A New Year, and our new life

Hello, my lovely friends!  Happy New Year!

I suspect you've probably figured out by now that we took a bit of an... ahem... extended absence from the blogging process.

Along with the bells and whistles of 2017, I can now fill you in a bit about why.  There are so many details here that don't belong to me, of which I'll have to leave you in mystery, so forgive me in advance but it is only partly my story to tell.

The short and simple?

We are now a family of six!  And... a half... but I'll get to that later.

The short story is that my 14 year old cousin lost his mom, my aunt, about five years ago.  At the end of April, his daddy passed away as well.  I got on a plane to Washington on May 1st, and one week later came home with Jacob, a suitcase and a box which comprised all of his earthly belongings.  In August, we adopted him, and everybody lived happily ever after.

That's the version of events that everybody seems to want to hear.  The story that ties up neatly with a pretty little bow.

One of the things I have greatly missed about blogging is the ability to pour out my heart, to ponder, to put my struggles and experiences into words.  But I'm quickly learning two things.  One: teenagers.  They don't like it when you talk about them (weird, right?).  And two: people really like this neat and tidy little story.  It looks so good on paper.  A sad story, to be sure, but one that has a happy ending.

The truth, though, is that it isn't an ending at all.  The simple story misses all the details that make up the everyday moments of the lives we're all in the process of re-building.

Hard details.

Painful details.

The simple story keeps all the complexities and trauma and adjustments and painful endings that nobody ever wanted in a safe, unexpressed little bubble.  It ignores the fact that we are all in the midst of forging an entirely new normal that looks nothing - for him, for us, for anybody - the way life looked as the new year dawned in 2016.

But, it looks good on a Christmas card, and that is as much as most people are interested in.

Which is okay, really.

There have been so many victories, which I am convinced God prepared for us beforehand.  The fingerprints of divinity have been upon us from the very beginning.

We've discovered that safe and tidy and acceptable are not the way God usually operates.  He goes for the impossible, the unbelievable.  

The reality is that it was an act of total and utter obedience, without any understanding of what the path before us looked like or how in the world it could be accomplished; how the broken pieces could ever be put back together.

We simply stepped out in faith and made the next right choice.  And the next one after that.

All my worries and arguments are continually met with Scriptures about relying on His strength and not my own.  Scriptures that declare that God has a plan for our good, and that He wastes nothing.

Every failure and every victory, it is all in His hands.  He takes our measly fish and loaves and multiplies them into something altogether wondrous, and so much bigger than we could have imagined.

So that's where our story begins in 2017.  It has not been an easy journey, nor are we done yet on that front.  But really, really BIG things are happening in our home.  

I haven't quite figured out the balance of what I can share here in this space and what needs to remain private, nor have I figured out how to clear enough room to make time for writing as a priority.  But I do hope that I will be able to post more this year than last.

Especially because...

....well, let's just say there will be more to celebrate in 2017.

Happy New Year to you, my friends.  I pray that you are blessed even through life's challenges!

This is the really good stuff.

I've been thinking a lot about seasons.

I know that, even as I write this, I am in the midst of life's greatest season of transformation: motherhood.  Still, I am amazed at how very much I have already been transformed in nearly five short years.  I have come such a long way from that season of shiny, timid new motherhood. 

When Leah was just a few days old, we attempted her very first bath at home in our bathroom sink.  

There she was.  Our tiny, seven pound sweetheart in the bath we had painstakingly prepared for her, complete with thermometer to ensure that the water was the perfect temperature.  Sweet thing that she was, she did wonderfully in the bath!

And then, it came time to pull her out.   All ready to receive her was the adorable pink Pooh bathrobe that a sweet friend had given us for our baby shower.  The one I had lovingly selected while registering, dreaming of the day I'd have a tiny body to wrap in that little robe.  We pulled her out of that perfectly heated water...

...and discovered that it is really, really difficult to navigate a tiny pink robe with a wiggly, screaming baby who resents being wet and cold.  She resisted it.  Her arm got stuck.  Her tiny legs throbbed and kicked.  I couldn't seem to get her warm or dry enough.  

And then her little lips began to turn blue, and I was convinced I'd killed her.  Given her hypothermia.  I cried and sobbed along with her.  I was supposed to be her mother, yet I had found a way to mess up her very first bath at home.  Surely, this was evidence of my failings as a mother.  I must be awful!

It's okay, Mama.  Just breathe.  

I sweat every decision.  Agonized over every call.

Read each choice as an opportunity to fail and destroy my new daughter's life.  

Whew.  

That's some kind of pressure to put on myself.  

I vividly remember feeling a kinship to this song and wondering if I was wise enough and good enough and smart enough to deserve the opportunity to have my heart's greatest desire.  

Still... through the doubt, through the worry, through the hard, I will forever remember that first year of Leah's life as one of the sweetest, most tender and wonderful of mine.  I was so happy to be her mommy!

Seasons. 

Now, as I reflect on motherhood nearly five years later... oh how much has changed.  I thought being a first time mommy was hard.  Then we welcomed Logan, and I was so overwhelmed.  

We had the new house, the new baby who never slept, the perfectionist mother who couldn't divide her time well and the physical recovery.  Oh my. 

Seasons.  

Thankfully sometimes, they do not last forever.  

I learned.  I grew.  I got better.  The juggling got - not easier, but more familiar.  More doable.  The joy and beauty of it all returned.  

Casey is gone this month.  All month.  On the heels of being gone pretty much since September.  

I won't lie to you and tell you that everything is sunshine and roses here all the time.  There are three small children and no reinforcements, which often makes for one worn out, weary Mom.  There is laughter and arguing and hugs and time outs and school and high-fives and tears and tickles... but the one thing there is not is a mother who measures and finds herself lacking.  Where once I shed tears, certain that God must sigh and roll His eyes at all my faults, I am now sure that He looks at me and says, "Well done, my good and faithful child."  

It's not because I'm perfect.  Because... well, I'm so far from perfect we don't even have time to discuss it. 

It's because I see what I didn't before: The beauty of this motherhood gig isn't in perfection.  The beauty of motherhood lies in the choices we make in the midst of imperfection.  

I don't have it all together.  I never will.  There will never be enough of me to be perfect all the time.  But where I once saw that as failing, I now see it as opportunity for me to play my role, and to let God play His.  

His calling isn't for my perfection.  His calling isn't that I raise perfect children.  His calling is for me to make my life my offering, and let Him fill in the places I can't reach. 

Having three is my favorite season.  

I am better.  I am gentler.  More patient and compassionate.  More ready to go first and disciple my children.  

Why?  Because to mother three little ones, I can no longer lean on me.  I must lean on God.  And somehow, as I lean in to God to be refreshed, to gain wisdom and strength and be reminded of my need for grace, as I give Him my heart, I am better equipped to win my children's hearts in love and understanding.  

I don't need to be perfect, because I can rest in the assurance that when I follow after Him, God sees my efforts.  And He wastes nothing.  

This, right now?  This is the really good stuff.