Don't Reject the Significant for the Sensational

We've added a fourth child to our family since I last wrote in July, hence the reason I haven't written.

Life with four little ones under five is fantastic and challenging and insane and a dream come true. However, I haven't figured out how to "do it all," nor do I intend to. So a good number of things, like writing, move to the back burner while I press in here and focus on the items high on my priority list. 

To have the opportunity to raise our little blend of biological, adopted, and currently fostered children (a true coming-together of several hopes and passions) is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and my commitment to running this stretch of my race well only intensifies with time. 

Of course, I fall short of "well" every day, and occasionally hide in a locked bathroom. My days are far from glamorous. But glamor is for the birds. Give me fortitude and perseverance and patience. 

My husband and I have a mantra: Don't reject the significant for the sensational. 

When days (or nights) are spent on this work that feels tiresome, repetitive, meaningless, and totally unnoticed, there's this unique opportunity to see a gift. There is great value and beauty in the humble and small things in this life. 

And of course, the real truth is that the work of raising tiny humans to grow into kind, brave, compassionate, thoughtful, engaged adults (Lord-willing) is not at all a small thing. It's not menial work below an education level or pay-grade.

As I write, heated times are escalating in our Nation. Yet I believe hate is combated when we each steward well that which is entrusted to us by promoting and exemplifying love. I am committed to dedicating significant effort towards raising children who pursue compassion, look for the needy, sit with the hurting, live generously, and default to seeing others' worth.

And if those lessons begin with my example before them- in the changing of diapers, rocking away tears, listening empathetically to fears, apologizing when I'm wrong, welcoming folks into our home, and serving up yet another meal- then I commit to persevering with constant prayers for strength, finding the joy that is promised in the midst of it all.

I will no doubt look back on this season as an exhausting and rigorous one, yet one so uniquely full of beauty, depth, and growth. I may feel like I daily reach 'empty,' but the Lord is always, always faithful to sustain me, fill me, and strengthen me again.

A Startling New Christmas This Year

Something unexpected continues to give me pause as we care for our foster son. It's his vulnerable dependency. Like any newborn, he's dependent on us to sustain his very life. This responsibility on our part  has felt weighty and joyous and full of privilege.

Even when I think back to the first time our stories intersected, his has been marked by helplessness and dependency.

I saw our foster agency's name on my phone and I felt a surge of nerves.

"There's a newborn at the hospital. He's been in the NICU and they are ready to discharge him. They're looking for a family. That's all I really know right now."

She mentioned a few more details about his situation and condition.

"Ok, yes. That sounds good. We'd love to."

Heart racing.

"Alright, I will let CPS know you're interested and I'll call you back if it's approved."

I called my husband immediately to let him know. So many emotions accompany this journey.

We started listing all the things we needed to do to prepare.

I called a handful of friends nearby who had offered various baby items should we receive a call about a baby. My sister in another city posted a request for items on a Facebook group and within hours had tons of generous responses, people offering everything from bottles to beds.

The next 24 hours were a blur as we had caseworkers through our home and friends providing all kinds of help. We ran to grab diapers and groceries.

When you receive a referral call for a foster child, you likely only get about 5% of the information that will later come to light about their situation. It's not that information is hidden, just unknown. Nothing is simple. There are lots of questions and few answers.

30 hours later I found myself walking alone into a hospital, empty carseat in hand. I made my way to the NICU and was directed over to a back corner. 

And there he was. A real human life, living and breathing. He had overcome so much already and he didn't even have a clue about all that was ahead. 

He just lay there, completely dependent on other's for his care and well-being, for his very life.

The next several hours were filled with a frenzy of information. I fought really hard to hold back tears several times at the overwhelming nature of it all. Stress tears, not joy tears.

Some strange things happened that night and we had to come back the next day to get him instead. 

We carried him out into the light of day for the first time. We fastened him into the car and drove him home. 

I sat in the backseat staring into his little face. My heart ached for him. He was depending on us now for everything.

It's been a fun and festive Christmas season though almost nothing has gone according to plan. We had all our Advent activities set out on the table but actually only read it about four times. I didn't get around to Christmas cards, and I wish I spent more time on gift purchasing.

But somehow my mind has still settled in on this: baby Jesus -- a baby whose dependency was a chosen path of humility in order that we might understand the Kingdom of God.

As I've reflected on our foster son's dependency, it has really hit me. Jesus' decent to earth as a baby? It's radical. It's counter-intuitive. It's a startlingly humble move.

It's startling because this King, this Ruler chose a weak and dependent form.

And it's startling because we can take on this same posture -- humble and dependent, completely at rest in the arms of the One who loves us.

This year, no matter if we've been the Martha Stewart of Christmas, or whether we've failed at everything we had hoped to accomplish, there is such reassurance, rest, and peace in this baby's staggering dependency. 

A humble descent is what Jesus chose, and humble dependency is where we can lay it all down this Christmas.

I’m taking a few minutes to really read this in full, taking in the picture of humility:

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

— Philippians 2:3-11 ESV

Merry Christmas, friends.

May humility be our prayer, our act of worship, and our gift to others this beautiful season.

NYC: A Tale of Two Cities

The little street near the hospital where our first son was born.

The little street we lived on for 4 years, home to our first son.

A couple weekends ago I pulled a small suitcase through a New York airport terminal headed towards the bus stop. It was a surprisingly familiar feeling after two years away from the city. I was thrilled with the chance to meet Kristian for a quick 48 hour trip after he had been there all week for work. 

I dragged my stuff on to the city bus and found a place to stand, leaving "personal space" at the door. There wasn't a soul in sight who looked like me, which would have made me very uncomfortable eight years ago.

But during our years in New York there were many transitions of the heart that had made the uncomfortable natural, and good. I learned that the further I stretched the borders of my comfort zone, the broader the radius became.

The over-stuffed bus bumped along through Queens toward the iconic NYC skyline. As cabs whizzed by from the airport I remembered how tourists and transient residents, myself included, often had an impression of the city based on the best stuff available. Many never see how most of the population really lives, which is drastically different from the quaint scenes of You've Got Mail.

Nonetheless, the idyllic city scenes were available and for the weekend Kristian and I had the chance to enjoy a few.

It can be a gift to revisit pieces of our stories, the geographical narratives of life that have shaped us.

Our five years in NYC were some of the most significant of our marriage. We formed life-long friendships, experienced new cultures, and even brought home our first son. 

One of the most defining parts of this chapter was the way God transformed our perception of the poor and needy.

It began with a need to form our responses for the dozens of homeless people we would pass each day. No longer were we behind locked car doors, but face to face. I watched and learned from my husband who fearlessly and humbly began meeting needs all around him. 

After the first year we moved into a neighborhood that stretched my comfort zone further than it ever had been. There were many tears. But this was a pivotal piece in our journey and it changed us. 

We gained new perspective, new insight, and new compassion. The girls experiencing hardship who I counseled at a pregnancy center in midtown Manhattan also lived in the projects one block from me. 

We brought our first baby home in snowy January to that tiny apartment. Friends and strangers lived with us the majority of the time. Big life choices were made within those walls.

We lived 20 blocks from New York's wealthiest, and a few blocks from some of the poorest. The disparity was shocking, even when relived everyday on the walk home from work.

We enjoyed much of the beauty New York had to offer - a picturesque cafe here and there, walks and picnics in Central Park on Saturdays, and that glorious New York pizza. 

I had dreamed of living in NYC since I was 13 and so much about living there was a dream come true. 

But I love the way God takes some of our dreams and lovingly redirects them. 

With time, our goals postured towards the American Dream took on a different shape. We felt free to dream not only for our own family, but on behalf of others. Our clenched fists grasping self-made security started to loosen, and the beauty of relying on God's provision was captivating. 

Our old subway stop.

View from our apartment

This past weekend as we strolled back through our old neighborhood, memories came like a flood...

The laundry-mat where Kristian washed our clothes for years.

The hill where I slipped in the rain and still have a deep scar to remember it.

The sidewalk where I saw a woman hitting her daughter. I was shaking, but I did little to help.

Now vacated, the delightful Italian restaurant where we found out the gender of our baby over a delicious pasta dish.

The staircase where we interacted with a desperate girl for years who was caught in a drug-filled, abusive relationship. We offered assistance and comfort but it was never received. 

And we also enjoyed the more well-known hot spots, basically eating our way up the island with all sorts of tasty treats. We explored our favorite old streets and even toured the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The MET was hosting an incredible French photography exhibit. A roomful of newly recovered images of Paris from the mid-1800's is kind of my dream come true. 

There was one shot in particular that moved me. During this period in Paris, masses of the working poor were forced out of the inner city and into these shanty towns on the city's edge. So while the world saw dazzling development, the more authentic picture was this:

Top of the rue Champlain (View to the Right) (20th arrondissement), 1877–1878 (source)
Musée Carnavalet, Paris
Image © Charles Marville / Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet

"The photograph conveys what one author claimed in 1870, that Paris was in essence two cities 'quite different and hostile: the city of luxury, surrounded, besieged by the city of misery.' ” (source)

And while I will always love the hypnotizing beauty of New York City, with all the opportunity it offers to many, I can't escape the importance of viewing it through a realistic lens. And I think this is the case with any story. 

The lovely and unlovely alike make up the complete, authentic picture.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to have lived and worked in that beautiful place with its contagious energy.

And I'm thankful for a chapter in our story which is marked by eyes opened to the realities of the city, and consequently the realities of the world.