better than I even know myself, it is excruciating to contemplate peeling my bent, crabbed fingers away. And yet, can I tell you how much I crave rest? To just lay it down and lay down. To go off duty. To really understand the limits of my role and the all-encompassing role of God in my life.

I feel like I just got a peek into my psyche, but it's the same message: the Christ-life wants to kill the Self-life. KILL IT DEAD. But to step out of the self life is hard --- it wants to live and it's not going down without a fight.

I have a lot of chewing to do.

Sometimes I Don't Want What I Want...

My husband came home for lunch yesterday and we had a lovely hour where we could talk without having to listen for short people torturing each other in the other room. Nobody had to push back from the conversation saying, "Those kids are gonna fry!" No one put her head in her hands and said "Please tell me we are not raising axe murderers. Or republicans."

It was so quiet, we were almost nervous.

After we got the small talk out of the way ("Hey, I lost the dog for 20 minutes today!") we sat down to discuss the whole adoption thing. I have to say, that compared to my expectations of this conversation, it came off a lot better than I had hoped. And let me be clear here, I wasn't hoping for much. In fact, I was dreading whatever answer my husband came up with, because a 'yes' would be profoundly scary and a 'no' would feel like an epic fail.

Instead, my husband started talking about something they discussed in his bible study this week -- namely, whether you're going to choose to live the Christ-life, or the Self-life. Without getting overly complicated, it boils down to this: are we going to choose to depend on God for what we need, or are we going to depend on ourselves? Will we choose a path that allows us to see His blessings, or will we choose a path  that allows us to pat ourselves on the back for being so forward-thinking that we planned for every eventuality thankyouverymuch.  Because when we're busy taking care of all our needs, God is prevented from blessing us the way He wants to. But if we step out in faith, not really knowing how we're going to pull this off, we've set the stage for God to show up big time. And that raises a second point: Do we believe that He will, indeed, show up? Do we believe that He is master of the details, in charge of the outcomes, already ahead of us with whatever we need to accomplish His purposes? How much, really, do we trust Him?

Tim's take on it was this: God already knows what decision we'll make. The decision does not, in fact, affect whether we're saved, but it may represent a choice of either Him or Self.  No matter what we choose, He has already made provision for everything we need. We can continue to live the Self life and we will still go to heaven, but the ultimate goal of the Christ life is to kill the Self life -- KILL IT DEAD. So if we say no, are we saying no because we don't trust God enough, because ultimately we don't believe He can come through in the clinch? Because while he might provide us with the funds to do this thing up front, the long term stuff is beyond Him? This isn't really a case of putting your money where your mouth is, but more of a case of laying your life on the line. Adopting a child is forever and ever, world without end, amen. This is not a one-and-done deal, but rather a relationship that is going to be there for the rest of our lives, both with that child and with the One who may be sending us on this journey.

So, my Spiritual Leader says (and let me just say here that I am forever saying "you need to be the Spiritual Leader" so then when he actually leads I'm all "What? That's how you're leading? Are you sure that's right? Do you reeeeaaaalllllyy know what you're doing? Do it this way...") we need to pray that God makes it clear that this is what he wants. We need to Gideon this thing.  I am not sure how this is to be accomplished, but that's Tim's take on it. And honestly, it would be nice to get some Go-Do-This-Or-Be-Watching-For-The-Lightning-Bolt confirmation.

Can I just say that I have trust issues? I am a huge committment-phobe on many many levels, most of them completely shallow (like furniture -- I can barely bring myself to buy furniture because the prospect of making a decision is very daunting and I do not roll with mistakes well at all. At. All. So instead, I live with half-furnished and even empty rooms, or I live with furniture I hate -- furniture I am actually plotting to kill -- for literally years because making a decision is just too much committment on my part. Life would be great if I could just date my furniture instead of marrying it.). I wasn't always like this, but as I've gotten older, I am frequently overwhelmed with the "if only" complex and its sister, the "what if" complex. As in, "if only we hadn't bought this house, our old neighbors wouldn't have died" (This actually happened, and I still think the two are related. And I am still occasionally blindsided by a lot of guilt about it.) or "what if we buy the car and then something happens to the house and we don't have the money to fix it because we spent it all on the car?"  So this kind of thinking totally paralyzes me like a woodchuck in the middle of the road with a semi bearing down on it. I cannot move for fear of making some sort of unfixable mistake, for fear of being the cause of great misery. Instead, I become the author of great indecision. The Mighty Waffle, as it were.

This whole prospect of laying it on God is completely alien to me. And I have been a Christ follower since I was 12, so quite a long time; I thought I knew how to lay things on Him. But this feels different, like I'm approaching a new level, a different level that I've never quite been to before. Maybe all these years I've been at level C, and God wants me to move up to level B.  Problem is, I want to scope out Level B first so I can see what's up. Then maybe just ease into the whole Level B experience a little bit at a time, like getting into a really cold pool. I am not a plunger, I'm a toes-feet-ankles-calves, etc. girl.

Tim says not to get mired down in details until we make a decision. This is not the time to even entertain thoughts about how we'll tell our families, how we'll put all these kids through college (Lottery!), how we'd even approach the whole adoption process -- this is just the time to ask ourselves which life we're going to live and find a way to "lay out a fleece" so we can see what God wants. Once we know what He wants, He'll have to step up and smooth the way for all the rest of it.

My spiritual leader is leading. I am in awe, and I am a little scared.