Once More - A Parents' Devotional

Hebrews 12:26-29

"At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, 'Once more I will shake not only the earth, but all the heavens.' The words 'once more' indicate the removing of what can be shaken - that is, created things - so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and worship God acceptably, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire."

There is a certain amount of homicidal thoughts I've harbored over the past several weeks, given the state of the children God has blessed me with.  The rage felt towards the people who have harmed them - the rage towards a system that didn't and won't fight for them - the rage at their behaviors that persist after so many years of treatment - and the rage at myself for feeling like I'm failing them day after day. Yesterday, I hit my tipping point. All of the things that I don't share - the things that are too personal and not just mine to share - they came pouring out of me in a volcanic explosion of frustration. Trying to hold back the emotions after seeing the effects of repeated abuse that has been done to my children, both the ones we could rescue and the one that we cannot, has broken me.

To say that I have felt "shaken" is an understatement.

Sunday night, as I sat in our small support group for families like ours, I realized that I am not the only shaken one at this moment. Between the therapies, tests, surgeries, IEPs, calls from the school, questions about birth families, remembered traumas, anxiety, fear, and heart-breaking discouragement, I recognized that we are all quite shaken.

My goal was, ultimately, to pull back. To forget. To push away all reminders of the horrors currently being shown to me. And with each attempt to move away, I was reminded of a time long, long ago when God's people went about life on their own. The time when they didn't listen to the very clear words that were being spoken to them. The time when the earth shook with the intention of God behind it. Do you see that God will literally allow the earth to be shaken if it will get us to look to Him?

It seems cruel, I know. I've sat many times with my eyes tightly shut, arms crossed over my chest, and grumbling under my breath because God wasn't "being fair"... I demonstrated a very unholy tantrum to a very holy God because my world was being shaken and I didn't like it. (Insert the proverbial "Wah, Wah, Waaaah" here.) But in Hebrews, God says He will shake not only the earth, but the heavens as well, proof to me that what breaks my heart also breaks Gods - but even more, it is to show that God is willing to test what can be shaken and what cannot - to display to us what is supposed to fall away and what is eternal. In a sense, God is panning our lives for gold, sifting and shaking away the rubbish, the behaviors, the abuses, the rage - leaving behind what is eternal.

That is pure beauty and love.

But friends, remember that what is eternal may not appear to us right now. We may feel the shaking for days, weeks, years (I know, you choked on a sob, too, didn't you?) We pray it isn't years before the sifting shows results, but the chances are, when we are parenting children who have been hurt and damaged so severely, that years of shaking and settling (wash, rinse, repeat) is what we are in for. It's what we signed up for.

But in Hebrews it does say that in the end, we are receiving a kingdom that is flawless. Our kids will not bring their baggage with them into eternity. WE will not bring ours either. We are shaken now and refined in His consuming fire so that our peace and joy will be that much more miraculous. Our ability to worship a God who shakes us is a testament to how great we know He is. We couldn't allow such pain if we didn't trust our Shaker. And it is a our willingness to allow God to do His job that is our tribute to Him.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."

I Am Fat....

Today, I am not going to talk about children or adoption or mental health. Today I’m going to talk about myself. (Ok, so maybe a little mental health then.) But I want to address an issue that led me to near-tears in Target just this morning. I say “near-tears” because I refused to cry a pathetic cry in front of my toddler. (Well, my toddler and the twenty-something Target employee who was gracious enough to look the other way while her 36-year-old customer had a near melt down… again, near.)

I have PCOS and I am fat. I am fat because I have PCOS (and because of Oreos… but mostly PCOS). Now, this isn’t something I just realized today – although shopping for curvy pants in a skinny-jean world certainly drove the message home loud and clear! My fatness has been a long time coming. I can actually remember the week when I realized that I could no longer put my arms all the way down next to me because my arm fat and my back fat created too much squishy resistance. (Now I walk around everyday trying to smile more because my natural arm stance looks as if I’m ready to take someone on in a sumo fight.)

I also took note of when I first rolled onto my side to fall asleep at night, only to find that I was short of breath. This was because my boobs and my stomach rolls teamed up and decided to kill my lungs by squishing them to death. And then recently, the only 3 pairs of jeans I have left (all 3 pairs of my previously labeled “fat pants”) decided to rub clean through in the upper thigh area. I now have holes, far too near my crotch, and had to go pants shopping (which, other than swim suit shopping, is the worst thing in the world – just in case you’re Miss Skinny Jeans and didn’t know this already).

Despite these dreaded things happening to my body, I didn’t cry. Crying over my weight is something I gave up in my twenties – back when I still had a faint memory of my metabolism, and before the PCOS hormone imbalance completely had scarred my view of self. Now… I just don’t look at myself anymore. I mean, I look in the mirror to do my make-up and hair (which I’ve kinda let go anyways), but I feel as though I’m looking through myself instead of at myself. I see the absolute “musts” that need to be seen before rushing away and immediately forgetting what I look like. My survival instinct is to remember myself at 30 – back when I was overweight but still somewhat healthy. I feel like it’s a compromise between the old me and the new me. This lets me get through the day without the tears spilling over, even when my big girl undies refuse to stay up over the tummy rolls.

I’ve seen so many doctors and had so much blood work – I’ve tried all of the diets and exercise routines there are. I mean I stick with them. But nothing works. And if one more medical professional tells me that I just need to cut my calories one more time, I will likely end up behind bars… as if I’d never thought of that! Two degrees and a decent IQ and it never even occurred to me to just “cut my calories”! In fact, I call BS on all the P90X and HCG plans, all the 5:2 diets and anything else that is too hard not to be given a name… just a dumb set of letters and numbers and punctuation marks. And as for all this Crossfit, Acefit, Kinofit nonsense… I just want my freaking pants to fit! (PS if a loved one tells me that my face is “still pretty” one more time, I will likely go postal, because all you’re saying is that I’m fat AND there’s a time limit on how long the front part of my head will hold up before it goes, too!)

Like I said, I try not to let this get to me on a daily basis. I don’t even use the “f-word” around my kids because I want them to grow up with a healthy sense of self – I want to be an example to them that shows that you can be happy and healthy, even if you’re wearing the “wrong” size. But today was pants shopping day. And Target was my safe place back when I used to have money to buy new things, so naturally that’s where I ended up.

After trying on 40 pairs of pants in women’s, plus size, and maternity, I still walked out with two pairs of jeans that make me feel old and frumpy. No khakis, no dress pants, no capris. There was nothing that worked on any level for this weird body of mine. In fact, between the tears that threatened to pour out and the horrifying lighting, I decided that even my knees are now fat (knees… things that are literally made of bone and cartilage and tendons… they are now fat. And old. I have old, fat lady knees which I didn’t even know about until today while attempting to find shorts.)

I stood there half naked in a Target dressing room, contemplating my looser, pale skin. My stretch marks and cellulite. My hair crimping around my neck from sweating under the fluorescent lighting. The stubby nails and the wrinkly hands. The decade old shoes that I keep getting fixed because they don’t hurt my arthritis like the trendy high heels do. The redness that’s creeped into my eyes, accompanied by the dark circles underneath them. The chin hairs… oh, the chin hairs!

Can getting old give you PTSD? Just wondering…

It was a very lowly and pitiful 2 minutes of reflection – a time in which I looked AT myself instead of through myself. Dinosaurs growled in the background from whatever my son was watching on YouTube. I started to giggle at the fact that I was in a posh town where every other woman in the store was super put-together, along with their toddler in tow. And there I was, in Target’s dressing room, looking at my life from such a physical sense, realizing that the theme song to my life would, in fact, be the soundtrack to DinoTrux. It seemed fitting.

I decidedly put the 38 items back while purchasing my two pairs of jeans. I re-layered myself in the clothes that I wore in, doing my best to cover the lumpiest parts. My toddler and I drove home quietly – away from the trendy city and back to our humble town filled with dollar stores and cows.

My life is not glamorous. I am not glamorous. But something that has been resounding with me lately is this: Identity. Who am I? Not “what” am I, but who? I decided that if I were going to allow the time to actually look at myself, I wasn’t just going to go over my flaws. Because that’s not WHO I am. I am God’s Child. I am a Queen. I am Loved Unconditionally. I am Chosen. I am Appointed and Anointed. I am Called. I am Covered in Grace. I am Forgiven. Redeemed. Made in a Holy Image. A Fighter. An Advocate. Fulfilled. Precious. Beloved.

And as ridiculous as it sounds, the words “thin”, “trendy”, “youthful”, and “glamorous” don’t even make the top 100 of my thoughts. They’re not even part of my goal when I think of my identity! That means that the war that the enemy tried to have with me back in Target this morning was over things that don’t even hold a candle to who God made me. I am not in my twenties. I am not thin. I am not perfected.

And I don’t care.

I am loved by God who created me. And that’s all I actually need.

Finding Hope: Parenting Children With Trauma

Ok, so apart from realizing that I stand with my legs too far apart and that my outfit was put together by a blind elephant from the 1990's -- I mean, once we get past all that, some of you may enjoy hearing my break-out session from the Imagine Conference in Pittsburgh. I was blessed to be given the opportunity to speak on raising children with trauma and how that effects our day to day lives as parents.

If anything, I hope you can relate, have a good laugh, cry, and remember that you are not weak because you can't "fix" your kiddos. You are strong because you have survived another day and still get up again to start the day all over. It's conferences like these that remind me how many of us there are and that together, we can move mountains.

God bless and enjoy!

The Heartbreak of Living

            I would say that my heart breaks on an average of 25 times a day. Some days, some months, that number is significantly more. I think that’s the price we pay for loving people. Honestly, I can’t think of any relationship or situation I’ve been in where there hasn’t been a time of heartbreak. Sometimes I’m even the one doing the breaking. But at the end of the day, the only way to avoid this pain is to hide away and ignore the world entirely – not look at the news, not read social media, not have a family or friends, not leave the house. In a sense, to avoid heartbreak, you can’t actually live.

            However, since I’ve chosen life, I’ve consequently chosen some pain. And true to form, when it rains, it pours. In the midst of grieving a dear friend’s illness, I’ve continued to hear horrendous reports on our little Isaac’s situation. My heart breaks continuously for these two situations alone. Then I’ve had to deal with a personal ordeal that has left me devastated and questioning things about myself that I haven’t felt in a long time – feelings of insecurity and vulnerability – things that have reignited my panic attacks with a vengeance. And then I read the 2016 and what is to date of the 2017 Child Protective Services Annual Reports, only to find that the PA fatality and near fatality rates have more than doubled in this year alone… and we still have 6 months to go! So, my heart broke significantly more, not just for my own situations, but for the hurting children all around me.

            Naturally, in the middle of all of this, my own children decide to let their RAD hang out all over the place. It was only 9:30 am yesterday when I thought I was going to have to admit my oldest to the hospital for his rage (which the poor fellas doing construction on our new house had the privy of hearing). He was told “No”… that was it. That was the “big trigger”. The mooing cries started. The punching his head came next, followed by screaming at a pitch that would compete with a dog whistle. (Obviously I was to blame because I couldn’t understand what he was saying.) As he picked up a toy and cocked his arm, ready to bust out the window in our toy room (it took him over 6 months to save up to get his bedroom window fixed, by the way), I saw my toddler standing in his direct aim. We’d already been to the hospital twice within a week and I instantly feared that my youngest was going to be next.

            Jumping in front of him as quickly as I could, Cameron screamed that he hated me. That I’m a child abuser. That I always blame him for everything. That I’m the worst mother in the world. And when I told him that I was calling the police if he didn’t calm down immediately, he screamed some more and went upstairs to flip his bed. This happened 10 minutes before I had to leave and take Taylor to camp. Knowing that Cameron was hoping his sister would have to miss for the day, I was going to move the earth to make sure she made it, even if she was late!

Thankfully, my pastor’s wife jumped in her car and came to sit at my house while I got my daughter to camp, our builder was ready to step in and assist if needed, and a good friend picked my daughter up from camp, keeping her for a few hours while Cameron eventually calmed in his room.

            That same daughter, however, got mad at Wyatt only a few hours later, shoving him off her tall bed! I went running into the room upon hearing my toddler wailing in a heap on the floor while my daughter tried telling me the most physically impossible stories about what “could have happened” in order to avoid getting in trouble. There was no remorse when I told her that he could have been severely hurt. No. She cried when I told her she was in her room for the night and would miss choir practice.

I screamed like a lunatic for the hundredth time that day, ensuring my craziness to our neighbors. I sobbed, I slammed my door a few times, and I did a whole lot of hyperventilating! To sum things up, I was the perfect picture of an untherapeutic disaster, but I couldn’t have cared less. All I wanted to do was be by myself and sleep for a super long time.

But that’s the thing with choosing to live… you don’t get to step away from hard parenting moments. You don’t get to heal your friends or stop child abuse, fix broken hearts or save the world. What you get instead is an infinite amount of opportunities to be loved. Prayers from a parent, encouraging texts from fellow mothers, a pastor’s wife who will drop what she’s doing to step into your craziness, friends who will listen to your prattling daughter when you just can’t, children who eventually apologize (sometimes), and a God who is bigger than all of your heart breaks.

As always, I blog to process and to heal. My only hope is that someone out there who is also going through heart break will realize that it’s just the cost of living and loving deeply. Look for those moments to be loved back and wrap yourself up tightly in them… even if it’s just a little love from a blogger out in Western Pennsylvania. My heart is with yours.

A Mother's Day Reminder

Today is Mother’s Day. I have children (11 and 9) who were adopted, one foster child (4) whom we lost, and one birth child (who just turned 3 yesterday). In our house we have mental health issues, social delays, and the inability for each person to pee on the potty consistently each day. To top things off, we own a LOT of dog hair. In fact, we get so busy that I might even forget that we own the 3 dogs entirely if it weren’t for the constant reminder of hair and dander floating to and fro as we rush in and out of the door each day to get go our millions of errands and appointments.

To sum things up, our life is one of chaos.

I remember a few years back my oldest son and I were at the mall (back when we had time for such luxuries). We ran into a child from his class and Cameron was anxious to introduce me. The next day he came home from school proudly announced that his friend had a crush on me. The sense of joy this gave my son, that he could have a mom “cute enough” to be crushed on by a peer, was priceless. And I, needless to say, felt flattered.

Fast forward 3 years…

Cameron and I ran into this same peer a few months back in a church parking lot. Cameron made small talk with the boy by saying, “Hey, remember when you had a crush on my mom?” This other child then looked over at me and dismissively said, “Eh, she’s looking a little old now…”

Um, ouch?

My son felt the need to tell me this as if HIS feelings were hurt! I gave myself a quick check in my side mirror of our van as I processed the child’s words. It was then that I noticed that my hair was thrown up haphazardly and my make-up had worn off as the day had gone on. I didn’t display the same kind of attractiveness that I once had, and this was apparent to my son AND his friends. It didn’t take long before I began to second guess the state of my house, the quality of school lunches I pack for my kids, and the fact that I’m often too busy to play a game or build a fort when asked. By the time I’d returned home, I was practically in a tail spin about my inadequacies as a mother. Naturally, children finding us old and unattractive does this to a mama!

But today, as my husband and three remaining children gathered around me, doting me with cards, gifts, and handmade notes, I felt tremendously blessed. I also felt something else that surprised me greatly.

I felt adequate.

All of the things that creep into my mind throughout the days and the months, the things that point out all my flaws – those things are nothing in comparison to being the mother that MY kids need me to be. I mean, I could so easily get hung up on the fact that my weight will probably always have a 15 pound fluctuation… but if my daughter looks at me and sees a strong and confident woman, I have succeeded. I may grieve the loss of a child and show this weakness to my other children at times when the pain becomes too much to keep inside… but if they see me rise after I weep, then I have succeeded. My house may be cluttered and my legs be unshaven, but if my children observe that my time is being spent on helping the needy and loving the unlovable, then I have succeeded.

Because you see, our successes and failures are not judged by our children in the same light as we judge ourselves. Yes, they may be disappointed when we can’t play every game with them and if they get peanut butter and jelly 3 days in a row (okay, 5 days in a row) – but these things are small in comparison to our example of forgiveness when they lose their minds in tantrums every other day or when they hide their dirty clothes around their rooms instead of putting them in the hamper.

By simply being a mother who loves and disciplines and does her best for her family and her community and her God, we are being the perfect example that our children need. We are being real. And by being real, that means that we are often ragged and lumpy and worn, just like a child’s favorite stuffed toy. By being real, that means that our children see our lives and learn to set expectations of both greatness and resilience during failures, all at the same time.

When we show our children these things, whether or not we feel lovely or disheveled, all together or frazzled – we have succeeded.

Be blessed, be real, and remember that you ARE succeeding.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mamas.