.School's Out for Summer.

Here's something you should know about me - I have unrealistic expectations - for everything. It's a big fault of mine. I am an all or nothing girl. Go big or go home. Do it well or forget about doing it at all. I make everything a huge project and go over-the-top in trying to make things special. I look forward to summer all year long, and I plan and organize and make lists and imagine in my head creative, fun, and perfect activities for the whole summer. And in my head everything is so smooth and lovely and seamless. This summer, I need to be extra creative, because Jim does not have a job, I do not have a job, and we do not have money to spend on a ton of activities.

But I still set the bar high and my expectations still were through the roof.

Typically my expectations are ridiculous and are filled with statements like this summer we are going to wake up every single morning at 6:00 and exercise as a family, and then enjoy green smoothies. The children will participate in chores and some educational activities during the morning hours while I tidy the house and do laundry. We will go to the library every single week, and we will surprise the children with fun, crazy adventures. We will be known as the crazy, cool parents, and we will have a water balloon fight every night, and the house will never get wet or messy.  We will go for a family walk every single evening, sit on on our porch and sip lemon-aid and snuggle on a blanket watching the stars come out.  

Every single is where I get derailed, because usually after about three days of trying to live up to my ludicrous expectations, I have thrown the towel in, and it's a free-for-all that looks nothing like my perfectly laid plans. I know that this is the pattern, and yet I planned out a bucket list again for the summer (I did plan this before Jim lost his job, so some of it is really quite ridiculous now).

I woke up tentatively excited this morning, for our first day of summer break. Let's just say that it did not meet my expectations. (Big surprise) My Jamesy has pica disorder - it is common in children with Autism. It is becoming more pronounced lately, as well as his compulsions. I am not sure if this is because of all of the changes in our life or not related at all. There is no way to know. Regardless, this morning alone, Jamesy had taken large bites out of Jim's deodorant, eaten an entire bar of soap, and then managed to find a vial of Betadine, and possibly ingested that as well. That one warranted a call to poison control. (He is fine.) I am just emotionally spent and physically exhausted (Jamesy is also only sleeping a few hours a night - thanks again to Autism.) So my excitement for the summer was waning on day number one by 1:30 in the afternoon.

As I was upstairs making tabouli for dinner tonight (and perhaps sobbing to God to please find a way for me to get a little break), Habi, who is sensitive and intuitive to my feelings and moods was downstairs putting Jamesy to nap. Only I did not know that. When I went downstairs, ready to put Jamesy down myself, I found this, and my heart melted.

We managed to still have fun today. I saw smiles on all four of my children's faces. We enjoyed the sun warm on our faces. My kiddos got dirty and stinky - a sure sign that fun was had. Habi and I worked together on some ESL/phonics work, and all-in-all we survived the first day of summer. And that, regardless of a silly bucket list is enough.

My expectations were not met, and they never will be, because this is our one, messy, beautiful life, and it is REAL and not scripted - as much as I try to make it so. Taking a deep breath and embracing it all. We only have one here and now.

.He did It.

It was just the three of us, late last night. Jim and I snuggled on the couch, and Habi reclined in a chair. We were relaxing and enjoying being together. The finish line was so close that we could taste it. Today Habi woke up for his last day of his first year in an American school. And last night as Jim and I were reiterating just how proud we were of the work he had put in this year, he looked at us shyly beneath those heavy lashes and said, this is the first school year I have ever finished  - not just in America. He had been hinting about that for a few weeks (prior to this, we had understood that he had completed three years of an education in Ethiopia), but came out and told us last night that he had never fully completed one. I am blown away by this child, who never completed even one year of school prior to coming here, who didn't have the rhythm of attending school, or an education background - no study skills, no learning hooks to hang all of this new information on (he had to develop them all from scratch this year), just a few days here and there of scattered education in Ethiopia, that he managed to squeeze in between working to earn money to buy food in order to literally survive. He was never taught English. Ever. He taught himself to speak it, by listening to foreigners and well educated people in Ethiopia. He somehow got a hold of the English alphabet and taught himself how to write the letters - figuring out the strokes painstakingly on his own. The fact that he does not have an education background does not diminish his brilliance, it illuminates it. He came to America, and was plopped into an accelerated private school in the seventh grade - having never completed one year of school before. How frightening this should have been.

But he did it with grace and courage. I really do not know a braver teenage boy than Habi.

As an adult, I cannot imagine that I would have done nearly as well if I were in his position. This year has not  been easy. It has been miraculous, and beautiful, and emotional, but not easy. Redemption never is. God provided the perfect school for Habi to attend that would help meet his needs. It is small, close-knit, non-legalistic, and the staff went above and beyond to help Habi and to help us help Habi. I am sure this is the first time that the school had a student with the background that Habi came from, but they did not shy away from the challenge and both staff and students embraced him. Habi grew confident in this environment, and I believe for the first time he felt and knew love from so many sides. This was as valuable as the academics.

There were hours and hours of homework this year. There were tears, there was determination, there was arguments and disagreements, there was perseverance and there was discouragement. Every single person inside our family sacrificed to make this happen. When we thought we could not handle one more algebraic equation, or history date, or science definition, when we felt strangled by the literature, by the monotonous phonics work, we linked arms and did it together. And one assignment after another piled up into an entire school year, and in the midst of traveling 3 plus hours a day, Jamesy's therapies, attaching as a family, medical crises, grief for a country and loved ones an ocean away, the Spirit pushing us to move on, in the midst of the exhaustion and lies that Satan loves to feed children from hard places, in the midst of the biggest transition in all of our lives, the calendar has fallen through months and we have made it to the finish line.

And it was worth it to see Habi's beaming face this morning, to know the accomplishment he feels in having a full school year under his belt. I cannot make people understand what this year has been like, and it is not my job, to. I am learning to brush off the criticism and the emails and messages that accuse me of giving Habi more attention than my other three children. The snide remarks about how many photos took up my facebook and blog of Habi and the lacking of photos of the other three. What I cannot make people understand who have never dealt with it, is how much lost time we have to make up for, how empty his love bucket was when he came to us, how insecure, lonely, and needy our son was. How critical this first year was. How two of my children were born into a home filled with love, words of affirmation, cuddles and daily their little love buckets are filled (and were still being filled this year), and one child two years of the same, and is finally starting to understand the permanence of our love. But Habi, came to us empty, so empty in so many ways, and while his story is sacred for him so I type carefully here, he NEEDED every single time his mama or daddy bragged about him on facebook, he needed the adoration, the public display of love, the photos, the screaming and cheering from the sidelines, the over-the-top excitement for every single first. He needed it and he still needs it, and I am done apologizing or feeling guilty. Because the result and the redemption that is happening is because God guided us to love him up BIG - in outrageous ways this year. I regret none of it.

 He is not the same child that we met two years ago. He is not the same child that stepped onto American soil last July. And he is not the same child who bravely entered seventh grade this September. God, truly, has changed his life......and our life in the process.

You did it, my sweet, beautiful, brave boy! Keep following Jesus, for He is so very, very near. He always was, Baby. When you felt the loneliest, He was right there. And He is here now, and so are we. I love you. To Ethiopia and back.

.Breaking the Silence.

I am sitting here in the early morning hours, feeling the sun stream through the windows, sipping my coffee, and trying to organize my thoughts and my heart into words that will make sense, my fingers are ready to fly, and I will loose them. For so often, I do not know my own thoughts, feelings, and heart until I read back the words that I have written. Writing tells me how I feel.

It has been a complicated three or so weeks for our family. I don't really know where to start, because so much has transpired while my blog stood here silently waiting for words to once again fill the empty spaces. We tried a week of living separate lives - with Jim and Habi down here living with his parents, so that Habi could attend school and Jim could work crazy hours at Sweet Frog, and with the littles and I back at home juggling therapies, homeschooling, and keeping the house show-ready. It didn't work. Jim and I have always functioned best together. I know military families all over this country are separated, and I know they make it work, but we just are not wired that way. We all need each other. I had crying babies on my end missing their daddy and big brother, and Jim had a sullen teenage boy on his end missing having his family, who he fought so long and hard to have, together. It just wasn't working. So we threw things in bags and laundry baskets, and Jim drove up to sweep us all down to be together. We thought it might be temporary, and that I would go home for a few days out of every week. But it became abundantly clear, that more than ever, we needed each other. So we are here, until God moves us on.

Meanwhile, in the midst of transitioning living down here with Jim's (very gracious and welcoming) parents, Jamesy snuck out of the house and ran away - again. He managed to escape a house with four adults, a teenager, and two children, and nobody saw him do it. He is sneaky and he is fast. As soon as we realized he was missing, we all took off on a wild race around the neighborhood. Thank God we found him a few houses down the street with a neighbor. Unfortunately, we did not find him before the police were called on us - again. So, as we sat down to dinner, still shaky from the events but thankful that Jamesy was safe with us, the doorbell rang, and a police officer entered to question us. I was immediately a puddle of tears, not believing that this was happening to us again (last summer, Jamesy snuck out of our house, and Jim and I were under a CPS investigation, which was eventually cleared, but which left us very nervous and jaded about the system). BUT GOD was in it all. The police officer ended up being a fellow believer who had just finished taking a special needs training course. He told Jim that prior to going to that course, he had not realized what a flight-risk children with Autism are. He understood what happened, and he was so kind and gracious, and we were thankfully not reported to CPS. We now have a deadbolt on the front door, and are even more vigilant than we were before. It is exhausting. I broke down to my mom-in-law that night and cried that I needed a break, and that I just cannot watch him 24/7. And I can't. BUT GOD is here in this. There is so much that exhausts me about our precious Jamesy, there are so many thoughts and words that never get put on this screen. Because he is my son, and I carry so, so much guilt....guilt that was nailed to the cross. But everyday I need Jesus to take it away. However, the amazing, wonderful thing about all of this, about us living here, about Jamesy running away, is that there are two more people in the world who understand what life with Jamesy is like. We have felt so alone and misunderstood for so long, and now Jim's parents get it, and we are finding solidarity in this journey, and that makes me weep. To be understood and known is what we all desire.

And if that was not enough, Jim lost his job. His new job. I think I need to choose my words carefully here, so as not to slander a fellow brother-in Christ - Jim's former boss. Things were rough from the beginning, but  the owner was building a brand new Sweet Frog store - his first, so we chocked it up to stress and Jim tolerated a lot. He worked long, hard hours. He trained hard, and he poured himself into learning how to manage the store and how to take care of the product - including how to manage the frozen yogurt, clean the machines, run the software, etc. He poured so much of himself into that job, that he began neglecting Mercy Branch - our new church plant. We whispered to each other in the night, knowing that God brought us here specifically for Mercy Branch, and yet it seemed we were only giving ourselves to the Sunday part of it - a far cry from what God had laid on our heart. We thought it would get better when the store was officially opened and Jim's hours were more set. However, soon it became clear that the verbal assaults and unrealistic expectations were not going to cease. Jim felt defeated and worn, and then last Friday he was let go. The owner was looking for someone who could give more hours and who had a restaurant management degree. In the end Jim was dealt with fairly in the leaving, but we are still in a tough spot - no insurance, little money, uncertainty about the future. I am struggling with bitterness. Jim, however, has more clarity and maturity. He believes that God gave him the Sweet Frog job as a security blanket to actually makes us leave our church in Norwich. We had talked and prayed about it for so, so long, but had not made any action step. We were nervous. God has changed so much of our lives these past three years, yet we still cling to certain securities and are only willing to risk certain things. {cringe} We are human - we fight our flesh just as much as the next person. We are so ordinary and frail. So God, knowing this, gave Jim Sweet Frog, setting it up to look like the perfect job to give us the security we needed to leave and allow us to plant the church of our dreams. And with that in our pocket we walked away from our church with stars in our eyes, ready for our new adventure. And then this - Jim loses that security. And now we realize what it truly was - just a bridge to get us to leave and move us to action. What this means for the future - we do not know. But we have eight weeks where Jim will be getting small paychecks to figure it out. So we are going to fast and pray and seek God's face in this.We are vacillating between a few options for income. Mercy Branch continues to flourish - slowly, steadily, and God is so inside of it. We now have more intentional time to invest into it, and that alone is a gift.

So this is where we sit today - waiting for our home to sell, jobless, no health insurance, and still in the honeymoon phase with our new church. And God sits here with us. We said from the very beginning that we knew without a doubt that God was asking us to move here and plant this church, but we also said that He did not give us the guarantee that this would work - only that we were to follow Him. Little did we know how quickly the job part of the equation would not work out. But we are together, life is already simpler - Habi walks home from school everyday, as we live about 3 blocks away now, Jamesy is speaking in phrases (our favorite that brings us all to giggles is "Hey, knock it off!") in just this short time here with less crazy busyness, and the children are happy - really happy . Jim and I have more time together than we have had in a few years, and we are having beautiful breakthroughs with Habi, and more time to enjoy each other as a family. We have taken more walks these past few weeks than we have taken in a year. Cadi and Scotty have made fast friends with the backyard neighbors and are often found in their yard during the afternoon. My heart is happy to hear their giggles.

Jim and I are pouring through the book of Luke, and we are learning so very much about the posture of our Jesus. He was such a renegade! As I read the stuff that He did, and how He was accused of being a drunk and a party animal and a friend of sinners, because of His lifestyle, I am so struck by how the churches I come from would react to Him today. A lot of the stuff I was taught before is being questioned as we read this book with fresh eyes. I am desperate to get rid of the Pharisaical practices that permeated so much of my church experiences. It is exciting. It is freeing. So here we are, together in this adventure, following Jesus, trusting Him inside of the chaos. And He is truly right here.

.And Yet I Write.

[source]

It ebbs and flows through us all. It is a part of us. None of us can escape it, and we all love a good one. It's the link from the beginning of time, and we all live it every single day - a story. Each of us is inside one, and our one connects with his one and her one and the ultimate One. We are all story tellers, proclaiming our story with paint, with pencil, with a keyboard, with lips, with life, with the stage, with a podium, in front of a classroom, in front of our children, in churches, backyards, grocery stores, and songs. Our story is ever-changing, growing, developing, and maturing. We were born to tell our story, because the broken pieces of our story are exactly what He uses to make His story known.

For almost eight years now, I have used blogging as the biggest medium to story tell. I am discovering how many different pages I have turned in these eight years. I have been broken, side-tracked, stretched, redeemed, wronged and wrong. Looking back, some of the conclusions that I came to in telling my story, would be very different today if I were to write it again. However, we all proclaim what we know, and we tell the story from the perspective we have in that moment. We are all in a process of change. Life is not static. We cannot live out our story, and come out on the other side the exact same character as we were when we entered the story. It's not possible.

There is power in a story, but sometimes it is intimidating and exhausting to tell it. Sometimes we feel as if we are competing with all of the stories around us, and they can be so loud and so very good. Sometimes ours seems weak and unworthy, and we wonder if our voice should even be inserted into the noise. Because sometimes our voice changes, and the story that we told so boldly and so surely before has changed. So why bother, if we are only going to continue to grow in our understanding and perspective of life? Somedays I want to call it quits, and find another medium, because this one collects the changes too easy and stacks them up and makes me squirm at the me of yesterday. Did I really believe that and write that? I don't even remember those words or feelings or opinions. And yet they are all weaved into my story, and without them my story wouldn't be authentic. 

His grace redeems every broken bit of this story, every changed idea and thought, and He uses this tiny offering to mesh with someone elses story. I have seen it over and over and over. So, on the days when I want to shut the laptop, perhaps I do, and recently I have, but maybe I don't, and maybe in the broken, messed up parts of this story - when I write too certainly and heavily - maybe just maybe His mercy shrouds it and buffers it. Because I have seen these words here, ones that now I may cringe at and may not ever remember feeling so passionate about, fill up an empty place inside of  someone else. I have seen God use my inadequacies, in telling this story, in ways that only He ever could.

Every time I step away from this space, take a deep breath, reevaluate if this matters, I am gently nudged back. Every single time He brings me back, and whispers write. Just write, with all of your heart, soul, and mind. Write from your heart and from your now. Because I want to be perfected in all of Your weaknesses. Splay yourself open and write out your soul, because it is there where redemption in the brokenness will be seen. It is there where I will be seen. It's your story, and it matters, because I am writing it. I am the one changing it - and changing you. 

So, I just write. My fingers fly, my heart races. It is exhilarating  It is what I am meant to do. I was created to share in words written down and bled out on a page or a screen. They are not the most beautiful or the best. Someone else does this better. Sometimes I am sure, and sometimes I am shaky. Sometimes the story changes, and sometimes pages need to be ripped out. And yet, I write, because this is mine to share. These words are a part of me and and a part of this moment.

This is my offering, my worship, my heart.