MY HOME

There's a place where people from all over the world gather together to learn.  They all spend their Summers the same.  Purchasing the same books, reading the same summer reading list, preparing for a full year.  They all spend their school years the same, too.  There are papers and assignments and final exams and tests and more books to read.  And every Tuesday and Thursday, or Monday and Wednesday, or Wednesday and Friday, they meet in the same place.

But this school is not like the usual.

It's over the internet.

You can go to class in your pajamas with your hair looking insane.  You can wake up four minutes before class and not be late (I don't speak from experience at all).  You can listen to music during your final exams and discuss theology in a classroom while someone four thousand miles away does the same.  It is literally the most awesome experience I have ever had the opportunity to have.  To be part of this school is one of my proudest things to tell people.  To be part of this school means I get pushed and challenged to a level I didn't think I could go.  To be part of this school has taught me to have a better work ethic.  To be part of this school has taught me to glorify God in everything.  To be part of this school has taught me to love harder than I thought I could.

The only way you get to know your classmates is to read whatever they choose to put on their profiles. There's a tiny photograph of them, their names and their location.  But that's all you get.  You have to push and learn and be intentional and love.  But that's been one of my most favorite things of this school.  The ability to get to know a person in such a unique way.

I gotta admit, I had no idea I'd be such close friends with some of these people.  Like the ones you look at for the first time and are like, woah, you're weird (you know who you are).  Things change when you push yourself and don't judge.  Nothing's felt quite as right to me as to sit down with these people I spend 360 days chatting with over the internet and looking at through a screen.  To hug them and hear their laugh and watch their faces.  To laugh out loud and not have to tell them you're laughing.

I love this school.  It is part of me, part of who I am.  It is some of what has helped to make me me.  It is what feels like home.

It sucks to spend 5 days with your best friends face to face when you spend 360 over the internet.  It really really sucks.  It's not natural to train yourself to live without the people you love most.  But it has to be done.  And I am learning everyday that there is a purpose to this.  One day it will all make sense.

& one day it will all work out.

I am holding onto that.

I love you all.  So much.  I miss you more than words can say.  Thank you for who you are.  Tears <3 p="">

(We are the cutest people on the planet, Olivia.  I already know)

I don't have to type hahahaha to laugh!  yay :) How it's supposed to be.

<3 p="">

The best Omnibus teacher there ever was!  

<3 p="">

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I WANT TO LOVE LIKE THAT

Growing up in a Christian home has always left me hanging on for that "transformation" you feel like you don't get.

I'm not sure what I mean here exactly, but it's those moments where you feel like if you had to tell your testimony to someone it wouldn't sound all that meaningful or life-changing.

When I was 6, I "prayed the prayer" on my living room floor with my mom and brother.  It wasn't what I sort of wish it was.  There were no tears, no strong convictions, I was just ready.  I had gone to church since I was 2 weeks old, spent years singing Jesus Loves Me in Sunday school, and I always knew that I was a "Christian."

But when you hit your teens you start to feel as if it wasn't real.  Not that you've been brainwashed, but that in your heart you haven't fully accepted what it means to be a true follower of Jesus Christ.

It seems as if when people come to Christ later on in life, they have these life-changing and convicting testimonies that make you cry.  They are hit hard with what Jesus did for them and what they've done to not deserve what they get.  And when you grow up your entire life being a Christian, it's hard to make the transition to following Jesus.

It was the Summer of 2009 in Africa when that seed was planted.  When my idea of a "Christian" was changed.  And then it began to grow a bit a year later when our family did foster care.  And, the moment the seed blossomed into one of the most beautiful things, adoption hit me straight in the face.

I couldn't escape it.

Never in my life had I been presented to the fact that I had been adopted.  I'm sure I heard about it, but it never hit me so hard in my life.

People say all the time that things change your life.  But no, this altered the way that I live.  I will never again think of being a Christian or following Jesus or loving like Jesus ever again.

And tonight, I felt it again.

Watching a birthmother hold her baby for the very last time with the woman she chose to be the momma to her baby standing over her as she cried.

It's a vision I will never forget.

And then all at once she has to go, and she hands her baby to her new momma and she says through tears "I'm so excited for you."  And you think of the baby, the precious child that she carried for 280 days, and the way her life is being altered.  And her new brothers and her new sisters waiting at home for their new baby sibling.  And it's all overwhelming Jesus love that you just can't get over it.

When you hit your teens being a Christian your whole life, you search for the tangibile parts of Jesus' love.  You'll either drop your faith or something substantial will go on in your heart and you'll never doubt His love again.

For me, it is this vision.

The picture of a woman holding her baby for the very last time.  The picture of the baby's new mother with her arm around her.  It's the words "I don't want to but I choose it anyways."  And it's the thought of a man nailed to a cross bearing my sins sealing my adoption for ever and ever amen.

I just can't get over that picture.  I lived fifteen years before I felt this love so tangibly.  I grew up singing about it and I knew I was supposed to believe it.  But when you hit the age where you choose for yourself, you see Love differently.

I am transformed.

I am chosen.

I am adopted.

& someone chose the hard thing for me when I didn't deserve it.

& I live today because of the sacrifice made for me so long ago.

I want to love like that.  I want to abandon my desires and love with surrender.

Lord, teach me to love like a birthmother.

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THOUGHTS FROM 30,000 FEET IN THE AIR

Thoughts from 30,000 feet in the air, wrote in my Notes app on my phone.

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Why did God allow us to create planes all those years ago?

I think it's because He wants us to stand in awe of the beauty He creates.

When we watch a sunset unfold from above the clouds, or lightning erupt from the point of view of God.

It all makes me stop breathing for a moment.  The way He creates and the way He creates for us and our pleasure.  It doesn't seem like the God of our every second in life wants us to partake in and enjoy His creation.

And what about tears?

Why did God create those?

I have to believe it's not just so that we can show emotion.  I think it's so that He can carry our pain.  We humans, we're tangible people.  We like to touch things and know things and see the proof to things or it's not worth our time.  And we're made in His image.  I have to believe that that is one of those things He wants us to know to be true.  These things like tears and flying.  They are tangible things.  He understands our need for tangibility, and He gives it to us freely.  He wants it to be real for Him, too.

Before He created the world He saw us in a metal tube flying above the clouds.  He saw us soar and He watched our eyes as we stood in awe.  And in case we had any bit of doubt in our hearts it was cancelled out with our eyes.  Because when we humble ourselves and take ourselves out of reality for a few hours we see the realness of life.  We see His beauty.  And we see the world in a new way.

And because of His tangible love seen through opening our eyes to His creation, we meet the face of God.  We see Him in the clouds and in the sky.  I look down and see the tininess of the cars and the people and I realize my little life isn't as big as I think it is.  It's this little tiny square that has no meaning until He says it does.  And when it has meaning?  When He creates the value in it?

Life is beautiful.

Because He gathers our tears that fall from our eyes and He stores them in a bottle and He holds them close to His heart.  And He chooses to walk with us and grieve with us and still love us.  Even when we screw it all up.  Even when we hurt.  He makes our grief worth it.

And when there are 10 bottles of tears there are 10,000 bottles of grace.

"You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?"

Psalm 56:8

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WHEN GOD MAKES YOU FEEL IT AGAIN

This week, my mom took a part-time job.

This is the first time my mom has ever worked.  And when we first heard about it, I knew it was the perfect thing, for all of us.

She works with the adoption agency we used to bring Trey home.  With birthmothers.  Taking them to doctor's appointments, the store, to fun things.  She'll be there to drive them to the hospital when they're in labor.  She'll be there when they sign away their rights.  Trust me, I know, SO perfect, right?

Well, talk about the feelings in all of this.

Yesterday, she delivered profiles to the birthmother she's working with right now.

(Profiles are the books adoptive families put together with pictures and words... basically, an introduction to who you are.  They're presented to birthmothers and they choose their adoptive family from there)

They sat in my house for a few hours before she left with them, and I looked through them.

I saw myself in those photos.

I heard my family's stories in those pages.

I felt their unmistakable yes.

I felt it.  Because I've lived it.

There were at least 20 birthmoms we said yes to in our little journey about a year and a half ago.  At least.  We lost count.  But each time, we got emails, we got phone calls.  You get the feeling it's your potential baby, so you say yes.  When you say yes, your profile goes into the stack with the other 5-20 profiles.  & then you wait.  It could be a few hours, it could be a few days.  But either way, there's this little baby, growing inside their momma.  It's not a number.  It's a human life that matters and has a purpose and is loved.  Each time we got the call "Sorry, she chose someone else" was like a stab to the heart.  No, really, you don't understand until you've been through it.  Months of saying yes, to months of hearing no's.  It's terrible and beautiful at the same time.  But, every day we heard no was another day we said "Think of the family rejoicing right now because God said yes!!"

So today, this beautiful birthmother chose a family.

And I couldn't help but think of two sides.

Tonight a family is going to get a call saying a birthmother chose them to potentially parent her child.  And this weekend is going to be one of the most exciting ones ever.  This weekend they're going to go out and buy clothes and get the funds together and wait.  And they're going to rejoice because God said yes to part 1.

But then there are the other families.  The ones God said no to.  And I see myself in their positions.  Because I know what it's like.  I know how it feels.  But yet tonight they will hear the words I'm sure they've heard too many times before.  "Sorry, she chose someone else."

I know both sides.  I've heard no far too many times, and I heard yes twice.  The first was a long sequence of events that turned into a no.  So we waited again.  And, finally, God said yes again.  And He did this because the story of how we got to Trey Malachi is one of the most special things ever.  So when I say I know both sides, I do.  And I know that God chose this job for my mom for the perfect reason.  And part of that is to live in awe of what happens in adoption every single day.  Maybe it's also because God wants us to feel it again.  Feel all of it.  The good emotions, the bad emotions.  The way life is chosen and the overwhelming understanding of the words, "She didn't choose you."  The way it feels to look at this woman that just gave up her whole life, for you.  The way it feels to hear the words "She signed" because she loved her child that much.  The way it feels to receive a gift.  My mom gets to watch all of this firsthand.  And I get to hear about it.  I've lived it once, but God wants us to feel it again.  God wants us to remember what it feels like.  What Love feels like.  The Jesus-stuff love we get everyday is displayed for me to see tangibly.  Through a birthmother's love.

This part of adoption.  Woah.  What an altogether tragic and beautiful thing.  There are losses all around.  The things this woman is going through.  The way she's choosing what she's choosing.  I am in awe.  Complete awe.

Guys!!!!!!  I am SO in love with adoption.  All sides.  At all times.

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A SPONTANEOUS TRIP TO THE DESERT

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WHAT I TOOK AWAY FROM THE STUCK DOCUMENTARY

Last night, I watched the Stuck Documentary.  I highly recommend it.  But be prepared, it literally will break your heart.  This is what I took away from it.

1. "Man made orphanages for children, but God made the family for children."

I couldn't think of a better way to put it then to quote one one of the best books, Orphan Justice. I'm just going to be brutally honest.

We need to stop building orphanages. We need to stop funding orphanages. We need to stop patting ourselves on the back because we wrote a check for X amount of money to that orphanage your church built in Africa. Because it's doing the exact opposite of what God wants.

Yes, orphanages are amazing places. They provide safe places with food and a bed for children that don't have that otherwise. But too many Christians think we are doing this amazing thing by building yet another orphanage, not realizing the damage we are creating when we continue to do that. It's not helping, it's actually making the problem worse. Yes, there is definitely a place for orphanages, and we need a few of them. But celebrating the fact that we just built another orphanage, the fact that we just provided a place for at least one hundred kids to live probably permanently because the government is corrupt and/or because there are no families stepping forward is not okay.

We should be celebrating the closing of an orphanage because all of the children are placed in families. We should be pushing people to adopt these children, not pushing them to build an Institution. It is ridiculous that the body of Christ funds these Institutions while these kids sit in ruins waiting for someone to love them. We are not helping anyone in building more orphanages, we are only making the problem worse.

2. We can get more than half of the kids in orphanages back to their birth families.

In the documentary, they interviewed a woman who left her son in an orphanage when he was two days old. When asked why she placed her son there, she said it was because she couldn't feed another child.

Did you read that right? She placed her son in an orphanage because she didn't have the means to feed another child.

I am confident that that is not the only child who was placed in an Institution for that reason. And I am also confident that something better can be done about it.

Why don't we teach this woman how to grow/find food? Why don't we sponsor her and give her food? If we actually want to build God's Kingdom, the answer is not one more orphanage. When they are not double orphans (meaning both parents are dead), there is no reason why children should be in orphanages. Especially for reasons such as the lack of food. Can you imagine if we told this woman that we would provide her with a lifetime of food and her son? Can you imagine telling her son that he doesn't have to wait to be loved anymore, his mother got a second chance?

3. Christians aren't doing their jobs. At all.

It's a bit ridiculous to think of all the children that are literally living in ruins as we live here in our comfortable lives living extravagantly. They're sitting in darkness while we choose luxury.

And that's all I'll say about that.

4. It is proven that early institutionalization damages brain development.

Charles Nelson was interviewed and brought up a super interesting point about the effects of early institutionalization to the brain. You can read the article HERE. It's worth the read.

It's a horrible thing.  Especially when I think of all the orphanages that are being built, thought to be great places.  And it's not okay with me, and shouldn't be with anyone.

"Babies develop rapidly in response to environment during their first months. Living in an environment devoid of stimulation can lead to developmental delays in a variety of areas. "

Countless issues are brought up... psychiatric problems... reactive attachment disorder... physically stunted... the list goes on.  and on.  and on.

And it's ridiculous, friends!!  It makes me so mad!!  

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Please don't get me wrong.  I understand the orphanage's place, and I know that they're beautiful things for children, and I know that many children don't have issues because of this.  But I know that we can be doing more, and we can stop jumping to conclusions.  I know that orphanages are needed and necessary parts of the system, but I also know that placing kids in families is way more important than building another place for them to go because of tangible needs that can be met for their birthparents (i.e. food, water, etc).  I know that God is in control, and I know that His will will always be done, but that doesn't make me stop.  And I will be part of this story one day.  You heard it here first.  xo

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