roots and branches

just thinking about the weather

2012-01-23T15:49:00.005-05:00

Some ambient music to begin this post: 10,000 Maniacs.

My son is obsessed with the weather. This morning, he asked me to turn on NPR so he could "hear the weather report." (I know. I'm going to have to buy him a sitting chair, some spectacles, and a pipe for his next birthday.) Most mornings, when the weather comes on, Israel suddenly perks up and, once it's over, he repeats back to me everything it just said. On good days, I get a replay of some other station's weather from a friend who really and truly just likes to call and talk about...the weather. We know the 5-day forecast around here.

Never missing an opportunity for some sort of lesson, I've been teaching Iz about the weather. Beginning when the leaves started to turn, we watched videos and talked about the tilt of the earth and how it makes seasons. We've learned that different places in the world have different seasons. We've learned that we have four seasons. (I just realized I'm including myself. "We." I already knew this, of course. He's the one learning. And maybe Eden, but she hasn't become involved in our discussions yet.) He's played computer games, putting leafless trees in the winter scene and green trees in the summer scene. He's dressed cartoon characters in seasonally-appropriate gear. He knows his stuff.

But this is a really bad year to try and teach your preschooler about seasonally-appropriate weather. We've had rain, thunderstorms, and 50-degree temps just like the rest of the midwest this year. (Of course this started to happen right after I explained to a friend who just moved here how much worse our winters are than winters a couple of states south.) So when we've been able to go work in the "garden" outside or put on just a T-shirt and hoodie before heading outdoors in the middle of winter, Israel has been thoroughly confused. There's been a bit of a progression in his understanding of what's going on.
It started on a sunny, warm, winter day:
"Is it summer?"
And continued on a mild, wet day, after a few wet days:
"Mom? What season is it going to be after the rainy season?"
And, on the day it thunderstormed and melted all the snow:
"This weather is CRAZY! It's winter! It shouldn't rain in the winter; it's apposed to SNOW."

I agree. (Maybe because he was largely repeating things he's heard me say.) I usually make fun of people who think Indiana weather (or Kentucky weather...or everywhere else's weather) is some sort of crazy anomaly. But THIS? This is the strangest weather I've seen yet. I haven't put much stock in predictions about the end of the world. But I think the Mayans might've been onto something. This just may be the end of our calendar as we know it.

And now, a closing song by R.E.M.

Back to helping my 4-year-old make sense of it all...or not.

2012-01-12T15:05:00.009-05:00

"[Abraham] is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed -- the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were."

Romans 4:17

God calls things that are not as though they were. He gives life to the dead.

"Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, 'So shall your offspring be.' Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead -- since he was about a hundred years old -- and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God."

Romans 4:18-20

Abraham believed and hoped against all hope.
Without weakening in his faith.
He looked the facts square in the face.
And he believed the promise of God, anyway.

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When Pat and I were officially NOT dating (that totally awkward time after we told each other we knew we were supposed to be married when he broke up with me and dated another girl...) I kind of hated thinking about the promise God had given me about Him. It just made me mad. It didn't line up with the facts. And I faced the fact of no relationship with Pat just about every day, since we studied together every day in a group of about 12. One day, at the end of class, he met me in a doorway, looked at me, and said, "Hope."

I could have killed him. How dare the one killing, or delaying, or preventing, or stepping all over the promise ever think he is in the right place to demand hope of me!

Still, it was the right thing to do. Even though it hurt. Especially coming from him. Hope. Not try and make it happen. Not figure out how to make it sound good on paper (or on a blog entry). Just hope and believe and wait in the face of the facts.

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This advent and Christmas season, my thoughts around Jesus were taken over with the story of my friend's little girl, Lia. I've never met her in person (since she lives far away), but I have known her through my friend's blogs (click to read it) since she was a newborn and Eden was kicking around in my belly. Lia has had a rough time from the start, with surgeries, lung problems, G-I problems, developmental anomalies, and all kinds of things no one understands going awry in her beautiful little body. I want for my friend's daughter everything I want for my own daughter and it is hard to see her robbed of her own health.

Lately, she has been losing weight and is losing many of the abilities she had worked so hard to gain, such as speech, walking, being alert, and eating. And no one knows why. What we don't say outright is that we are afraid she is just wasting away and will die without ever being given a fighting chance. Test after test yields no result and no diagnosis. It feels hopeless in terms of her longevity.

One night, I laid in bed crying and praying for her and I felt like God had something to say to me about the situation. It wasn't a promise that everything would be just as I'd like. It was a directive to pray believing that God CAN make everything just as I'd like. Not because it's important that God can do my will, but because it's important for me to recognize that I pray to the God who can do more than I can ask or imagine. To that point, I had been acting as though His power in the situation was pretty much the same as everyone else's. But it's not. When I pray, I'm praying to the God who really can give life to the dead and call things that are not as though they were.

More often than not, I try to hedge my bet in prayers and assure myself with reasons why it will still be okay and I will still trust God when He doesn't come through like I want Him to. But I found myself faced with a decision one day. I was looking through pictures of Lia when Israel eavesdropped and decided to make her the topic of a string of questions. And I had to decide: Do I introduce this girl to my kids? Do I encourage them to pray for her, as we do for others we know who are sick? What if she dies? What will my kids believe about God then?

I realized then that I was trying to hedge my bet. It's not my job to explain or tidy up God's plan for the world. And why would I think it's a good idea to keep my kids from getting to know anyone they may lose in life? Are we only supposed to pray for things we know are going to turn out alright, anyway? No! This precious little girl and her family are people. They are people who hurt and who laugh and who fight and win and fight and lose just like we do. They are people of prayer and courage who need prayer and people of courage, which is just what I want my children to be. So we're not going to hedge our bets, here. We're going to pray for them and stand by them however we can.

The God who can raise the dead, who can intervene to make anything any way He wants meets us as we walk in through the door. He says, in the face of despair or pain or death that only He has the power to obliterate: Hope.

So we do, even though it may hurt and even though it could be dangerous...especially coming from Him.

We hope against all hope
trying not to weaken our faith
we look the facts square in the face
and we believe in the power of God, anyway.

----

I am not the world's best pray-er. And I don't have the world's strongest faith. At all. Those facts don't change just because I'm writing this blog entry about prayer and hope. But if you're not perfect like me, I hope you'll be encouraged even as I have been encouraged.

family pictures

2012-01-07T21:22:00.013-05:00

Christmas is a great opportunity for a family photo. Everyone's together and happy. So we take a picture of everyone together and looking happy. We woudn't want to miss a shot of everyone...all together...looking (at the camera)...happy! It's one of life's simple treasures.

But let's be honest. Here's the real story of this year's family Christmas picture.

It was more of a quick-fix upon realizing that we hadn't taken a picture when we actually were enjoying Christmas together. So we called Brandon and Sarah to dress nicely and come back over. The rest of us managed to cut Israel's hair (which disappointed his Aunt) and give both kids a bath, fix their hair, and put on nicer clothes ourselves (even my pretty-sick father!) in not much over half an hour. Friends/in-laws showed up just in time to witness the event. My lovely daughter has broken the flash on my camera (which I don't like using, anyway). Dad found and set up a tripod. I arranged the lamps in the room just-so and took a test shot before involving any children. You know, to save needless chaos.

Yeah. That was about right. Re-arrange the superfluous furniture...add the rest of the people, and check the formation:

Wow. I couldn't tell on the small screen everything that was wrong with that picture, but the shadow people were creepy.
So we had our friend, Tim, hold the table lamp up at an appropriate height for the rest of the shoot while his wife, Robin, held down the shutter, per my instructions. I didn't know that my camera would stop taking four shots in a row, preferring to take a shot every 2 seconds or so. This made all the pictures completely unpredictable. I could hardly believe it when I took a look through over 50 pictures to find NONE of them fit our criteria of everyone together, looking their best, and smiling. But I think this is its own kind of better. Here's a real picture of family pictures. Enjoy them more than we did then and as much as I do now! (They may be best viewed by clicking on one of them and then seeing them in succession.)

Not bad...we just need to ALL look at the camera.

and not be hysterically happy...

or silly

whatever it is, Brandon, stop it!

alright, except for mom...

Too crazy. Swap kids.

fix Eden's hair...

...and nose-picking...now if we could just get the adults to cooperate...

Eden, just sit still with your hands on your lap!

...but not like THAT.ugh. ISRAEL!
tell the kids to sit STILL!but also to smile... but not a silly, too-big smile....
And then I lost it.

Oh well.

Family pictures.

Is it only like this for us or does this sound like your house, too?

What a GIFT!

2011-11-17T16:11:00.006-05:00

You may have gathered from my recent facebook postings that my friends, Jason and Andrea, are adopting another daughter this week. It's been a wild and crazy ride this time around from the word "go," but I want to give them time to share their own story before I share it with you. But I wanted to share with you some of the amazing things I've seen from here. I'm told it's both Special Education week and National Adoption Month. Happy coincidence.

One of the reasons I am so pumped about this (besides the pure adrenaline rush and the fact that this kiddo is a Kentuckian, just like me!) is that my kids get to experience it this time around. When my friends adopted their first daughter, Abigail, Israel was just almost a year old and Eden was in hiding. This time, they get to experience it and understand a little about what's going on. We've made a couple of visits to the hospital lately to visit friends and their newborns who "just came out of their mommy's tummy," so when I told them that Abigail was a big sister, they of course asked, "Did Andrea have a baby in her belly?"
"Well, no." I said. "Someone else grew this baby in her belly and now she gets to be part of Abigail's family!"
Israel busted out: "That is SO COOL!!! Mom, we should do that!"
I agree with him on one count, anyway. :)

It is so cool. And I think these babies must be doubly loved. First, a mom, who for whatever reason would rather not have a child, finds out she is going to have a child and decides to keep growing that life for months. That's some love. She may not feel well, she gains weight, she deals with whatever social or familial repercussions exist with her pregnancy. She feels she is inadequate for the task of raising the child she is growing. She could be prideful and try to act like she has it all together*, but instead she decides to find a family she feels could give the child what she can't give her. I have nothing but admiration for such a mom. That is some love and some courage. (I'm sure God understands something about that, as He trusted His child to another family, to0...for opposite reasons, but requiring courage and love nonetheless.) I know how hard it is for me to admit when I don't have it all together. It's hard for me to admit it even to just one other person. I cannot imagine how much courage it takes to admit whatever weaknesses you find in yourself in a way that is put on display for strangers. To want the best for your child and be willing to look for someone else you believe can provide it...you have to love your baby a lot to go through all that for her. It's a selfless act of love.

Of course, the child is a complete gift in all respects. And no one knows this better, I'm guessing, than the parents chosen to adopt her, who receive the gift of a child. Parents who adopt amaze me with their love. Having had two surprise babies with nine months each to get used to the idea, I have no idea what it would be like to think about it before-hand and choose to suddenly welcome a baby (plus whatever birth family she comes with!) into my family. Jason and Andrea in particular amaze me because they chose beforehand to pursue a child with "special needs." The terminology changes all the time, but the term always is trying to get at the fact that some children face extra adversity in life and challenges to overcome. One of the challenges I've seen for parents I know of special needs children (in addition to the anxiety and agony brought by various medical procedures and unknowns) is that they have the frustrating job of teaching the general populace that their child is a gift. They know it. People who know their child personally know it. But I have heard enough stories from friends to know that too many people have become doubtful in this regard. Showing every day how valuable and amazing their children are seems to be more of a difficult job than it should be. Enduring people asking, "What's wrong with her?" in front of your child? No parent should have to try to come up with an appropriate response to that. But to have an inkling beforehand of what your child may face because of others and choose to walk that road with them.... Well, when I write it that way, what parents wouldn't make that choice? But to choose to walk that road with a child as their parent when no one is asking it of you? Amazing. And I know that both the child and the parents will be greatly blessed by the process and better people because of each other. That's the way it goes in life. But I reserve the right to be amazed by it anyway.

And if you haven't had the pleasure of praying for baby Shilo ("God's gift"), go right ahead. She seems to be recovering well from the heart surgery she had today at the ripe old age of 6 days. (She'll have open heart surgery in a few months.) She's a strong girl, that one! I can't wait to get to know her in person. I am beyond happy that we, in whatever small way, get to be involved and are blessed to call this family our friends. I'm with Israel: This whole idea is SO COOL!

*I'm not meaning to imply that birth parents don't have it all together and adoptive parents do. I don't know any parent of any child who can honestly be convinced they have it all together.

questioning leadership

2011-11-07T15:09:00.009-05:00

Recently, I've been encountering situations of various magnitudes that put before me a choice: hope or despair. These are situations that cause me to wonder about my own purpose in life and my relationship with God. I wonder about what I can do and what God can do and what it means to pray. I have questions about what being rescued or "saved" means for people who continue to lead difficult lives. It can really weigh me down at times, even when my own life is fine. I see children with very difficult home situations, adults with children who break their hearts, children born with conditions that make life more difficult, and the myriad ways people are affected by other people's sin.

These are things I really wrestled with in college. The difference is that back then, most of these situations were hypothetical. I knew they were probably happening somewhere. So I had it out with God over the "problem of evil," also sometimes put as "Why do bad things happen to good people?" or "Why do bad things have to happen to ANYONE?" I was really calling unto account God's ability to make good decisions. I promised myself two things during that time: 1.) I would never be afraid to question things down to that level again, and 2.) I would question thoroughly so I would never have to do it again.

So when I find myself asking similar questions now, some 10 years later, I do what I can to keep both promises. I decide to just go ahead a lay it all out there, knowing I likely will get no more answers this time than I did the last. And I didn't get ANY answers during that crazy time of questioning God. I just got to know Him. He didn't explain Himself to me or anything. What's different now is that I don't expect Him to.

Something else that is different this time around is that I am some manner or other of spiritual leader. While I am re-wrestling with God over the things I see going on in the lives of my girls or their friends, or others, I'm also trying to lead them through their wrestling, too. When I'm having my own questions about how to know I've heard God, I'm being asked questions about how to hear God. When someone asks why God hasn't answered their prayer for rescue, I'm asking the same question. Don't hear me wrong. I don't think it's a human's job to know all the answers. Somehow I was just expecting to know a few more....

This Sunday, the girls were over. We've been learning stories that go straight through the life of Christ, which I'm trying to conclude before our Christmas party. This means that I had to teach the entire week of the Passion in one hour. In order to simplify, I made a sort of virtual felt-board to help keep track of the characters and who was where when. Starting out, we have Jesus and his 12 disciples. (I don't really think Jesus was a head taller than everyone else....)

He's washing their feet and sharing what he knows will be his last meal with them. He also knows that one of the guys whose feet he just washed, named Judas, is going to betray him. He tells him to go ahead and do it. (I don't think I'd do that.) So then it's Jesus and the 11.

He tells them about how he's preparing to die and how he will go to prepare a place for them so they can be together again. He takes the bread and says, "This is my body," and rips it in two. He takes the wine and says, "This is my blood," and pours it out. He has to be kind of freaking out inside. They sing together and he asks his close friends to come and pray with him up on the Mount of Olives. I can imagine he wants some company on what he knows is going to be a very difficult night. So there we have Jesus with Peter, James, and John going to pray.

But the guys keep falling asleep instead of praying. And Jesus has gone to talk to His Father, to ask if there's not some way for life to go well without this awful stuff happening to him. He asks three times. That makes me think that maybe He's not hearing anything back. Either that, or He's getting an answer He doesn't like. But he decides to believe God knows better and says, basically, "Do it your way, not mine." That's pretty intense. And cause for all kinds of theological unrest within the trinity, but I'm glad to understand Jesus as fully human here, because that makes sense to me...praying the same thing over and over, not sure if you're hearing (or not hearing) right, hoping you've heard wrong, hoping more prayer will change God's mind anyway. And then you're interrupted by more bad news.

So there is Jesus with his three sleepy friends and then here comes Judas back with the Roman soldiers to arrest Him.

Peter chops off the ear of one of the soldiers. Jesus says, "No, that's not how this is going to go down," puts the ear back on the soldier, and lets them take him away to be tried and killed. And he knows that's what He's doing, because where does he end up? At the house of the high priest, Caiaphas, who had already been talking with his friends about how it's be better for Jesus to die than not. I don't think anyone's expecting a fair trial, here. Peter and John follow along to the house and wait outside to see what's going to happen. It's there that Peter, in a weird rush of self-interest, calls down curses on himself and swears he's never had anything to do with Jesus in his whole life. Peter was one of Jesus's closest friends.

He's then taken alone before Pilate, who tries to release him. But then all those people who had been praising Jesus the week before, who thought He was going to come and be their king by overthrowing the Romans, show their disappointment in Him and His methods by asking for the release of a violent revolutionary instead. So then, when Jesus gets to the cross, He's up there all by himself, with the rest of the world either against Him or powerless to be for Him.

And while He's up there, He yells, "My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?" I know there is a big discussion to have about that. How is God not really with Jesus? Is it because of the sin of the world? Maybe Jesus is just saying that and God the Father didn't really leave Him, after all. I don't think it matters...at least not for me right now. What matters is that, in the hardest time of His life, Jesus at least feels all alone. No one is helping Him. No one is saving Him. And, because He decided not to do it His own way, He's not even saving Himself. And He's going through that so He can later be with us forever. But He wasn't in the euphoric forever yet. No. He did all this in the, "Why, God?" where the rest of us live.

And then, with His last words, He trusted His soul to the one He didn't understand. "Into Your hands I commit My spirit."

Now, none of my questions are bigger than the one Jesus was asking. And none of my deciding to trust God anyway has such high stakes for me. But I was so grateful to be reading through this story with the girls and learning myself how there's nowhere I go in life where Jesus hasn't gone before me to show me how to do it. Even when being an example for us, He still asked, "Why?" He still tried to come up with a better way for the world to work than what He saw coming down the line. And it's because I can follow Him there that I can follow Him to hoping against all hope that somehow all things really will work for good. Somehow.