Blogging For Hope...

I said a couple of weeks ago that I would do a post from time to time about those who are raising funds to raise hope...

My cousin and her husband will be leaving for China soon to adopt their 2nd child and today they did a Both Hands project for a widow in their community...  You can read about it here, Stitching To China.  Would you consider making a small donation to them?  Even $5 from 20 people adds up to $100 pretty quickly...  You can click here to make a donation...  Both Hands  Once you're on the page, you have to scroll down to November 20 and look for Brook and Stefanie.

I also wanted to tell you about a dear friend's daughter who is taking on the impossible...  She actually tells the story far better than I can, so I encourage you to read her words at Ghana Rock.  But this is an amazing young woman who felt the nudging of God and stepped out in utter faith and obedience...  I can't wait to see what God will do through her!  She is 16 years old and is taking on planning a concert to raise funds for an orphanage in Ghana...  I'm 45 years old and wouldn't have a clue where to begin to do something like that and yet she steps out in faith believing God for the impossible!  It's an inspiring story!

And just a quick update...  I'm so close to opening my web boutique for my jewelry!  I'm in the process of uploading my inventory, so hopefully in another week I'll be posting the first items...

Blessings!

Some Days I Wish I Were My Dog!

Today was one of those days...  I'm sure most of you can relate to this but today I have worn more hats than should ever be reasonably expected of one person, no wonder my brain feels like mush and I don't want to cook dinner!

As I think through my day...  I have been President of my Jewelry Company, lead designer, photographer, VP of Marketing, CFO, Accounting Specialist, Purchasing Agent, Inventory Specialist, Taxi Driver, Gas Station Attendant, Reading Specialist, Soccer Team Uniform organizer and distributor, team photographer, trouble shooter, listener, work-out mama, menu planner, master scheduler for not one, but 5 people and now I'm supposed to cook dinner and sort photos for the high school slideshow and to top it all off I need to be a maid and laundress...  REALLY?!


Well, this taxi driver is about to drive her children to Chick-Fil-A and let them be the cook, and if the cleaning and laundry fairies don't come by, then I'll have just have to have a messy house with dirty laundry...  Oh Well!

And we wonder why we're tired!

I caught this photo of our dog this morning when I was photographing jewelry for the website...  Right now, it would definitely be nice to be my dog!!

I'm Just Not Ready!

In some ways, this post will seem completely absurd, but it's been building for a year or so and I'm just going to lay it out there...  I'm just not ready to think of Zack, our oldest, graduating from high school!

Tonight ended Zack's junior year soccer season and with it came the resounding reality that I only have one more high school soccer season left...  It leaves me wondering, will the next 18 months be measured by 'one mores' and then 'lasts?'


Somehow I think the answer to that question is a definite yes...  

I can't imagine what life will be like when he is not a daily part of it...  When he doesn't call me to ask me when I'm coming to the soccer game because somehow he's missed packing his game jersey?  Or, have I seen his shin guards because he can't find them!  (Oh yeah, sorry Zack, I borrowed them the other night and forgot to put them back... NOT)  Don't tell him, but I will miss all of this terribly!

I can't imagine a fall or spring without terrible refs...    Soccer games...  Impossible schedules...  Freezing cold and rain...  We've watched him play soccer since he was 4, it almost becomes a part of who you know yourself to be!

It is a gift to watch our children grown into adults and while I am thrilled that he is becoming the man we long for him to be, I'm just not ready!

I think the best use of my current (and slightly unreasonable heartache) is to remember to savor each moment!  I will never get back the days that lay ahead, I pray that I will savor each one with no regrets!

New T-Shirt

I'm so excited, my new Show Hope t-shirt is here!!  I bought it  from Lori at Joy Unspeakable (she's selling them as a fundraiser to bring their 3rd adopted child home!)  It's a GREAT shirt, in fact, I'm wearing it right now!!  Stop by her blog and check it out...  

Blogging For Hope...

Hi...  I thought since I was designing jewelry for hope, I could start blogging for hope too...  From time to time, if you have a fund raiser that you're doing to raise money to adopt your precious child, please let me know and I'll post a link to it...

Here are three that I know of right now... (Just click on the words in red and it will take you right to their site!)

Kirstin and her husband are adopting from Ethiopia.  I first met Rob on a trip to Africa, last November, he was one of the lead pastors and he is a full time youth pastor.  This summer I was blessed to meet his wife on the August trip!    She sews the cutest things and is selling them to help fund their adoption...  She's got some really fun things, great gift ideas!!  Here is a link to her store...Journey to Africa

A great give-away over at Suzanne's blog!  One Less Broken Heart

And Lori is selling an awesome Show Hope t-shirt from Steven and Mary Beth Chapman's organization, a portion of the proceeds go to Lori and her family's adoption...   Joy Unspeakable  Now that I've lost some weight, I'm heading over to her website right now to order one!


Please leave me a comment if you would like me to post a link to your fundraiser...  If I have enough, I'll try and do it once a week, or if I don't have new ones, maybe I'll just keep reminding you about the ones I do know of!

What better way to bring hope to a child than by helping unite them with their forever family?!

Savoring the Moment

savor - v. "to give oneself to the enjoyment of..."

Last week was not a banner week... In the greater scheme of things, nothing too serious was happening, but some times life just piles on and it feels overwhelming...  Like the current invasion of a mouse, or maybe mice, in our kitchen and laundry room ... 

So on Friday, I had a few minutes and I thought some Marshall's therapy might help (not very spiritual I know)...

Since March, I have lost 25 pounds and I've been working out regularly, so every once in a while, it's fun to go and see how clothes look on my newly emerging figure...

I tried on a few things, but just wasn't in the mood to buy, so I decided to wander around for a few minutes...  As I was wandering, a woman walked passed me with a stroller and even though I couldn't see the child, he was just chattering away to himself with those sweet baby noises...

We passed going in opposite directions, but then ended up on the same aisle...  And her sweet child just contentedly kept making his little noises...  I almost didn't say anything, after all, even the south isn't always the friendliest place to strike up conversation with a stranger...  But after arguing with myself for a minute, I walked up to her and said, "Those are the sweetest noises I've heard in a long time."

She looked puzzled for a minute and then she said, "Oh my goodness, I had completely tuned them out."  We talked for a minute, I told her that my oldest was 17 now and that the years flew by and I encouraged her to savor these moments...  As she walked off, she looked back at me and said, "Thank you."

Such a simple little thing that made a difference in a person's day...  It took me completely by surprise.  It's sad to me how we get so busy with our lives, so focused on our task that we don't take the time to speak into people's lives, I am so guilty of that...  But it also made me wonder, how much of my own children's lives have I just tuned out?

I've been reading Mary Beth Chapman's new book, Choosing To See, and it's wonderful!  It has made me realize that I need to be so careful to savor life instead of just gulping it down and barely experiencing it, especially where my husband and children are concerned.

Funny, but one of the greatest blessings that has come out of my new jewelry business is that I sit still, for hours sometime, in one place.  I have had some of the most wonderful conversations with our kids, Mackenzie especially..  And I'm so thankful that God found a way to slow me down for a season and relish the grown people that our children are becoming...  They're pretty amazing and I don't want to miss another second of their journey to adulthood...

Is there someone you need to savor a moment with today?

A Great Man Passed By...

It's funny, on sad days, the things that leave lasting impressions on your heart...  When my grandfather Pop died, it was a young State Trooper who pulled over at an old grocery store, removed his hat and waited for the funeral procession to pass...  12 years later, I can still see that young man standing by the side of the road, with his hat held over his heart.  I wish I knew who he was so I could thank him for honoring my grandfather in such a humble way.

And then on Tuesday, just a little over 12 years later, it was the honor and respect of strangers, on the side of the road that grabbed my heart...  My uncle, my grandfather's best friend, went home to be with Jesus and I will never forget the images of so many cars pulled over or the picture of a father, holding the hand of his young son in their front yard, waiting as another great man passed by...

I know these people didn't know who was passing, but if they had, they would have been glad they took the time to show respect and honor for a grieving family today...

I have been blessed in my life, to have my heart touched by some amazing men, but my grandfather and my uncle are unrivaled with the legacy of faith they have left behind for all who knew them... 

These two men loved Jesus with all of their hearts and that love overflowed on everyone who knew them...  They both breathed the Spirit of Jesus into the air, everywhere they went...  There is no telling how many lives were impacted, maybe even completely transformed, because they made Jesus so very real...

One of the most special things that my aunt and uncle always did for me is that they would come to see us, when we were in town...  They didn't wait for us to come to their house, they were so graciously understanding of how hard it was to get around to see everyone and they made a point to see us...  I will never forget, when we brought Abby home and I went to see my grandmother, they made a point to come and meet the newest member of our family...  They loved her before she ever arrived and that love overflowed onto her that sweet afternoon..

I have so many great memories of times spent with my aunt and uncle...  Trips to the beach and to the mountains...  Sweet conversations about our faith...  Christmases and Thanksgivings...  Easters...  Weddings...  Births...and even Funerals...  Summer afternoons on their screened porch on an old metal glider...  There are so many memories that flash across my heart as I think about my aunt and uncle...  My life has been so blessed by an amazing family...so full of laughter and smiles...  grace and unconditional love...

Uncle F...  I will miss you SO much... Thank you for all of your prayers for me and my family...  For sweet talks and lots of smiles and hugs...  But most of all, thank you for the imprint that you left on my heart...  The imprint of the love of Jesus...  I hope you're having peaches and watermelon with Pop and Jesus right now!

Just Because We Love...

First, let me apologize for just disappearing from the blog world again.  Teaching Revelation in Community Bible Study has been consuming, add that to life and keeping up with my blog has been impossible.  But I couldn't let today slide by and not tell you what happened...

I mentioned a while back that I had met a principle from a middle school in a very low income area, not too far from my home.  Since I don't believe in coincidences, I started watching for how God might lead me to work with her, or at her school in the future.  At first, I wasn't very open to the idea...  This is hard for me to confess, but I had this really messed up notion that just because the school was in a low income area, it might not be safe.

But God did a number on my heart about that when I went to the garbage dump in Africa.  I felt so judgmental about the pastors who wouldn't go to the dump because they felt it wasn't safe, but then I was quickly convicted of my own shallow attitude and I resolved to contact the principle when I returned home.

So now I've been there a few times and in the last couple of weeks, I've started reading with a couple of the students.  It's funny, what I do seems so small and yet they treat me like I've donated a million dollars...  They are so humble and so appreciative of EVERYTHING!!

I LOVE the people I've met at this school.  I have no idea what their beliefs are, but they LOVE these children...  It is so obvious...  And to see how they talk about the ones that have some behavioral challenges (in such a grace-filled way), they clearly love them unconditionally.  It is just such a blessing to be around these men and women!!

Well, I guess because some of the staff are starting to recognize me and realize that I'm around to stay for a while, today they started asking questions, not in a rude way, just curious...  Where are you from?  Why are you here?  Which group are you with?  When I tried to explain that I wasn't with a group, they looked at me like I didn't understand what they were asking and they started suggesting groups I might be with.

After the second or third time this happened, I realized that they aren't used to seeing people who don't have a 'reason' to be there.  They're not a project I'm working on,  I'm not getting any community service hours, I'm not with a local university and my boss hasn't sent me...  I'm just there because I followed my heart...  God's leading.

Now, I'm not being critical at all of people who go for the other reasons, I've always been in that group before. But it just made me very sad that people expect service to come with an ulterior motive...  It made me sad that we don't do just because we love.

I feel like ulterior motives have defined far too much of my life...  It's so refreshing for a change to just do something because I love Jesus and He asked me to.  God really does bless us when we do the things He asks...  Not with stuff, but with things like the smile of a child...  It just doesn't get much better than that!

What A Day...

I don't want to go into all of the details of the day because it involves situations in other people's lives, but I'm starting to think you wouldn't want to be my friend right now, because I have so many friends,or their close family members, who are suffering, and I don't mean little stuff, but really big stuff, life and death kind of stuff...

And then today, someone very, very close to me had a scare too...  I can't begin to describe the stress level by the end of the day and yet, the peace was amazing.  At one point I felt so completely overwhelmed by circumstances and I just started praying and God gently reminded me that He is in control... I don't have to worry about the what-ifs, because He knows...It may seem uncertain to me, but NOTHING is uncertain for Him...

This study in Revelation has so increased my view of God, it is amazing what a difference it makes in the day to day happenings of life...

After I got all of my kids home from their various practices, meetings, etc., I decided we were going to dinner...  Scott is out of town tonight and this mom needed a break.  So we went to our favorite Mexican restaurant and we talked, we laughed and before I knew it, the tension in my body was gone...  I have the most AWESOME kids!  Thank you for the much needed laughter!!

By the time we got home, it was time for Abby to go to bed and I noticed that she had put her new pillow, that she just received in bed with her.  Yesterday, she received the most incredible gift from Scott's grandmother...  She took a picture, I guess from the blog and quilted it into a pillow!  Grandmother M...  What a treasure you gave her...  She so loves it!!  She wants me to make a picture of it so she can take it and show it to her teacher!

But we started talking about the photo... It was from Gotcha Day, but it was one of her early smiles, when her siblings had first gotten her to laugh and giggle...  I love the picture.  So as we were talking about it, I said, "Abby, you look so young in that picture, it's hard to believe it was only a year ago."  And she said, "But mommy, I was 5 in that picture."  I reminded her that no, she had to be 6 because she was 6 when we got her.

At that point she told me how confused she was...  She said, "Mommy, in China some people tell me I '4' and some tell me I '5'..."  And then she started telling me about the orphanage.  She has NEVER talked about the orphanage before... I was beginning to wonder if she even remembered.  She told me about some of the children... about a little child, she couldn't tell if the child was a boy or girl, who looked really weird and then she said,, "Mommy, I think they die...  I really scared."

At that point my heart broke, a nameless child, who never knew the love of a family had died alone in an orphanage.  And a very observant child, silently watching, with no one to explain what was happening, no one to reassure her...  I'm sure it was terrifying...  And I understand now why she talks so easily about death...  If anyone gets sick, one of her first questions is always, "Are they going to die?"  What all has this precious child seen?

Next she told me about a little girl who was so cute.  She described how she had a place on her face, probably some type of birth mark, or spot, but that it didn't matter, "she still so cute!"

And then she told me how they would cut her fingernails too short and how they would bleed...

I could have listened to her for hours...  But then she said, "Mommy, I tell you more tomorrow if you want."  (She's very serious about her bed time!)  I'm so thankful for the 2 hours I will have with her tomorrow and I'm even more thankful that she's finally comfortable enough to start telling me these stories, admitting her fears and hurts and uncertainties...  When you watch the process an older child goes through in adoption, you know for certain that God is still in the miracle and heart healing business...

Guess What Just Happened In My Kitchen?

So, you have to read yesterday's post for this to make any sense, but when we came home from church tonight, the boys noticed that the dishwasher needed cleaning out...  And, are you ready for this...drumroll please...  they did it together!!  Yep...you read that right...no I wasn't dreaming or hallucinating...they cleaned out the dishwasher TOGETHER!!

I know...it's only the first day...  And afterwards Zack said, "I really miss that job chart!"  But hey, it's a step!! And in the right direction too!!!

Life Lessons In The Kitchen...

I love our kitchen...  It's nice and open, it has a big island in it, many of our teachable moments are lived out in the kitchen.  We have a big table in the kitchen and it's where most of our family meals, and some great conversations, take place...

Some of my all time favorite conversations were what it means to be transformed instead of conformed...  When we were praying about adopting...  Creation vs. evolution...  What does it mean to do everything to the glory of God...  How to deal with a bully... I wish I had kept a journal of all of our topics...

The conversations have been fewer in the last year, but only because we didn't want Abby to feel left out, so we kept it to more topics that she could participate in...  But tonight was one of those great conversations...

It wasn't planned, they rarely are, but it started when something was mentioned about praying while cutting the grass...  And one of the kids said, "You mean you can pray when you are doing other things?"  After all these years, how did we miss making that clear?  It's funny though, I didn't learn that until I was well into my 30's...

Like our child, I always thought prayer was something you did a couple of times a day when you had a few minutes to sit down, center your thoughts on God and talk to Him...  It was all very formal...  I was embarrassed if I would accidentally burp when I was praying, I mean good grief, I'm before the King of Kings and I burp, how rude (seriously, I really thought that...  I seemed to forget that God created me to burp!)

But one day I read, Practicing His Presence by Frank Laubach and Brother Lawrence.  Brother Lawrence was a monk who lived a really long time ago, but wrote letters to his friends about trying to live moment by moment in the presence of God.  And then Frank Laubach is a present day missionary who tried to live out what Brother Lawrence wrote about and wrote letters to his father about his experiences.

It was through this book that I began to understand that prayer is really about constant communion with God...  It can happen anytime, anywhere and it is what we should strive for 24/7...  Prayer keeps us in humble dependence on God and in close connection with Him.  The book COMPLETELY changed the way I looked at prayer.

So tonight, we had an incredible conversation about prayer...  Hopefully our kids have learned what it took me over 30 years to learn...  That the proper posture of life is a posture of prayer.

But then things kind of went downhill from there...  Since the kids are old enough (well, Abby is still exempt from this) their responsibility is to clean up the kitchen after dinner.  But lately, every week or so, we've had a major discussion over "it's not my job."

It inevitably starts with someone who didn't do their job earlier in the day and things have piled up and it dissolves into grumbling, complaining, and whining about how it's not fair that I have to do their job.  Tonight, I decided to let Scott handle it and I just kept playing with Abby...  But I was listening...

As I listened to this conversation, something occurred to me...  Where is their sense of family?  Of team?  It's all about protecting their time...their effort... about not having to do more than another person...  making sure that everything is fair...

And then it occurred to me, we (Scott and I, but really me) created this selfishness with our stupid job chart.  Several years ago, I got the bright idea to create a revolving job chart...  I spent hours developing a job chart that cycled by week, making sure that everyone had a fair amount of responsibility in the house.  As the years passed, the work became more balanced as the kids grew older and could take on more.  On the surface, it sounds great...but what I realized tonight is that it has created a very selfish attitude in them...

There's no sense of "he/she has a busy week this week, let me help them out..."  All I hear is "But that was my job last week..."  Or having to negotiate, since____ is gone this week, you do the dishes and next week, ___ will take your turn (what... I'm the mother... I don't have to negotiate ANYTHING...just clean out the dishwasher for crying out loud...)  But this cursed job chart had created all of that...

Well the job chart came off the wall tonight and went into file 13...  The garbage can...  Gone with it... "But it's not my job"...  Excuses to not take initiative... Reasons to not support a brother or sister...  Now, I am not disillusioned into thinking the battle is over, but at least we are back on the road to learning what it means to be and live as a family...  I'm a slow learner, but thankfully God got through...  Amazing, I was listening for once instead of lecturing!

Children need to learn responsibility, but that has to be balanced with a sense of team...of helping each other...of laying down your life for someone else...even if it is just cleaning out the dishwasher for them...  It has to start somewhere...  And once it again, it began in our kitchen!  I would say it was a rather productive evening!

I Should Have Had More Chewing Gum...

I chew gum at most soccer games to remind me to control my tongue... The obnoxious parents who are always screaming at the refs drive me crazy and I just don't want to be one of them...

But my mom always said when I was growing up, "Be careful of what you're critical of in others... you have done it, are doing it or will do it."

Ugh...did that prove to be true yesterday...

Zack had a soccer game last night and it was intense. It was a very physical and the ref was so out of shape that he couldn't keep up with the speed of the game... He was always behind the plays and he missed way too much. I would say that both teams got away with stuff that they shouldn't have, but I think I can objectively say that the other team played really dirty. There were some fouls in the goal box that were just nasty but the ref was still too far down the field to see them...

You could see that things were headed down a dangerous path and sure enough, with just a few minutes left in the game, it got really bad... We were in their territory, it was tied and their player (who was twice the size of our player) was all over our guy and once again, the ref was too far behind the play to see what was going on...

As our guy went down, it looked like he reached and pulled the other player with him... And that's when it happened... Fists started flying... The other team's bench cleared... It was awful. Of course, as a mom I was watching and praying that Zack had enough sense to stay out of it... Thankfully, he did...

Funny how things happen though... Early on, 3 players had gone up for a ball and when 3 players came down (what goes up must always come down)... Zack was on the bottom of the pile...

Thankfully, even though they came down on his head and neck (yes, it scared me to death) it was only his shoulder that go hurt (and we think it's just a bad muscle strain), but for the rest of the game, he played with his arm pulled into his side... So when the fight broke out, he said he thought about getting involved for a minute, but realized that he would probably get clobbered since he could only use one arm... (See, God can use anything... Although, I still think he would have had sense enough to stay out of it...)

But afterwards, I screamed at the top of my lungs, "Ref...control the game." I was so angry... I entrust my child to the care of the refs every time he walks onto a field... It is their responsibility and the coaches, to watch the temper of the players and to keep things under a tight rein... This ref did not do that and he breached a sacred trust in my book... I understand that refereeing is a hard job, but if you take a paycheck for something, you are agreeing to do the best job you can... If that was his best, he needs to stop taking the paycheck...

Now please know, I am not in anyway absolving the players who got into the fight... They are just as responsible for their lack of self-control as the ref is for how he calls the game, but ultimately, the responsibility of a fight belongs to the referees... If he had been where he should have been, then he would have seen their player all over ours and would have blown his whistle and none of it would have ever happened...

I realize that what I yelled wasn't profane, but I think what is bothering me is the anger with which I yelled it... From the overflow of the heart come the words of the mouth... I think I'm deeply bothered that as a Christian, I didn't look any different than any non-Christian in that stand last night... In fact, maybe I looked (or sounded) worse...

"Whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God..." I can't say that I glorified God in any way last night and that is what has been eating at me since 4 a.m... I know my Heavenly Father forgives me, but what message have I left with the parents? I think I'm going to have to pray harder for more self control next time...and put more chewing gum in my mouth!

A First... (Update at bottom of post)

Well, it has finally happened, my first call from a coach... "Mrs. M., I have your son with me, he's fine, but he's broken his collar bone."

Football practice...diving for a pass...broken collar bone... Nick's concern... he had the ball in his hands, but the impact of the landing knocked it out... BOYS!! His first question to me... "Will you still let me play football after this?"

He knows I've always been a little afraid of football (really A LOT afraid) but as Zack has gotten further along in soccer, I've realized that any sport presents plenty of opportunities for injuries, so I know I can't protect them from everything... "Of course you can still play football..."

Zack, his older brother called me and had a couple of questions too... "Did he cry?" BOYS!! "Did he catch the ball?" Men are definitely from Mars!!

So we got to the Emergency Room...had an x-ray...and then the doctor comes in... You know it's a bad sign when the doctor (who's a guy) says, "Want to see your x-ray? It's impressive!" MEN!!

I'll say... His clavicle bone is broken into 3 pieces! The middle piece has dislodged itself and is angled down, out of alignment with the other two pieces... The doctor is also concerned about how the clavicle bone appears separated from the shoulder...could mean ligament damage...

So now we wait...our friend, Dr. D., who did my knee surgery, also does shoulders... We talked to him last night and he said 99% of the time he won't do surgery, but he'll have to look at the x-ray to know for sure... I'm so praying that Nick falls into the 99%... Not sure how that works with that piece of bone out of alignment, but that would be WONDERFUL news!

I'm just thankful that my first phone call was about a broken collar bone and not a head or neck injury... But wow, it's hard to watch your children suffer... Yep, there's a BIG spiritual parallel in that one... I think I'll save that for another day though...

Quick update...the bad news is that our Dr. told his nurse, "it's not just broken, it's shattered" ...the GREAT news is that he wants to treat conservatively and see what happens...that means no surgery for now... Please pray with us that God will cause it to heal correctly and Nick can avoid surgery! He sees him at his office in the morning...

Great news too because the girls and I have a flight tomorrow to go see Abby's older foster sister from China, she was adopted at the same time as she was! They were so close and her mom and I have developed a long distance friendship... We are so excited about going! It can be so hard sometimes being torn between the needs of your children...