Wondering in Expectation

Watch.  Wait.  Wonder.

Important words and a significant  attitude of heart for us all.

Expectations can be confusing.  Some of us have learned through bitter experience to let go of any kind of expectation from life.  Others are full of expectations for these days and year ahead.  Most of us stand somewhere in between, hoping and expecting, but deep down doubting that anything of significance will really be different.
I am sure Mary, the mother of Jesus, stood with us in mixed expectations as she gave birth this night so many years ago.

A baby.  God with us.  Emmanuel.  Unexpected and unrecognized by most.

Tonight in our hearts let us be still.

Watch. Wait.  Wonder.  God is with each of us in the depths of our hearts and souls, longing for us to recognize His being in our hearts in the ordinary ways of our days.  We are deeply loved.  Each of us was created carefully and uniquely in love and care.  Let go of all the religious debates and superficial wrappings of His gift.   Let us feel his Love this night in our souls.

Wishing the blessings of God with us in love and hope tonight.

Abba

I wonder what that small little word made up of the first two letters of the alphabet squared means to you?
For some of us it brings thoughts of a rock band Abba (cadabara) and in turn the wonderful surprises in the mystery of abracadabra.  The word also immediately transports me into the loving arms of the Daddy Father God.  I am reminded of the passage in the Bible where the apostle Paul says to the Romans, "So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God's Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, "Abba, Father."" (Romans 8:15)  In the language of that time Abba means Daddy or Papa.  God does adopt us as His own, longing to be in close and loving relationship with Him like a loving Daddy.

Hung high, up some stairs and around the corner in a corridor near that same art studio that I visited on the weekend was another wonderful painting that has settled in my heart.  "We love Abba" was sprawled across its vibrant and colourful canvas.  Although I have no idea of its actual context in the mind of its creator, part of what I love about art is the unique reactions and creative process that continues in the canvas of each heart that the work is touching.   I was immediately brought to the heart of God and His adoption of me when I saw that painting. God  for me is vibrant and colourful, a caring and loving Father who adopts and includes us in His heavenly earthly family. 

Unmistakable in the painting  were dark spears emerging from the canvas. I was not surprised.  Those spears  brought the paradox of my faith and the complexities of fear to mind.  I thought of the sharp crown of thorns on Christ's head and  the spears that often pierce hearts when the word Christianity or God is mentioned.  Often our reaction to God is one of fear.  Even misplaced Christians use tactics of fear to try to draw others to God.  God repeats over and over to those encountering His presence "Do not be afraid!"  God is our loving Papa.  As Paul states, we are not to ever be in bondage to fear.   The very good news of Christianity is to bring love, not fear.  As our Father, God is full of overwhelming joy and love in our presence.  Like the Father in the story of the prodigal son that went away and then returned home in humility to a wonderful welcome of love, the very thought of us causes God to smile and run toward us in loving embrace.

Still, considering my Christian God does bring sharp fearful spears of unknown to me.  My faith is not always comfortable.  I am not sure that we are always on target in our interpretation of the words of the Bible.  Too often they seem to divide and pierce rather than unite.  I am so hugely sad and sorry for all the pain that Christianity has and is causing many.  

Still, I believe that Christ was God.  I believe that God is our loving Abba father.  I take it all, colour, radiance, love and spears and try to myself live the life of love and unity that is the strong fabric of the whole of God's being both in Christ and the Bible.  It is not easy or clearly explainable.  It involves both joy and sorrow, love and fear.  Through it all I am convinced that the vibrance of love wins.  As Paul so clearly says, let's not fall into that fear.  Join the love of adoption by God.

Abbacadabra.  Abba.  Father.  Love, not fear.  Love.

Unexpected Creation

Family members have been asking me where the blogs have gone over these last weeks.  It seems that these blogs are for us all a good way to keep updated with one another as we are scattered in the various places we call home.  I am not good at expressing my feelings over the phone, and even though sometimes I feel my writing is cliche and repetitive, as one daughter exclaimed, she actually looks forward to her daily dose of cliche and sharing laughter with her mum!

This weekend I  got to spend time with another daughter in her art studio.  Amidst the clutter, pungent smells and stark utility of the place one large work of art particularly grabbed my attention and settled deep in my heart.  It was a unique creation of blue propped up against a wall in the studio, mysteriously eye catching because actually it was a huge home made tray, originally created to catch the paint drippings from other works of art hung above it.  In the process of the paint flowing down, paper thrown on top and bare feet captured in the drippings, an amazing work was created, completely inadvertently and by surprise in the process of working on other more intentional pieces.

I was deeply encouraged in my own heart in the process.  Most of my life is focussed on helping to let the beauty and unique attributes of others unfold in the canvasses of their journeys.  With my big family, I feel like I have a whole lot of canvasses hanging from the rafters that need attention.  I am that tray underneath, functional and full of all the drippings!  It was a gift for me to think that maybe without me even noticing, a work of art is being created in the tray of my life as well.  Part of that tray painting reminded me of the delight of finding fossils.  Even though we don't often consciously realize it, our lives are great beds of fossils that create beauty and story to be saved and discovered.  All of our lives work together to form those works of art that we may ourselves never really see or appreciate fully.  Still, they are often the most beautiful and wonderful creations of all.

Be encouraged in being who you are created to be.  Even those functional trays bring beauty and encouragement in the process of doing their ordinary work!  Look with creative and discovering eyes at the patterns and fossils left in your own journey.  We are all works of art created in the unexpected with surprising delight!

Our Stories

Already the homework has started.  Homework is especially challenging for my girls as these early assignments in high school seem to invariably involve the telling of their stories.   We all have multifaceted and layered life stories that often trigger single stories for others.  I have recently been deeply impacted by Chimamanda Adichie's TED talk about the danger of a single story in our lives.  For our children the label of foster child and adoption brings up many presuppositions of a single strand story that can be dangerous.  As my daughter wrote about her life yesterday, she started by writing that every cell in her body was resisting the writing of her story.  Recently she was at a summer camp where she was able to share many strands of her story in great detail for the first time.  She spoke to a small and caring work crew group who embraced her, prayed for her, and saw beyond any single strand in her story to accept the whole complex person she is now.  For now at school, she decided to write two stories.  One is for her teacher, including several strands of her life with details of her past.  The other emphasizes other superficial single strand parts of her life and will be the one she shares with the class who she does not know well or trust.

Conscious awareness and acknowledgement of the many strands and layers of our stories is an important part of growth for us all.  Coming to understand the reality of the many strands that influence us in the present can take many years and is an ongoing life process of self discovery in itself.  In the writing of several strands of her life my daughter stepped over some difficult hurdles that will bring ongoing healing and self understanding and acceptance.  It was important to walk beside her on this difficult road yesterday, helping her to integrate and accept all of who she is in her understanding of herself.

For all of us, it is important to continue to discover and remember the many strands of our stories.  Some strands are full of pain and shame.  Like my daughter, we will want to chose carefully who we share these with.  Still,  human relationship is central to our being.  Find someone who can help walk with you in the telling and acknowledging of all parts of your story.  There are parts of the stories of my children and husband that may not be helpful to share with me.  In some traditions people share these parts with their priests or wise healers.   Find those healers for you.  They may be counsellors, trusted friends or writing.  Discover the adventure of the diamonds and strong multistranded ropes within your own soul.   Uncover and embrace the fullness of your whole story.  Be careful of the safe tendency to create those safe single stories both in yourself and others.  They are dangerous in the end and rob us all of the immeasurable richness of all parts of what it means to be a human being.

One Step at a Time!

Gears shift and grind.  Labour Day brings reminders of the pain and joys and struggles of the birthing process that encompasses all new beginnings in life.

Life is full of ebbing and flowing, rest and activity, words and silence.  After a time of blogging silence, it is time for me to step forward again.

As in so many things, we need to just take one small step ahead at a time.  Sometimes it will feel that those steps only take us backward, but it is the showing up and attempting to take the steps that makes all the difference in the end.

A couple of my children started at a new and very large high school this week.  The anticipation of this new beginning has brought many fears and challenges over the last months.  Finally the day of actually going to a new school has come!  The general impression of my girls has been of love and kindness by those around them.  They have noticed angels of kindness in many ways this last week.  A schedule was changed quickly and easily.   Though a record of unnoticed overdue library books followed them to the new school and could have prevented them from getting their text books, forgiveness and mercy was extended and the textbooks were given.  A support aide drew close to one daughter again and again in several of her classes, giving support and friendly care and guidance.  Several teachers went over and above in their friendly love and care for the new individuals in their care.  One fellow student obviously was not able to sit still and caused disruption and challenge wherever he went, but my girls noticed the teachers extending love and care again and again.  They in turn felt accepted and understood by the care given to others.

Stepping forward to the new beginning of this September I am reminded again to go forward with the intention of goodness, love and mercy.  I am confident that even in my own stumbling efforts and uncertainties just one step at a time, that God's goodness and unfailing love will chase after me. (Psalm 23)  May we take those faltering small steps of kind words and love extended.  We may not see how they are noticed.  Be God's hands and feet of kindness and love and understanding forgiveness caring for others these days!  One step at a time.

Crazy Ways!

When love says go and we listen to the nudgings of our hearts from God, our ways often appear crazy.  Others shake their heads at our risky steps forward, and often we ourselves have our doubts about our choices too!  Don't be surprised that your ways may not always seem to make sense when you start to walk forward.  Even the apostle Paul says that God made foolish the wisdom of the world! (1 Corinthians 1:20).  God often calls people to follow Him without knowing clearly what is ahead.  I so often think of Abraham, who as an elderly man, headed off into the desert in faith and love for God.

These days I am excited for several of my friends who are taking "crazy" steps forward, trusting the still and quiet voice of their hearts and beings.  Although often we never really have complete assurance in our steps forward, I so respect my friends for taking the "road less taken" in their life journeys.  What an adventure to take those risks of the heart!  Yes, in those risky steps we are more open to disappointment and pain, but in the perspective of the whole of life, how wonderful to be open to living life fully and richly in faith and perseverance.

My friends, I am inspired by your  crazy steps forward in loving faith!  I am full of joy and hope as you take the high road, following your hearts in God.  My love and prayers are with you with much respect, standing with you in both the challenging and wonderful times ahead.  May you know God's tender love and care as you step out in faith.

Love Says Go!

This has been an exciting week for our oldest adult son, Jason.  He has just published his first book, called "Love Says Go."  I have not yet read it and am waiting in anticipation for it to arrive, but I have already been encouraged and challenged by the title.

Yes, I do want to be known for love.  As Jason challenges, true love gets out into the world and acts!  I do believe that God is love and that it is He who flows through the open channels of our beings to bring love to others.  We are all God's hands and feet of love in the world.  Those hands and feet start to love in the ordinary places of where we are now!

Sometimes that thought overwhelms me.  Where do I start to go with love?   First I have to be still and listen for those nudgings of God's Spirit.  Most often those are only tentative wonderings.  They are easy to miss and most often they seem insignificant.  Our life was changed that day I picked up the phone and called 1-877-ADOPT-07 to simply inquire about the process of local adoption.  A process was started.  Later I made another call to check if our daughters' foster sister might like to join us on our holiday.   Adoption was not on our mind for her, but that holiday began a process that lead to her being our daughter.  Usually the nudgings are less obvious and outwardly dramatic.  They may be an answer to an email or a kind word said in passing to a shop clerk.  They may be slowing down to ask a stranger about their day, or to remember a friend's birthday.  Today a friend from many years ago called just to say hello.  Love is most simply but most difficulty being patient and kind.  It is not a resounding gong that many notice.  It protects, trusts and hopes in perseverance.

It is not easy to go out and love.  Love starts in the quietness of our hearts and I believe that God gives us both the nudgings and the strength to go forward.  I know that I miss more opportunities to love than I take!  The great news is that there are always more chances tomorrow.  The opportunities to love are infinite.  Thanks Jason, for the encouragement.  Love says Go.

Identity

This long hot summer has been a special time for our four youngest daughters to connect and spend lazy hours together.  As they are almost all teens, I have been struck by their closeness in age.  This is the one and only summer that they will all be the same height.  They are at a crucial stage of their lives as they begin to accept and acknowledge their own identities.  In reality, though their days are spent in similar ways, their similarities stop there with their ages, heights and doings.

Each daughter is emerging in their own special ways.  I delight in the deep down radiating essence of each.  I wonder at what defines their very unique entities in a way that can be called their identity?  As a parent, I want to allow their heart true essence to emerge and be welcomed.  I am also aware of my place in helping them to unfold in healthy ways.

For each of the children, I take seriously our role as parents to offer choices of activities and interests and basic core values that will lead to their own development of their identities.  I do want all the children to learn to swim safely, so they do consistently take swimming lessons through the year, even if they are not passionate about swimming.  Each child has had some exposure to music lessons of one kind or another.  Most have chosen not to continue, but some have truly found that playing an instrument is a joy and part of their chosen identity.  All the girls have chosen to take dance lessons.  Again, some have continued and others have moved on to other areas of interest.  One daughter is passionate about cooking.  Another is an artist.  One son is most happy in the wilderness, hiking and climbing.  Another loves everything to do with psychology.  Some like to read and others do not.  Some are more social than others.  Those things are part of their delightfully emerging identities.  We have tried to offer the children and ourselves varied options of things that contribute to their identities and have also been available to encourage even attributes that are different from those offered but which come from within.

We are a multicultural family at our very core, as my husband is of Chinese descent and I am from British descent.  Our children also bring other cultures.  Each child differs in the impact that their cultural identity has for them.  One child has struggled with her perception, for example, of her Chinese heritage.  She has not embraced that.  Even within our genetic cultural beings, we have choice about the importance of that in our understanding of our own identity.  I feel a responsibility to offer our children coming from different cultures opportunities to learn and practice traditions inherent to their cultures, but in the end it will be their choice about how much that becomes a part of their identity.

My husband and I do love God and our identity as Christians is central to our being.  Though we have struggles with some of the cultural and specific outworkings of that identity even for ourselves,  the children do come with us to church and participate in our family times of prayer and activity, as imperfect as those sometimes are.  Some children may eventually chose to follow Christ themselves, while for others Christianity may not be a part of their faith identity.  I do know people who chose not to take their children to church or a faith community as they want them to freely determine their own identity.  In so many areas, we have chosen to go ahead in our own areas of interest and identity and offer our children wide ranging experiences so that they will eventually be choosing from places of understanding and experience.  In those areas that we do not have experience, we have seen that the desires and inclinations of identity often emerge from each of us regardless!

For much of my life I have struggled with my own identity and have been often caught in comparing myself to others.  Some external things that I have so desired to be a part of my identity have never happened.  I have been jealous of those for whom those desired things are a part of their identity.  I have struggled to have my true heart identity fit with what I might like it to be.  Sometimes it has felt that the reality of my identity is never quite what I would like.  I recognize that sometimes I have identified myself as a "human doing" rather than the "human being" that I am!  As the years have gone by,  I have noticed that when it comes to respecting the identities of others there are a few things that stand out for me.  Frequently I hardly notice the things that I have felt to be so centrally important in my own life.  When I chose my friends, for example, I often do not notice if they are married, if they have kids, if they are social with lots of friends, or what they are even doing for an occupation.  What I do notice are the qualities and essence of their being.  I notice those fruits of the spirit.  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control and gentleness.  Most important of those is love.   Those are not qualities that I would immediately think were qualities of identity, but certainly these days I am struck increasingly by their important and most central impact.  They are qualities that are expressed in uniquely different ways by each of us.  I value and delight in those different ways, but when all is said and done, I do hope that those core qualities available to us all will be what shines forth most in me as my identity.  May I mostly be a person of love, undergirding and covering all things. Certainly that is what I notice first in others.

Special Gifts

There are gifts to be had in almost every life situation.  Although I deeply wish that my youngest girls could have avoided the turmoil and trauma of their early years, somehow they have become who they are today through all of their life experiences.  I want to embrace all of who they are and help them turn those stumbling blocks of their earlier years into stepping stones to deeper and richer understandings and life today.  We all have no alternative but to go forward, using all of our life for good now and in the future.

One of the gifts of spending many years in a full foster home with many babies is that our girls have had lots of exposure to different children and have learned how to care for babies.  Our three youngest spent the last two days with their foster family, helping to care for their younger kids to try to give their foster parents a couple of days of relative rest.  The girls are gifted in caring for little kids and relating to them.  They learned amazing skills of baby care and compassion from the years spent with their very wonderful foster mom.  For a couple of days they have helped play with an assortment of younger children, spending hours outside and watching out for their younger foster siblings.  It was a win-win situation.  The younger kids had a wonderful few days of play, our children got to learn responsibility and also lots of fun play too, and their foster parents had a bit of a break as all the kids entertained one another!  The girls are growing in compassion and understanding for other children as well.  They have known so many other children from situations like their own which has helped them reflect and process some of their own challenging feelings.

Spending time with their foster family brings a multitude of emotions back to our kids.  We will have lots of processing time and long hugs in the next few days.  There will be subtle dysregulation that  I know is from the emotions emerging from this time.  We will talk and process and hug with constant reassurance of our love.  This time away was a part of the children fully living life with people who we all love and respect.   Together, we will help them to not fear the mixed emotions that emerge, always using the challenges for those positive areas of growth and deeper understanding of themselves and others.

The Village

It does take a village to raise a child!  In our often isolated culture where everyone is working long hours to make ends meet it is often difficult to connect with others who will have the time and desire to get to know us and our children.  I have always wanted to make connections with others, but have felt insecure building those important relationships.  In the midst of my own full life, those connections have sometimes seemed to me to be impossible.  I have prayed for significant relationships for myself and my children.  Over the years I have been delightfully surprised in the answers to those rather unbelieving prayers. People have approached me and wanted to get to know our kids.  Sometimes the children make their own connections with wonderful people who then become family friends.  Our girls have spent several days this summer with an incredible woman who initially met them in the Sunday School at our very large church. Somehow she never really connected with me until several months after beginning a relationship with the girls.  She has now become a close friend and significant support for us all.  I am delighting that my children have brought me a new friend!  In turn, I know that the girls have been a blessing to her.  She has always wanted a daughter and sees the answer to her own prayers in our girls.  They love her and delight in her care for them.  She sees beyond some of their behaviours to their kind hearts within.  Even before knowing me well, she took some time off work and asked me if she could take the girls on some day trips.  Thank you, my friend, for offering your loving and caring self to us all as a most wonderful gift.

Part of my own journey has been about balancing both the giving and receiving in life.  I have always felt that it is more important to give than to receive, and have stubbornly blasted ahead determined to give as much as I can.  In attempting to give, I never had time to see the offerings of the gifts of others. I ignored the gift of receiving and did not cultivate that important skill of receptivity and humility.  To be always the giver can, at its extreme, be a place of arrogant control.  At times I have taken on the position of  what a friend calls,"CEO of the universe."  I still want to be a giver, but also want to sit back and let God be God, being receptive and observant to the many gifts that others offer.  Those gifts come in varied and unique packages, sometimes almost like the trick wrapping that so delights my kids.   I am learning to delight in the receiving from many places, including from our children and those others who are those we are attempting to give to.  Sometimes, in fact, the giving is richer for the receiving.

Connections of all sorts in the village of our lives.  We all so need and desire those connections, but do not always notice and receive their gift.  I get concerned that my children have a meaningful and supportive village in the future, but I want to increasingly trust in the goodness and care of God and others.  Thank you to so many friends for the miracles of connection in both giving and receiving in love and gentleness.  For all of us, may we be still.  Receive and feel the warm sun on your face, like those many gifts given each day.

Those first five years!

The other day our psychologist made a passing comment about the effect of early trauma in the lives of our children.  She said that trauma in those first five years can take at least twenty-five years to work through!  I must say I was encouraged by her comment, ignoring the "at least" and gaining hope that maybe in twenty-five years my kids will have come to some levels of healing!  Whew... maybe by the time they are thirty....!  Of course life is full of so many surprises and twists and turns.  Defining lives lived and healing as "successful" or not is all relative and dependent on our life values and perspectives.  I once heard a speaker assert that if only we can clean out the debris in the lives of our children, all can be "well." Her comment did not ring true to me in light of the complicated life- long issues of our children, and unfortunately I missed a good deal of the rest of her talk as I fumed over what I felt were false promises held out.  Nevertheless, old patterns can be changed, people do grow and heal, and brains do make more connections.  I must not forget to have hope in the daily grind of life with kids from places of trauma!

As I made arrangements for ongoing therapy for a couple of my kids today I was reminded again that our society does not recognize the need for help for emotional well-being in the same way as for our medical concerns. Often medication is the first and only stop for the emotional pain and dysregulation of our children.  Therapy is seen as costly and time-consuming and an optional extra that may or may not "work" and should be reserved for the most difficult problems.   Sometimes when those more obvious problems do occur, therapeutic intervention is too late.  Watch out for those little signs of emotional concern in your kids.  I do believe that all children need other adults to be there for them.  Often for children who have not had to walk through the turmoil of trauma those adults do not need to be professional counsellors, but I firmly believe that for our children who have undergone the significant trauma of adoption, professional help is a vital life line.  The reality is that adoption alone is a monumental trauma.  Most of our kids have many other levels of trauma as well.  Our children often come to us as complicated and  hurting souls.  They desperately need a person skilled in the effect of trauma to stand with them over the years and in the different ages and stages of their lives.  Mothers and fathers are often too close and wrapped up in the impact of secondary trauma to be able to handle the emotional challenges single-handedly.  Therapists can bring hope and healing to our children and ourselves.  It may not be fast and immediate, but it can be very effective!

We introduced counsellors into the lives of our children by adoption in their early years.   Of course the timing varied for each of the children, but we started by seeking help for ourselves even before we adopted.  The children did not meet the therapists in those early days, but just as we introduced our physician in the first year, so we introduced our family psychologist as the "feelings" doctor.   The children have not had therapy consistently, but during different stages have had differing degrees of contact.  We have had some significant issues emerge, but because the children already had a relationship with the therapist, we were able to access effective help immediately when it was needed.   It is easier to start a relationship with a therapist when the children are young and before the issues are overwhelming.  Because of that early relationship of trust, our children now freely ask to see their therapist and look forward to the skilled care, listening and love that they deeply associate with her.  Therapy has been expensive and  time-consuming, but emotional needs are not easy to navigate in either our children or ourselves!  Adoption brings its own huge complexities for us all.  We have all needed the support and insights and intervention of skilled therapeutic professionals.  Do not wait to get help!  It is easy to ignore those early signs of emotional challenges in both ourselves and our kids.  I have been surprised that therapy has given us all huge unexpected hope and growth.  Find a therapist skilled in issues of children, trauma, and adoption.  I know those people are rare.  We drive over an hour each way for one of our children's psychologist.  For some, telephone consultations may be the only option.  I cannot stress enough how important it has been for us as parents and for our children to have specialized emotional intervention through this journey.  It is not wise to go on this adoption adventure alone!  Take the risk and find a therapist you and your children like and trust.   Start with yourself, even if you think you may not need the help.  You may be surprised.  Adoption is a long distance endeavour that I honestly could not have continued if I did not have a skilled psychologist caring for both me and my children.  You will need many layers of help from many people, but just as you have a medical doctor, go for it and start developing a relationship with a person skilled in the challenges of emotional health.  I wish you wisdom and success in finding just the right person to be your emotional guide through the dangerous and rugged terrain of those adoption mountains.  Who knows, that person may also help you in the unexpected and hidden challenges of your own self.  Adoption started my journey with a psychologist, but over the years my own heart and life has been transformed and personal healing has emerged through the gift of that relationship.  I now wish that I had accessed therapeutic help for myself years ago.  Take that leap into the unknown even when others tell you it is excessive and unnecessary.  I am so thankful I did.

M is for Mother

A friend of mine is waiting to be a mother by adoption.  She descriptively defines her state these days as being in otherhood.   When that "M" just does not emerge to bring a level of completion to motherhood, the pain can be searing.   I have been pondering my friend's words, not wanting to generalize or diminish the specifics of that state for her now, but also feeling companionship with her in the reality of that other place.  Maybe for some the place of otherhood has never been a part of their story, but I think it does capture well a reality that has been a part of many of our lives.

Certainly, our children by adoption know deep in the very core of their being what it means to be "other."  That "m" for mother may be added to their lives one day, but it will not necessarily take away the challenging reality of their feelings of being different and "other" at their heart.  One of my daughters talks frequently about how she has always watched her friends taking for granted the belonging in their birth families.  Even now after years of belonging in our family, she still watches.  In many ways she is still different and other, even in the reality of being adopted.  She now has a mother, but nothing can take away the pain of those years of aloneness.  Her reality involves grief and loss and in truth,  the sense of being "other" is deeply ingrained in her being.

The specific ways that people can echo the feelings of being different and other are diverse and varied.  The feeling is real.  I am not sure that even that elusive "M" will take away the feeling and the pain.  For me, I want to acknowledge and treasure this "other" part of my story.  It is that part that propelled me toward adoption in the first place.  It is that part that now helps me to stand with my children and let them live and embrace the incompleteness that is a part of life.  We are all others.   I cannot pretend to understand the specific pain of either my friend or my children.  Because of my own story I can join them in living life fully as a unique and special other.  It is at the root of what it means for me to now be a mother.

Actively Involved

As a parent, I do not just keep thoughts of involvement with my children as ideas in my mind.  Similarly in all my interactions with others,  not all the plans and hopes in my dreams come to reality, but certainly some do.  One of the joys of life is experiences shared together.  I am delighting in holiday time by the sea with our youngest four.  The pace of life here leaves time for games of "Sorry", "Pick Up Sticks" and even some fast paced spoon card game that is just too intense for me.  Mornings are spent wandering the low tide beaches discovering those  fascinating creations normally hidden in the seas depths.  We all read together and swim and wander along the beach chatting with others and dropping in on our neighbours.

I am reflecting that often my time with God is purely an exercise in my mind.  Indeed God takes up thought and prayer time.  I do believe that He loves each of us beyond all measure.  Often my relationship with Him stops there.  Life can involve active interaction with the God of the Universe,  affectionately known by many as "The Universe."   Listen to those inner promptings of your heart.  Step out and act on them.  Be still and receive love and care from our Creator.  Wait and see what blessings come.  Develop eyes to see and ears to hear not just in your mind but the fullness of your being.    May we share those God or Universe moments with one another.  Recognize them.  Interact with them and have them be part of the fullness of life.  Life has so many dimensions: emotional, physical, mental and spiritual!  We read of others who speak of personal relationship with God.  Go further to notice those moments of experience in your own life. Write about them.  Include them in the internal story of your life.  Most of us do not recognize God in the everyday experiences.  I want to take time and grow in this experience of life with God.  Practice and jump in to the love and involved interest of God for you with all of your being.

Up on the Mantelpiece

Many of our family treasures are proudly displayed on the mantelpiece over our fireplace.  While some things come and go, others stay put.  The brass clock stays steady, faithfully ticking away over the years.  A solid Inuit carving, smooth and carefully crafted, serves as a place where those transient cards come to be propped up during times of celebration.  Shells and special pieces of driftwood come and go and give variety and beauty.

Though not specifically displayed on the mantel, each of our children are treasures to be appreciated and placed firmly in the heart of our family.  Painfully, I am aware that sometimes our children in this life may not be a constant in our lives.  Sometimes the tragedy of death takes them from us.  No less devastating, sometimes children decide to leave in anger, or mistakes made cause distances that never seem to be able to be bridged.  As I wrote yesterday about our children feeling increasingly secure as the waves of love are washed over them, I was aware that none of us have guarantees of that ongoing sense of belonging and love.  Sometimes those beautiful pieces of driftwood washed up high on the beach that we hope will stay forever do get washed away in the storms to continue their life journey on other shores.  Even chunks of rock on those sandstone beaches get broken off.

I have a mantelpiece in my heart that I cherish and admire whenever I want.   All my children and loved ones have a special place on that mantel.  No earthly or heavenly reality can remove them from that most special place in my heart.   No disappointments, failures or harsh words can touch this sanctuary.  I try not to bring my own guilt or pain there and instead come to my inner mantelpiece with deep love and prayer.

I can let go of guilt in my own sanctuary when I remember that I am firmly placed forever on God's mantel.  I believe we are all there, displayed with joy and care in God's heart, even when we ourselves do not know or even want His recognition.  Nothing can remove us from that place in His heart.  It is His place to hold and treasure the great wonder and love of each unique person of His creation.

Sometimes in life those special treasures we that thought were safe in our keeping are ripped away from us in any number of ways.  We all have people who we are deeply missing.

I am thankful for that central place in my own heart where I can honour and hold my special ones forever.  I have lasting security in the knowledge and experience that God has me and all these others on His mantel too, far from any harm and eternally treasured and held no matter what.

Sixty years and counting!

Congratulations to my dear Mum and Dad!  Today you begin your sixty-first year together as partners on this journey of life.  Thank you for your love and commitment to one another all these years.  I have noticed your constant faithful caring and thoughtfulness to each other through both good times and those more challenging times.  You have been steady and consistent and have done your best even when it has not been easy.  You have made allowances for areas of struggle in each other and have  selflessly supported one another.

Your love for each other has given deep foundations of security for many of us whose lives you touch.  You are an inspiration for me and for our children.  Your steady love for one another will continue to bear fruit over many generations.

By the sea we are always reminded of the impact of the waves.   It is the waves that smooth the sandstone and create beautiful and surprising creations over the years.  Waves wash up all those interesting delights along the shore.  Similarly, the steady love and commitment that you have for one another gives great gifts for eternity.

I know best those gifts that you have given to me and my family.  Often in my own relationships I think of your steady love for one another and take a few more deep breaths of forgiveness and start again.  As we celebrated yesterday, I thank you for your opening embrace for your four grandchildren by adoption.  Your steadiness has brought hope of the possibility of lasting relationships.  As the girls seek to rebuild their own lives, they truly have increasingly felt washed by the waves of your love on their shores.    Although they often have times of feeling like disconnected driftwood being aimlessly tossed around in the waves,  being welcomed into celebrations of faithfulness year after year brings memories shared and gives the security of strong and steady rock supporting them!  Their rocky beaches  are washed steadily by your faithful love and hospitality that gradually will give stability and hope for commitment and good things discovered.  I think they are increasingly knowing that the shape of their lives has incredible beauty even by virtue of its long journey and weathered and unique appearance.  They are beginning to feel like the treasures that they are, appreciated like the unique rocky formations on the beach and the delightful driftwood creations safely placed on the family mantel.  They are recognizing that they are special and indeed a part of this shoreline where they will be enjoyed and delighted in forever.

Not all of us will have sixty years together.  We all have the new start of today.  May we be faithful in love to those around us in the reality of right now, remembering that the love that we express today will, like the waves,  make their mark!  Today may we appreciate the unique beauty of one another, treasuring and accepting one another as you began in your care and commitment for one another those sixty years ago.  Thank you for this precious legacy of love, dear Mum and Dad!  For each day together we are thankful!

Seasons

Blog posts have been rattling around in my head and heart these days, but have not made it to paper.  For a while I fussed that I was not getting to write, but I am consciously letting go of my own expectations, embracing the reality that all of life has its seasons.  It is important for me learn to release the pressures even of things that are enjoyable and good in my life.  Those posts will get written and I will return to regular blogging as it is something that is fruitful and life-giving for me, but for now I am fully embracing other parts of life.

 June is full of celebrations and endings in our home.  For our family, our numbers have become larger again as older children are coming and going.  For our children by adoption the celebrations of even wonderful beginnings and endings with more people in and out often brings up those old feelings of abandonment and painful transitions.  Bedtime cuddles and long talks are more important than ever.

The garden and late evening walks are added delights of this season.  We are gathering many fruits of our labours these days with meals of fresh broccoli, peas, and raspberries picked for breakfast.

I hold the rooted groundedness of the weather, outdoors and varied seasons in my heart with thankfulness.  I want my heart and soul to be ever listening and responsive to those changing calls and whispers from God that are unique to each season and time.  Some seasons are downright hard to endure.  Others we hope will never end.  Don't let go of those ever-changing cycles that bring growth, pain and joy.  Live fully in each, keeping your ears and hearts open always!

Go For It!

Today we had a wonderful celebration at my work as one of my colleagues is following her heart and with her family including two small children is heading off to begin a new life adventure in Australia.  Bit by bit, day by day, she has followed her heart to start this new chapter of her life.  It has not always been an easy journey and there have been many discouraging parts to her story, but finally one big hurdle has been crossed.  She has sold her home, quit her work and they are flying off next week.
Her predecessor in that job is also following her heart and is in the middle of her own adventure as she has just sent off all the papers to adopt her daughter from Africa.  She too has not had an easy path, but has recently taken some significant steps forward as she moves forward in faith on a different kind of dream.  Today I held both these wonderful women in my heart and allowed their journeys and faith to inspire me.

Life is not always about dreams.  Sometimes there are long periods when we really may not have any special goals or aspirations on this journey.  We are simply hiking along, doing the best we can in the ordinary.  One person I also work with has dreams of his own, but is also really good at encouraging the rest of us.  Not a birthday or event goes by without significant celebration and joy expressed in cards, gifts, and banners draped across desks.  Delighting in bringing joy to those daily events that life brings is in itself a big part of the adventure of life.

When those possible and not so possible dreams bubble up in our hearts it is important to recognize them and step forward.  At first the steps forward may seem insignificant.  They may be as ordinary as celebrating the birthday of a colleague!  Sometimes the steps may seem like they go backwards in disappointment.  Keep the faith.  Go for your dreams.

For all those in the midst of adoption journeys, be encouraged!  There are many steps forward and backward both in the process of adopting and also in the process of parenting!  Do not loose your passion for your kids.  It is a hard but most wonderful journey. Even the stepping out to try is enough.  Wait for whatever will be, while taking a step at a time forward.

Life is not perfect.  Dreams may seem small or big.  Listen.  Respond.  Receive.  Love.  Go for those stirrings in your heart in faith and trust!

Refreshing!

One of my daughters has arrived home from journeys afar and as I went to snuggle with her before bed tonight she was busy refreshing her computer as she felt sure that I would have written a new blog post.  Somehow she felt she could not access it!  Even though she is now home here with me she wanted to know what I was thinking and thought the blog might expand on my thoughts these days.  She gave me lots of possible blog posts that she has been envisioning.  My reaction to chronic illnesses around here, feelings about various children, weekends away, my work and the fullness of these days were all possible insights that daughter had hoped my non-existant blog post might reveal.  I suggested that maybe it might be a good idea for her to write my blog as she has so many things she is hoping to discover.

Refreshing her computer did not pull up a new blog post.  I think it is time to push the refresh button on my heart and mind!  Refresh and release! There are almost too many thoughts and concerns rolling around in my crowded heart and mind these days.   I have not known where to begin in blog writing!

Though I do email and text various other children away on adventures, I know they want more than knowing I miss them.  They all want details and thoughts.

For now,  I am on refresh and release mode.  Thanks for reminding me of the need to regularly push that refresh button, dear daughter.  I so quickly slip back into piling up the concerns and busyness of daily life in my heart and mind.  We all need to push that button,  have a good laugh and release the clogging fullness of our days.

Tonight I will refresh.  It is too late for a good walk, but I will let go of all those things to do and consciously relax, renewing perspective in quietness and trust, walking forward in love and mercy.
Lately I have made many many trips driving along the almost overflowing banks of the Fraser River.  I pray that I may be increasingly like that flowing river, full to overflowing of nutrient rich refreshing waters of love.  I will imagine those waters tonight, flowing out to enrich and send love to so many.

That Lady

Another of our favourite people is the central character in Charlotte Zolotow's book, "I Know a Lady."  In the story a little girl feels loved by the lady in her neighbourhood who quietly and gently gardens, picks zinnias and makes cookies for special occasions.  In the rhythm of days the Lady savours and shares the ordinary delights around her.  She is an inspiration to me.

These days I am delighting in the longer sunny days.  I am spending time in the garden, and each evening my husband and I go for a walk around our neighbourhood, listening to the birds, smelling the fresh mown fields,  and enjoying the vibrance of this season.   Our garden is already full and our dinners include lots of fresh broccoli, snap peas and abundant swiss chard.

Life is full for the children as the activities of their year ripen to the final harvest of speech contests, class parties, piano recitals and dance shows.  This week is our local track and field for a couple of my athletes too.  Like the lady in her garden, I am wanting to preserve gentle routine and peace and calm in the midst of these full harvest days.  Chaos and tiredness at the end of a full year are all part of the package too as the days seem to race by!

In the long days and full endings of the school year,  I hope that I will still watch out for those gentle ladies in our midst, not forgetting to notice the  beauty all around and allowing time to receive and give love through the ordinary.

Artifacts to Treasure

One of our favourite expeditions is to our nearest big city, Vancouver.  We have some favourite traditions.  One is to have a meal at our favourite Chinese restaurant, Won More, by the beach near Stanley Park.  We watch the dinner cooked before our eyes by the friendly cook who has served us for over fifteen years there, and then afterwards we migrate downstairs to a great ice cream shop where we mix gummy bears and the like with our favourite ice-creams.  The adults among us get a coffee at the nearby Starbucks before we wander down to the sand to watch the sunset and a lovely walk along the seawall.

Last weekend we visited the UBC Anthropology museum before our feast.  I had not been there for years and our younger crew had never been experienced the great treasures there.  One of my daughters is of First Nations Heritage and has many relatives who are artists from Alert Bay.  We have all been to Alert Bay and so it was especially interesting for us to learn more about the great works of art from both Haida Gwaii and Alert Bay.  There are many interesting similarities and differences that we discovered for the first time.

I particularly respect and am inspired by the totem poles.  They stand tall and straight, giving signs and stories to inspire and treasure.  Today I thought afresh that there are ways that we are all like those totem poles.  We are an intertwining of different influences and stories and images that sometimes take a lifetime to fully recognize and uncover.  As I saw the beaver in relationship with the orca who was in turn held by the bear and topped by the raven, I thought of all these characters represented in my own life.

Like those poles may we too stand tall, expressing the unique intertwinings of all of who we are and helping those around us to similarly grow in their own special expression of life in all the parts of their being.  The carving style for each of us has special characteristics.  Some of the cuts in our souls are deep and definite.  Others are more superficial but still give impact of important sensations to our feel.  We are drawn to different characters and have been impacted by many experiences, both welcomed and endured that intertwine to create the special treasures of ourselves.

The Lupines are Blooming!

Colourful lupines have been delighting my soul these days.  I love their blue, pink and purple shades scattered across hillsides often in the most unlikely and ordinary places.  They are particularly special to me and my children because they remind us of a very special story written by Barbara Cooney about  Miss Rumphius, the lupine lady who wanted to make the world more beautiful and decided to scatter lupine seed as she wandered the roadsides of her home.  Miss Rumphius is one of our favourite people.  She and the lupines inspire us to also find ways to make the world just that little bit more beautiful.  For us we are beginning by noticing the things that are already beautiful as it would be quite a waste of so much beauty if we didn't take the time to notice!  We all need encouragement to recognize  those delicate flowers that so easily get squished as we walk over them and those ordinary acts of kindness that sometimes go unnoticed.  I need reminders to each day remember that this is a special day to scatter those seeds of love and care that do make the world just that little bit more beautiful.  Let's not wait for the inspiration of just the big things, but listen and respond to those quiet murmurings of ideas for the little things of beauty to recognize and to scatter today!

The Porch

We have some neighbours who spend hours sitting on their wide and spacious front porch, quietly taking in all the comings and goings of all the rest of us.  Sometimes I wonder if they count the number of times I pass by their home on my various trips to take kids to activities.  I hope maybe they do notice us all and send us their blessings in our busyness.  They have certainly become part of our daily community and I do appreciate the way they are to me the steady watching sentinels of our neighbourhood.

These days I have also been sitting quietly more often, in what I call front porch times of my heart.  After periods of significant internal rearranging it has been important for me to quietly sit and let life settle in my heart.  In days and years gone by I never sat quietly doing nothing.  I would always have a book or some craft in hand.  I would be taking a break between tasks to be done.   It has been wonderful now to slow right down and enjoy being.  I am consciously cultivating empty time in these days.  So often the bowl of my life has been so full of so much striving and activity that there is no space for receiving and listening to the surprises of God.  I want to be an open receptacle of God's love, letting go of my own plans and ego.  I imagine a beautifully shaped open bowl with a life giving blue-green glaze in my heart.  It has been emptied of all the nicknacks of life and is beautiful as is, whole and full of God's love.  There is room for others there.

In the front porch times of my heart I am quietly watching and observing, all the while praying for those who pass by and stop to chat.  These times are not limited to sitting on an actual front porch.  They are those quiet moments when I take a little longer to empty the dryer and quietly muse as I gather the warm clothes in my arms.  They are moments spent for an extra few minutes  sitting in the car after dropping the kids off somewhere.  They are intentional spaces of time savoured and gently noticed in those extra minutes in the ordinary run of life.

Even though it may look externally like I am busy with one thing or another these days, inside I am sitting quietly on the front porch of my heart with my open blue bowl cradled in my hands.  I can practice these moments all day long, praying and gently holding out God's love to all who pass by, a watching and loving sentinel in the places of my world.

The Help

One of the best things about our adoption journey is that it catapulted us over the edge of ourselves so that we needed to get the help of a psychologist.  Actually, in the end we have two psychologists on our family team to serve all our children effectively in a way that meets their unique needs.  Over the years we have come to deeply respect these two professionals.  As time has gone by, both my husband and I have had many of our own sessions and even time specifically geared toward our marriage.   These sessions have been both time consuming and costly, but have been one of the best investments in our lives.

For years I felt significant anxiety and deep unrest but always thought that was what it meant to be a "wounded healer." I functioned well for the most part and I thought that many of my jumbled feelings were part of the human condition.  I never thought that I would be able to know deep peace and harmony of my mind, heart, body and soul.  One of the things about being a human being is that it really is hard to know what could be different in our hearts if we have never known peace.  After knowing one psychologist for several years through our children, one day I took a scary leap to allow myself to share some of my own personal angst with her.  She looked at me confidently and told me that I really did not have to live with such unrest and that she could help me!  I will never forget that moment.  I did not know then that I was embarking on one of the most life-changing journeys of my life.

Now,  just over a year later,  I am a changed person inside.  I do know peace and harmony especially between my mind and heart that I never thought would be possible.  I could not have come to this place by myself.  I have read widely and tried many ways to bring unity of spirit on my own.  I thought that I should be able to rest in God and have Him bring healing directly.  I often have been reminded of the story about the man who arrived in heaven and asked God why He had not saved him from his capsized ship.  God replied that He had tried.  He had sent a helicopter, a life raft and even another boat, but each time the man had held out for God to save him directly.  It has been the same for me.   We are relational beings and God uses others in our lives to help bring healing.  For me it has taken commitment, cost and quite a bit of challenging vulnerability to allow another to help me.  I must say, I have brought my concerns to other therapists in the past.  Not everyone is skilled in the same areas.  Sometimes it takes time and perseverance to find a therapist who is a good fit.  For me it has been an amazing and life-giving miracle to have met this psychologist and to know significant healing.

I still understand myself to be a wounded healer.  There will always be places of wound and pain in us all.  That does not mean that we are to ignore our own wounds.  Just like a wound of the flesh, we must often get medical help to assist in the healing.  Some wounds do heal over time by themselves.  Others need attention and help along the way.  Sometimes it is hard to know whether our internal wounds could benefit from intervention from a person skilled in the ways of the heart and mind.  If in doubt, take the risk to have someone you respect help you determine if there might be relief that they can help facilitate in your heart.  It might take a few tries with different therapists to find someone that you are able to trust and respect and who has the skills to help you.  Take good care of all the parts of your precious self.  The journey of this last year for me is one that has made all the difference for me and for my family and yet I know this process would have been easy to sidestep or ignore.  I hope I will continue to always move forward in life with vulnerability and hope, allowing others to help me as they are able!

The Scream

God encourages us to come to Him as we are.  I have known times in my life when I can deeply relate to Edvard Munch's despair in "The Scream."    It is comforting to me to have the depths of emotional pain expressed in a work of art.  Often our lives are segmented with the more despairing areas cut off and carefully hidden.  It is when these emotions are hidden that they can do the most damage both to us and to others.  I am thankful for those who have artistically given expression to the depth of human emotion.  Mental illness, too, is very much part of a spectrum of emotion that is so dangerously ignored and stigmatized.

In our selves and our children do not be afraid of the expression of despair and pain.  Often we recoil in fear in their expression, preferring more comfortable places.  Seek appropriate places to express those extremes of emotion.  Allow them expression.  Bring them to God.  The Bible is full of real and uncomfortable emotion expressed.  Rage, anger, despair, doubt and hopelessness are as much a part of the human condition created by God as are love, hope and joy.  With Munch I can relate to the despair that is also part of love.

Adoption brings together depth of emotion and pain in both ourselves and our children.  Most of our children can also relate to this person at the depths of self.  Sometimes it is only in the safety of family that these deeply buried feelings can begin to surface and show themselves.  I often want to only acknowledge and affirm the gentle love and smooth emotions in life.  I am disturbed and embarrassed by those raw emotions expressed by both myself and my children and quickly try to change them and cover them over to appear well regulated and happily perfect.  Certainly self regulation is a desirable goal.   May we still gently accept ourselves and others in the midst of those depths of emotion and raw feelings.  Allowing them, may they be catalysts to growth and deeper places of peace in ourselves as human beings.  Do not be afraid.  Come as you are.

That Primal Wound

Rarely a week goes by that I am not reminded in one way or another that our children by adoption carry a deep and most primal wound from their separation from their birth mother and families.  It is naive for us adoptive parents to discount the power of that event to shape their lives deeply.  The emotions that so deeply impact our children and us cannot be circumvented.  I am reminded of the children's book "Going on a Bear Hunt."  On that hunt the family could not go around the obstacles or over them or under them.  Our children cannot go around those deep emotions in their own lives.  Of course the impact of the wound is different for everyone, but there is a sense that at some time for our children they must wade deeply right through the pain of feelings of that primal wound.  For my children, the pain and the going through has different stages and depths through their life journeys so far.  We talk about the going through those feelings and I try to acknowledge and support them through the dark valleys of these times.

For each of my children there have been times when the pain of the primal wound is reflected in a primal run or escape.  Running away has had a deeper reality for my children by adoption than other kids.  I think of early times in the adoption process when a couple of my children would run ahead as fast as they could along a beach or on a family walk.  Several have gone through times of running away, not so much from our family, but from the pain held so deeply within their own souls and bodies.  There is some relief from the physical run but ultimately the source of the pain must be acknowledged and shared, sometimes often through the stages of life.  The pain cannot be escaped or discounted.  Our love and care as adoptive parents cannot take it away or cover it over.  Do not take it personally, and try to recognize its power and intensity for what it is.  The often subtle ways the emotional pain is expressed can be surprising to both our children and us.  We have needed wise help from those not so intimately bound with the pain to help recognize and guide us all through some of the emotional tsunami that has come from that deep quake in our children's souls.  There has been and will continue to be collateral damage and pain from those tsunamis.

I am learning to recognize some of the signs of that primal wound, but I am still often blindsided with my children by the raw power of emotional pain and the myriad ways it can be expressed.  Though often I am the target of that pain, together we stand remembering together the reality that the lonely path forward cannot be gone around, or over or under.  Together we must walk forward through the reality of that primal wound step by step, often feeling like we may be overtaken by its power or murky depths.  Take comfort that others are also going through this dangerous and risky journey.  The words of the Psalms often give us deep comfort.

Psalm 46 proclaims that God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.  There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.  God is within her, she will not fall;  God will help her at break of day.  Be still and know that I am God:  The Lord Almighty is with us.

I pray that God might be that strength and wisdom for the deep foundational places of desolation and pain in our children and us who walk this road with them.  Actively seek and  embrace the human help that is available and pray for God's guidance to find the right people to help lead you.   We have needed the support and guidance of a wise psychologist who has been God's earthly hands to help us navigate through these powerful depths even for our own protection.  Be still.  Walk forward right through the pain knowing that it is God who may not make our paths straight, but never stops walking on those challenging paths right along with us.

Good Enough

A big part of my letting going does not involve my children.  Increasingly I want to let go of the tight rein of perfectionism in my own life.  Not only am I often powerless over my children and the circumstances of my life, but that powerlessness starts with me!  Mother's Day brings up for me the many areas that I have not lived up to my own expectations of the kind of mother I would like to be, gentle and encouraging, with just the right balance of love and effective discipling.  Instead often my home is somewhat of a jumbled mess with tempers flaring and voices raised.  Chaos overtakes us all.  The gentle love that I so desire to permeate our home seems unreachable.

I am learning to accept and embrace the imperfections, gently loving my own self in the mess and standing firm in God's love and deep forgiveness for me.  I think that is the beginning to being able to fully gently embrace my family and friends around me.  Being a mother is a daunting task.  The stakes are high.  The expectations sometimes unreachable.   I pray I will grow and improve and that my desire at the heart of the matter will be communicated and expressed to my children almost in spite of me.  I will seek help and care from others and rest in doing the best I can, forgiving myself as I forgive my children and as we have all been forgiven.

Again, I am learning so much from my friends caught in the jaws of addictions.  Release.  Accept.  Turn to God.  Wait and receive His strength and love to embrace a new day.  One faltering step at a time.  Allow God to fill me that I might be His vessel where the life giving water leaks from those very cracks that give me struggle.

Welcome the chaos.  Those glaciers bearing down on the land brought their own beauty and interesting land formations.  Accept those hard places in us all as places of growth and change that bring their own gentle love.  Ask for the gift of God's love to shine through all the places of incomplete chaos and brokenness in us all. Be thankful for the good enough and grow in strength to go beyond the broken.  For those places that I have failed, forgive me God.  I am truly sorry.  I love you.  I love my children and those in my world.  May I know and communicate your love and grace from deep within my heart in the new start of now.

Letting Go

Our older children, home for a time this month, are now beginning to head off again on their summer adventures.  Again we go through a time of reshuffling and adjustment.  I am always amazed at how each person contributes to the entire family dynamic.  Though sometimes we all struggle with finding our unique place in the family and especially in larger families can feel like we get "lost in the shuffle," the reality is that each person brings their unique self to the family, significantly creating the larger whole.  We often feel it especially when someone leaves or when someone has dramatic behaviours, both positive and negative, but I am so thankful for the daily ordinary dynamic of each person in our home.  This evening I let go of one of our sons, missing him but excited too for this next step in his life.

A big part of my own journey these days is in the letting go!  That letting go happens on many levels for me.   There is the letting go of older children.  Not only are they physically out of the home more these days, but my active parenting days for them now have a very different shape, even when I wonder if they are ready for the change!   I trust that they will continue to be cared for and lead on even when I am not a primary person in their daily lives.  On an even more challenging level, I  am growing in releasing myself from some of the behaviours of my younger children too.  We get help, do our best as parents, and then on many levels have to let go of the results.  Many of our children have many many influences that contribute to their lives and behaviours.  We continue to support and love, but often I need to consciously open my hands and release them.  I am not helping either them or me if I cannot let go of them and some of the expectations that I have for them in the right ways.

I have found the Twelve Step Program so helpful in the practical steps of letting go.  Over and over each day I affirm that really so much in my life and in the lives of all my children is way beyond my ability to control or heal.  In many areas I really am powerless.  I do believe that ultimately God loves each of us more than I can even begin to understand.   He wants to lovingly restore us all to fullness of life and health!   I pray for His love, care, guiding and healing touch in the lives of us all.  I especially need help to know how to walk this fine line between being involved and letting go.  Even the letting go is hard to do by myself.  Each step of the way I pray for the ability to release myself into God's care, praying for His help and wisdom.  Love.  Pray.  Let go!

Tonight, know that I love you, my son.  Praying for you, I send you on your way to a great summer adventure ahead!

Leaning In

We all have choices to make about the way we live our lives.  What may seem to reflect success in life decisions for one person may not be success for another.  I have very decisively made decisions that I feel have brought success even when it really doesn't look like any kind of success on the outside.  One of those decisions that I made early on was to aim for an occupation that would allow a lot of time and energy to also be a mother.  I chose to shoot high for the goal of being an involved and relaxed mother who would be the kind of person that my children could lean in to.  I wanted to be available and have lots of time and energy for my primary role as the mother of my children.

As I have enjoyed my occupation over the years some people have asked why I have not progressed or moved to more prestigious positions.  I actually quit one job where I was being pressured to take on more responsibility as a department manager.  At one point in my career I did get my Master's Degree but have not specifically formally used that degree as the work that it brought involved a lot of evenings and weekends that did not facilitate my primary job as a Mother.  I have not aimed low in my career choices as a default because I am a woman.  I have aimed high to have an impact in the lives of my children as their mother.  For me, that is success.  Others have often made me carefully examine my choices.  I have had periods of deep angst and question about the decisions I have made.

Today I took a holiday day from my work in order to watch my two girls give their speeches at school. Tomorrow I am driving another son to catch a ferry and head off to his summer job.
Many days I wonder if I have any impact in any area of my life, work or at home.  Most days we just don't know and maybe that is just as well.

What I do know is that I am glad that my own mother was available for me to lean in to.  I never questioned that I was more important than any job or other role for her.  I hope my children too will rest in the security of leaning in.  May I be there for them.  I certainly will not be perfect especially as that mother, but just the trying will be success enough for me.

Go for success as both men and women in this life we are given!  Just be sure not to limit success defined as only for those top corporate leaders, physicians, lawyers or work leaders.  If you decide to have children, please rank them as central in your life mission.  Give them time and space to lean in too.

Yellow Poppies

My garden is bursting with abundance in these warm days.  Most dramatic are the delicate and gentle yellow poppies, emerging in plenty from places all over the garden.  I cannot remember ever seeding these delightful gems, but each year their presence is increasingly dramatic.  They thrive even from the most barren cracks in the cement and along scarce bits of soil beside hedges, bringing colour and light.  They are ever changing as the days go by.  Tender drops of water grace their petals like diamonds in the early mornings and by evening the sun shines delicately through the incandescent yellow.

Sometimes the good things in our life like love and joy and peace multiplying are not as dramatic or obvious as my ever-spreading yellow poppies in springtime.  They are real nevertheless and they grow and spread all year long.  Watch for their growth among the weeds and cracked cement of our lives and delight in them.  Make sure they do not get pulled out with the weeds.  Recognize their distinctive shape and let them multiply.   Like the poppies they come announced and spread freely.  May they bring encouragement and hope in our lives today.

The Ordinary

One of the reasons that I am writing this blog is to help me grow in celebrating the ordinary ways of life.  Putting ordinary moments down in print helps me to both recognize and appreciate the gift of the simple and everyday things in my life.

We all have both valleys and mountaintop experiences in our life journeys, but for me most days are spent trudging along the well worn paths.  I want to grow in slowing down and delighting in the gift of each step along the way.

As an unexpected joy, I am finding great comfort and strength in celebrating those ordinary moments of life.  It has been a stabilizing and grounding strategy to recognize and to focus on the little surprises and delights along the way, both during times of great stress and also during more settled days.

Today was a celebration of wind in our little part of the world.  I loved feeling the cool wind in my hair, whipping around me whenever I was outside.  The flags and banners flapped wildly all day and the trees bent with the sound of evergreen fronds brushing one another.  Some empty pots went for a wild ride clear across our field, ending up in the neighbour's yard.  Life for me these days has been a bit like being one of those empty pots thrown around in the wind. Today I was able to laugh and feel the fresh wind around me, bringing refreshment.   Some of the old stale air was blown out and  fun and joy returned.

Dandelion Digging!

Today I had a quick call with a friend only to discover that I had interrupted her dandelion digging time outside.  Even though she has lots to do before going away tomorrow, she had gravitated outside do to clear her lawn of some of those emerging dandelions.  We laughed, because although I also have many  things that may seem much more pressing, I too spent some wonderful time with my dandelion pronger outside this afternoon.  Dandelion digging is a great stress reliever for both my friend and me.   I love being outside and digging out those weeds.  Sometimes I reflect on whether the bright cheery dandelions with their edible leaves should be allowed to remain as a lovely contrast to the green grass, but still I dig and clear mostly for my own grounding satisfaction.  I like being alone and having just one focus to clear a little of our wide grass.

Dandelions have deep roots and often emerge again in what seems like mere days.  Eventually, though, areas do stay dandelion free if I can catch them early enough in the season.  I find if I don't dig them out early they can completely take over so there is very little grass left.  My feet do prefer the soft green grass to those harsh dandelion leaves.  One of our neighbours had so many dandelions that he eventually plowed up all his grass and reseeded the area.

One of my daughters has been frustrated this weekend because some painful and harsh weed-like feelings and emotions that she thought had been dug out long ago have been returning these days.  Many issues become part of the terrain of our lives.  We deal with the challenging areas of our lives in different ways over different times in our lives.  If we can recognize their signs and attend to them early enough, sometimes we can prevent them from overpowering us.  Though we have had times of intense emotional digging through therapy, sometimes all that is needed these days is to recognize the feelings and give them some accepting and loving attention, bringing them out into the open so we can give them air and talk about them.  I know there will be times where deeper therapeutic digging may be indicated, but this time I think these emotions may be like those early dandelions that we can root out again before they take over the soft peacefulness of the steady green grass of our souls.

Be Still

I am delighting in the beauty and colour emerging all around me these days.  There is such an abundance of life everywhere.  I have not forgotten that just a few short weeks ago those same trees so beautifully decked out in fullness of colour and life today were bare and appeared lifeless for so many months in the cold and dark.

So often I feel that expression of life is completely up to me.  I worry and fret and take on responsibility for emerging beauty and joy.  I become tangled and frustrated inside when things do not happen as I hope.

I want to learn from these trees around me today.  They really did not actively do anything for the flowers so abundant now to emerge other than continue to be rooted and to feed on the firm soil in which they are planted.  They have opened their branches to the sun around them.  They rested in the dark days and did not allow themselves to be cut down when there was no sign of life.  The flowers emerged as part of their very being.

These trees remind me to not loose hope in those dark days.  I want to increasingly be still and rest in the unknown mystery of the soil of God where I have been planted.  I may not ever be a brilliant flowering cherry tree, but I am the tree I am meant to be, and in the right time those leaves will come forth as part of who I am.  Even while others flower I may still appear lifeless.  I planned my garden so that each season would bring forth its own beauty.  Even in the winter the paperbark maple by my kitchen window was planted with great joy and expectation of enjoyment of its creative and beautiful bark alone through those winter months.  The evergreen trees are not flashy, but give strength and solid colour and grounding steadily all year.

Together may we all rest in the unique beauty  of our own selves.  May we not despair and give up hope through the dark days, but thankfully be still and content in the special gift of our own being.

Place of Belonging

Not only is our sense of belonging with our family, but I am deeply aware both in myself and my children that there are deep ties to the physical homes of our being too.  This painting by Vancouver Island artist, E. J. Hughes, epitomizes my sense of physical home here on the West Coast.  I have walked for hours on beaches just like this one, feeling the wind on my face and the sand in my feet.  I can almost smell the freshness of the sea air and hear the breakers crashing and gulls calling overhead

These days I live tucked away in those mountains in the distance of this painting.  I always feel comfort when I am near their solid foundations and can smell the thick cedars and fir with the salt air from the sea rising up to mingle with their green fronds.

All my children were born within a few miles of where we live today.  Especially for my children by adoption, the physical proximity to the mountain and sea places that they can remember helps to ground them, even when some of those memories hold both pain and joy.

These days I am leaning in to my physical place here and am constantly being refreshed and strengthened by nature and my physical surroundings.  I am consciously mindful of my earthly roots  and am increasingly aware of looking, listening, feeling, smelling and even tasting of the physical delights all around me.  Certainly spring for me brings a sense of new beginnings with the longer days and warmth of outside beckoning!  I rest in the grounding and life giving spirit of my place here in this small part of the world that is my home.

Ninety Years!

Happy Birthday to my most wonderful Dad! I am heading over to celebrate his ninetieth birthday this weekend!  A most interesting life lived, full of care and love and thoughtfulness.  My Dad has lived his life richly and fully, setting out very intentionally to deeply experience and love life. He has a wide range of interests, from beautiful artwork and music to all things technical.  He is always expanding in his interests and is a gardener and reader and deep thinker.   He especially loves the sea, and has settled for his last thirty years on a small island by the sea. I remember when he was looking for this island home.  He wrote a list of all that he wanted in his home and kept looking until he found it.  A couple of acres on the sea with a point and sloping sandstone beach on an island that had always seemed like home when we visited on the boat.  Our first purchase on that island was beautiful native sweaters.  I remember the day the creator of the sweaters sold them to us and we enjoyed their rugged softness and beautiful colours sitting on the dock.   Before that he loved roaming the coast in our steady converted fishboat, Tuya.  Tuya reminds me of my Dad.  Solid, deep keeled.  Slow and steady and though rolly in a sea, safe and secure.  One memory that I will never forget was one summer evening on a glassy sea pink and red with the setting sun near Thormanby Island, close to flat sandy beaches stretching for miles.  We sat together in the wheelhouse, quiet and speechless in the beauty.

Always giving to so many, especially his family, another favorite memory is his help with school projects.  He taught me to write my thoughts on pieces of paper that would then get scattered over whole floors and then pulled together into essays.  I still write the same way today.  Together we worked on an amazing project of the parthenon, made from carefully rolled pieces of paper.  It is forever etched in my mind.  Thanks so much Dad!

A chartered accountant for most of his life, even still doing work for many, my Dad has an amazing attention to detail.  He is determined and intentional, kind and giving, deeply committed to my mum and to all our family.  He has never stopped growing and learning and moving forward in life.  He reads widely, and loves his tablet and computer, knowing more about things technical than me!

Happy Birthday, my dearest Dad.  You have given me and so many others a rich legacy.  So much of you is etched deeply in the core of my being.  Thank you.  I give you deeply my love.

Disconnected Connection

Connection with one another and with our kids is a primary drive for most of us.  I have gone to whole courses on how to develop connection with our children, especially those from hard places.  Sometimes, though, the process of connection is a long and slow process that has many steps forward and back.  Sometimes we will never really have the connection with others that we so desire.  Sometimes we think we have a good connection, only to realize that it does not reach deeply into the heart of the person we are wanting to connect to.  Often people deeply wounded do not have the capacity for the connection that we so desire.  Sometimes our own hearts do not even seem to allow the full connection that we yearn for.  I am learning to be committed to deep connection, while holding the desired results of that connection with open hands.  Often I need to be consciously disconnected from behaviours and breaks in connection.  I am not good at allowing that disconnection.  I take perceived rejection or lack of connection personally. Anger and frustration over poor connection often builds quickly.  This has been a most challenging part of the adoption journey for me.

 I am slowly learning to work at strengthening my own connection with myself and with God first.  I try to put a circle of light around my very self that shines on others and on my own heart, while protecting me from the hard barbs of perceived failure in connecting.  I call it conscious disconnection from the response of others.  For those times when it is my own heart that lets me down, I step back, forgive myself, and disconnect even from the results of my own heart.  I consciously allow God's light to flow through me, checking for those places of tightness and restriction within me and paying loving attention to those inner places, letting the light warm and flow.

At first I was not sure whether to call this post "connected disconnection" or "disconnected connection."  Both connection and disconnection are important heart skills to learn.  They bring another of those central life paradoxes into our lives.  In my own heart I am completely committed to connection first and foremost.  I would not have adopted if that had not been the case.  I am in the process of learning how to grasp the right kind of disconnection in order to be alive and healthy in my world.  I am not sure I have yet got the disconnected part, so disconnected will be the adjective describing the connection for now.  Let's not be afraid of disconnection.  In many ways it is equally as important to learn as connection.  Perhaps a better word for "disconnection" is "releasing."  For today, take the pressure off the connection for both you and your kids.  Love through both connection and disconnection, releasing those ever present demands for perfection.  Help both yourself and your kids make those inner connections and heart love first.  Let go and disconnect from the desired results or connection, forgiving yourself and others. Dig deep for the warmth of love to somehow shine through it all.