Friday, June 17, 2011

Hard questions...harder answers

"Mommy, why does God make tornadoes?". Lucas has asked questions about forces of nature after evening prayer for the past three weeks wondering why God would let things like that happen. We were stuck in our bedroom closet on and off a few weeks ago because of tornado warnings so naturally, with his soft little heart, he got concerned. To top it off, we had also gone through a huge hurricane right before we moved here to the DFW area and that reminded him of it. Poor thing.  Personally, I love it because it gives me a chance to use my degree (heehee...), have really positive conversations with my boys and get in touch with where their precious little heads are. Lucas also asks lots of questions about my adoption. He knows that I'm adopted, knows my birthmother (his Meme) and naturally has questions about where I came from, how it all worked out and how I got here to be his mommy. Hard and complicated  questions. I will be there first person to admit that I don't have all the right answers. We do our best though and I guess what it comes down to is that there will always be hard questions and talking about them is better than not talking about them. I admit to the boys that I don't know everything (shocker, don't tell my husband) but if we talk and pray about things we can "find out together". Doing things together are always more interesting. I have to give props to my husband this post because Sunday is Father's Day. Without sounding cliche, I am blessed to have one of the most amazing husband's and father to our boys. He's kindness, patience and ability to juggle his family and work amazes me. Being one of three boys it will be very interesting seeing him with is little girl, covered in tutus, pears and tiny shoes. I'm sure he dreams about that every night like I do, NOT! Bottom line, I'm remembering our blessings this week. The boys, questions asked, questions answered, our lives in motion, our baby girl and the time we'll all share together in this short moment we call life.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

At a loss for words. Yes...it's me.

Words, I just can’t seem to find the right ones these days. I personally find words incredibly important and I try to use them carefully. They shape your character; build people up, cut you to the core and transform beauty into something tangible. One day, our daughter will read this blog and she’ll be able to hear our uncensored thoughts and prayers for her. Why she’s been in our hearts and dreams since the beginning, the love of her brothers and the hard work and courageousness of her birthmother. The Bible tells us in Proverbs 13:3 that “careful words make for a careful life”. How amazingly careful we need to be, not just with our words, but our actions.
Chris and I, as well as my sisters and a few friends, have been working on our “lifebook” that will be sent to the agency for birthmothers to look through. This will be their peek into our family’s life and their first experience with us as a family. Included in the lifebook is a letter, from us. A letter telling her why we should be her daughter’s parents. How do I do that? Normally, I can bust our songs, papers, blog posts pretty quickly and if it takes over 10 min or so they’re usually really bad. Unfortunately, every time I start the letter I get stuck at the same part, Dear “blank” Yup…that’s basically all I’ve got.  I just don’t have the words. It’s almost like I had them but when I begin to write, they start to disappear into the place that holds all of my sock matches. I know that one night, I’m sure at two in the morning, it’ll come to me and I’ll pop out of bed like I did in college writing songs, and grab my journal and pen and begin to write. So, for now, we’ll be praying for the right words. Careful words of encouragement, courage, health, promise and mostly love. I’d like to thank my friend Jen for sharing her “birthmother letter” with me today. It’s pretty special to read something so sincere, hopeful, uplifting and encouraging. I hope our letter expresses how careful we’ll be with our sweet daughter.