Tag: Jesus

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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.

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Throw me in the deep end

Like most people who work in ministry, I’m not super great at “self-care”. There are days when I chase high schoolers into and around our building for so long that I forget to eat lunch. There are days that I nap in my parked car with Hailey because I’m exhausted from work and don’t want to risk waking her from her afternoon nap by transferring her into her crib. There have been days where I have been going-going-going from 7 am to 10 pm and have forgotten to drink water– a stupid idea when you live in Denver, at altitude.

The outcome of this hair-brained, busy lifestyle? Absolute exhaustion.

Please don’t get me wrong or think that I’m complaining here because I’m not. I LOVE caring for people. Chasing my hot-mess high schoolers around, caring for baby Hay, making meals for my friends, and having mass gatherings in my home are some of my favorite things. God reveals so much of His beauty to me in those chaotic moments.

But when I don’t pause to take a breath, a drink, or have a snack, I eventually crumble.

By then, I’m usually too tired to eat or drink and I usually just lay on my bed and fall asleep, only to wake up even more hungry or thirsty. It’s a self perpetuating cycle and if I was stupid enough to allow it to continue on forever, it would literally kill me.

My spiritual life is no different.

In the chaos of being the hands and feet of Jesus– of begging high school students to do their homework and driving them to youth group, of putting tiny shoes back on a rambunctious 1-year-old for the umpteenth time that day, and making yummy snacks for Gospel community– it is easy for me to forget to spend time with the One that I am working so hard for.

And over time, even if that time is only a few days, if I don’t drink from the Living Water, I eventually become dehydrated.

Last night, I laid in bed after one-heck-of-a-day at work and simply stared at my Bible and the glass of water sitting next to each other on my floor.

Physically and spiritually dehydrated from my own time-management issues, I contemplated downing the whole glass of water and staying up to finish reading the last two chapters of the Gospel of Matthew. But instead, even though I knew that I needed the life that both of those items provided, I simply rolled over and shut my eyes.

As I laid there, the story of the lame man in John 5: 1-9 ran through my head:

“After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids– blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.”

Lord, I feel like I need someone to throw me into the Water. I’m literally too tired and dehydrated to even get up and walk, I prayed as I dozed off.

This morning I woke up still dehydrated in both senses. And just an hour into my work day, I had a few  of my students absolutely unleash on me, essentially telling me where I ‘could go’ and how I could ‘get there’, if you get my drift…

After those conversations came to an end, I sat in my empty classroom and stared at the Bible next to my computer, letting my thoughts get the best of me. I need someone to throw me into the Water.  I don’t really even feel like doing it myself right now. As I stared at my Bible and examined my own stubborn heart, tears of exhaustion and grief from how my week was already shaping up splashed against the inside of my glasses.

A few moments later, the history teacher burst through my classroom door, disrupting my zoned out state, with a Bible in hand.

“Here. This is what I’m talking about in chapel today,” he said as he flopped it open and nodded to the highlighted chunk in the middle of the page. “It looks like you could use it a little early.”

Matt1128

As I read the words in the yellow box, I laughed involuntarily and blurted out, “Shut up, Fuller!”

“No, seriously. That’s what I’m doing for chapel today! Crazy, huh? God knows…”

As he laughed and walked out of my classroom, I started getting choked up again. (#typical) My eyes read over the words I had convinced myself that I had committed to memory years ago, but clearly I still have some work to do…

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

All week long (Yes, it is only Tuesday, but OH MAN does it feel like it should be Friday) I have sat next to the pool filled with Living Water like the man in John 5– I was a dehydrated mess, refusing to drink until I was too weak to get myself up and lower myself into the pool to be refreshed by His goodness.

I’ve carried my Bible in my purse like I always do. I’ve taken it out and put it on my bed, on my floor, on my desk, and in my lap, but I haven’t opened it.

I don’t have any good reason or excuse except simply to say that I was dehydrated and that is entirely on me. I didn’t take the time to read or spend time with God the way that I knew I needed to. I didn’t run to Him in prayer when the proverbial “ish” hit the fan and I almost tackled a student yesterday trying to protect one of my co-workers. I was too proud and exhausted and knowingly unworthy to come to my Father and ask for help, and in doing so, I allowed my problems to grow bigger and more difficult for me to manage– I allowed myself to shrivel up and become dry.

But thankfully, God is a God who cares about my tiny prayers just as much as He cares about my “big” ones.

Through Fuller coming in and “throwing me into the pool” by handing me an open Bible, open to the exact thing that I needed to read at that exact moment, I found refreshment for my soul and an answer to the prayer that I had been praying since last night.

Was this life giving moment meant to be the thing that completely re-hydrated my soul? No, of course not.

But it was the catalyst to me spending my entire lunch hour doing the very thing that I love the most– spending time with Jesus.

Do I still suck at taking care of myself and currently have a dehydration headache from still not drinking enough water? Why, yes. Yes, I do. But I know that this is something that God is working on within me, both metaphorically and literally.

Are you weary? Burdened? Exhausted? Dehydrated?

Come and taste that the Lord is Good; see that He keeps His promises, His promises to love you well forever regardless of whether you are bright and shiny or dry, cracked, and cranky.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

(Matthew 11:28-30)

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Oh Lord, when I wander…

Bindmywanderingheart

The trouble with being a wanderer is that you weren’t created to sit still. You were created for climbing mountains, trying new foods, and hurtling through meadows on horseback.

When you’re a wanderer, you always know somewhere in the back of your mind that every moment of happiness where you are, with the ones you love, is fleeting because you were created to GO.

In one regard, this knowledge makes each of these moments more precious; in another, each of these moments becomes a heartbreak. A heartbreak that this–whatever “this” is– is but a mere season of life.

For the last year and a half as I prepared for my now non-move to Texas, I was reminded of this– the specialness of every Friday night campfire with friends, every roommate breakfast on the porch, and every family dinner.

Somehow these special moments are easier to recognize and appreciate when you are the one leading the change of seasons and going to the “New”.

But what about when you are the one sending the people you love into the New while you stay in the old?

How do you deal with the goodbyes and final in-person chats when you so desperately want to Go too, yet know in the pit of your stomach that now is a season of staying and sending…not a season of new cultures, new foods, or new mountains? How do you send your fellow wanderers well?

~

I’m an emotional human being; always have been, probably always will be.

I cry out of joy when I’m happy. I cry out of frustration when I’m stressed. I cry out of panic when I’m overwhelmed. I cry out of sorrow when I’m sad. (Being such a sap isn’t exactly my favorite quality of myself, but it’s how God designed me and I’m learning to embrace it as I age.)

Monday was one of those crying days. I fell asleep crying Sunday night and woke up crying again Monday morning.

Monday was the day that Amy– my roommate and fellow wanderer, one of my best friends, my sister-in-Christ who has become like a real sister to me over the last two years– moved away in preparation for her journey to live life overseas.

This is the woman who God originally used to dupe me into somehow leaving my heart in countries that I have never visited; the one who I so lovingly say “ruined my life” by dragging me to Perspectives where God broke my heart for the Nations.

And now, after what seems like a long wait (but what has really only been about a year) God is moving her overseas to do His work for the next eight months.

I’m overjoyed for her, really I am. Yet I am so incredibly heartbroken for myself and my community as we essentially mourn the temporary loss of a sister, a roommate, a gospel community leader, and a dear friend.

I admit, the wanderer in me is jealous. Jealous of her leaving. Jealous that she is the one moving into the New. Jealous that this season of her life is becoming what the two of us have prayed about for so long.

I am overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by our empty white bedroom. Overwhelmed by the barrage of emotions that we so intentionally put off until the moment it was time for her to pack her truck and move away. (Literally, the last moment. We suck at goodbyes.) I am overwhelmed by my selfishness in that I want to keep her forever and not share her with the Nations, even though I say that “I would give up everything” if they only could come to know Christ. Hmmph.

I am sad. Sad that I don’t have my sister-girl to giggle with at night before we go to sleep. Sad that I perfectly quoted a line from Bad NFL lip reading last night and no one seemed to get the hilarity of the situation. I am simply sad that this season of life is over.

As we laid in bed Sunday night before she left, I jokingly told her that when she woke up in the morning, that I would be the one who would be gone, and that she would have to deal with me leaving her. It was my faint wanderer attempt at being the one in control here. The one leaving and going into the New, not the one being left here in the old.

I long for the New. And just like my desire to control this silly situation by being the one to leave, I know that this longing and the way I continuously idolize Going and place it over God is the sickening, sinful junk in my heart coming out yet again.

I long to long for God, and God alone. But oh man, is it hard when I am one who is prone to wander, both physically and within my own heart.

So while the Yarrow Homestead and our group of friends learns how mourn and adjust to this new season of life, while I redecorate our my room, while I find other people to quote stupid Youtube videos back and forth with, I am left with these questions:

Do I trust that God has given me this urge to Go for a reason?

Do I trust God with the life of my wonderful sister-girl, even when we can’t talk about the highlights and struggles of our days each evening?

Do I trust that there is purpose in this season of staying? In the weird conflicted pain of sending my loved ones away when all I want to do is Go myself?

Do I believe that God is Good, even when I don’t get what I want, when I want it?

~

“Jesus, sought me when a stranger
Wandering from the fold of God
He, to rescue me from danger
Interposed His precious blood

Ode to grace, how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be
And let Thy goodness like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to Thee

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above”

(Come Thou Fount)

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Priceless Insanity [DSS Update Aug. ’14]

 “Have you lost your freaking mind Cassandra?!”

Those are the words I heard on the other end of the phone from several people when I turned down the job opportunity of a lifetime a few weeks ago. Well, the opportunity of someone else’s lifetime to be more exact…

Editor for the Denver Bronco’s publications team

I stared at the e-mail for quite some time before clicking it closed and calling to decline the offer for an interview– an interview opportunity that was literally dropped in my lap without me ever pursuing a job opening.

This summer, just a week after deciding not to move to Texas, said e-mail came to my phone. With just one tap of my finger on my iPhone screen, visions of a cushy full-time desk job with a generous salary, benefits, bonuses, and a ridiculous amount of free NFL swag started to flash before my eyes.

But before I could even entertain what living off of a salary double what I currently am making would look like, I had other pictures come to mind.

Pictures of my Denver Street School kids– students who have been incorrectly labeled by society as “troubled” or “delinquents”– laughing while “talking” to each other on their banana-telephones in my classroom after school…

Bananaphone

Pictures of the sweet babies and teen parents that I will get to work with this upcoming school year…

Megan6Chrisdad

Pictures of the laughter and deep joy that comes from being a part of a team of teachers that is anchored in the truth of the Gospel…

12-13 Staff

Pictures of generations of DSS students who have come to know the Lord and are not only following Him personally, but who are raising their own children to know Him intimately and passionately…

Generational Hope

Pictures of students’ birthday parties in my backyard and baptismal celebrations on Sunday afternoons…

DejasBdayCoreys Baptism

Pictures of students from different sides of town, with different stories, learning to love each other as Christ loved us… as a family.

Ranchsummer14

Pictures of students finding academic success for the first time in their lives and finally understanding the movie-like joy of throwing their caps in the air on graduation day…

classof2014

Everyone knows that cheesy saying, “A picture’s worth a thousand words.”

Well, in my case, all of these pictures are priceless.

No amount of writing will ever accurately capture the emotions, prayers, or love that each of these photos stirs up in my soul.

So, maybe it makes me insane, but no one could ever put a price tag on my job. No amount of money or free Broncos gear could ever buy me away from these beautiful young people that God has placed in my life.

After quite the season of wrestling with whether I was supposed to be at the Street School for this school year, I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is exactly where God has me.

However, I also know that I cannot do this alone.

God, in His infinite Goodness, has designed the Street School to be a community supported ministry. And one way that the community is able to support the school is through helping our staff to raise support for our rather small salaries.

Over the last several years I have watched God provide in extravagant and honestly, miraculous ways and I believe that He will continue to do so, but I need your help!

If you’re reading this, I am asking you to pray for me.

  • Pray for guidance and wisdom on how to spend my salary in ways that further His Kingdom.
  • Pray that I would learn to wait patiently on the Lord in times of need and want.
  • Pray that I would have my daily bread, no more and no less… and that I would want no more and no less.

I have been blessed with a beautiful home full of loving, Christian women who adore my students and long to see our house used as a tool for ministry, whether that be through advocacy dinners, Bible studies, or birthday parties, but that doesn’t lessen the fact that there is rent to be paid and food to be purchased for said ministry tools.

So, if you’re interested in supporting me financially, you can make a small one-time or monthly donation by clicking on the Donate Now tab at www.DenverStreetSchool.org. Simply designate your donation as “Faculty support for Kacy Leyba” in the comment section.

If you are “old school” and own a checkbook, you can mail a check payable to:

Denver Street School
PO Box 140069
Denver, CO 80214
And just write Faculty Support for Kacy Leyba in the memo line.

[The school is a government certified 501(c)3 non-profit and all donations are 100% tax deductible & secure, I promise!]

Whether you are able to support me in prayer or financially, I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart.

No, this isn’t an easy job by any means, but it is my honor to laugh and cry with my students everyday as they walk through the valleys and on the mountain tops and learn what it is to be loved by our King.

Thank you for your generosity and for allowing me to pour into the lives of Denver’s at-risk youth for another year!

Blessings always,

Kacy ESign

P.S. As always, I will be logging my journey here on my blog and via newsletters throughout the year, so be sure to subscribe to my blog in the right column or send me your e-mail so I can keep you updated on the amazing things that God is doing here in Denver at the Street School!

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Adventure & Aspen Trees

LetmebeyouradventureI’ve become a bit of a rambling soul. I think the last several months worth of posts serve to prove that point.

In just the last year I’ve been to eight new states, which translates to me having seen thirty of the fifty United States in my relatively short lifetime.

I know that God has created me to be hungry– hungry for more depth, more adventure, more knowledge, more of Him– as I said in my very first post on this site almost two years ago.

And for that hunger, I am eternally thankful.

It partially pleases me that I’m a hungry rather than a content person because to be entirely honest with you, becoming a content person scares me a wee bit.

In my mind “contentedness” has always equaled an ungrateful heart or a heart that has said, “Welp, that’s enough,” and stopped seeking more, regardless of what that more looks like. I don’t know where the connection came from but contentedness seems like settling to me… and settling seems like stopping the adventure and the life giving joy of the more. Yuck. Who would want that?

But if there was one thing that God taught me on my journey to the bush of Alaska, (one of my ultimate bucket list adventures and by far the traveling highlight of my summer) it was that I can be content in Him because He is my More.

When I am walking through life with Him by my side, God becomes my greatest adventure, my source of joy, knowledge, and depth.

Hiking Mount Tanalian and flying in a tiny 2-seater airplane were both thrilling, yes. But those moments were simply moments, which have now turned to memories: I will always treasure them, but I have become keenly aware that I will never be able to fully re-experience them.

This summer, God has taught me that destinations are just destinations, but walking with Christ is the adventure and journey that has never ceased nor stopped filling my heart with butterflies and joy in the almost eight years that I’ve been walking with Him.

So, for those of you who have asked me the inevitable question that I get asked anytime I get gung-ho on one of my adventures, no. I’m not moving to Alaska either. (Although I definitely wouldn’t be opposed to living in all that beauty at some point. *ahem, God I know you’re listening…*)

Nope. I’m not moving to Alaska and I have officially said no to Texas. So, I‘m putting down roots in Denver.

I don’t know exactly what that looks like right now, but I do know that I have signed a lease and have committed to making this beautiful city my home for another year.

And in true God fashion, once I began to loosen my white knuckles off of grad school and that mis-adventure, He began to open wild amounts of doors for the TeenMOPS program and an art therapy program that I’ve been dreaming of starting up at the Denver Street School this next school year.

So no, as I said two posts ago, I don’t have a plan, but He does and after weeks of wrestling with that fact, He has given me a stupid amount of peace to be able to trust in Him for what lies ahead.

Actually instead of a plan, I continue to have the vision of the beautiful Colorado Aspen trees in my mind’s eye every time I think about where I’m headed in life.

aspens

After doing a ridiculous amount of research about trees, I learned that the Aspen’s roots grow shallowly under ground– just deep enough to keep it stable and receiving the nutrients that it needs to thrive, but shallow enough to where God can scoop ’em up and move them about in times of avalanche or transition without causing much harm to the tree itself.

The other beautiful and unique thing about these shallow roots are that they spread for miles and become interconnected with others over time. As new trees grow, they link roots with their neighbors and shoot out their own little tree sprouts sporadically.

These little tree communities share resources, grow together, and even change their pigments all at once in the fall, creating the gorgeous Autumn colors that so many flock to Colorado to see.

After reading all of these weird tree facts, I don’t think that it is a coincidence that I have wandered into such an absolutely amazing community here in Denver over the last year; between Scum of the Earth and Park Church, I am overwhelmed by the amount of people in my life that bear the image of Jesus and share His Love.

I can’t wait to see how God intertwines my roots with those of the beautiful people that He has already placed in my life and those who I have yet to meet. I pray that all of the little communities that I am so blessed to be a part of would continue to shoot out roots into our city and share our resources with those in need.

I pray that an unprecedented number of young men and women would come to find healing and Love through the redemptive power of Christ at the Street School this next year.

I pray that the colors of our city would change to become more vibrant and that people would see the stunning change that can occur when just one small group falls in love with God and trusts Him with their entire lives…

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

(Jeremiah 17:7-8)