Back at It

Class photo from August 2013.
This year I have a 4th, 3rd, 1st grader & a preschooler. Phew. 

So, we're back at it after two beautiful weeks off.

Yep, I took two weeks off of schooling my kids in the middle of October. Why not? I'm a homeschooler, we started early, it's well within my right.

And I know you're jealous (of the two weeks off!)

But this morning we are back at it. I just printed off the kid's checklists and am about to wake them up.

Sometimes I think this homeschool choice will be the death of me--it's too much responsibility, too much work, too little personal freedom. There are days when I fight tooth and nail to get some child to finish their work.

BUT

There are other days.
Days where we laugh and sing and dance together.
Days where we all learn or accomplish something new.
Days where someone makes a breakthrough--whether in reading, spelling, math, focus, or obedience.
Days where everything comes together in a beautiful, harmonious way, maybe I even accomplish a household task.

I live for those days.

One of my favorite things is when one of the kids "gets it.' Like when Olivia can sound out and understand a new word or gets excited about doing math through playing store (on tap for today). Like when Katie spends extra time reading 'cause she loves the book or when she draws another picture because she loves art so much. Like when Josh struggles through a tough math concept all week--and then Gets It. These are the beautiful moments.

And I love who my kids are becoming. Of course, they are still kids and mess up often. But I love to hear about how they interact with peers and adults. I love how they ask questions (most of the time). I love the programs and classes that they are involved in this year and how they are growing because of them.

Because of the circumstances of our lives this year, school hasn't always been easy. But it is good. And that's what really matters.

We're studying the world and missions. Which of course includes a large map puzzle.
Which I quickly put away because it drives me nuts. 

15 years

Eric and Me at the top of the Gates of Paradise,
near Malealea in Lesotho, Africa

Since this day in 1998, there have been

a few tears,
two houses,
three cats (and one gerbil),
a lot of laughs,
some disagreements,
three kids in three years
a couple jobs,
a daughter from across the world.

Regardless of where we have been and where we are going, you have
held my heart. Wherever you are, I want to be. When you are gone, I miss you.

I love the sound of your exaggerated laughter when you are watching bad British comedy.
I love the compassion that is part of the way God made you.
I love the way that you know and hear my heart.

I'm so thankful God saw fit to put us together--that he saw that boy who liked a lot of different girls and a girl who was desperate to feel special. That he brought us together in Mexico. That we have been able to make our home in Him. That in Him we have been able to stay together and be stronger with each passing year.

I am a blessed woman.

Happy Anniversary, Eric.
I love you!

P.S. Here's my little gift to you. (It's all I could afford ;) )

Hold on, to me as we go
As we roll down this unfamiliar road
And although this wave (wave) is stringing us along
Just know you're not alone
Cause I'm gonna make this place your home

Not everything is depressing

So, not everything is depressing in this life.

And I wanted to show you a precious gift I got this week.

My 92 year old grandfather met his newest granddaughter--in Utah.

This week, we've been in Utah visiting my parents while Eric attended a conference for work. (Don't worry--he hasn't skipped any sessions to hang out with us!) But for an extra treat, my last surviving grandparent came from Florida to be with us for a couple days.

We spent some time in the mountains. Obviously it was cold and bright and wonderful. 

Mali got her first taste of snow--and then insisted on eating it whenever she could. 

This is my mom, Kris, with my grandpa, Paul (my dad's dad) and Mali on his lap at the Aviary. 

The entire Keener family. 

Look, we tried to get an entire family picture but we couldn't get the timer to work, so Eric took this picture and then my brother took one so Eric is in one. But this is my family, from left to right, back row first: Leslie, my sis-in-law (with Olivia on her lap), my dad, Jim, my grandpa, Paul, my mom, Kris and my brother, Jay. In the front row is Katie, Me and Mali and Josh. There you have it.

 I was able to catch up with a life-long friend and watch out kids play together. Still remaining in this trip is a date night for me & Eric and meeting some new/old friends. 

These are the good moments, I just thought I would share some with you! 

Worn

I've written this post about 20 times in my head. When I finally have a few minutes to sit at the computer and write them down, my brain is empty, can't put together a single, simple thought, but for this:

I'm worn.

Life has this incredibly insistent way of marching on, despite family trials or adjustments or work schedules or individual needs. It just keeps going. Every day I have to keep getting up, functioning, doing the things a mom, wife, writer, person does. Life feels relentless.

As I write this post, I am standing in my parent's kitchen in Utah. The front windows show me a view of my most favorite place in the world, The Wasatch Mountains. When I am away from them, I crave their silence, purity, brightness, and away-ness. The mountains fill me with a peace similar to the peace I hear about from friends who love the beach. I visit the mountains and breath the crisp mountain air and I am re-balanced. I can again open my eyes to see beauty and majesty.

My dad has a small cabin, a wonderful oasis of simplicity up one of the canyons near our house. Usually on the drive up the canyon, I love that moment when the dirty valley air is replaced by clean mountain air. It's the announcement of my arrival, that for a few hours I can put away the mutiny of demands of life and just be. To listen to the wind, to appreciate the log fire, to watch the birds, to stop at every interesting rock or animal print on the trail. There is a corner you turn when you rise up out of the valley and suddenly, brilliantly the world is bright. The colors are sharp and pronounced. In this fall season, the reds, oranges, and yellows blend with evergreen for the most magnificent quilt.

But on yesterday's drive up, I couldn't see the bright. Everything looked dull and gray. I kept looking out the window, trying to figure out why that could be, what's wrong with the day. As it turns out, the morning light was just filtering in a different way.

They gray-ness stuck with me. It seemed to reflect the way I feel about so many things. My life feels gray and drudging.

There are so many different moments in this life. Beautiful. Heart-wrenching. Encouraging. Exhausting.

Here are just a few:

• Josh, Katie & Olivia are brilliant and fantastic learners and one of God's greatest gifts this year is that they are learning well. 
• Attachment is hard, grueling, every-day work. There is something essential that breaks in a child who is traumatized. There is a lot of healing taking place, but this is a deep wound. 
• I am editing my novel for submission to an agent or two. It's wonderful, hard, and very different work. 
• Every day I am already exhausted by 9 a.m. Some days I don't even want to get out of bed.
• Sometimes its a real struggle to keep going, to not quit or walk away.
• I am blessed to have enough friends who love me through all these kinds of days, often without me even having to tell them what my day was. 

But at the end, I am still worn.

I'm going to end this with a song that I've heard a few times. Every time I try to sing the words, I choke on them. This song becomes a prayer for me, for Eric, for Mali, for the kids. For us as a family. I am frail and torn, broken and weak. Redemption will win, but still, until then, I'm worn.


Let me see redemption win
Let me know the struggle ends
That you can mend a heart
That’s frail and torn
I wanna know a song can rise
From the ashes of a broken life
And all that’s dead inside can be reborn

Cause I’m worn

--from "Worn" by Tenth Avenue North

Reclaiming myself

It's been five months since Mali joined our family and I'm beginning to think we are out of the worst of the weeds of adjustment for our family.

How do I know that?

Simple, I have an undeniable urge to be creative, more specifically, to write. To put words to my thoughts, to put a pen on to paper, to create.

Lately, I've been doing something crazy: revisiting that part of my creative self.

After the day is done
the toys are picked up
the tantrums are over
most little people are quiet in their beds,
I've done something brave:

I've tried to be a writer.

Most nights I fail miserably, in that I'm so tired that I can't create a coherent thought. Last night I did a five minute warm-up and that was the extent of the thinking my brain could handle.

But I tried. And that counts.

However, it's time to reclaim some balance in my life, where I am more than just the mother of a traumatised toddler, a homeschool mom, a stay-at-home mom. Because I am also a wife.

And I am a writer!!

To help start along the reclaiming journey, I get the wonderful privilege of attending the Maranatha Christian Writer's Conference in Muskegon, Michigan. (thanks Daddy!) Tonight I leave for 48 hours of writerly thinking, learning, crafting, and writing. I will hopefully make new friends, be bombarded by more ideas than possible to write on, and be encouraged to keep on.

It's a scary step--it feels safer to stay in my crazy world than it is to venture out into the world of thinking adults.

But I'm doing it.

My synopsis and samples are fresh off the printer. A clean copy of my completed manuscript is printing as we speak.

I ordered and received my new personal/business cards in the mail earlier this week.

I think I'm ready. Let's go!

Struggling with Sovereignty

[Warning: for those of you who like easy answers or safe, comfortable thoughts, this post is not for you. You've been warned.]

The first week we were home from Africa, the three girls and I were in the dining room. Mali was poking her way through a bowl of cheerios and I was talking to Olivia and Katie. A quiet lull hangs over the room when OG says, "You know Mom, God knew you were going to adopt Mali. He knew even when you and dad were first married."

Me, the pinnacle of wisdom, "Yeah, he did."

She continues, "He even knew when you were born."

"Yes, he did." A wide smile erupts across my face. My daughter gets that God has a plan for me and for our family that includes adoption. Yes!! She understands, in her 6-year-old self, that God is sovereign over my life. Quietly, I pat myself on the back and file that conversation away.

And I start to think about the truth of her statement. Yes, God knew and pre-ordained that Mali would become a part of this family. And while right now it feels hard to see, it is part of his story of redemption.

However, if I acknowledge that this was part of his plan for redemption for this child, I also have to acknowledge her life before we welcomed her. In general, her story, like so many adopted orphans, goes something like this. She was born. She was mis-treated. She was abandoned. She waited for us.

Did my God stand by as this innocent child was subjected to the whims of humans? As they harmed her? If God ordained for her to come to our family, did he also ordain for her abandonment?

These are difficult questions. There are no easy answers.

There are things that I know to be true, things that I claim with my entire being to be true, things I claim for the other three children, for Eric, for our family. It's stated most clearly in my denomination's statement of faith, the Heidelberg Catechism.

Q. What is your only comfort
in life and in death?

A. That I am not my own,
but belong—

body and soul,
in life and in death—

to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood,
and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.
He also watches over me in such a way
that not a hair can fall from my head
without the will of my Father in heaven;
in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

Because I belong to him,
Christ, by his Holy Spirit,
assures me of eternal life
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready
from now on to live for him.

Did you read every word of that? Did any of it strike you? I do, whenever I think of Mali and her story, these words get me: "He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in Heaven."

Not a hair? The will of my Father in Heaven?

I can accept that for myself, as an adult, that he is using difficult things to advance his kingdom and his presence in my life. But I am an adult. She was not, she is not, she is an innocent child to whom things happened.

I am having a difficult time reconciling God's sovereignty to Mali's story.

But I have to. Because God is sovereign, he rules over all the crap that happens in this world, even that which happens to innocent children, to babies.

I can hear you now, saying something like this, "But look at God's plan for her, he brought her into your family."

Yes, God did. He is working in her life even now. This is part of his sovereignty. I can accept this easily, but what about the millions of other children--those who are without parents right now, those who are being abused, those who are hungry, those who scavenge trash to find something to eat, those who have to protect their even younger siblings, those who are alone, those who are scared, those who are without hope? How is God still sovereign? How can God still reign when innocence is lost, when the innocent are wounded, when babies cry out in hunger or fear or pain?

I don't know the answers, but I know it to be true. God is still sovereign. God still reigns. He still holds the whole world and every single, precious, broken child in the palm of his hand.

But I can't end there. I can't just accept that God is sovereign and feel comforted and walk away. Because God in his sovereignty called me to be his hands and feet, he calls me to respond to this deep and desperate need, he calls me to love, to grieve, to pray, to act. If I believe that God is sovereign, I also believe that his rule over my life is complete and when he calls me to protect the fatherless and love the widow, he means it. It's part of his plan.

He means it for you, too.

That's what I've come to. I'm sure it's not a total answer and there are theologians who can do this much  better than me, but God has planned that his love, his message, his care and concern is extended to those who need it through my hands, your hands, our hands.

Because if I believe that I belong to Jesus Christ, if I believe that he watches me, defends me, loves me, I also need to respond:

The catechism finishes, "Because I belong to him, Christ...makes me wholeheartedly ready and willing and ready from now on to live for him."

I'm ready to act. I'm ready to live for Him. Are you?

[How will you live for him? How will answer the call to be part of God's sovereign plan? Adoption isn't the answer for everyone--but everyone is called to defend, to love, to care. You could sponsor a child through Compassion International or you could sponsor an orphan program through Lifesong for Orphans or you could sponsor an orphanage that seeks to be the hands and feet of Christ to those precious ones that have been abandoned. Beautiful Gate in Lesotho is where Mali lived and was loved. It will always have a special place in our heart.]

Hungry for truth-telling

Before, when we were in the waiting process, I read this blog by Jen Hatmaker called "After the Airport," talking about the year after she brought her two adopted kids home from Ethiopia and the stages of an international adoption story. It gave me a real sense of hope, but also, I read ahead and thought, "Oh yeah, we can do this."

However, now we are in the thick of it. I want to quit. It feels so impossibly hard. The needs are bigger than I am, the demands are greater, the wisdom is lacking.  It feels like we have done something terribly wrong.

Today, in a fit of (divine?) inspiration, I re-read that blog and this is what I read.

"Your sweet one is grieving. This is sorrow and loss and fear and trauma; it is visceral. It is devastating.You and your spouse are haunted, unshowered, unhinged, unmoored. You stare into each other’s eyes, begging the other one to fix this: What have we done? What are we doing? What are we going to do?

The house is a disaster. Your bios are huddled up in the corner, begging grandparents to come rescue them. You can’t talk to anyone. Everyone is still beaming at you, asking: “Isn’t this the best thing?? Is this just the happiest time of your life?” You are starving for truth-tellers in adoption. You scour blogs and Yahoo groups, desperate for one morsel of truth, one brave person to say how hard this in and give you a shred of hope. You only find adorable pictures and cute stories, and you despair. You feel so alone. You’ve ruined your life. You’ve ruined your kids’ lives. Your marriage is doomed. Your adopted child hates you. You want to go back to that person pining away in the Pre-Stage and punch her in the liver."

I felt so much relief I almost cried. Eric, too. This is us. This is how we feel. These are the conversations we have with each other. I am in the desperate need of truth-hearing. Quiet conversations with other adoptive mom friends and their admissions and confessions have brought peace and relief. 

I, too, have scoured the internet, trying to find explanations and help. I, too, find cute pictures and inspiring videos. But nothing gives me what I crave: How do I handle this? I don't know what to do now. 

So, I will be a truth-teller. If it makes you a bit squirmy or you think I'm being melodramatic or I'm exaggerating a bit then don't read these next words. But regardless of how they make you feel, I'm not apologizing for them.  

These past three weeks have been the absolute hardest of my life. I've tried to describe the how and the why and find that words are utterly empty and not nearly definitive enough. 

I am emotionally-empty, worn out, tired. 

We are working hard to repair and heal a broken and tramautised toddler--and it is excruciating work. Every day, we discover another hurt or wound. Every day she fights her growing dependence on us. Every day, amid the needs of this one, we battle the needs of three others who feel neglected, forgotten, un-loved. 

And then, even after all that, there is still the physical aspect of life:

Laundry (oh, was that much beloved shirt that is now ruined due to mold? sorry!) 

Food (you want to eat again? didn't you just eat a few hours go?) 

Clean (oh, you don't really want to sit on the couch?)

And a hundred other little details that go into running a house and staying healthy and sane. 

To add to that are the other "mom" requests:

Hold me, play with me, read to me, fight for me, pursue me, love me as only a mom can. 

And each one of these sometimes seems to be more than I can handle. I am not the super-mom. 

Why do I put this out there? So you know. This "stage" is one that will be in our lives for a few months. I cannot escape it's reality. It is what life is for the foreseeable future. Yes, we see steps forward every day, but those are coupled, just as often, with frustrating steps backward. I have seen and learned things about myself that frighten me. 

So after you read this blog tonight, take a moment and send up a prayer for every single adoptive parent you know, regardless of the stage they are in. Whether their child has been home from the moment of birth or just in the past days, the healing from loss and trauma is life-long. The questions are hard, the answers seem lacking. This work brings us to our knees in prayers for daily, moment-by-moment wisdom, grace, and peace. Sometimes, we even pray for love. 

And I finish again, with more of Jen's wise words, for she is further down the path than I am and has much to offer me. 

"Anything worth fighting for is worth fighting through, and adoption is one of them. I can hardly think of something closer to God’s character, who is the “Father to the fatherless, defender of widows — this is God, whose dwelling is holy.” Certainly, we are his difficult children who spaz out and pull away and manipulate and struggle. We distrust His good love and sabotage our blessings, imagining our shame disqualifies us or that God couldn’t possibly be faithful to such orphans.

But He is. We are loved with an everlasting love, and it is enough to overwhelm our own fear and shame and humanity. In adoption, God is enough for us all. He can overcome our children’s grief. He can overshadow our own inadequacies. He can sweep up our families in a beautiful story of redemption and hope and healing. If you are afraid of adoption, trying to stiff-arm the call, God is the courage you don’t have. If you are waiting, suffering with longing for your child, God is the determination you need. If you are in the early days of chaos, God is the peace you and your child hunger for. If your family feels lost, He is the stability everyone is looking for. If you are working hard on healing, digging deep with your child, God is every ounce of the hope and restoration and safety and grace.

In Him, you can do this."