With Sadness and Prayer

My heart is with all those for whom running the Boston Marathon was a goal that was to be reached this year.  I am praying for all those families of the people who were killed and those who were injured, both physically and emotionally.  I am sorry that such a special event and celebration ended in such tragedy and fear.

I am reminded afresh of the fragility of life.  We all have our hopes and dreams.  Sometimes those involve marathons of one kind or another.  Other times we are running marathons just because they are part of the terrain of our path.

Sometimes, our marathons do have parts that knock us over or take us out of the race.  Unexpected circumstances explode in our paths with often disastrous consequences that mark our lives forever.
I am surprised that the solid landmark event of the Boston marathon was targeted today.  It brings an unexpected level of fear in the midst of the stable and ordinary markers of our lives.

For our children by adoption, those surprising and disastrous explosions are often expected and felt to be almost deserved.   If life is too settled, our kids often unconsciously seem to create those familiar insecurities that for them are the expected norm.  For our kids, their desires involve wanting to be loved, secure and belonging.  These are often elusive goals, sabotaged even by the challenging and surprising wiring and explosions of their own brains.

Some in Boston tonight are fighting for their lives.  Others are facing months of long rehabilitation.  Still others have been deeply traumatized.  Many are grieving.   Their goals and perspectives have changed in an instant today.  I am praying for each person for whom the impact of this cruel act is significant.  I am reminded again of those explosions in the lives of my kids, also surprising and undeserved and the result of the cruel decisions of others.  May we all bring love and kindness and prayers to these tragic circumstances both in our lives and in the lives of others tonight.

Deserving

Language is multilayered and interesting to me.  Some words are loaded with a mixture of meaning and emotion from different experiences and contexts used.

The word "deserving" is one of those multilayered words for me.  I often have not been quite sure what to do about the word and concept of deserving.

The dictionary definition of the adjective "deserving" is simply and clearly to be worthy of being treated in a particular way.  The verb to "deserve" does give the idea of doing something or having qualities worthy of.  We can do actions that lead to deserving of a treat or some perk.  In our essential being, however, we can be described by the adjective as deserving or worthy people as we are; separate from our actions.

The reason I am pondering the idea of deserving today is because yesterday one of my daughters asserted that she does not feel she deserves to have a family and to be loved.  Somewhere deep in her heart she has never actually felt deserving of love and care and family.  I know, too, that for many people who long to be healed, the feeling that they do not deserve emotional freedom and healing is often a major stumbling block to health.

The concept of deserving sometimes gets confused on the other extreme by a sense of entitlement.  So often in our culture we hear people asserting that they deserve to go on that exotic trip or to have some extravagant home renovation.  Furthermore, sometimes our actions and behaviours lead us to negative consequences that are not altogether undeserving!

Deep in our hearts, we are all carefully treasured and created by God just as we are.  We do not have to do anything to get that love.  I am sad that my daughter and many others have never known that unconditional love from birth.  Somehow they have missed that crucial link to feeling a deserving and worthwhile person by their very being.  We are all deeply deserving of God's love and the love of family.   Easter is all about God even dying and living again in order to connect with His people in love.  We are all deserving and worthy of love by God, others and, sometimes most difficultly, by ourselves.

I am working hard with myself and my children to not get the deep heart deserving muddled up with our often challenging behaviours and actions. Again, there have been actual brain changes for some of my children who have never known what it means to be deserving and treasured from birth.  Lack of care and nuturing love especially in the first year of life leaves an empty hole in our children's  hearts. In turn they try to fill that hole with all sorts of temporary things which are often not healthy.

 My dear daughter, you are deeply deserving of love from us your family, from God and from yourself.  In your very being and wonderful creation you are deserving of much love and joy and peace of heart.  God's love and deserving goes beyond our actions.  Nothing can separate us from that love. The challenge is that you have never known that love.   It is my prayer that bit by bit, day by day, we might together help you come to feel the connection that you are most worthy and deserving just because you are you!

Welcome Home!

Welcome home to our Rebecca!  Rebecca has come home to live for the next year after four years away in Ontario.  After a very long day with snowy delays in both Toronto and Calgary I finally had a chance to hug my daughter.  Later I sat on her bed in her makeshift corner of our playroom that she wants to call her own.  She put away books, folded clothes and seemed so glad to finally be home even though I know it has also been hard to leave special friends and places from the last four years away.

Seeing Rebecca's joy and peace even after several days without sleep, I realized afresh that it has not been easy for her tender spirit to leave and set up home so far away year after year.  There is something very grounding about being in the heart of home where we are loved and accepted  and cherished just because.

Some of my children have never known that deep sense of home.  There have never been open arms of gentle love and acceptance, cherishing and caring from birth.  There is a deep sense of empty abandonment and homelessness that cannot be consciously or easily filled.  Gabor Mate talks about those hungry ghosts.  I feel them in some of the empty moments of my younger children.  They do not naturally think of coming to me to meet their needs.  They are deeply wired to 'go it alone.'  They have developed their own ways of coping that often emerge in behaviours that further alienate and distance them from others.  They do not have a natural sense of being treasured by a  mother or father or resting in peace at home.  Even allowing a mother and a permanent home into their hearts involves conscious effort and work for them.  One daughter recently drew a branch being blown about randomly in the wind.  At a deep and primal level she feels like that bare branch, alone and disconnected.

Day after day, month after month and year after year I am hopeful that our younger children will one day feel at home in my love.  It may always look different for them as the very template of their hearts and souls has been shaped in some very lonely ways.  Still, I trust God and the Gift in all ways.  I do believe that there is hope for us all to be deeply welcomed home in the arms of others and ultimately in the home of God's heart with its varied and expansive rooms of deep peace and loving rest.

The Gift

Yesterday I was going on about one thing or another and a friend quietly asked me a question that has changed my perspective forever.

We all encounter lots of things that hurt us, frustrate us or which we really wish were not part of our lives.  We read stories that do not always sit well with us.  My friend has known deeply of tragedy and pain and lots of joy too.

Her question to me was, "Where is the Gift in that?"  She encouraged me to dig deeper and uncover the gift that is given to us in all our circumstances, both wanted and unwanted, easy or hard.  Find the gift in that story not quite understood, or in that event not exactly asked for or desired.

I am smiling.  I like gifts. I like finding surprises and a highlight for me each Easter is always the Easter Egg Hunt!  These days I am still finding undiscovered eggs in random places.  My friend has introduced me to a much more exciting challenge.  It is a fun and most positive adventure to uncover those disguised and hidden gifts in all people and all things.  Join me in discovering and accepting the joy of GIFTS hidden all around us in surprising places.

The First One

All week I have been treasuring the image of the first person Jesus spoke to after he had risen from the dead.  That person was not outwardly the most holy.  She had not done the most for Jesus while he was alive.  She had not cared for the most people, had the most friends, or lived the most upright life.    Mary Magdalene was a woman.  She had very little standing in her culture. Furthermore, she had lived a life that could have been seen by many as a life of failure.  She was a prostitute, rejected by those in her world, especially the religious.

Jesus loved Mary Magdalene deeply.  She was the first person to see Him after his death.  He called her tenderly by her name, "Mary."  

I wonder who Jesus is speaking to these days as they come to his empty tomb?  Come to Him, all who are weary and heavy laden.  He will call you tenderly by name, and give you rest.  His love will surprise us all.
 

Joy!

I had one of those days where I encountered joy and beauty in places from which I was not expecting such encouragement!  Several individuals, each radiating beautifully from very hard rock-like places, shone bright into my life today.  It is possible to bloom and grow in those hard places!   May we have the strength and insight and love to bloom even in those cracks in the granite of life!

Unbind Him!

After Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, He told the people,  "Unbind him and let him go!"  Other translations say, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go." (John 11:44)  While Jesus is often accused of causing people to be bound by legalistic rules, in reality He is the great Releaser.  His Spirit alive in us does help us to take off those binding grave clothes and to be fully able to move and be who we are meant to be!  Just as He spoke to Lazarus, calling him to "Come out!" so He calls us out of the musty tombs and tight restrictions that we find ourselves in.

Just as with Lazarus, we need others to help us become unbound.  We also can be those doing the unwrapping of others.  As I considered this image this weekend I thought of some of my children, tightly bound by layers of restrictions.  Some of these protective layers had their purpose in allowing my children to cope and survive the horrors of their earlier lives, but now they often cause other challenges.  Often the children are numb to the world around them after so long in the grave clothes.

It takes a long time to unwrap those cloths, and once unwrapped it also can take a long time to be able to fully move and feel again. Sometimes function never quite returns to what we would all hope.   Be patient and  continue to help unwind those binding strips, whatever they are.  At the same time, I want to allow others to help me with my own areas of restriction, gently unwrapping that often all-encompassing ego and defenses in place.

Remember Lazarus and come out to the freedom and light of day!