Tag: Adoption

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When the River Otters Leave…

“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.” -Habakkuk 3:17-19

When I opened my Bible last week, a letter from a sweet sister friend dated April 2016 fell out of the pages of Habbakkuk. 

When I went to slip it back into its spot, I saw my own chicken scratch in the margin next to the passage above listing two dates: August 2015, April 2016.

The first time I read that passage of scripture was in John Piper’s book When I Don’t Desire God: Fighting for Joy circa summer 2015. My then-boyfriend had suggested I read that book as I was coming apart at the seams while wrestling with the murder of one of my Denver Street School students. I carried that book around in my purse for months, slowly chipping away at it. (After all, how does one read a book about not desiring God, when one doesn’t desire God because they’re broken and angry and just so dang sad? I couldn’t tell ya…I honestly never finished it…) Some five months into toting that book around with me, I sat in a Starbucks and read the words of Habakkuk 3 with tears in my eyes. 

The relationship that had led me to that book was crumbling and I was preparing to walk away from everything I knew and deeply loved in Colorado to follow Jesus to Alaska, for no other real reason than because I knew in my bones that it was what He was asking me to do. My decision was against logic and I was a hot mess express as I pre-grieved my transition, and yet: I was simultaneously rejoicing because I knew I was doing exactly what I had been created to do. 

Fast forward another nine months from that day in Starbucks and you would find me crying once again– but this time in Alaska. Said relationship had in fact ended. My future plans were being upended as I battled my previous desire to return to Denver after my year’s commitment to the gap year program in Alaska, and a growing desire (that I’d never seen coming) to stay in the strange little village I’d come to call home; a village of 200, where I had the liberty to make up my own mailing address since roads don’t really exist, much less house numbers; one that had welcomed me in with wholehearted hospitality, even though I ended up in tears at most coffee dates and social events I was invited to by my new friends… 

That year I’d moved to Alaska to mentor two young women and four young men at Tanalian Leadership Center. That December, one of the young girls who had been living in our house, which I’d deemed as “723 Jesus Loves River Otters Lane” (after the otter I often sat and stared at from the dock in my backyard while I read my afternoon devotions), had gone home at Christmas break and chosen not to return to the program. By April, my relationship with the other was strained, to say the least. While things were going well with the boys I was mentoring and I’d found a few ministry niches in the local community and school, I felt like a failure and a fraud. Some “missionary” I was if I couldn’t even manage to maintain a relationship with the two girls I’d come all this way to mentor…

I’d called my sister-friend back in Colorado and sobbed to her on the phone sometime early-April that year and she’d sweetly sent up a little care package with a letter tucked inside. 

“Know that I love you and you have purpose. No matter what the day has held or will hold tomorrow, there is sweet purpose and enough-ness in being the daughter of the Father. He has not made mistakes in sending you to Alaska, or to Jesus Loves River Otters Lane…even if the river otters leave. May you find sweet satisfaction in Him today,” she wrote. 

Eight years later, care packages find me at 723 Jesus Loves River Otters Lane in Port Alsworth once again. And while so many circumstances in my life have changed, I am once again faced with the reality of a metaphorical river otter leaving my home– at least for a while. It’s a story that is in process and not entirely my own story to tell publically, so for now, I will refrain.

But what I can say, is that even if my family tree doesn’t blossom this year and no fruit comes of this season, even if all of my river otters leave and I’m left sitting in this beautiful little cabin in the woods alone with Jesus, I will rejoice in the Lord while I cry and wonder, lament and grieve. 

I may not understand the what, why, or how of any of this on this side of heaven, but I am learning more everyday that even here, He is still good, and that He doesn’t make mistakes. 

Jesus, make my heart believe. Lead me on as I journey to the high places with You.

—

“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.” -Habakkuk 3:17-19

Since I wrote this, my oldest “river otter”, aka my adopted daughter and eldest kiddo’s mailing address has changed to a Teen Challenge program in Idaho. The expense of getting her the help she needs to be successful in life is steep to say the least. (Steep to the tune of approximately $42,000… Oofta.) I’m believing in a miracle for the financial provision of this program for her, since I certainly don’t have the funds for such a program as a single foster mom…

If you are interested in partnering with us to help keep her at this program, you can find out more or make a donation at https://www.givesendgo.com/ZTeenChallenge.

Thank you for loving her well and holding all of us in your hearts and up in prayer.

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Grief is a vehicle

I drive his 1985 Mercedes SEL on Sundays.

It feels right when I stop to consider that our shared faith was one of the more driving connections between the two of us, my grandfather– my “Papa”– and I.

When I felt the Lord tugging on my heart to follow Jesus to Alaska without rhyme or reason back in 2015, my family’s reactions were varied:

“Your getting too old not to settle down.”

“That lifestyle isn’t one for a respectable Hispanic woman.”

“You’re out of your damn mind.”

With him, it was different.

“Well kid, if that’s what you feel like He’s telling you to do, ya’damnsure better do it.”

Never one to mince words or be flustered by what his greater life experience had proven to be only a seasonal change, my grandfather was my sounding board, my strong backbone, and simultaneously the safest space my heart had for nearly twenty seven years.

Fifty two years ago, nearly three decades before I was even thought of, this man redefined the idea of family as I would one day inherit it. He and I never shared a bloodline, but rather became family through his choice to adopt my mother. With his quiet stability, he dared to interrupt a storyline and thereby changed the life of my mother, me, his “granddaurter”, and hopefully that of generations to come.

My dark features and string bean build may not emulate his sturdy German stock, but it’s unmistakable that my inability to sit still when music comes on is a trait of his I’ve carried in my body since he first enrolled me in piano lessons at the age of five and taught me how to tap my foot to the metronome atop his old piano.

After years of botched recitals and your standard small child temper tantrums, weekly piano lessons were abandoned and monthly jazz concerts took their place. The scratchy tulle of the dresses my mother would wrangle me into scraped the back of my legs and I would pretend to be far more irritated than I was. But there I would sit, in the second row of a jazz concert one Saturday a month, transfixed with the way the musicians’ fingers danced up their saxophones and across their basses. My Papa would close his eyes and drink it in, moving as many muscles as he could to dance in his seat without being noticed. But oh, how I noticed.

On Sundays such as this, I unlock his car and slide into the old burgundy leather seats. I run my fingers across his jazz tape collection and close my eyes for a moment before I drive. I can’t manage to get the old stereo to work to save my life, but some days in the silence as I drive, I swear I can hear him quietly humming Bucky Pizzerelli’s Stars in Your Eyes.

With every passing Sunday, I learn a little more deeply that maybe the grief that continues to come, even a year after losing my grandfather is just another vehicle. One constantly moving me closer to the heart of the One whom me grandfather taught me so much about, and imitated so well in word and deed.

So I wipe my tears and drive toward Jesus, just as my Papa taught me to do.

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Adoption changes everything

“You must be so strong.”

“Adoption is the most selfless thing you could have done, you know, given the circumstances.”

“I can’t even imagine how hard that had to have been, even though they weren’t your biological kids.”

People say these words when they hear our story– the story of how we gave up lost …whatever happened with my godkids four years.

I don’t tell the story often because if you look at my life today, you probably wouldn’t guess that things used to be entirely different.

I also don’t tell our story often because unlike the people who try to console me, I simply don’t have words.

As a writer it’s frustrating when you can’t come up with flowery words for something you want to describe in detail, or when you can’t even think of a metaphor for the situation when you want to be more discrete.

There is no way I could ever describe the way my stomach churns every time I wonder if I made the right decision, testifying that my babies were better off in a home full of strangers than with the people they grew up calling their family.

There is no way I could explain the splintered feeling I get deep in my being whenever someone tosses a “you’re so strong” my way in regards to the adoption, and all I want to do is scream, “NO, I’M NOT!! I’m a freaking mess over here. I just want my kids back.”

There are no words that even get close to expressing the feeling I experienced four years ago when I handed our case worker the brown paper bag containing Mary Ray’s 6th birthday presents– presents that she likely unwrapped in a family visitation room while she sat, confused and terrified, with her 2 year old little brother waiting to be placed in a foster home, just hours after the judge ruled that they would not be returning to the home they knew.

There is no synonym for brokenness or pain like that. 

I don’t have words that accurately describe the way that pain grips my heart when I think about someone else tucking my sweet Mary Ray into bed at night, let alone tonight, on the eve of her 10th birthday.

As I sit here and ruminate on the “selfless” aspect of adoption, all that crosses my mind is how selfish I really am– How desperately I want to know what my babies’ lives look like today, no matter the cost…

On days like today, the only words that come to mind, come in the form of questions:

Did they get goodnight kisses? Did their new mommy or daddy read them a bedtime story? Are they eating their vegetables? Does someone sing to them from the front seat of the car on the way home from school?

Do they know how desperately I long to read them stories from the Bible each night? Do they know their worth? Do they love Jesus? Do they know that Jesus loves them? Do they know that I love them?!

Do they even remember me?

Does Mary Ray remember the Build-A-Bear that was in that brown bag four years ago? Has she ever looked at its tag and read my phone number, wondering whose it was and why it was there?

I don’t know… And I may never know on this side of Heaven.

All that I do know, all that I cling to within this situation– this never ending battle with my selfish and broken momma heart– is Jesus.

Over the last four years of birthdays and Christmases, first and last days of school, and all the ordinary days in between, Jesus has been teaching me what adoption really is.

Yes, adoption involves pain because for there to be a need for adoption, there has to be a lack of something else– a lack of someone to be there to take care of you.

But adoption is so much more than the pain. Adoption is a display of Supreme Love because adoption was created by God Himself.

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Holy Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:14-19)

God understands the pain of those learning how to come to terms with earthly adoption; He gave up His Son, that we might have perfect union with Himself. He understands what it is to turn His face from His Son, for His good and the good of all man kind.

As my students make fun of me for saying, “Jesus knows, child.”

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:15-16)

And just like I struggle to find words to tell the story of the two little humans who shaped me the most, there aren’t words for the type of beauty or grace that is found at the throne of God. There simply aren’t…

So while my heart grieves and I kneel before the throne, begging for my babies to know that they are loved by me if by no one else on earth, He has brought me to a new place this year. A place where I can cry out just one simple prayer:

“Lord, this year on her birthday, let my sweet baby girl know that she has been adopted by the most beautiful and glorious Father in the universe. For every ounce of my love for my babies fails in comparison to the ocean that is Yours.”

sweet

Happy 10th birthday sweet girl. I la-la-la-love you, no matter how many miles there are between us.