Month: November 2013

We had a good day today….

We worshiped, hung out, enjoyed a feast, laughed, puzzled, read….

And at the end of the day, I am aware that I am grateful for the space we shared as family.

I am aware that this space can change anytime.

I am aware that throughout the day I knew my heart could experience a wave of grief at any time.

My sister shared a reflection for our devotions. It was good. I would like to share it with you.

It was written by Natalie Hart and can be found on her blog: http://onefaithmanyfaces.org/thanksgiving-is-a-great-big-but/

Some years, you’re so full of gratitude that it seeps out of your pores and suffuses everything you do.

Other years, the idea of spouting words of gratitude seems so wrong as to almost feel offensive.

Sometimes, those are the same year.

A tough year can bring out your gratitude to God for being with you through it all – but lurking behind every item of thanksgiving is a great big but. The Psalmist knows what that’s like.

But the situation still isn’t resolved.

But as I stood there in silence – not even speaking of good things – the turmoil within me grew to the bursting point. My thoughts grew hot within me and began to burn, igniting a fire of words…. Hear my prayer, O Lord! Listen to my cries for help! Don’t ignore my tears. (Ps. 39:2-3, 12-13)

But my loved one died.

Save me, O God, for the floodwaters are up to my neck. Deeper and deeper I sink into the mire; I can’t find a foothold to stand on. I am in deep water, and the floods overwhelm me. I am exhausted from crying for help; my throat is parched and dry. My eyes are swollen with weeping, waiting for my God to help me. (Ps. 69:1-3)

But I’m so sad, so tired, so frustrated. I don’t see any way out.

Oh how I wish I had wings like a dove; then I would fly away and rest! I would fly away to the quiet of the wilderness. How quickly would I escape – far away from this wild storm. (Ps. 55:6-8)

But I made such big mistakes.

My guilt overwhelms me—it is a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and stink because of my foolish sins. I am bent over and wracked with pain. My days are filled with grief. (Ps. 38:4-6)

In these tough years, the problem isn’t that you aren’t grateful. You truly are. The “problem” is that your gratefulness isn’t making you happy. And with every sign on every building wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving, that feels like a huge disconnect.

But there is no necessary correlation between gratitude and the sunny feeling of happiness. It happens that way at times in our lives, and, oh, those are sweet times, but lack of happiness does not necessarily mean lack of gratitude.

Merriam-Webster has gratitude as “a feeling of appreciation or thanks; the state of being grateful.” Not the state of being happy about everything in your life. In a religious context, gratitude is, at its base, an orientation towards God as the giver of all good things, an acknowledgment that God is working all things for good for those who love Him. This may or may not make you feel happy.

For example, I am deeply grateful that, as a result of the care she received during her illness, my loved one died secure in her father’s love in a way she never was before. But I’m not happy she died.

That gratitude is always tinged with tears.

Think also of the Israelites. They escaped slavery, accompanied by the wailing of Egyptians who’d lost their first-born sons, walked through the Red Sea on dry land and then watched the Egyptian soldiers get swallowed up. Yes, the prophet Miriam led a glorious song of praise and time of dancing. But it’s not hard to imagine them having the shakes the whole time — from the terror of feeling trapped, the mystery of walking through the sea, their relief at their narrowly averted disaster, their awe at the incredible and deadly power of the Lord. They’d be reeling from the adrenaline spikes alone.

But God doesn’t leave us hanging in our reeling, in our stuckness, our grief, our guilt.

In each of those psalms above, the Psalmist makes a turn. Sometimes it’s at the bitter end, and it feels like he’s gritting his teeth, making the turn as a discipline. Other times we can sense the peace, the security it gives him.

Here’s where we put those conjunctions (and so, but, for) to work for us.

And so, Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in you. (39:7)

But I keep right on praying to you, Lord, hoping this is the time you will show me favor. In your unfailing love, O Lord, answer my prayer with your sure salvation…. Turn and take care of me, for your mercy is so plentiful. (69:13, 16)

But I will call on God, and the Lord will rescue me. Morning, noon and night I plead aloud in my distress, and the Lord hears my voice. (55:16)

For I am waiting for you, O Lord. You must answer for me, O Lord my God. (38:15)

If you’re having the kind of year in which your gratitude is tinged with grief and pain and frustration, be kind to yourself this Thanksgiving.

Understand that you don’t need to feel happy in order to feel grateful. And hold onto those holy conjunctions with both fists. Because God can give us hope, the Lord does show us favor, His love is unfailing, His salvation sure, His mercy plentiful, and He does hear you

– God’s but always wins.

I wear this bracelet almost everyday.

I bought it on my brother Len’s 49th birthday. I think he would have liked that I bought something for myself that reminds me of him.

Of course my first thoughts were about remembering him:

Remembering him as Son, Brother, Father, Husband, Uncle, Cousin, Nephew….

Remembering his unique, crazy, funny and quirky ways….

Remembering his love and laughter, his life and his generous spirit.

But then I discovered that God had more for me in this word remember.

Remembering our community who loved us through the valley of the shadow of death these last 11 months.

Remembering our family and the friendships and love we share.

Remembering the life, love, loss, grace, laughter, longings, peace, ache, and blessings my heart holds.

Remember that even in sorrow, there are things to be thankful for.

Remember Gratitude

Remember Thanksgiving

And so, on this Thanksgiving Eve, I remember God and his goodness, even in difficult season, and I am thankful.

It is my hope you are able to remember and be thankful as well in these coming days and weeks ahead. You may need to travel through your sorrow to find your gratitude. It’s ok, I did too…

Happy Thanksgiving friends.

November is “National Adoption Month”. I spent many hours working as an adoption Social Worker from 2000 to 2009. I cherish those moments I shared with so many families. Moments of hope and anticipation, dreaming and trusting God with very big dreams and very deep disappointments. But the adoption journey also includes many moments of heartache, tears, wondering and pleading with God during very deep struggles. I have held both and I continue, years later, to pray for “my families” who adopted children. Families who open their homes, their medical and financial records and most of their hearts to me during an intensive home study process. I could not leave any of those homes unchanged by the great risks and the amazing rewards of the adoption journey.

Today I welcome Jennifer Grant for a guest post. She adopted her daughter Mia, from Guatemala and loves writing about the ups and downs of adoption, parenting, and loving one another well.

People ask me if I loved Mia right away, and whether I love her as much as the children to whom I gave birth. Yes, on both counts. I’ve experienced that rush of love in different ways with each of my four, and yes, I loved her right away.

Because that was my experience with Mia, however, does not mean it is how all parents feel. Many people I know who have more than one child admit to relating more deeply with one or more of their children from the start. They confess that it takes more time or more of an effort to connect with others. Regardless of whether a child was born to you or came to you by adoption, not all parents feel an immediate bond with their children. Women who have just given birth sometimes take a long look at the new little stranger who has been placed into their arms and think, “Really? This is what all the trouble was for?” (I know they do; they have told me.)

Some parents who have adopted their children dare not confess that it took time to feel the kind of genuine, infatuated love they now have for them. Such parents have scoured their homes and lives in preparation for the home study. They have sufficiently proved what consistent, loving and capable parents they will be. No spanking. Consistently enforced time outs. Limited television. Lots of reading together. Daily outdoor play. Mozart on the radio. Organic strawberries. Non-toxic, Eco-friendly cleaning supplies.

Hmmm…what else? The wipes will always be gently warmed, the bottles never heated in the microwave and only a few grains of refined sugar will pass over their children’s lips every year. (Phew – did we get all the answers right?)

Their friends, employers, and clergy have written long letters extolling their virtues.

They have opened their medical files and financial statements to the world and everyone from the local police to the FBI has verified that they are not criminals. (They do not even have unpaid parking tickets and they never, ever jaywalked.)

They have weathered the disapproval of unsupportive family or friends and the ambivalence of wary employers.

They have shrugged off the barrage of inappropriate questions and remarks.

Many have gone through the physical and emotional pain of infertility.

So, do you think, after enduring all of the above, a person who has just adopted a child is going to say, “You know, I’m not sure I like this kid” or “I’m questioning whether I really want to be a parent after all”?

You tell me.

Sadly, adoptive parents sometimes think that if they do not feel an immediate bond with the child who is now legally theirs, it has something to do with the way their child came into the family. It is not. I once wrote a newspaper column about attachment in parenting and interviewed about a dozen mothers. Some had adopted their kids; some had given birth to them. Their comments confirmed that it is normal to feel an immediate bond with your child and it is just as normal not to experience it for a while. It did not matter whether the mom had gone through labor and given birth to the baby or had welcomed her child by adoption. It was evenly split among the “it took time” and the “when I laid eyes on her, I was in love” groups of mothers.

Perhaps because she was my fourth child and I was already very entrenched as a mother, I quickly felt attached to Mia after her adoption was finalized. I was aware that, in this great big world, she had no one but my husband and me to protect her, nurture her and to be her family.

Adopting Mia opened the world up to me in new ways. I look at my little girl, with her sophisticated (and sometimes extremely silly) sense of humor, her love of the natural world and her talent for making beautiful pastel drawings. I see her sweetness and the light she brings to those around her. She began as a “waiting child” in Guatemala, but if she is of such infinite value, what about other children born to other very poor mothers around the world?

Half of the world’s children are born into poverty. There are an estimated 150-170 million orphans globally who live without parental care, are warehoused in orphanages, live on the streets or in child-headed households. Their potential is unseen, like a paper sack of daffodil bulbs, hidden behind a watering can in the garage, shriveling in the dark.

These children starve to death. They die of preventable diseases. They are abused and exploited in unimaginable ways. There is a global orphan crisis; it is a pandemic.

Do I have any responsibility to these children, even though (as was the case with my Mia) I did not bring them into the world?

Are they, in some mystical way, my family too?

After adopting my daughter, I have come to think they are.

Actually, as a mother, a person of faith and someone who has had the privilege – and, concurrently, been given the burden – of visiting some of the world’s poorest places, I am sure of it.

Jennifer Grant’s memoir, Love You More (in e-book format) is now on sale for just $1.99 for National Adoption Month.

Jennifer Grant is the author of Love You More: The Divine Surprise of Adopting My Daughter, MOMumental: Adventures in the Messy Art of Raising a Family, Disquiet Time: Rants and Reflections on the Good Book by Skeptics, the Faithful, and a Few Scoundrels (co-editor, forthcoming, 2014), and 12: A Daybook for a Wholehearted Year (forthcoming, 2014). She is a grateful believer, a reader, a sometime poet, a dog lover, and, with her husband of 25 years, mother to four wonderfully creative and quirky tween and teenaged children. Learn more at jennifergrant.com.

Tonight I want to give a shout out to my Dad on this his 74th birthday.

I enjoy looking at pictures from when he was young and envisioning the type of boy he was.

I imagine he was funny, kind of quiet, a thinker, a risk taker, respectful and had a way with people of all ages!

He was born in the Netherlands and immigrated to Canada around 10 years of age (I think). I can’t quite imagine the shock to a young boys world when he lived under the sounds and terror of war in one land and after a long journey by boat had to acclimate to a new land, new language and new culture. But I am confident that these experiences shaped my Dad into a man who understands calling, conviction, people from all different cultures, leadership and maybe most of all has a solid confidence that God is on His throne and truly holds the whole world in His hands.

I am grateful that my Dad has hardly spent any time struggling with illness or disease, and yet in this past year, I know he experienced deep loss in my brothers tragic death. I am grateful that my Dad has been a leader of integrity and yet I know he has seen deep struggles in leadership over many years. I am thankful my Dad continues to give of himself and I hope and pray that in this 74th year he will experience great return for all he has generously given.

This past week I was able to listen to my Dad preach in a local congregation. I was struck by how easy it was to listen to him. His sermon was delivered through stories and God’s word was clearly communicated. I remember him saying recently that the older he gets, the less sure he is of things. I love that about my Dad, he is honest and clear about the mystery of God and life. And yet again, what he knows for sure is that God is on His throne. There is an odd comfort to me in embracing the mystery of so much and yet anchoring in that very solid truth.

My Dad is a private man. He holds his joys and sorrows close to his heart. He speaks thoughtfully and with reservation, but almost always with kindness and/or wisdom. I am grateful that as I have matured, I have come to understand, appreciate and love my Dad more deeply with every passing day. As a single woman, he remains the most important man in my life and I am full of gratitude. Happy Birthday Dad. May this year bring you a continued sense of God’s presence and comfort. May this year bring you continued good health and meaningful experiences with people all over the world. May this year be a year where you continue to experience the embrace of all of us who love you!