My mom is amazing!

my mom is a professional potter and she is building a studio

go to the link to help out. thank you!

Raise Money for Green Apple Studio Launch | YouCaring.

Her Dream Come True

Every year my crazy big family gets together for a weekend and then we go to a water park or something. This year was Noah’s ark and it was hot and wet and fun. A big group of cousins were standing in line for our first slide and they are all loud and cracking jokes and full of excited energy just to be together even though it was the fourth day! I was at the back of the group and there was this little girl who slowly got closer and closer to the group. She even passed me to see what all the fun loud people were doing. She had a curious unaware pure spirit that if you judge too fast seems intrusive and a little in your space. I could tell she was a character so I asked her what other rides she had been on so far. She paused and looked confused for a moment and then told me she didn’t know. She turned and walked away so I thought our interaction was over. But a few minutes later she came right up to me and said that her dad didn’t know either. 🙂 I started chatting with her and I felt like Anne Shirley finding a kindred spirit. As the line crept up to the slide stair by stair our conversation lapsed.

“I was adopted.” she stated matter-of-factly. “My mom couldn’t have a baby in her tummy so I was her dream come true.”

I smiled and said that I’m sure she was her mom’s dream come true. I couldn’t believe that she had found me. Such a sweet, bold, innocent child.

“Are you a mom?”

“No, not yet.” I said.

“Well, do you know how to take care of kids?” she asked.

“Yeah, I was a nanny, and I’ve spent a lot of time learning how to take care of kids.” I smilingly assured her.

“Because not everyone knows how to take care of kids.” she replied soberly.

How did she find me?! To just announce the simple things she did, I felt like God had given me this moment with this little girl. She had completely made my day. My heart had been coming alive to adoption in the last few weeks and here is this little girl telling me how she was her mom’s dream come true. It was so sweet and unexpected. The whole rest of the day I was silently hoping and praying that I would run into them again and get to tell the parents that their daughter made my day. At the end of the day I got to do just that. We were heading back to our family’s pavilion and who is coming around the corner, but the little girl and her whole family. She walked right up to me and put her little hand in mine like old friends and asked me if the path we were on lead to the wave pool. God had answered my prayer. As I explained how their daughter had made my day, I told them all she had said and that we are thinking of adopting ourselves. They told me that they adopted all three of their children through the foster system.

It was so sweet the way she trusted me and put her hand right into mine. And it was a small miracle that they walked by us in a park of hundreds of people. I felt like I was given a small yet overwhelming gift. A true moment with someone who said the thing I needed to hear. I don’t have an exact plan in place for what we will do next on our journey to become parents but I have always wanted to adopt. Before I knew I would face infertility. So at this point I’m just listening and learning and reading as much as I can about it. It can take a long time, so I want to get started with a real plan soon. I just know that sweet hand in mine opened something in my heart that I had closed off for a while.

What I’m Learning

Only you can know how long you should keep going on your fertility journey. Give yourself permission to feel what you feel and take time to take care of yourself. It’s ok to not be ok with this tragedy. It truly is a life crisis and even though you can have faith in God you learn how to trust him little by little with experience. I believe He is relational and gives grace for the moment we are in right now. And not an appeasing tolerating grace a warm understanding embracing grace that loves and permissions us to just be and breathe.

I am learning so much about God through this infertility process.

Here are some things that I’ve found ring true to me in this:

You can only trust God to the extent that you know his Love for you. And trust takes a leap of faith at the start. It also isn’t a given thing we should just have automatically. God is relational. Always. On this earth with each other trust takes time and experience. It takes testing and history. The same is true with trusting God. And that doesn’t freak him out at all. He created relationships, He is relational. He isn’t freaked just because we are. His love isn’t insecure either. He doesn’t need anything from me or you, He loves us. It’s not possessive like our relationships and our ideas of love can be. He doesn’t want to control me He loves me. How many times have I tried to change my husband “because I love him”? Ha! When I let go of that and trust and just love him he changes the most anyway. I realize I have been living out a possessive love not an open free true kind of love.

I’m also learning that there isn’t any fear about the future when you are so secure that you are loved. Grounded in Gods love. God help me to understand your love for me. Help me receive it.

You learn so much about love and family through this. By having to face the question
“Do I want a biological child or do I want to parent?”
And for me it wasn’t so clear-cut.
Adoption has been in my heart for a long long time. I just thought I’d experience pregnancy as well. Not being able to become pregnant without Gods help used to seem hopeless, but now that I’m not as focused on what I can’t do for myself. I see it as a huge opportunity for Him to be the one who grows love in my heart for the children he blesses me with. I’m excited to live out the family kingdom come on earth. Love expand and challenge my heart. I’m not afraid of being devastated by love lost anymore. The “what ifs” have calmed and I am exited to love like I was made to love. This is my gift this is my blessing. This is my heritage and will be my legacy: to love,  and invite people into my family. Being that family is how I will live out heaven on earth.
Thy Kingdom Come.

Ready, Steady…

Art.
Not for itself, but for you.
Creator and observer,
its breath hits us all.
It whispers new vision,
so we write our revisions.
Longing to reach some tale of glory,
we risk it all.
But reality likes to replace hope with fear.
Even if your aim is clear
you have to be ready, steady, my dear.
Don’t let it destroy us.
Make way before us!
Never forget that Love is here.

The Pursuit of Motherhood

The Pursuit of Motherhood.
the ups and downs
the waiting
the unknown obstacles
the fear of inadequacy
the preparation

The normal desires to be excited about having your genetic child come into the world- new and with all the blessing of being 100% yours. A new creation, a miracle. A prayer answered, a promise kept.

But I don’t let my heart wander too far into that space. I temper my old fantasies of carrying a new life inside of me- feeling so proud and full of anticipation to know this person fully- of nursing and bonding and using all the knowledge I’ve worked so hard to build about child rearing.

When adults asked me that loaded question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
My answer wasn’t swayed by ballerinas or princesses. I knew then more than I know now-
That “I want to sing and be a mom!”

Just to sing and love my children like my mom and dad sang to, and loved me.
Then as a young adult my parents became my teachers- sharing their long wisdom of love, God, and my value in this world. Sitting in the direct blessing if their love, their lives- made me want to give what I’ve been given-

The simple truth that love wants to reproduce and grow makes me feel like someone’s blasted a hole right through my chest. It burns and aches like a reoccurring condition without a cure.

Will you be faithful to complete a good work in me God? Will you fulfill your promise? Will you comfort me in my pain? Will you? Will you-

I’m reminded “A thankful heart prepares the way for you my God.”
So I remember-
And I try to be content
but it aches just the same.

the fight for authenticity

last year i realized that i was hanging onto the idea that if i am who i am fully and freely then i will hurt

people because there is just something so invasive and over the top about who i am that i need to suppress..it took me a long time to be ready to see that i was even thinking that.. and once i could say it out loud

“if i am who i am i will intrinsically hurt people”

i could see it for the lie it is and reject it. i was ready.

i have to fight with myself still- from filtering myself. Just doing what i think others want or expect from me-

but now that i know that this is the battle i am in, i can fight. i can fight for more freedom and authenticity.

if you are who you are, what could happen?

It aches much the same

Infertility is like losing a loved one.

Your longing to see that person hurts and you grieve them over years just like a loss.

Wanting to see their face and hear their voice- it aches much the same. Its like missing a member of your family.

The only difference is that all hope is not lost. You reopen this aching idea -with uncertain potential for change- over and over again- even if you’ve given up.

You know it’s not over.

It lives with you as long as you do.