Christmas Cards

 Late last week I made a social media post about our updated address. There is back story to this year’s Christmas card. 

On Thanksgiving, upon arrival at Mimi and Poppy’s house I tried to quickly get my whole family to stand normal in front of the Christmas tree and take a picture. Normal = impossible for my family. 

It did not end well, and the final blow to the photo shoot was when I exclaimed at the end “I just wanted a normal photo, with everyone smiling and wearing clean clothes!” Stellar job, mom. I’m aware. 

The next day the Black Friday offer I knew was coming (hence the picture situation the day before) showed up in my inbox. The day was crazy though so it was evening before I was scrambling to put together a Christmas card. I had since apologized to my kids for the photo fiasco, and decided that I did not want that not-shining moment saved for the sake of posterity on all the walls of our friends and family. So I picked a different photo, one more similar to the “stock-image” my teenager was seeking to avoid. This caused one child to meltdown in utter disgust that I had tortured them the day before only to not even use the picture in question. I talked this child off their ledge of unjustness and moved on to writing the novel that would grace the back. 

Finished it, read it to Aaron to make sure it made sense, ordered the 75 I was sure I would not need (50 to mail out 25 to save forever) and finally, pressed order. 

With that, I breathed a sigh of relief. Then it dawned on me; I never entered my Black Friday code. The whole reason for the whole thing was the Black Friday code. 

As I lay in bed that night, I realized that I wrote on the back that one of my children was in 2nd grade. He’s not. He is in 3rd grade, I’m his teacher.

So, when you receive our Christmas card this year, you can know with certainty that that picture was taken when we were all in a good mood because nobody said “This is the picture for the Christmas card this year.”  Laugh well, my friends, and laugh often. 

If I could figure out how, I would add the picture we are NOT using on our Christmas card. 

A Lot Rambly; Triggers; Release

 

Scrolling in the Facebook land you’ll find yourself triggered by numerous things, over and over again in a span of seconds. Some triggers are big, we erupt; the meme about the Holy Spirit making you delete the whole text comes into play. Some triggers cause us to spiral. Some triggers irritate the snot out of us. Some triggers make us sad.

This might sounds ridiculous, but National Dog Day makes me sad. Obviously, for those who know us well, you know we had to tell our sweet Ninja puppy goodbye last December, so it makes sense that National Dog Day on Facebook would make me sad. But then also, I felt sad when I passed a veterinarian’s office the other day that specialized in dog rehabilitation. But again, Ninja went through some tough stuff the last few years of his life. As his dog mama, I have some sad feelings about losing him. I don’t want another dog. I just really loved Ninja.

There are triggers everywhere, but the key to every trigger is what we do with it. When something walks right up into our headspace without our permission what do we do?

If time allows, I like to take some time to process – why is this a trigger for me? What just happened there?  

I realized National Dog Day was a trigger for me (albeit a small one) when I felt annoyed at all those happy people with their dogs on Facebook.

To be honest, I’m so happy everyone loves their dogs. I’m just sad that mine is gone and particularly sad that the last few years of his life were just so hard. I wonder if I waited to long to put him down. Was he trying to tell me he was in pain a year before? Was the dementia too much for him? – I have to walk myself through the trauma of my trigger, the sadness of seeing happy pet owners, and apologize and forgive myself for what I did not know.  Grieve it, release it, and jump off of Facebook for awhile.

Tonight, another trigger smacked me in the face. A Facebook friend posted an alert about a road closed due to an accident; A road we used to use frequently when we live in Iowa, and I felt jealous. Stupid, right? Like, I’m missing out on a road detour? I’m jealous of what? Someone had an accident so bad they had to close an intersection that a lot of people use. I should be concerned about those people in the accident! Goodness gracious.

Why was I jealous? – I miss being a part of a community. Grieve it, release it. We are here in Arkansas for a reason. A community will come.

The world around us is full of triggers. Most of them are things we’re holding on to and desperately need to let go of; fears, disappointments, grief, shame, uncertainty.

If we can pinpoint our pain, acknowledge it, turn the story around and tell ourselves the truth of the situation, we can heal and grow.

Healing and growth. Healing and growth. Healing and growth.

Life’s journey continues to take us on the path of change.

Last night I attended a local women’s conference. The speaker spoke about releasing something to God. Releasing a dream, so God could take it and grow it.

I’ve been pondering all day what I am supposed to be releasing. I’ve had dreams, but life took another turn and it seemed like that was no longer the calling on my life or that the season was placed on hold. What, God, should I release? I don’t even feel like I have dreams right now. I feel stripped bear, tired, worn out, trudging through mud some days. What dream do I even have to release?

And tonight it hit me, I need to release Walcott and Iowa and all that it represents to me.

In high school my senior year, we did the musical, The Music Man, and the opening song is all about Iowa, and how people “ought to give Iowa a try.” I had never been to Iowa, and had no desire to go to Iowa when I was 17. In fact, despite Iowa being only 2 hours from where I grew up, I had little idea of where it really was in relation to me. I felt it was probably almost to Nebraska (which it is) but, it seemed so distant and far off.

Then Aaron got his first job in Iowa. We moved there, built our entire married lives there. We lived the small town living that I always wanted. There were sidewalks on every street in Walcott (seriously, a city ordinance and small point of contention at times.) There is a city day every year (as all small towns in Iowa have.) And for a few months (cumulative) of the entire year – the weather is fantastic. In the fall the grain elevators turn on and outside is loud from late August until mid December with the hum of the dryers. All through September, October and November tractors and semis full of grain roll through town. A pumpkin spice flavored Hallmark film could be made in a small town in Iowa.  The town literally felt like a Hidden Valley commercial. It was perfection.

And then we left. We had always hoped to move to Arkansas someday, but as the years ticked by it seemed that it would never come. Arkansas was a dream. But living here means starting over, as our dream started to come true and I started to realized just how many people I had to say goodbye to and just how many connections I had and just how hard starting over really would be – I began to doubt that Arkansas was really where we were supposed to be.

Why now God? Why when I let go of the dream? Why when we moved into a house we really loved? Why when everything was finally going smoothly? Why when I was just making new friends after some crazy stuff? Why when I was building relationships? Why when my kids were making new friends? Why when everything was going so smoothly did you disrupt and change our course?

Release it. Release it. I will do a new thing. I will reignite old dreams and passions. I will restore and redeem the hidden and hurting places. Release it.

 So, I’m releasing Iowa and all that it represents. Releasing all that I loved about Iowa and Walcott. Releasing all that I didn’t love.  Releasing the good, and the hard.

I know that more hard will come. It will not be easier here than it was there. It will only be different. There are new things to do, new people to grow with. He is doing a new thing.

Hi, I'm new here.

 

A few months ago, our family relocated from small town Iowa to Big City Arkansas. We left behind where our marriage began 18 years ago. We also left behind my mother in law, our friends, our church, our community. We moved to be closer to family and a new job for my husband. 3 months in and its finally starting to feel like we live here and not like we're on an extended vacation. 

Today a new friend, and I think I can safely call her that, invited me to a women’s conference their church is putting on next weekend. I want to go because I know that I NEED to go. I need to make efforts to make friendships and build relationships here. I just never realized how much I loved how easy it was in Iowa. It was easy because we had been a part of our church for 18 years, we were solid there. It was easy because I had been homeschooling for 9 years. Most of the moms I knew and they liked me. I was now a “veteran”. I didn’t have to be the new mom anymore. It was easy because we had lived in small town Iowa for 17 years, the community knew us.

And here we are. I’m the new – everything. New woman. New mom. New to the area. I don’t even know where things are, let alone know the people at them. The woman I’m going to go to this conference with, and the other women going, they hardly know me at all. Oof how I just want to fit. I just want to not be new.

But I’ve been made aware. There have been many times in my past when I haven’t gone up to the new person and talked to them. Maybe because that day my anxiety was high, and I couldn’t manage the courage to talk to someone new. Maybe because I wanted to be cool and look like I fit, so I made myself fit so well I didn’t have room for the new person. Maybe because I thought the new person really wouldn’t like me or want what I have to offer as a person in friendship or at all. Maybe because I thought talking to them might be committing to a whole friendship and my plate felt full. Whatever my reason may have been for avoiding someone who was new and stood out as such, I feel it now.

 I feel new.

How badly I want SOMEONE, anyone, to say hello, ask about my kids, find out why we’re new. Even if its just so I don’t have to sit at a table with my kids and wonder if everyone here feels as lonely as I do.

I know, friendships are coming. In the meantime, relationships have to be built.

Even on the Hard Days

 

Yesterday my fingers flew across the keyboard in homeschool happiness and bliss.  I chronicled a lifestyle that I have chosen and love and in my evening eyes I was pleased. Today whacked me in the face like a stack of books swung by an angry 8^th grader.

Let me be frank. It didn’t start well. I allowed some screen time which led to some not great behavior. I talked too long on the phone with my mom. I made a concession for one child that disrupted another. There was poop on the deck. Water on the floor. Text messages. Instant messages. Budget concerns. Tantrums over school work. A doctors appointment.

In the good moments I went roller blading with my older son. I gave my toddler a bath when he got  out of hand. I shoved my head in my blankets and screamed really loudly. Eventually, the school work did get done, although I forgot about an important lesson. I took a jog/walk. I didn’t eat the crust off the pizza. I ate a vegetable and a fruit. I also ate the popcorn and a handful of m&m’s. I didn’t drink the soda.

Why am I chronicling these details? Because yesterday’s post, while true, was also shrouded in the way I feel on the good days. Homeschooling/home parenting/child rearing is hard stuff. It’s day in and day out. It’s changing the plans. It’s giving someone extra grace. It’s giving yourself extra grace. It’s taking some unintended insults from your kiddos. It’s giving them some unsolicited advice, not always well received.

It’s extra hard. It’s extra worth it. It’s answering the question every day “Why do I work a job that doesn’t pay in money?” And even on this day, this extra hard day the answer is the same, “No amount of money is worth missing out on all that I would miss out on if this wasn’t my job.”

Blessings,

Brie

Homeschool Mama

 

I bought my first “homeschool mama” shirt the other day.  It arrived today and I laughed at myself that finally, after 9 years of homeschooling, I felt ready to get myself a shirt. I mean, why now? Why 9 years later do I finally feel comfortable in this homeschooling skin? 

Over the past 9 years I have doubted and struggled. Is this the right option? Is this the best option? Will my kids be okay? Are we learning enough? Are they learning at all?  We have done HSAP, co-ops, community groups, dual enrollment, therapies, tutoring, full time public schooling (that was a big deal), and back again. So why do I feel so confident here, in this? Because in all these years, I’ve discovered that they’re okay. They are learning. They are growing. 

My little girl with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and anxiety – she has learned how to write full papers.  My little girl with a language disorder – she is quickly conquering reading. My little boy with boundless energy – he is soaking up information like a sponge and repeating it back to me in striking detail.

We strive and we struggle. Some subjects come easy and we dance through the lessons, some subjects we hike through slowly but deliberately conquering the towering mountain before us.

I have seen post after post on social media the last few weeks, pictures and words detailing the exodus of children back to school. Parents cheering on their brave students as they enter back into their school buildings and breathing a sigh of relief that the difficult work of educating their energetic children rests in the capable hands of their teachers. Posts telling tired mamas to relax, breathe easy, drink some coffee, read a book – and I’ll admit, I have felt keenly the pangs of jealousy. My busy season is just beginning. There is little time now for long coffee breaks, book reading (beyond read-alouds for my kids), crocheting, or writing (a much missed past time).

But even through a little jealousy, I love teaching my kids. I love spending this precious time with them. I love watching my daughter conquer reading with squeals of delight. I love laughing and joking with my oldest while we work our way through Latin conjugations and pre-Algebra. I love when my son makes outrageous math problems for me to solve between his own, even though math is tricky for him. I love passing out play-doh to keep hands busy while I read out loud another book by Beverly Cleary. I love making a snack tray, and I love snuggling on the couch. I love making omelets and oatmeal and reluctantly making ramen.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot I could get done if I was only chasing a 2 year old around all day. Or, if I had time to run a side gig (from one of the numerous direct sales companies that I love) that brought us in some extra money. It’d be awesome to be able to clean everything myself, or exercise, or read a book, or crochet something. It’d be so cool if I could keep this house in order all day long and then give the kids 1 or 2 chores to do when they got home.

But that’s not the life I’ve chosen. I’ve chosen homeschool mama, which means I have my own unofficial full time job. It’s a full time job without a monetary paycheck. It pays in emotional satisfaction, sometimes frustration. It pays in my kids’ futures. It pays in joy. It pays in laughter. It pays in high fives, math jokes, Latin jokes, homeschooling jokes. It’s hard. But it’s so good.

I’m a homeschool mama.

Blessings,

Brie

Lessons from the soil part II

 I have a fern a friend gave me two years ago. I know it was two years ago because she gave it to me shortly after (or before? That whole spring is a blur) my toddler was born and I literally did nothing with it for weeks… maybe months.

Eventually I repotted it and decided to try and start taking care of it because miracle of miracles it was still alive. 😂 

For the past two years it has struggled and struggled some more. Mold would grow on the surface and I would scrape it off. Sometimes mix it in. Honestly I had no clue what I was doing. Eventually I asked my friend and she recommended I repot it with completely new soil and rinse off the roots to make sure I didn’t transplant any mold with it. 

Today I gently pulled the root ball out of the old pot. It was a huge tangled mess. I rinsed and tried to gently pull off broken pieces of rotten root ball. Eventually this is what I was left with: 

There are only a couple of roots attached to these 5 growing stems of leaves. I can see at the tips some healthy root growth beginning. 

2 years this fern has limped along, hiding under the contaminated soil rotten roots that were keeping it from thriving. 

How often does this happen to us humans? We have rotten roots hiding under the surface. We need the great Creator, the God of Heaven to reach into our lives and gently pull out the rotten bits and rinse us with clean water and repot us in fresh, uncontaminated soil. But it hurts. It’s a lot of scary to willingly walk into something new and hard and unknown. But God has greater things planned for our lives than just 5 measly stems. He has a whole flourishing plant planned for us, if we’re willing to do the work, and let him do the work in our lives. 

Blessings my friends. 

Brie

Lessons from the soil Part 1

 After 15 years in the same house we moved late last summer across town to a house that provided a little more room for our family. While not the reason we purchased the house, I was drawn to the many flower beds that provided ample opportunity to create and explore. Our old yard was very sunny and I looked forward to new adventures in a part shade yard. 

As I dug into the soil last fall for the first time, anticipating the release that comes from plunging your spade into the rich dark soil, my spade stopped short. I pushed harder. I heard crunching and scratching. What could be hiding under this grass? It looked to me on the surface to be green lawn, a fresh place to dig a flower bed.  But I was met with so much gravel.

A long time ago, this big green lawn was a well manicured oasis for someone. Landscaped completely and beautifully with rock. And although in its day it graced a magazine, it became over grown and someone else came in and laid some sod on top of all the rocks and called it good. 

Today, I was changing around a different bed. I decided to move a couple of hostas to a different location. It looked prime. There was a layer of mulch covering the soil. Again, I thrust my spade into the mulch and it went in less than a quarter of an inch. I scraped back the mulch. More rock. 4 inches of rocks. Large rock, small rock. It was all there hiding just beneath the surface. 

As I scraped away the rock, trying to decide how to proceed with my flower beds, I was again reminded that God always brings the best revelations out of my time in the soil. 

Just like my well manicured lawn and flower beds were hiding so many rocks, people too can look well manicured and put together on the outside but when you dig a little bit, you may find a lot of rocks. 

What may have looked easy might instead hold for you long hours of digging through the hardness of life picking out all the rocks. Underneath all of those rocks there is beautiful fertile soil waiting to welcome the new life it can now receive in abundance. 

Peace and love to you as you patiently dig out the rocks in your own soil. 

Brie

What's New with You?

Summer of 2018 is well underway and the busyness of early summer has slowed down.  It is finally restful.

I started taking classes this summer to earn my degree.  To be honest at this point I have no idea where I'm going with this but I know that moving forward is the right thing.  I started attending Southwestern Assemblies of God University earlier this summer by taking ONE online class.  One.  And I was surprised to find that one is just about all I'm able to do right now.

This fall I'll be finishing up some Gen Eds at our local community college.  Okay, I'll be finishing up ONE Gen Ed.  I will still have 3 others I need to take but one is about all I can handle mentally and financially right now.

The last few months have been transformational for me.  In the spring I began listening to the Going Scared Podcast by Jessica Honneger founder and CEO of Noonday Collection.  If you know me, you know I LOVE Noonday Collection.  From the company's beginnings to it's mission of empowering women around the world and its FANTASTIC eclectic and quality jewelry - I love it.  So naturally, when I heard about the Going Scared Podcast I HAD to listen.

Over and over and over again the resounding message I have heard is to just do it. Do something. Move Forward. Do it Afraid.

It has been YEARS that I have wanted to go back to college and for many of those years I knew I wanted to go back but had no idea as to what my degree would be.  I was held back by not knowing the whole story.  But if there is one thing I have learned from living life (and being told by amazing leaders all around me) - is that I'm not supposed to know the whole story. I'm just supposed to take the first step.

I am learning to give up regrets and to stop living in "should have".  My husband and I often quote to each other one of our favorite lines from C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia (said in our best Aslan voice - which if you have listened to Focus on the Family Theatre's audio version you know what I'm talking about)

"To know what would have happened, child?" said Aslan. "No. Nobody is ever told that."
"Oh dear," said Lucy.
"But anyone can find out what will happen," said Aslan

So move forward friends.  Go on, find out what will happen.  We're on this journey together.

Peace,

Brie

Beauty all around

Several years ago a friend of mine and I had a garden.  It was a good size, and we loved it.  We would spend hours out there together, listening, talking, just being silent but safe.  It was a form of therapy for both of us.  I was struggling with through infertility and miscarriage, and she her own journey to walk through. 

It was a beautiful garden, and I had a beautiful walkway, beautiful flower beds and I enjoyed them.  I had only one child, and my friend had her two (and later 3) and our kids would play while we talked.  And many days I would go out to the garden alone and just pray.  Mostly I prayed for more children. 

In all those prayers, that were one day answered - I never once realized that when I had those more children I would not be able to continue to maintain a garden well. 

Here we are, my oldest 9, my second child almost 5 and my youngest home for two years - and my garden still waits full of weeds. 

It has been 4 years since our large joined garden.  And this year, I am finally planting a couple of vegetables again.  I planted strawberries and lettuce today, and I pulled 3 dandelion plants. 

That is seriously all I have time for.  I don't even have time for writing this.  Because our social worker comes for our two year post placement in just a few days and if I spend all my time cleaning up the outside, she will find a very messy inside.  It looks as though we have been busy for the past three weekends and sick in between... because that's true. 

I am so thankful for these three amazing kids that God has given me.  And I'm even thankful that I don't have the time for the meticulously maintained garden and flower beds of my past.  Because the friendships have stood the test of time, and the children are growing.  Both are a very beautiful thing. 

...but she out of her poverty...

Some days are really difficult.  Whether you are a parent or not, everyone has difficult days.  It can be brought on by nothing more than a difficult night of sleep, sleeping past your alarm, not eating breakfast, or traffic slowing you down.  Everyone has difficulties in life. 

Sometimes though, there are people that have more difficulties than others.  Whether mental illness like depression, bipolar, or schizophrenia, or a physical illness like chronic back pain, fibromyalgia, cancer treatments or foot pain (psh. lets just say any pain.. because anytime there is pain, there is just difficulty!)  - so  Let's just say that - when people are in pain, life is extra hard! 

What about those suffering from an emotional heartache?  Infertility, miscarriage, death of a loved one, a struggling marriage, concern for your children -

In Luke chapter 21 vs 1-4 we read the story of the widow's offering -

As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. ² He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. ³ “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. ⁴ All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

I read this and thought about how I could give out of my poverty.  I cannot claim to have ever experienced true financial poverty.  Even as a child when my parents were at their poorest, we still had food and shelter, warmth, and clothing - by this worlds standards, I have never experienced financial poverty.  I wondered what it would be like to give out of my poverty. 

And then as the morning progressed it came to be known that one of my kids was having a really hard day. I was doing my best to speak life into this little one - but she really didn't want to hear it.  I told her that even in hard times we can make the choice to have a good day or a bad day.  This day was her choice, regardless of whether or not it went the way she had hoped it would.

And that is when it struck me - what about giving out of our emotional poverty?  When life is really difficult and we show grace to someone who needs it.  Or when we choose to be joyful despite difficult life circumstances.  When we bring peace even though we feel that our world is in turmoil...  Might this be a little like this widow giving out of her poverty. 

When life is going easy, when the money is there, when we got all the sleep we needed, when we woke up on time and our hair was perfect, on the days that we absolutely LOVE LIFE - it is so easy to spread joy and love, and grace - and on those days it is so easy to be full of patience for those around us and to respond softly to harsh words. 

But on the days that our hormones are OUT OF CONTROL, on the days we want to eat our feelings and punch other people in the face (c'mon I can't be the only one right?), on the days we just don't feel like we can summon the energy to play with our kids, or make a decent meal, or focus on our work, - but yet we give our very best in that day... our best might be yelling less than you wanted to and making boxed mac and cheese - but might our best on our worst days be worth more than our best on our best days? 

Just some thoughts tonight. 

I would love to hear what your thoughts on this might be!  Have you ever felt like you had nothing to give, and so you gave the very best you could even when it felt pitiful?

Comment on this blog, or comment on Facebook - I would love to connect with you!

Finding A Connection

I am outside tonight, enjoying the cool temperatures, high humidity and gorgeous Iowa sunset.

I love connectedness.  I love how one person is connected with another; how the sky is connected to the earth, the beauty of the sunset, the importance of the bugs and animals and that all together as one we sing out a beautiful chorus to our great Creator.

The sun has just disappeared behind the blue/purple/pink haze of summer but the sky is still bright.

I have just returned home from leaving my oldest child at summer camp for the first time. I have no doubt she will have a fantastic time.  She is growing into a young woman and is full of confidence and grace - and laughter, so much laughter.

(Okay so the bugs did make me go inside. I know mosquitoes serve a purpose but why does that purpose have to include MY blood?)

My husband and littles have stopped for ice cream on the way home and I have been granted the rare opportunity to sit in quiet and reflect on life.

I don't get to reflect much anymore - I just feel tired alot.

(And now I itch.)

I walked to the post office tonight and watched a plane fly overhead.  I wonder where those people are going?  I wonder who they are going to see?  Are they happy?  Are they sad?  A business trip or a pleasure trip?  What about us?  When we travelled to China to pick up our sweet baby boy, were there people down below wondering about us?  I wish I could tell them how wonderfully our world was about to change.

(Seriously, I just got so many bug bites and I was out there 5 minutes. I hope Amariss uses the bug spray I sent with her.  Soooo glad I packed bug spray!)

I was prompted to write another blog post by a good friend of mine.  She was 12 when I met her... She was a shy girl coming to youth group as a 6th grader and my husband and I were youth sponsors.  I seriously remember the very first day she and her older sister came to youth.  Now she is 24 and is married and is mothering her own little one.  I'm pretty sure when I was 20 I never imagined that we would someday be sitting and having coffee and catching up as friends.  Friends, connected - through life, seasons and motherhood.

Also, where did 12 years go?

(My family will be home soon and I'm anxious to check the camp website and see if there is a picture of my little girl yet.)

I love to remember my connections.  The new neighbors down the street with young children, being from a small town, loving to sing and dance and paint and experience life - I love to see connections everywhere I go.

I wonder if we looked deeper to see how we were all connected, if we might learn to love a little more deeply, to share a little more grace and to experience a lot more joy?


 

It's the week before Mother's Day and I have been thinking -

I haven't logged into Blogger in so long I was worried I might have to reenter my password... and then the hassle of trying to remember my password. 

I almost didn't put forth the effort. 

But here I am - so far past my last blog.  

It is the first week of May already and we are on our spring break before we head into our final 9 weeks of school.  Ending the last week of July, just in time to take a 4 week break and start again in September.  Woohoo!

Homeschoolers love making their own crazy schedule to fit their own crazy needs!
  
It has been an emotionally strange week for me.  And by that I mean that I have cried this week.  To a friend, not my husband and that was weird.  Not because crying is weird, I'm just not one of the people in this world who can make the tears come out.  I feel them inside, but rarely do they work their way out of my eyeballs.

Whoa - that was off.

This whole post is off.  Who knows if I'll even post it! 

Monday was the 3 year anniversary of our loss of Isaiah.  Monday Aaron left for France for 4 days (work trip, mostly travel time.), Wednesday I finished reading Ghost Belly, which is a memoir written by a mom regarding her stillbirth.  And Mother's Day is Sunday.  

All of this just wraps its way around my heart. 

Isaiah's loss, Aaron gone, emotionally exhausting book, Doron's birth mom.  My heart is feeling pulled at.  

I don't know.  That's it I guess.  It all is just surrounding me and I'm trying to process while I live and breathe and mother and purge and manage this.  all of this.  

I started a 2000 Things Clutter Free Challenge, and I'm decluttering spaces - 15 minutes at a time, 15 minutes a day...

That's really about all I can handle.  But I look up at the top shelf of my closet where 5 baby boxes sit.  5 boxes of memories representing 8 babies who never took a breath on Earth but live full and beautiful lives in heaven - I don't know what to do with them.  And I know that right now, I'm leaving that space to be purged later.  I'm not sure what to do with them.

A paragraph near the end of Ghost Belly rings through my mind - 

"It's supposed to be comforting to know that overwhelming grief will not last forever, that it will fade and you'll feel normal again, that sadness will become something that remains within measure rather than covering the universe.
It's certainly practical that this happens.  It makes it more tolerable to correct page proofs for a book that has been in production far too long.  It's even good that this happens: It makes it possible to laugh at baby giggles.
But it's no comfort.  Even when I was in my deepest despair about Thor's death, I feared the day that despair would lessen, because I knew it would feel like a betrayal: a betrayal of a child already grievously betrayed."

- I feel that, towards each baby box.  Even though I know they were there for me.  For Aaron and I to process our grief better and to remember the journey of each child of ours.   But here now, almost 10 years after our first loss - Seriously, 10 YEARS?!  I can remember that day like it was yesterday.  

10 years after our first loss... almost 3 years after our last...  I'm healed, healing?  healed enough?  I don't think of our little ones every day, not even every week.  I remember their lives.  I can mention 8 miscarriages without feeling the angst in my soul.  And even then, I have forgotten the most wrenching parts of the pain surrounding it.  

I sat yesterday morning reading in my devotions from 2 Corinthians 1: 3-4  "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. "

I was reminded in this.  I don't speak as much about the years we walked through our miscarriage journey, I have felt out of place in this world having now moved to the other side of that journey and have followed God's leading into a new and different (albeit still hard) journey of motherhood.

There was a time when remembering the pain, plunged me into feeling the pain so deeply all over again - and now that that has past, remembering the pain just reminds me of God's faithfulness here on this side of our journey.  But as I read those verses in 2 Corinthians I was reminded, yet again, that I was comforted in all of my troubles and because of that I can be a comfort for those who are facing the same sorts of troubles.  I took so much strength from God as I walked that hard hard road of loss.  And it propelled me to lean into him for strength during the hard hard road of life.  The hard road of adoption and unknowns, the hard road of surgeries, the hard road of respiratory illnesses, the hard road of separation disorders, the hard road of night terrors, the hard road of an incorrect ADHD diagnosis, the hard road of making hard decisions, hard phone calls, and asking the hard questions - the hard road of all of the unpredictables that are bound to come our way.

While the journey I am currently walking is important and valuable and holds great significance - the journey we have already endured has not lost its importance, its value or its significance.  While speaking about miscarriage is no longer a daily part of my life, the role it has played in my past can still make an important impact on someone else's life.

And then there is Mother's Day - and tackling this day as an adoptive mom for the very first time.  I am currently processing that - remembering and honoring Doron's birth mom on this day.  I remember her nearly every day because our boy is so incredible.  I look at him in awe and wonder and I love him, his past, his present, his future.  All he is, all he will be, and where he came from.  This woman, who loved our son, but couldn't mother him - I am processing her this week as well.  I suspect she will be in my heart for the rest of my life.

God bless,
Brie

An Attainable Goal

It was Christmas Eve this year and I found myself in a quandary.  I was questioning my decision to post a picture of my three beautiful children dressed in matching pajamas on to Facebook.  Just three weeks earlier I had spoken to a room of a 100 women about family traditions and out of the whole thing all I could remember was that I had essentially said - we don't have an Elf of the Shelf.  We don't talk about Santa and we don't wear matching PJ's on Christmas Eve.  Honestly, that generally had been true, up until that point.

Just because it is so cute, you need to see if for yourself.

Within a week of the Ladies Brunch we had an Elf on the Shelf (courtesy of "Santa" - you know, the one we don't talk about).  And here we were on Christmas Eve and I was lining up my little munchkins in front of my Mom's Christmas tree dressed in identical pajamas (honestly, it was a fantastic sale and a strike of luck that they had my kids' sizes... luck, or a little bit of humility from the Lord?)  To make matters worse on the "I'm a complete hypocrite scale," I knew that by morning my three year old would be convinced that Santa was in fact real; because I had carefully selected and wrapped a brand new soccer ball to be placed under the tree - the only thing she wanted for Christmas from Santa.  

I was really feeling low.  It was about the middle of the Christmas Eve movie that my kids were exhausted and ready for bed.  But I really really wanted to watch Elf (because you know... selfish.)  There was whining, complaining, lots and lots of wriggling.  It wasn't much fun.  It was kind of ruining the movie.  So we tried to put the kids to bed, but they weren't falling asleep fast enough.  

Somewhere in there I said something ridiculous.  It might have sounded something like "Christmas is never about moms.  Christmas is always about the kids."  

A far cry from my line three weeks prior, "Christmas is always about Jesus."  

Let's be honest.  I wasn't in a good place.  Somehow all of it - the hub bub, the holly jolly, the Santa - It had sucked me in.  My contentedness had been stripped and replaced by a mystical idea that Christmas should be all about me and since I knew it wouldn't be I was mad about it.

How did this happen?

I'm not really sure how it happened.  I'm not even exactly sure what happened.  

But I found myself crying, wondering if I had ruined my kids' lives, or at the very least their Christmas (of which, I did neither, they're okay - thankfully).  

Here we are two days left in this year, and I'm still wondering what went wrong last week.  I'm trying to make plans and goals - wondering what God's vision is for our lives in this coming year, and I keep coming back to this lesson learned.  

No matter the day, the week, the month, the season - something will always be vying to strip my attention from the King of all Kings.  No matter how grounded I thought I was - there is still an enemy out there seeking to destroy my soul, my day, my week - my Christmas.  

Christmas is a beautiful holiday.  A celebration of the birth of the Savior who brought salvation to all the world.  That when the world harbors evil all around we can have joy and peace within because of his great sacrifice.  

~My goal is to seek the Lord.~

Psalm 27:8 "My hearts says of you, "Seek his face!" Your face, Lord, I will seek.

This week has been profound for my heart.  I haven't sought the Lord like I wish I would have.  But God has still been speaking to me, etching his words onto my heart.  Reminding me of who he his, and who I can be - no, who I am - in him.  

This year, when all the pressures and stresses overwhelm you - take it down to this simple truth.  

Seek the Lord.  

Be blessed my friends,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  

Brie

6 months with Doron

Tomorrow (or today if you're reading this on the 18th) we mark 6 months with our sweet little boy.  A journey I could never have imagined to be as wild, as wonderful, and as marked with God's glory as it has been.

A little boy who came into our lives with joy and laughter and beauty.

Those are from our Family Day on May, 18, 2015.    Funny, then I thought he was just calm cool and collected.  Now I can see his concerned little face, confused by the surroundings but happy to have candy.  The kid will do anything for candy.

Just a few pics from our first summer together.  Man, I can't wait to see what the rest of our lives have in store for this family!

Orphan Sunday is this Sunday!

November 8 is Orphan Sunday!

Churches all across the world will be recognizing Orphan Sunday this year.  I highly encourage you to find a church near you and get involved!

If you are in the Quad Cities IA/IL area you can visit us at First Assembly of God Church, 1811 18th Street, Bettendorf, IA at 9:00am or 10:45am.  We will be collecting Journey Bags for children entering foster care in Scott County.

To put together a Journey Bag bring a new backpack with 1 item inside.  This item can be a toy, pajamas, warm blanket, stuffed animal, game - any item that can be just for this child.  Many children when placed in foster care are taken from their home with very little to call their own.  They often do not even have a backpack for their items.  This Journey Bag will be only theirs.  The gift inside is just for them; a tangible way we can touch their lives and let them know people care about them.  You can choose to make a journey bag for a boy or a girl and any age.  If you would like to participate you can private message me on Facebook.

Visit The Forgotten Initiative website for more information on how you can make a difference for those in the Foster Care community!


And check out the Orphan Sunday website to find a church near you and to find out how you can get involved on Orphan Sunday!

Be Blessed,
Brie

5 Ways You Can Support An Adoptive/Foster Family

When a family you know adopts a child it can seem like there are a lot of new "rules" on how to interact with them.  You know that they are bringing home a new child and you know they need their space - but you want to help them out.  You might wonder how, or what, you can do for them while still allowing them to bond as a family.

The same goes for foster parents!  Foster families are often times going through similar struggles or even more difficult struggles than adoptive families.  They need help and support from their community as well!

Here are 5 ways you can support a foster or adoptive family.

1. Send them a "family night" box.

             This could include a movie or game, gift certificates for pizza (enough to feed their whole         family), popcorn, and cookies.

2. Call them up and tell them you will be bringing them a meal on ______night.

            If someone says "Let me know when I can bring you a meal."  My response is going to be "Thanks!" but I'm pretty sure I won't ever call and ask for that meal.  Pride can be a hard thing to get over.  On the other hand, offering a meal that night at 5pm might mean they've already prepared something else...  If you prepare in advance for them or bring them over a freezer meal for later, that goes a long way for making a huge difference for some tired parents.  

3.  Better yet...set up a meal train for families who have just brought home an adoptive child or are bringing a new foster child into their family!  Much like bringing home a new baby (and sometimes dare I say...more difficult?) bringing a new child into your family can be hard on everyone making dinners difficult for several weeks!  Help a family out by offering to be the coordinator of a meal train and make sure they are set for a long time!

4.  Offer to mow their lawn  or shovel their snow!  If yardwork isn't your thing offer to wash and fold their laundry or do their dishes!  This idea came when I asked the question in a Facebook group I am in for adoptive families.  When bringing home a new child it can be so overwhelming and difficult.  Relieving an added stress (like yardwork or housework) that takes away from much needed family time would be so welcome to a family.  Much like a meal train offering to mow their lawn for a month or two or setting up a laundry service for them for a month or two (or six) would make a huge difference and be very appreciated!

5.  Have lots and lots of grace for a newly adoptive family.  If they suddenly don't make it to an event where they were expected, most likely they just couldn't come - for their new child and their new family.  If they don't want you to hold their child for a long time, respect that.  The bonding process is a long one and a two year old born raised in a different environment is not like one raised in your home since birth.  Everything is new and unknown, and in that their family is new and unknown.  With the instability they have already faced they may wonder just who is the next family they are going to.  The newly adoptive family's avoidance of big public events isn't because of you it is for their child.  If they don't discipline the way you think they should, understand this new territory. We don't understand our child's history and discipline just simply can't be the same way it would be with a biological child.  Lots of grace and lots of patience go a long way to help a family.

Also - check out this great article by No Hands But Ours Three Ways The Church Can Support Adoptive Families

Be Blessed,
Brie

National Adoption Month!

I am so excited that November is here!  Thanksgiving, Christmas, Family, Food... and it is National Adoption Month!

Last year we spent this month anxiously awaiting our trip to China!  We knew Doron would be ours but there were so many unknowns surrounding when and how.  Here we are, home almost 6 months and Doron is doing great.  We have some bumpy days, to put it mildy but right now as I type this Aaron and Doron and laughing and giggling.  If you have heard our son's giggle, you know, it is contagious and adorable.

To start off National Adoption Month I want to encourage you to seek out organizations that promote and aid adoptions and also ways that you can make a difference in the foster and adoption community.

I am going to do my best (pending kids and holidays) to promote ways you can help the adoption community all month long!  This may mean sharing links to other posts, but I encourage you to please check them out.  They are all a valuable resource and can help you make a difference in a child's or a family's life.

Today I'm going to send you over to Holt International's Blog Top 5 Myths About Special Needs Adoption.

Blessings,
Brie

Homeschooling Honesty.

All day I've had these ideas of what I could blog about, none of them overtly inspirational or positive.

 Earlier this week I found myself so overwhelmed with the weight of homeschooling.  The responsibility of homeschooling.  All the questions came flooding over me.  What am I doing?  Is this really the right thing for our family?  Am I supposed to be doing this?  Is it supposed to be this hard?  Will she ever learn diligence and good work ethic and how to make and stick to a schedule?  Will she be educated enough to go to college?  Be a doctor or a chemist?  Will I have succeeded in educating her to be whatever she wants to be?

And then all those things that I hold over my head came rushing back.  I'm not very organized (I used to be, but not anymore.  Not with three kids).  I'm not very diligent.  I don't have a good work ethic.  I hate doing the dishes.  and the laundry. And I don't like to clean.  {This is where my mom would say she didn't do a good job teaching me, but it isn't that at all.}

All of the sudden I realized that if I screw up at home, there won't be a school either to pick up my broken pieces and teach my children what it means to turn in an assignment on time and completed.  There won't ever by bells and time constraints.  There won't ever by deadlines or directional plotting to make sure you can make it to your locker, the bathroom, and your class on the fourth floor in 3 very short minutes.

And it weighed on me.  All of it.  All week.  All week as we barely got our school work accomplished while I snuggled a healing boy, tried to keep him calm but the other two busy.  A difficult week when I tried so hard to show my struggling three year old just how important she is, but I hurt the way her eyes say she feels looked over.

Today I sat in the ballet waiting area, unshowered with pony-tailed hair, my eyes revealing my weariness,  I turned to the seasoned mom next to me and asked "Do you ever feel like 'what am I doing??"  Her response was just what a weary mom needed.  "Oh yah, all the time.  I've felt like that since the beginning."  -- solidarity.

We got in the car and drove home.  As Amariss belted out the sound of music and Doron somehow fell asleep through it all, I drifted in my own thoughts.  I saw a man on a corner, holding two different sodas in each hand, waiting for the lights to change.  And I thought briefly "I wish I could just sit on the couch and drink two different sodas and binge watch Netflix for like 2 days."  But then I shook my head, no, not really.  I would want to clean the house first... and by the time I finished that I would want to be with my kids again.

But I reminded myself of why we're in this.  Why we homeschool.  Public schools are great, I think they have fantastic teachers who work so hard to make a difference in the lives of kids.  I'm so thankful for all the friends I have who pour so much of themselves into teaching little ones.  I cannot imagine how difficult this is.

I just read through our vision statement.  We wrote this before we started homeschooling Am in Kindergarten.  And I don't know that I have read it since.  But another seasoned homeschool mom told me 'Write out a vision statement and read it often, because you will need to remember why you are doing this'.  Despite all of Am's advancements and achievements just in this past quarter of school, the hard days make you want to throw it all away in an instant.  And while I haven't read our vision statement in 3 years, I can see that by reading it we are still holding to it.  And I am so thankful for that.

I am so thankful that this really hard job of educating our children is worth it.  I am so thankful that on really hard days, really hard weeks, and sometimes really hard months; there is still purpose in all of this.  And I am thankful that for this time and this season, God has shown us time and time again that we are doing what he has called us to do right now.

Blessings my friends.

Brie

Orphan Sunday

I originally sat down here to update you all on our family.  What has happened in the last 6 weeks, what has changed, what hasn't.  But as I sat down and got lost in the perusing of other blogs, one thing became clear to me.

This journey of life we are all on isn't all about me.  It's about the love of Jesus Christ, the heart he has for hurting people.  There is a desperation within all of us for something more, something deeper than just being.  Why are we here?  What is my purpose?  These questions plague so many and without the hope of Jesus these questions remain unanswered.  We will always feel void, always feel empty.

Lately my heart has been turned most deeply towards foster care.  The foster care system in my city, and all of those around.  I have found myself connected with people in strange ways whose heart has also been turned towards the same call.  I find myself here as a mama (a very tired and busy mama), juggling my three precious babies and aching to know why is it that babies and children cannot have safe and loving homes to grow up in.

Last year my husband and I introduced Orphan Sunday at our church.  With just one week preparation before the day we were able to print our pamphlets of information for ways for people to get involved in their community.  But that first step is always the hardest one.

Here we are, almost October, and Orphan Sunday is coming up on November 8, 2015.  Now, do you have to wait for a special sunday once a year to make a difference for a child in need of a home?

ABSOLUTEY NOT!  Please, please please... do not take this as a cry for one day awareness.  But one focused day of awareness might spark a small change that can turn to a bigger change and a bigger change and a bigger change until there are no more children in need of families.  Until there are no more little ones longing for a safe house to sleep in tonight.

James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after widows and orphans in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

www.orphansunday.org
www.lifesongfororphans.org
www.cafo.org
www.hopefororphans.org

How Will They Remember Me?

The other day Doron had an owie on his toe.  It was tiny, but toddler worthy of a bandaid. You know, a toddler can convince you to put a bandaid on a scar...

I scooped my little boy up, wrapped him in my arms, consoled him with all the words of affirmation he was looking for, settled him into the bathroom with a hug, applied neosporin, and lovingly wrapped that bandaid around his toe.  I figured the bandaid would stay on for about 2 minutes but the love he felt from me caring would last all day.

As I did this, I felt like a really good mom.  I thought, this is how I want to be remembered by my kids.  And I thought about all the great memories I have of my mom.  How she would sit in the kitchen and eat grapes and listen to Dr. Dobson every day at 11:30am.  And how on her days off she would fold laundry and bake cookies and meet us at the door with a smile and a hug.  In the summer she would sit on the porch swing and watch us play while drinking iced tea in our plastic blue cups.  She would sit at the piano and play hymns and sing and tell us that she really wasn't that good at playing piano - but she was always better than me.

And that's how I want my kids to remember me.  To have a bank in their mind full of great memories of a mom that loved them and love to be with them.  My mom never had a phone in her hand, because ours was still attached to the wall and other than talking, you couldn't do anything cool with it.  Even now my mom really only uses her phone to talk to people, sometimes text.  We always knew that when mom was talking to us, she was really talking to us.  There was no wondering if she was preoccupied with another conversation on the side.  She wasn't always looking at her phone.  When she helped us with homework she helped us with homework.  When she stayed up until midnight waiting for us to be home by curfew and then chatted for another hour afterwards - she was really present, tired but present.

I want to be present for my kids.

Contrast my vision of awesomeness with a little reality check.  Yesterday morning my adorably grown up seven year old cooked scrambled eggs and pancakes for everyone once again (frozen pancakes, toaster oven reheated).  She said "I'm the mom!" I laughed and questioned "Oh, what am I then?" her reply stung, but you can't get hurt by childhood honesty - she replied "You're the kid that's always on your phone."

And is it true? kind of.  Am I doing something important on my phone?  maybe.  Am I conversing with a friend?  probably.  Do my children know that they are still the most important thing in my life?  I don't think so.  Not when my phone is always around.  Not when I don't look at them while they are talking to me.  Not when they don't know what I'm doing on my phone, but it must be important since I'm always looking at it.

Hmmmm, do I need to throw my phone away?  No.  But when I sit down and have a big long talk with my girls about active listening, I have to ask myself  'Am I actively listening to others?  Or have my children gained their poor listening and poor communication skills from a lifetime of watching me?'

Food for thought tonight.  It is pretty funny how a year and a half ago, before I got my first smart phone, this never would have even been an issue.  My phone had no value then other than talking and reading a text here and there.

Now, I have to learn how to break all of the bad habits - and protect my family.