A Privileged White Girl's take on MLK Jr. Day: 85 years after his birth

Race, ethnicity, equality, slavery, hate, terror, derogatory thoughts, ideas, and practices...

I grew up in a mostly white area. I am (phenotypically) white. I have blonde hair, blue eyes, and white (some say pasty... I prefer alabaster I guess), I am fit. I've never been looked down on just because of how I look (well... one time in high school but that's a long story and had more to do with the way I dressed.)  In fact, two times I was asked by someone coming to work on our home (once in a mostly low SES, Middle Eastern apartment complex in San Antonio and once in our "slightly" shady, low SES 75white/25black neighborhood in Pittsburgh) I was asked why I lived someplace, under the assumption that I "looked" like  I shouldn't live in such a poor area.

I didn't grow up "rich" but I always had enough. I always had food, always had shoes, always had a new outfit for the first day of school. At Christmas time I was always blessed with lots of goodies including toys that I wanted.

I always carry what many people refer to as "the invisible knapsack." That is all that comes along with being white in America (not being suspect of theft when I walk into any store, not "driving while black," an assumption that wherever I am I am "allowed" to be.)

Ok... get to the point... Adelaide is getting close to two years old and I was really excited for MLK Jr Day to be able to share with her the legacy of this great man and all that he has done for humanity. I set off into pinterest world and started searching but I've got to say I was pretty disappointed with the choices... it was a lot of the "crack two different colored eggs... see they're the same inside" stuff which is fine and dandy but it doesn't celebrate our differences that idea just tries to gloss over race and says "just ignore it"

I wanted to tell Adelaide (age appropriately) of how beautifully we are all made, how beautiful the world is with all of our differences, because of our differences; I wanted to tell her that sometimes some people do evil things and think evil thoughts but that sometimes there are heroes among us ordinary people that stand up to hate and proclaim beauty and equality!... but I didn't find a lesson plan for that.

I headed off to the library. Up on their special displays they had books for Ground Hog Day (o brother!) and books for Valentine's Day (don't even get me started) but there were no books out on display for Martin Luther King Jr., a true hero, a real man actually worth celebrating.  So I go and try the computer system... no luck... seriously... I go over and ask the librarian in the kid's section if there were any books on MLK Jr. in the kids section. "Ummm... let me see. Hmmm. Hmmm. Looks like we have one." We walk over there and buried in the stack of "random holiday" books, misplaced, a couple spots over from it's proper Dewey Decimal system was the one kid's book on Martin Luther King Jr.

Maybe we as Americans think we are "just fine" regarding race equality and equity... maybe it seems antiquated to talk about race or maybe it's too uncomfortable.  Open your eyes! People are still prejudiced, mostly in "little" ways. Though in some places, some people are still filled with racial hate, filled with ethnic hatred, filled with cultural hate. Right now the Sudan is on the brink of war, one ethnic group in the  Democratic Republic of the Congo is massacaring another, the Taliban battles and oppresses those with different views. Even in places in the US the only interactions black and white have together is in an "official" capacity, never friendship, never family, never in church, and rarely in school, take Little Rock for example.

The truth, the truth is hate is still all around us. Hate runs around, hate cloaks itself under apathy, hate  hides in "a comfort zone," hate gains its power in ignorance.

C.S. Lewis is one of my favorite authors. He wrote "since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage" YES! I want my daughter to know all about brave knights and heroic courage. I've started read her chapter book stories of heroes like Matilda and Ms. Honey standing up to the evil that was in Ms. Trunchbull. I plan to read her the Chronicles of Narnia soon. But how much more important is it to tell her of real, life heroes. Heroes that walked this earth and looked evil and hate in the face and made it run! I tell her about King David, I tell her about the Apostle Paul who stood up to the evil that was even inside himself, I tell her of Saint Nicolas and his love for the poor that others looked down on, I tell her about Irena Sendler who looked the Nazi party in the eye as she snuck out over 2,000 Jewish children before they could be gassed. Why would I not want to tell her of Dr. King?

Dr. King, in his famous "I Have a Dream Speech," said that "we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation."

Why is this injustice allowed to sneak back in on us? Injustice is not something that once is fought back and we are forever loosed of it. Evil is not something once retreated and forever vanquished (not yet, at least)

So why does this privileged white girl want to write about this of all things? First, I believe that we are all valuable, important, people (yeah, I know, shocker...) Second, we have no choice how we are born, ethnically, economically, locationally, etc. (yes, another huge shocker)

Way back when, way, way, way, back when the children of the tribe of Israel were the "supreme" people they were God's chosen ones, the only ones that had access to God. They were his chosen people. The ones he wanted to show his love to, to show the rest of the world how great his love was. They were enslaved and freed. Captured and exiled but always restored, always blessed.

God graciously adopted people from all peoples, not just the Hebrews, through the fulfillment of the law through Jesus Christ. I am not of Jewish heritage, I am not one of the chosen of Israel. I am one who was called out from "the north, 'Give them up!' and to the south, 'Do not hold them back' bring my sons from afar and daughters from the ends of the earth" (Isaiah 43:6) I was fought for and bought at a blood price. Racial slavery was fought against and bought with a blood price. Civil rights were fought for and bought at a blood price.

God's plan was always for infinite beauty to give infinite glory to it's creator. God didn't create just one type of flower. God didn't create just one type of tree. God didn't envision just one type of people.

 In John's vision of the end time he "looked, and there before [him] was a great multitude of that no one could count, from every, nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne of the Lamb*...they cry out with a loud voice saying, 'Salvation to our God who sits on the throne'" (Revelation 7:9-10) *Remember that this Lamb is Jesus, the great equalizer, the one who created the path for all of us come to God and bask in his amazing grace.

God wants people of ALL the beautiful colors. God wants people of all backgrounds (David was a shepard, Jesus was born in a barn, St. Nicolas was born to wealthy parents that left him a large inheritance) God wants people of all languages. Anytime that I stretch myself, anytime that I spend time outside of my cultural comfort zone I am blown away at the different types of beauty there are. I love worshipping in different places, just glimpses of the beauty to be embraced once we are in heaven. We, as a people, speak thousands of languages, dance millions of dances, are tall, are small, are strong, are beautifully weak, are hundreds of shades of skin, different hair, different eyes, all uniquely shining the amazing creativity of God.

Dig in to other people, learn other cultures, let ignorance have no foot hold within you.

Stand up to hate, stand up to ignorance. Don't stand by apathetically when you see hate. Do what Dr. King did. Speak truth even when it's hard. Demand justice even when the judges are corrupt. Love fully even when love isn't reciprocated. Dream in the face of a nightmare reality.

Don't let race define you or others but don't ignore it either! Embrace others for the content of others characters, don't judge them for their skin color. Usher in Dr. Kings dream within yourself!

Living Room Makeover

A post not about adoption ;)

I love our 1950s ranch style house! I love it. I love it. I love it: quirky pink tile bathroom, beautiful wooden floors, picture frame paneling, sun drenched from all of our large windows... but, I have had a lot of issues designing our living room because it is long and skinny (15'x30'ish)

When we first viewed the home it was set up like this: 4 individual spaces (the fourth is the piano area but you can't see that in these photos)

Looking into the living room: first you see the sitting nook, the living area, then a table/vignette space

The sitting nook

The living area looking out onto the large porch

We liked this set up a lot but we didn't have the right furniture for it or the rugs or the ability to play with our daughter in this space. We did follow their basic set up of "sectioning" off the room

After living here for a while I got a little tired of the living room being soooo gray! If you know me, you know I need color. And pardon the mess I'm the mom of a TODDLER! There will be messes!

 We set about our redo of the living room: I started off the totally sane way of photoshopping the whole living room. I turned the couch gray (we physically switched the sofas though) added in extra pics and covered the pillows with bright fabric.

My re-work of the living area

My re-work of the play space

After struggling with rug finding and buying at least two (I can't remember how many now) we realized that we would have to have a 9x12 rug or a 5x7. 8x10 just didn't work in this space. We selected the "Throndale" rug in 5x7

We found this rug at Home Depot for a great price ($100)

Our sofa is the Karlstad from Ikea. We were able to purchase a new cover for the sofa for $150

Next, I needed a large piece of art the span the large wall and awkward size allotment needed to work on our paneled walls. Art is expensive so I bought a piece of birch wood and painted it with paint from our garage and mounted it on some 1x2 pine wood. The painting cost about $12 plus time. I call it "Home"

Art sitting behind the sofa. I bought fabric to re-make our pillows for $20

The next issue was figuring out how to mount it since the moulding sticks out half an inch from the wall. After much discussion I decided to nail into the raised part of the moulding and mounted it like that.

So.... duh, duh, duh, DUHHHNNNN, DONE!!!!

The big reveal!!!!

Our "new" space is much more inviting and doesn't feel like a long hallway anymore. 

I recovered the floral pillow on the couch and painted the lamp and made the lampshade. The painting looks great and I love how it anchors that whole wall!

These seating areas are much more inviting. I recovered the floral pillows and the blue one. I also made the funky Texas flag pillow siting on the brown chair. By placing the chair on the other side of the back door I bridged the two halves of the room (well, that was what I going for at least)

Looking towards the play area. The spaces work much better together now.

We "tried" to build her shelves but ended up buying some from Ikea. There is plenty of space now for her puzzles, puppets, instruments, and such.

For now this is her reading nook. I hope to find a piano soon to put on this wall. The rocking chair and doll crib were mine when I was little. I made the floor cushions.

My serious girl hard at work. We bought the Don Quixote painting while we were in Puerto Rico and her Noah's ark set is from Uganda. I bought the purple storage pieces at Ikea and the heart ones at Target. 

My next projects include finding more art for our living room and making a dining room table. I was inspired by these portraits in the Nordstrom's women's lounge

I'd like to paint a portrait but I've only ever painted one. 

Painting I did inspired by art seen in Hitchock's Rope

 I also want to build a long skinny table like this one that I saw at Antropologie

Sorry for the blur... I was shopping with a cranky toddler :)

What do you think of my re-do? What projects are you working on?

And don't worry, I didn't forget!

Cherokee lesson:
English:      home

Cherokee:  

Phonetic:    O we nv sv

As in: Our home is ready for you baby Martin! Come home soon!

All In!

As we continue to wait and wait and wait for our certification process to be complete I wanted to share some things with you.

Waiting is hard. I think all of us have had to do it in some form or manner. I've had to do a lot of waiting in my life: waiting through infertility, waiting to see the sun through a Pittsburgh winter, waiting to get to move home to Texas. I've waited a lot and tend to be pretty good at it but for some reason this waiting was seeming really easy (not like cake-walk easy but only cry or get emotional once or twice a week easy)

But I think it is about to get harder.

Why?

Because I'm all in, every breathe I have I'm going to be praying for mountains to move. Every moment I am dedicated to praying my child through, praying the birth family through. I have drawn my circle and am standing here. I will not be shaken.

The Bible says that if we tell the mountains to move that they will move. Right here, right now, and with every word I can muster I'm telling mountains to move, in Jesus name. I'm praying for my child to not be away from me for one more day than he or she has to. I'm praying that their situation is only as hard as it has to be to bring them to me. I'm praying that God is surrounding my child with my love, my voice, my smell so that when my son or daughter is placed in my arms they are home.

Home is not a building, the same way that Church is not a building. Home and Church both are lived out through the people that occupy the buildings (or tents or teepees or wigwams or log cabins)

Cherokee lesson (I thought that this would be fitting for today's post): igatseliga (ih-gah-tse-lih-gah) ᎢᎦᏤᎵᎦ  this means "we belong to each other"

We belong to each other. I belong to my child and my child belongs to me: we belong together. Therefore I will travel where ever I need, move any obstacle in my way, scale what needs to be scaled all to wrap my child in my arms and say "I'm here. Gvgeyuhi (I love you). I will not leave you, baby Martin."

Adoption Update

Long time no see!

We have been busy plugging along a bit and busy waiting a lot!

In mid-June we were assigned to a new caseworker so there was a several week pause as our file went to a different desk and the new caseworker got acquainted with ALL of her new cases. We finished our paperwork and worked really hard on our profile book. (If you would like to see it let me know, I would love to share it with you!)

Just last week Adelaide and I walked down to the post office to ship off the book. On Thursday we heard that our caseworker received the book and that "it was great" !!!!!!! We were really excited to hear this. I had been a little bit down because we were initially told it would take about 3 months to be certified but with adoption, any timeline may not be what it seems. At month 4.5 we were told it would be another month or two before we were assigned to a certification worker to complete our home study and our file making us ready to adopt. Hearing that our book was great put just the pep in my step that I needed!

We're coming for you, baby Martin! Slowly but surely.

Here at home we are making sure that our home is ready for the home study visit (baby proofing, locking away meds, fire arms, bows and arrows, bombs, gernades... you know the usual... just kidding :)) I've also been painting a Jenny Lind style changing table that I found on the side of the street for free. This was a serendipitous find because our crib is also Jenny Lind!

We've been studying a little bit more Cherokee language and history and I am in the process of making Adelaide a traditional Cherokee dress for a pow wow that we are going to in November.

For the most part our family has been very excited. They are joining us in praying and asking for updates often. On Saturday morning we sent a pic to Karen, my wonderful MIL, of the sign for the dachshund races at our town's Oktoberfest. She made me tear up a little when she texted back that her heart jumped when she saw the text had a pic because she thought it may be of our Cherokee baby!

With all the encouragement we have received however, I've been pretty heart broken by some family members' reactions and lack of reaction to our news.

In Isaiah 54, the prophet Isaiah was talking to Israel and is foreshadowing not only the bringing back in of the exiled people but also the bringing in of the Gentile peoples back to God and further more (because God is a God of fractals) it is not difficult or out of place to see that this is also drawing to mind the beautiful example of literal adoption. While talking to the barren, lonely woman, the author tells her to "Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities" (v. 2-3)

Clearly God is telling us to generously open our home , give our energy, give our resources. DO NOT HOLD BACK! God is telling us to love largely because He desires to build us up and grow us.

Further in that same chapter it is written "All your sons will be taught by the LORD, and great will be your children's peace. In righteousness you will be established: Tyranny will be far from you; you will have nothing to fear. Terror will be far removed; it will not come near you. If anyone does attack you, it will not be my doing; whoever attacks you will surrender to you" (v. 13-15) and then in the last verse of that chapter it concludes that "No weapon forged against you will prevail"

I know that God has called us to adopt. I know that He has laid our path. I know that He has a plan and a desire, even in the hard days, to set the parent-less in families and to make our home joyful. Adoption is not easy, we know this, we are not ignorant or foolish to this part. We fully believe that if God has brought us to it He will guide us through the darkest of times and rejoice over us in the good times. 

To my family and friends who doubt or just don't know what to say (or to those of you who have family adopting and don't know how to react): Dig into the word of God, dig into books about parenting adopted children like "The Connected Child" by Dr. Karyn Purvis, pray without ceasing, and finally be joyful.

Please know that our family is most important to us. We know when to prune back those in our life that aren't bringing good fruit and who won't be productive in the long process of helping our child heal. Jesus made it quite clear that following him wasn't for the faint of heart, that hard choices would have to be made, that the choices would often be unpopular. In case anyone is doubting us: we are ALL IN! 

Bonus: Cherokee language lesson: Wado (wah-DOH) means thank you!

Adelaide with a freshly harvested carrot from our garden. This pic was from June

The Martin Family is Growing!

Mitchell, Adelaide, Theo and I are very excited to announce that we are ADOPTING!

We are working with Indian Child Welfare (ICW) and the Cherokee Nation to grow our family! Yesterday we turned in (nearly) all of our paperwork. I know many of you may have questions so... I'll try my best to answer them. Here are the basics (who, what, when, where, and why) I am more than happy to answer any other questions you may have :)

Who? We will be adopting an Indian child, newborn to reasonably younger than Adelaide, boy or girl :)

What? ICW works with Native kiddos and families. Native kids are protected by ICWA (the Indian Child Welfare Act) that ensures that their placement preference is family, their own tribe, then another federally recognized tribe. ICWA protects not only the children as individuals but the tribe as a whole. Mitchell's family is Cherokee so we are expecting a Cherokee placement though it could be any combination of tribe.

When? Any other adoptive parents looking at this are laughing right now because in the adoption world asking for a timeline is like asking when a drought is going to end... the truth is we have NO IDEA when a child will be placed in our home. The inquiry step (which is where we are now) will take a few months and then comes the certifying step that includes the home study and such and then comes placement... it could be any amount of time. I've heard stories of placements within 2 months of being certified and stories of people waiting years. So to answer your question bluntly, I have no idea :)

Where? Our child could come from anywhere, Tribal Custody, state (any state though most likely OK or TX)... etc...

Why? Why in the world would we want to take on all these unknowns? Why in the world would we want to raise "someone else's" kid? Why would we want to take on the risks? What if the child hates you?

It seems crazy to me because adoption has been on my heart for nearly a decade now but people ask these questions! Family asks me these questions! Strangers ask me these questions! The truth is pretty simple yet infinitely deep. Put simply: because God has called me to this, God has led by example:

Romans 8:14-16

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather the Spirt you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.

When it says "your adoption to sonship" the Greek term refers to FULL legal standing of an adopted male heir in Roman culture.  God didn't just adopt us to "get us off the street" God adopted us to pull us in close as his children, God adopted us into FULL sonship, FULL heirs. (Let me say now, that if you don't know God, if you don't understand that He loves you and has amazing plans for your life that he wants to lead you in, please know that He does, indeed, love you. He wants to embrace you and give you joy!)

Psalm 68:5-6

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in family
he leads out the prisoners with singing;
but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

God is a father to the fatherless. He comforts those in need! Why would I not follow in His ways? He gave me peace and comfort. Why would I NOT pass that on?

James 1:27

Pure and undefiled religion is this; caring for widows and orphans.

On a more personal note, my answer to "Why?" started when I was 15. My sophomore year was not easy but God was gracious and I was able to find refuge in Him. In my many conversations with Him I wanted to know my purpose, my plan, my mission. And He answered. My third draft of my purpose statement was "To raise God's family, everyone, to realize the true love that God offers, the true hope and joy" I wrote that February 16, 2004 just after I had written down a lullaby that was in my head that I wanted to remember to sing to my someday child.

God grew my vision for my future family the summer of 2005 when, at a routine check up, I was told that I may never have a biological child (that doctor should get the award for Worst Bedside Manner) Though we all now know that I was (eventually) able to have a belly baby I am thankful (yes can you believe that I am writing this), thankful for infertility (tears in my eyes) because it got me thinking about other ways to grow a family. As I started learning more and more about adoption and what it means and what it doesn't mean, adoption became a part of me; it wrapped itself around my heart and wove itself into my very being.

I got married in 2007 and had so much fun day dreaming with Mitch about what our family would look like one day. During class I would sketch pics of our family; a hodge podge of different races and ages but all united by love!

In 2010, Mitch and I actually put hands and feet to our passions as we cared for neglected and malnourished children in Uganda. There we got to see what love really looks like. Love that conquers all, love that overcomes aduse, love that overcomes tantrums, and attachment issues. love that doesn't see color but sees heart (just like Dr. King's dream) We also got to see the hard times, we got to experience those moments of "will this relationship ever work?" "is love going to be able to reach him?""what if she doesn't ever drink this milk? she's 14 months old and only weighs 10 lbs! Dear Lord, help me feed her" We got to experience those moments of heartache as we learned one of our kids was HIV+. We got to see the heartache of a mom who was "stuck" in the adoption process and had to leave her child in Africa with us for a month or two (she is now home with him and 2 more amazing children!)....

All that to say: we are infinitely aware that we are totally unaware of what our adoptive situation is going to look like! We realize that even if we get a "perfect" child there could be issues. We realize that if a "not-so-perfect" child is placed in our home that God has an amazing talent at turning the ashes into beauty!

Adoption is messy and can be painful or hard. But I am messy and experience pain and go through hard times... so does my husband... so does my daughter... so do you

Please join us in praying over a child; he or she may already be alive, or may be in his/her mother's belly, may not even be conceived yet. Join us in praying for our child's birth family, any situation that brings a child into the "system" is painful in every direction! Pray that God gives us specialized training for whatever our child may need. Pray that God continues to prepare Adelaide to be the amazing big sister that I know she will be!

Bonus: If you made it this far here is a mini Cherokee lesson!!!!
gvgeyuhi-(gu-GAY-yu-e) is Cherokee for "I love you"

Extravagance

Lately, the story of the prodigal son has been coming up a lot and what I have been noticing so much is how EXTRAVAGANTLY the father loves both of his sons. (*if you don't know the story read it here in Luke 15:11-32, it is a great story even if you aren't Christian or aren't sure about Christianity*) With the younger son it is quite obvious. The father BURSTS with joy at the sight of his son and does the very unbecoming thing to run to his son who had basically said, "I wish you were dead." The father welcomed his son with open arms and threw a feast for him. And in the midst of all this the older son, in a sense, throws a tantrum and the father leaves a feast full of joy to bid his precious son to come in and join the celebration saying, "All I have is yours, come celebrate that OUR love has returned."

A couple of days ago I came across a familiar verse, but I saw it in a new light:
     "As a mother, comforts her child, so will I comfort you" Isaiah 66:13a Darby Translation

I looked at it this time as a sort of challenge or exhortation. "Love your child as you want God to love and care for you."

I want God to love me EXTRAVAGANTLY. I want God to be patient with me, to teach me well and in love, not from a place of haughtiness, cockiness, or "O my gosh! why don't you know this yet?"-ness. I want God to reassure me of His love through work and deed constantly. I want God to make a big deal of my hurts. I want God to put the pinkiest-sparkliest-Barbie-est band-aids on my injuries, as if to say "Look at this terrible pain! We are going to fix it. We are going to make it all better, but as it heals we are going to care for your hurt, and you, gently and lovingly." I want God to equip me to live out my purpose. I want God to be my safe haven, my trusted counselor, my closest friend. I want to know that God is prepared for the day of calamity so I can rest in peace. I want His assurance that the storms will pass and while we wait I want to know that God has a flashlight, a board game and some bottled water to help us through it. And you know what? GOD IS ALL OF THIS AND INFINITELY MORE!!!

God loves me extravagantly. With this in mind I want to extravagantly love Adelaide. I pray that I get better at this. I love sitting on the floor and playing with her and reading to her her favorite book over and over and over again. I gladly sacrifice my body and "perkiness" to give her the very best nutrition (the nutrition that God designed for babies) and the closeness that she so desires. I gladly teach her where her belly button, toes, nose, and mouth are. I gladly let her play in the dirt and explore God's creation.

I love life with her and I am realizing that the way I parent is very different from the way many people, Christians included, parent. But it is how I want to be parented and treated, not like I'm a burden and not labeled with so many of the labels parents put on their kids (bad test taker, trouble maker, a quitter, too sensitive, a bully, etc.)

And me trying to love Adelaide with extravagance, the way God loves me, seems to be working.

When she falls (which she does a lot because she is an adventure girl) she responds in one of two ways, either she looks at me shocked and slowly smiles as if to say "Well that was unexpected and hurt a little, but I am okay now" or she full on bawls and she knows that I will run to her and gobble her up and lay her head on my shoulder and wrap my arms around her saying "I'm so sorry" and reassuring her of my love and presence and nursing her if needed. This is my form of a giant pink, sparkly band aid.  This is how I want God to deal with my hurts so it is how I deal with hers. I make a BIG DEAL about it.

Conventional "wisdom" says that that is wrong but seeing my child I know that it is right. Most of the time when she gets hurt or falls she just brushes it off and keeps playing. My reactions haven't made her more needy, if anything, it has given her the courage to explore and play more bravely because she knows she can always find her way to my arms if she gets in over her head. I am her safe place of comfort and rest.

Karyn Puvis talks about making big deals of hurts and how beneficial it is, especially to kids coming from hurt backgrounds and the sad truth is that we all come from hurt backgrounds because we live in a BROKEN world.

I pray that this lays the foundation for Adelaide and my relationship so that when she gets bigger she can come to me with those bigger hurts, those emotional hurts.

Example of paralleled reactions in kiddos to Adelaide's two current responses to hurts:

1. "Billy said I was ugly but I know mommy and daddy say I am beautiful and I know that God created me fearfully and wonderfully so I'm going to brush it off and move on"
or
2. When she is dealt an earth shaking, world crushing blow she can run to me and sob and tell me all about how Janet doesn't want to play with her because she says she is boring and mean and stupid and that she doesn't want to be her friend. She will run to me because I am her safe place and as we sit there I will reassure her of my love and GOD'S LOVE.
so that as she gets older and the hurts get even deeper I can model for her how to run to God so that as she grows she will always know that she can run to Jesus and that even more than I love her, God loves her. Even more that I was there to hold her, He holds her. Even more than my heart hurts to see her hurt, His heart aches to see her suffer.

I want to encourage her natural, God given gifts and help her figure and wrestle out her purpose.
        "Train up the child according to the tenor of his way, and when he is old he will not depart from it" Proverbs 22:6

In the same way that God gave me vision for my life to be a mother to the motherless and further more, to make orphans a thing of the past God has been preparing me for these tasks my whole life and are even now still preparing me.

I want to readily share with her the truth of His extravagant love in my life and in others.
       "Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up" Deuteronomy 11:19
so that she can identify the evidence of His hand, provision and love in her life until she can easily see it.

It is so humbling to me how loving me is engrained in God's being, how loving my daughter is engrained in His being even before the stars were in place.
Jehovah Jireh: The Lord Provides. Jehovah Nissi: The Lord is Victorious. Jehovah Shalom: The Lord is Peace.  God's very being, His very names SHOUT "EXTRAVAGANT LOVE."



My Prayer:

Help me to love my daughter fully!

Further, help me to love Mitchell fully.

Further, help me to love my family fully, neighbors fully, people at church fully, strangers fully.

"But you will receive the power when the Holy Spirit coms on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth" Acts 1:8

I'm a witness of your love
Amen

My inspiration, my little puddle duck!

Adelaide is ONE YEAR OLD!

 What a whirlwind of a year! My precious darling turned ONE on the 27th!