Imagine...

Imagine reciting “with liberty and justice for all” every morning for years, going on mission trips (foreign and domestic), supporting Voice of the Martyrs and praying for the persecuted Church…and then watching those who fled persecution, (including those who came here through LEGAL pathways) be rounded up from their places of employment, their churches, their homes, sometimes while their unsuspecting children are at school, placed in detention centers (sometimes across the country)…and then being accused of “hating America” or not caring about the law, just for advocating for these vulnerable people.

Imagine believing those who told you that the depravity, untruthfulness, and moral failings of Bill Clinton made him unfit for office only to see the SAME collection of voices rallying gladly behind a convicted felon, serial sexual predator, business conman, and proudly embodied antithesis of the fruit of the Spirit…claiming he is *the* option for Christians.

Imagine believing the pro-life movement when they advocated for the inherent value, dignity, and rights of the unborn because ALL humanity is created in the image of God, no matter its size, age, or location only to have those same people dehumanize their political opponents, those with different sexual ethics, and those who were born in different countries, even propagating ridiculous LIES about them (“they’re eating the pets of the people”), justifying their kidnapping and abuse, and buying or reposting pictures of merch that joke about their deaths or feeding them to alligators!

Imagine believing that integrity was a crucial attribute, not only for individuals, but for nations and peoples, only to watch your professing Christian leaders renege on treaties, appropriated funding and supplies (Ukraine aid, PEPFAR, USAID…including BURNING 500 TONS of food), alliances, and trade agreements.

Imagine believing that freedom was worth defending (and devoting your family’s whole life to actively supporting that with the military for over 20 years) only to see the Commander in Chief legitimize a dictator and war criminal repeatedly, while aggressively belittling the duly elected leader of a sovereign nation who has been fighting to protect his people’s freedom for YEARS…to see that nation blamed for a war that could stop at any time if the *aggressor* would stop attacking…and then to be told this all stems from the CiC’s great love for America and his value for human life.

Imagine pointing at all the ways non-Christians are perverting Scripture, but then being fine when the administration you voted for claims to be acting "under God" while doing things God tells us explicitly in His Word are abhorrent to Him. Imagine coopting a Bible passage calling a prophet to proclaim God's message to His people and applying it heretically to soldiers rounding up residents of our nation to detain them in prison camps. Further, imagine praising such commercials as "finally bringing God back to our government." (Facebook DHS Commercial)

Can you imagine all those things?? Because that’s my lived experience. Do you think I sound like I’m spun up or angry or cynical? Good, because I AM, because so many of the citizens of my true Kingdom are at best silent, and at worst in support of all this. Because “my people” have written me off and tried to gaslight me as a naive bleeding heart in a feeble attempt to assuage their own hypocrisy. Because their collective witness is impacting gospel opportunities negatively.

Shame.

Usually, I try to keep my critical posts focused on singular issues, supporting my position with source documents and clear evidence. Today, I share all of this to illustrate that my dismay, grief, and anger are broad and deep; I’m lonely and discouraged because the voices I’ve trusted my whole life are moving in a direction cannot—WILL NOT—follow; I’m begging you to listen and examine with me!

Immigration Meditations Through the Lens of Adoption

I’ve been reflecting praying and reading and praying and thinking and praying…
Most of you (all of you?) on here know at least pieces of the ways adoption has impacted, expanded, tested, and shaped our family. There are tensions whose magnitude I’d never considered until I saw them profoundly influencing the people I love most in all the world. Identity has become a much broader concept to me…more nuanced, but also with clearer definition. And because of the ways these concepts have been written and read in my own life, I now see their echoes in all kinds of other places. It has sharpened and expanded the Scriptural picture of what it means to be adopted into the family of God—where once I simply viewed it as a new creation story (which it also is), I find a greater appreciation of the choices and responsibilities undertaken in love, with cost, through loss, and the shaping of an identity in Christ that incorporates the broken past of a unique individual. The fractured bits of each of our stories don’t disappear when we are reborn; rather each shard functions two-fold to test us, strengthening our union with Christ AND exposing our idolatry of lesser loves.

I’ve recently been challenged by the growing resistance in my circles to kindness, compassion, and empathy…viewing it as a chink by which I’m in danger of being manipulated and taken advantage of, or worse, as a toxic evil that undermines my love for the risen Christ and exchanges it for a friendship with sin. It’s been bewildering and disorienting, as a child of the Church, to be swirling in such an environment. I see it plainly as one way the Church is being tempted to chase after a false gospel that equates the truth with rigidity, rigidity with clarity, and compassion with cloudiness. But Christ was full of both truth AND grace. As His disciples, we are called to both boldness AND gentleness. We are to run the race so as to win the prize AND exercise humility and patience (1 Cor. 9:19-27; Heb. 12:1-3, Matt. 5-7). Choosing love without telling the truth is either shallow or false; telling the truth without love is horrifying, divisive, and ugly; BOTH these partial truths are antithetical to the true Gospel.

Recently, I watched the new James Gunn “Superman” movie. 

***SPOILERS AHEAD***
***********************

In a podcast, I heard discussion around the main conflict of the story, an identity crisis of sorts for Superman. The movie takes place in a world where everyone has already accepted him, loves him, reveres him as a beacon of truth and justice, help and safety. When he’s wounded from fighting bad guys or needs to center himself, he goes to his Fortress of Solitude and watches a partial transmission from his birth parents, in which they seem to be encouraging him to bring hope to Earth and serve its people. However, when the entire transmission is recovered, it turns out that their actual message is encouraging him to subdue the earth, take a haram for himself, and recreate the glory of Krypton. Due to the public revelation of this true message, Superman is shaken and confused, and the inhabitants of Metropolis (and maybe the world) immediately recoil in horror, disgust, and a unified hatred against him. The world that he has worked to assimilate into rejects him and leaves him wondering who he is.

He retreats to Smallville, to Ma and Pa Kent, to his secure identity as Clark Kent, and in a scene that had me riveted in the theater, explores this crisis of identity with his dad, from his understanding of who his family is and how his history undergirds, but doesn’t dictate outright, who he is in his core. Jonathan and Martha Kent didn’t just take him in and allow him to assimilate into their family; they adopted him, loved him and accepted his love, rallied around him with help and support when he was weak, always offering confidence and assurance of their solidarity with him.

 

 

This struck me as having a broader application to immigration. (If you follow me on social media, that’s probably no surprise!)

Since our country’s inception (by which I mean 1776), immigration has been foundational. There is, to a point, a necessary assimilation…adherence to our laws, foundational customs, etc. But the great thing about our country is that it’s also worked reciprocally, where our society has welcomed and embraced things from other lands, too. All of us have relics from our ancestry…whether it’s the Germanesque comfort foods of the Midwest, Mexican food in the Southwest, or dying the Chicago River the green of the Irish. We have rejoiced with friends celebrating their daughters’ quinceaneras, Cinco de Mayo, Oktoberfest, St. Patrick’s Day. We’ve enjoyed learning from families celebrating Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa. I enjoy listening to music from other countries and cultures, and in a country as large as the United States, even different regions here have different prevailing musical styles, food styles, celebration styles, and cultural norms.

What makes our country great in regard to immigration is not just the opportunity available to them, and their willing and joyful embrace of our laws and ways of life, not only their assimilation into how we are, but also our expansion to embrace what they bring. The grafting together of benefits from all over is part of what has historically given us strength. It’s part of what the American ideal celebrates and calls us toward, even if we haven’t always handled it well.

We have well-recognized black spots on this fabric—slavery (followed by Jim Crow laws and segregation), the Chinese exclusion era of the late 1800s and early 1900s, the discrimination against Catholic Irish and Italian immigrants, the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, Mexican repatriation following the Great Depression, and of course, the horrendous treatment of indigenous peoples. So, given all of those things, why is it so hard for us to recognize these new policies for what they are: racist, dehumanizing, and unjust?? 

I’m far more concerned about the way empathy, kindness, and the recognition of basic human dignity are being sidelined than I am about the family playing mariachi music down the road. I’m tired of the lies (propaganda) being used to try to turn our majority population against minorities: “They’re eating the pets of the people” (there was never any evidence of this), “they’re violant rapists and murderers” (actually, statistically, violent criminals are 4x as likely to be American citizens), “they’re Venezuelan gang members, sent to invade us” (the numbers show it’s NOTHING like an invasion, and our law enforcement has been doing a good job of finding and prosecuting foreign AND domestic gang members—and deporting foreign lawbreakers when necessary.) 

Christians, we are supposed to be known by our LOVE, not by our suspicion, callousness, dishonesty, violence, or heartless mockery. Since 80% of professing believers voted for this administration, the watching world rightly attributes the insincerity, perfidy, and inhumanity to us and dismisses our gospel witness. If you’re not in favor of what’s happening, even if you voted for Trump, SAY AND DO SOMETHING! Silence isn’t neutral. Silence means you’re ok with what’s happening. Silence places you on the side of the oppressor.

We are the adoptive home of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Those who have violated civil law should be brought into compliance. Those who came and stayed legally and only lost their status due to the lack of integrity of our government should not face any consequences, and our policies should change to reflect what is right and just and compassionate. Families should not be separated unless there is a safety concern demonstrated through evidence. Human dignity should be preserved and considered as a top priority in all procedures. 

In the words of Mirage in The Incredibles, “Valuing life is not weakness […] and disregarding it is not strength.” 
"Valuing life is NOT weakness..."

The Fangs of Dang and Me

The children and I have been going through the Wingfeather Saga (Andrew Peterson) this summer, and I've bene enjoying it (possibly) even more than the kids. We are into the third book now, and there are pieces that strike me in ways similar to passages from the Chronicles of Narnia.

One that we came across recently is this: "Gnag bends things for breaking, and the Maker makes a flourish! Evil digs a pit, and the Maker makes a well! It is his way."

Glory.

It takes me back to the words of Joseph in Genesis 50: "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today." And also other passages.

The Romans 7 struggle fleshed out in Artham brought me to tears, and I was reminded in a fresh way of the boundless, relentless, pursuing grace of God...and of our (my) brokenness. This was also described in a vivid way: "Gnag has learned to change people. He's learned to take the essence of a snake and meld it with a man or woman to create something horrible. That's why there are Fangs."

And Fangs, we remember from Book 1, are exactly like people. They walk about and look exactly like us...except for their green scales, lizard-like snouts, long venomous fangs, etc. And the people were quite free...as long as they were doing exactly what the Fangs (and Gnag) required. And there was nothing to fear...except the cruel Fangs and the constant threat of torture and death...

So I wonder at the way WE were originally created...before we were melded with the snake and our hearts shriveled within us.

I marvel at the pit inside me that has been made a well. I lament that my inner Peet can still sometimes overpower and silence my inner Artham. I cringe at the way I sometimes see only glimmers of who I was created to be peeking out from behind the shadow of the Fang I can choose to become instead. And I long for the day that freedom will be complete--that although I'm freed from the power of Gnag over me and no longer have to serve him, I'm not yet rid of his presence.

One day I will be. Thanks be to the Maker.

Adoption (part 2)

 A lot of the specifics of our family's adoption experience are to private to share here, but some are an open book. The short end of it is that the situation with the biological family was not anything like what we were told in the beginning. We trusted the bio mama. As I told in Part 1, we tried to help her keep her kids and make a life for all of them together. She was not interested. Yet we still trusted what she said about the bio father and extended family members...until we started to learn differently. Mason and Brenton struggled with nightmares for the first couple of months. They had grown accustomed to having medication (either Melatonin or cough syrup/cold medicine) to fall asleep, so nights were a little rough for a while. At 9 and 10 1/2 years old, neither had ever been to school, and lacked the skills usually assessed for kindergarten readiness. They couldn't tie their shoes. They struggled to pay attention to anything that wasn't electronic entertainment, meal times were loud and dramatic because they hated everything I made. Lying was a major problem...at least for one of them. Even if I saw him with my own eyes and heard him with my own ears, even if I had VIDEO of him...he'd still deny any wrong doing. No amount of evidence mattered, because he could not admit it. 

A couple of weeks after their arrival, I asked Brenton, who was seemingly having the harder time with the transition and was the pickier eater, what his favorite foods were so that I could try to make some of them. Meal times were rough for him because he hated everything and gagged on it. He said he liked rice bowls with black beans and cheese. So I made a big pot of rice, another big pot of black beans, some taco meat, and set out cheese, shredded lettuce, salsa, sour cream, and some avocado...thinking everyone could build their own bowl. Well, he took one look at the beans and screamed, "THOSE ARE THE WRONG ONES! I HATE THOSE BEANS! I HATE EVERYTHING HERE!!!" Scott was nearby, and suggested that maybe he could build his bowl with other things that he did like. (The other kids just stared because I don't think they'd ever heard any child talk to me that way.) He agreed. And Scott said there would be dessert for anyone who finished their food. But then he gagged on it and sat through the rest of dinner, sulking. After coaxing and even trying to get him to just take a couple of bites so he could still have dessert (a negotiating tactic we'd never employed with our other children), Brenton still refused...so the only thing we could really do was excuse him from the table without dessert. He lost it and muttered that he hated everything here and hated us and then stomped upstairs. 

I know it wasn't personal...I knew it then. But I'd tried specially to make something he'd enjoy and utterly failed, and his words just pierced. I was physically and emotionally exhausted, and I just broke. I quietly gathered my dishes and the others closest to me from the table and busied myself in the kitchen while tears just silently dropped out of my eyeballs. Scott came in to offer some comfort, and I just cried on his shoulder. When I opened my eyes, I saw Brenton watching us and then quietly slip into the other room. So I dried my eyes as well as I could, and turned back around. Scott went back to the other kids in the dining room. 

After a minute or so, Brenton crept over beside me at the sink and said quietly, "I didn't mean it. I don't actually hate it here." I reached over and gave him a little side hug and said, "It's okay, honey. This is a hard thing. We'll figure it out together." He picked up the dish towel, dried dishes for me without a word until the other kids were done eating; then they all went outside. 

But that was a huge turning point! Things were different after that between me and Brenton, and he has never let on about hating a meal since then...even though I KNOW there have been some he really didn't care for! He's learned to try a lot of new foods, and he's discovered a lot of new things he likes. And he beams when he's praised for making healthy choices even when junky ones are available to him. 

Both boys weathered so, so much over that next year. I realized after a few weeks that I was over my head with how to get them remotely caught up on school. I was homeschooling Julia at the time, but it wasn't as though I could spend a year on each grade level with them. And how could we afford curriculum for multiple years? I reached out to our elementary school for help, and I'm not exaggerating when I say a whole community of help emerged! I continued to primarily keep them at home until August 2021, but the school kept me supplied with materials, game ideas, and support. In the meantime, we also taught them skills they'd missed along the way...basic chores, personal hygiene and care, tying their shoes. They learned how to fish in our backyard pond, we got cavities taken care of at the dentist, and began to figure out the extent of what was going on with Mason's arm. 

When we met the boys, he could not lift or move his left arm from the shoulder...at all. It caused him a great deal of pain, even if someone accidentally just bumped him. It was one more thing in the long list that had been overlooked or minimized by bio mom. After surgery, a bone graft, and now a year and a half (and counting) of intensive physical therapy, he now has nearly full range of motion and comparable strength to his other arm! All of that was a LOT of additional trauma for him (and honestly, for the rest of us too), but he is doing SO much better. 

We've been able to build relationships with some biological family members who genuinely love and care about the kids and are willing to place their well-being as a top priority. We've sadly had to end contact with other family members because they were compounding pain and trauma and were unable to place the children's well-being first. 

We continue to struggle with some attachment issues. No matter how many resources you read, no matter how many other families you know who have experienced it, nothing can really prepare you for the heartache of loving a child who cannot really love you back, at least not with the depth or empathy typical among family. It's an ongoing struggle not to respond to that pain by barricading my own heart, and I'm convinced it's only possible because the God who IS love (1 John 4:7) has given me His Spirit, and His Spirit enables me to love like He does. Some days, it feels like just choosing to execute actions that are loving: giving hugs, playful nudges, warm smiles, picking up a special rock that I think he'd like, grabbing his favorite snack while I'm at the store...even when the emotion feels fragile or like a vapor. Other days are easier. Some days, I let my guard all the way down and I'm vulnerable--I have yet to experience benefit from this, though. Somehow, it seems that my greatest attempts to reach him result in either a tale of a made-up experience in which his "real mom" did the same thing or something more magnificent, or an outright rejection/voiced longing for something different or more extravagant than what I could provide. It is HARD...but he is worth it. He deserves to be loved and taken care of and raised so that he has choices available to him for his future. Even if he rejects it all, he deserves the chance. I just have to remember that it's not about me...and in the (paraphrased) words of my friend, "if it didn't feel at least a little like dying, it wouldn't be the Gospel."

Just last week, we celebrated 2 years of having Mason and Brenton home with us. They have come SO far. WE have come so far! Adoption has irreversibly changed all of our lives, and some of it has been excruciatingly painful. Some of it continues to be. But there is so much beauty and joy in seeing God redeem and rebuild what was broken! I'm grateful and humbled to be a part of such a remarkable story...and a picture of what He worked internally in me, and in all who have been justified! I just need to keep my eyes tuned to see it.

Adoption (Part 1)

 Maybe a "flyover" of the last couple of years really IS the best way to try to jump back into writing without feeling like there's just this gigantic, unexplained gap. We'll try it.

Before Scott and I even met, I had some issues that doctors speculated was endometriosis. Although the pain and symptoms could be managed with birth control pills, there were questions surrounding whether I'd ever be able to conceive. At the time, that possibility was like a gut-punch, because I'd always wanted to be a mom...but over weeks and months, the Lord directed my gaze to the things that are essential for having a family, and the things that--while typical--are not essential. Once Scott and I became serious about our future together, this was a topic of conversation. We dreamed and planned, deciding that after getting married, he would finish his first 4-year enlistment in the Air Force, go to college, become a civilian pilot, and that I'd support us by teaching during that time. Once we were stable, he had a good job, we had a home, we'd see about having kids, and if it didn't work out biologically, we'd explore adoptive options. Simple, right?

Enter God's plan! 9/11 happened, which began a more regular and serious string of deployments within the military. Scott's first deployment was scheduled, with our planned wedding date falling right smack in the middle of it. We could have waited until he came back--October 2022...during which time we expected my brother to be in college and unable to just take off and come back to New Mexico for a wedding, and Scott's brother to be (I believe) in his senior year of high school, also not likely to be able to skip out for a random week in October. Instead, after talking to our parents, we decided we'd rather not wait and instead pushed our wedding date up to January 2022...the end of my Christmas break from college, right before my student teaching was to begin. It was a beautiful winter day.

Scott's deployment slot got changed, so he didn't leave in March as planned.

I found out I was pregnant in early April, and that changed ALL our plans.

We both wanted me to be able to stay home with our child, which meant Scott needed to have a job that could support us. Without a degree or established medical insurance, that left the military as our surest option...and the fact that I never wanted to be a military wife just had to get stuffed down for the well-being of our family. He re-enlisted, I sulked for a while over the loss of my dream to settle and put down deep roots, and I did my best to ignore all my fears relating to this new direction of our life.  Emily was born in November, and she was (and is) well worth those changed plans. What a beautiful way for God to direct us!

A few months after Emily, I found out I was pregnant again...despite our best efforts to "be responsible." Katy came. Adoption got pushed out of our minds. We had an ectopic pregnancy. Then we suffered an early miscarriage. Then came Ian. Then Collin. Then Julia in the midst of a deployment...at that time, my worst fear pertaining to military life aside from the normal fears of wives whose husbands are at war. Five kids in eight years. We were busy. And done.

Then we were sent to Europe for eight years. Who could have dreamed that there, in a tiny church out in the fens of England, we'd be reacquainted with our call--our command--to care for widows and orphans? But it was through a family who was pursuing their first international adoption that the Lord got our attention and convicted us that, busy or not, we HAD to act. We HAD to be a part of a bigger solution than just saying we were prolife, sending money to organizations that promoted adoption and fought against the evils of abortion, and debating with people about it on Facebook. Obedience requires action, love requires sacrifice. We purposed to get involved with foster care when our assignment in England was over and we returned to the States.

But we didn't return to the States. Instead, the Air Force sent us to Germany for four more years. By the time we'd return home, our Emily would be a senior in high school. How could our family be connected and whole and have strong relationships between fostered or adopted kiddos and our eldest with so little time? Maybe God's plan for our involvement would be different than we thought. Maybe we wouldn't adopt. Maybe we would provide respite. Who knew? But it was clear that we weren't done waiting.

We returned to the US in 2020, got moved into our house and semi-settled, and by September, we'd decided to start the process to get licensed for foster care...it was the clear first step. But by November, our kids were still struggling to acclimate to our new town, their schools, and life outside of any military community. (Scott had retired from the Air Force, effective that October.) No one here could relate to their lives, their experiences, their perspectives. It was (and in some ways still IS) our hardest moving transition of all. After talking with them, we decided we needed to halt the foster licensing process, at least temporarily, and we'd revisit it in a few months. But we never got that far.

In December 2020, a friend from years earlier who knew our hearts to help children and/or adopt, approached us about a young mom with six children who could not keep them. The family was breaking apart, the father wasn't in the picture; after nearly a year of searching for a home where all six kids could be together without any possibilities, this friend agreed to take (temporarily) the youngest two...then the next two youngest. But that took them up to 12 kids in their home (and 14 children total). The two eldest children in this struggling family, were being bounced around between temporary caregivers, but it was only a matter of time before the State would need to step in. Would we prayerfully consider whether they could have a permanent home with us?

Initially, we all thought no. I mean, we wanted to help, but how could we when our family was still transitioning? When our kids weren't solid and secure in our new home themselves? How could we offer love and stability to two more? What about the "baggage," because they were older than we'd really considered? What if our own struggles and trauma would prevent us from being able to address their struggles and trauma? What if we weren't enough??

But we agreed to pray. After a couple of days, Emily came to us with the profound realization that she'd been looking at how our lives would change if we said yes and they came to us...but then in her prayers, the question shifted: how will our lives (and theirs) be affected if we say no? They might be hurt (or worse.) They might be separated, lost from their younger four siblings forever. They might never know the love or permanency of a family. And for us--it's not like things would just be "normal." We could never go back to not knowing about them. We would always wonder if we could have, should have, done more. It shifted the way she, Katy, and Ian were praying, and it drastically altered their ultimate conclusion. Just a few days later, we said yes...admittedly not fully comprehending everything that might mean.  In the coming weeks, we had many conversations with this young mother. We explored so many options to try to help her keep her boys, and maybe be reunited with her younger kids too. There were programs, organizations, ministries, private homes/families local to her who had space and the desire to help. We found avenues for her to complete her education, receive training, be placed in a job. The short version is that she felt she had explored all these options already, over the course of years, and she was unwaveringly convinced that adoption was the only good option available for her and the kids. She wanted things to move quickly, which meant that, since we were in another state, getting guardianship was the fastest way to take custody and bring them home. Once their residency was established in OUR state, then we could petition for adoption. 

Scott and I flew out on March 22, 2021. We met them in person for the first time and took official custody on March 23rd, and we flew home with them on March 24th.