I Beg to Dream and Differ from the Hollow Lies

My night consisted of Battleship, awkward emails, and listening to Josh watch a video of the Lord of the Rings card game.

This is just how we roll.

I have the spiritual gift of awkwardness and anxiousness.

They go hand in hand, so they're one.

This past Saturday I went to a surprise birthday party for someone I didn't know, and I was surrounded by more people that I didn't know that I was forced to remember the names of. I spent most of the night gripping my hands, scratching my neck, looking at the ceiling and crunching ice. Situations aren't awkward anymore if you're crunching ice. The "crunch" tunes out the conversations you're not part of. I was not born to be a social butterfly. I was meant to serve the drinks. Give me a bow-tie and a tray, and I'm on it. Put me in a room with people I don't know and tell me to talk to them, and, well, you can inevitably find me outside of the room taking deep breaths.

It's so bad that people come up to me and ask me to sit with them because they think I feel lonely. And then they look at me, bewildered, when I say "No thanks. I'm fine." I don't know if they're offended or if they really feel like I need a friend. Apparently they didn't know me in high school. In high school, I could be found in the back of the classroom either sleeping or drawing cubes repeatedly on a piece of paper. I think I have a problem - but I'm not quite sure that it is. Social apathy?

I never know when to say hello to people or if they want me to say hello at all. Maybe it's better if we just distantly acknowledge that the other is there and keep walking.

I do that all the time.

Several months ago I saw an old quizzer friend in my favorite salad place. I pretended not to see her and left. It's not because I don't like her or that she isn't interesting. I don't know how to greet people when it doesn't involve a high five. And then there's that awkward moment of, "I really didn't want to stay and talk, but now I'm trapped." I'm a firm believer that we should all just walk around with small white boards and just write general statements like "You're talking too much" or "Learn how to cross the road, hippie."

Splish Splash

I'm mean to a stray cat.

Yes, that's how I'm going to start this blog.

You see, I've been very lucky to have wonderful cats my entire life. However, I do happen to have one cat, Sugar, that does. not. like. other. cats. With the exception of her favorite sister, Diamond. Just so there's no confusion, I am including pictures of all three of my cats below.

Diamond

Sugar

Charlie

Lately, a stray black and white cat has been coming to our porch to look in the sliding glass door - which just so happens to be where Sugar likes to sleep. Every day. Within seconds, there's hissing, scratching at the door, jumping, etc. I hate it. So I have to fix it. And fix it I do.

I go to the kitchen, get a small glass and fill it up with ice cold water. I walk out the front door and make my way over to the porch. I sling the water at the cat. The cat runs away. Drenched.


It's not working.

The cat comes back. Every day.

And I feel guilty.

Every day.

All Around Hope is Springing Up from This Old Ground

I know this will come as quite a shock, but....

I don't have all the answers.

I just don't.

Adoption is hard. Waiting is hard. Thinking is hard. Wondering is hard. Uncertainty is hard.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and tell you about the struggle I've been having. I hesitated mentioning this because I can't deal with the questions that will inevitably follow. Because, seriously, this is hard stuff.

Some background.

Our adoption agency requires us to fill out a sort of checklist on the type of child we will be open to receiving. It ranges from race to criminal background in the birth parents' history to disabilities and everything in between. I've told a few people how absolutely hard that was to fill out. Because what if I'm saying "no" to the plan God has for me, and I'm rejecting it with a simple check mark? How can I say no to loving a baby? Why is their disability the deciding factor? If I had a child naturally that had the same disability, would I say no? Of course not! So why is it "no" now?

I decided to rest in knowing that I serve a God who knows me and loves me and would lead me in the right direction. And that was enough. Until I began to wonder if I'm resting in me and my direction instead of Him and His.

A few weeks ago, I found myself wandering daily over to adoptuskids.org. I spent hours looking through profile after profile of kids. Kids looking and waiting for the exact same thing I was: a family. I watched videos of sibling groups and cried. I thought, "These could be my kids." I looked through pages and pages of groups of children who were surely broken. And I felt broken. I looked at a set of six siblings, and found myself wishing for someone to take them in. "If only I had a huge house and several rooms."

Even now, it hurts. It hurts to look at those faces and wonder if I'm doing the right thing. If we're doing the right thing. Josh assures me we are. And I trust him. But it doesn't take the hurting away - it just makes me wish that years could fast forward. Then we'd be ready. Ready for that teenager with the attitude. Ready for the pre-teen who loves to sing. Ready for that 17 year old who needs someone to invest in them.

I never thought I'd be in this place.

Now that I'm older, I know that when I was 18 and said I wanted to adopt, I said it because I somehow wanted a "re-do". I wanted to try that again, to go back, be normal, erase the hurt. I felt like adoption had wrecked my life, and I would never know who or what I might have been otherwise.

I didn't know that, years later, my life would be wrecked again by adoption.

But this time it was voluntary. He said "now" and I said "okay". God was wrecking my life - and it was a good hurt. The pruning, the chipping away. He broke my heart for the orphaned. My heart was broken for the one that hurt me the most, because I realized that they had also been broken and wounded.

So I sit here, heart broken with the things that break the heart of God.

Yet joyful.

This Friday, my little brother Michael, who was brought into my life when he was 2 weeks old, will be graduating from high school. And I can't help but be thankful. Thankful for the years that I've had with the coolest little brother that I may never have had. Thankful that God made beautiful things from the dust. Thankful that He gave me a little brother who loves me and calls me on his birthday because I'm the one he wants to talk to. Thankful for a little brother who drove me crazy by snuggling with my cat more than I wanted him to. Thankful for all the times he got in the bathtub to play with cars instead of to wash his hair. Thankful that he stills likes me even though I woke him up by shaking his bed, telling him there was an earthquake.

I'm not quite so sure that my life would have been "normal" had my family not adopted. I can't imagine my life without him.

*Insert Lyric about Burritos*

Money registers as pain for me.

Big time.

I'll be honest. Living on a budget is the pits sometimes. And I can say that now, since we are officially on the "It's not in the budget" train.

"But weren't you always on a budget?"

Yes and no.

Yes, we did put it on paper on purpose. But, honestly, for five months in a row, the "new breaks" portion of our budget turned into "but I really want a burrito" instead. That's a lot of unplanned burritos, and I'm sure I didn't share any with Bessie, the gold Saturn Ion. My idea of "on purpose" is "it's mine and I'll do with it what I wish. On purpose."

And it's not that spending money is bad or wrong, my priorities were mixed up in all kinds of crazy. I remember telling a friend about my new Sseko sandals. I told her to buy some. She said that even though she wanted some, she wanted a house more. I laughed at that, so sad that it had to come down to house versus sandals.

Until it happened to me.

Burrito or baby?
New flippies or baby?
Townhome or baby?

You see, I'm the type of person who wants things. A lot of things. Vacations, SUVs, boots and new towels. I claim to not have a lot, but, man, the wanting! I want so many things.

Until I compare it to baby.

I know that my last two blogs have been focused on this thing called money, but that's because it's right in front of my face. And I'm working through changing what it is that I'm seeing. Because I don't want to see the long list of "can't" and "won't". I don't want to be weighed down by the longing of temporary and momentary things that won't last. I want to wrap myself up in "can" and "will". I want to embrace the hours spent playing board games with Josh, because I know in the near future, those hours won't be available. And when those hours become unavailable, I want to long for the hours with him, and not the new ribbons for my Ssekos. Not the new computer, not the new pair of jeans, not the burritos from Chipotle.

I remember telling someone several years ago that our goal was to get out of debt and for me to quit my job. Even then, I knew this is what I was meant to do. Their response was not what I was hoping for, but one that was very negative. Implying that if I quit my job, I wouldn't have money to do anything.

And they're partially right. The days of paying full price to see a movie are over. We're matinee-ing it up. The days of burritos and Jimmy Johns at least three times a week are over. The days of spending way too much money at Kohls are over. They're over. And I can't say that it's a bad thing.

Because I'm learning to live WITH. Not without. I'm learning to live and thrive in enough. I'm learning to enjoy the calming presence of Josh, and his awesome back scratches when I begin to get overwhelmed. Learning to open up my Bible for the first time in months and read, and look up what besiege means. Learning to rest in Him, knowing that he cares about the birds of the air - so He's gotta care a whole lot about me. Learning to call my sister, who understands so much - and encourages me on really hard days. Learning to see what I can live with is a whole lot more enjoyable than what I'm not going to have.

I have a whole lot. I don't need anything else.

Except that baby.

And if that baby happens to come with a piping hot chicken burrito with guac from Chipotle - well, I wouldn't turn it down.

The burrito. Not the baby. I'll take the baby either way.

I Seek To Cure What's Deep Inside

Let me be the first to say it.

Me and my computer, we're not friends today. I don't know if it's because I am choosing to write at the table today instead of on my lap, but, well, I just lost a good paragraph of good, wholesome chatter.

It wasn't really wholesome. I started off by talking about how I got on here today with the intent of blogging about how I was a b to the rat when I was in my teens. Seriously. Shocker, I know. I was going to talk about how I tried to run our pastor out of the church by giving him mean looks during his sermon. Or by not paying attention at all. I was passive aggressive even then.

I was going to talk about how my bratiness started when I became friends with a girl in second grade. You know, there are times I can look back and think, "Yeah, my mom did know what she was talking about, I guess." Against my mother's better judgment, I became best friends with a girl from 2nd grade to 7th grade. Just enough time to be trained on how to be a brat.

I was going to talk about when I made the decision that spanking wasn't for me. A painful subject that I don't like to share.

But instead, I am just going to post something I wrote in 2009 on a super-secret blog.


"Compasses don’t make sense.  If that NSEW compass wasn’t on a map and you turned the map upside down and the state names (and/or country names) turned upside down as well, would the NSEW then be backwards?  Because sometimes if I’m standing in Tennessee facing up towards Kentucky then Kentucky is to the north of me, West Virginia is to the east of me (like that makes sense anyway) and California is to my west.  But if I do a 180 everything is different and Kentucky is then to my south.  This makes sense to me."

I Wrap God in My Perfect Packages

Blogging is very interesting.

I try to blog the same way every time. And then there are days when I don't really have anything in particular to talk about, and so I just start talking about my day. *Snore* I think it takes me back to the xanga days where I just put my bidness out there for everyone to see. Who the junk cares that I ate one two butterfingers every day for five days straight? (Don't worry, I logged those calories.)

I could talk about the fact that I was a little too excited about the new vacuum cleaner we got. Number one on the consumer reports list. Moving on up! Of course, it was followed my a wave of sadness when I realized that that was the last large purchase we'll be making in a while.

What a dumb thing to be sad about. How terribly spoiled I am.

The thing is, I know God will provide. I know He is faithful.

But I struggle.

Because am I faithful?

I've been officially a stay-at-home wife for a week, and the only time I've picked up my Bible is when I was moving it from the junk shelf in the middle of the room  the dining room table to the bookshelf. Where it has sat, stacked on top of other books like The Hunger Games.

And so I panic. Not because I don't believe that He can or that He will, but because I'm not confident in myself to remain confident in knowing that He will. I waver. My chest gets a little tighter. My shoulders get a little more tense.

I cling to control. I cling to control because I wasn't in control of so many things for so long. Secrets buried down deep forced me to hold tightly to the unchanging - to my ability to be consistent, even if consistency didn't make sense. Hold tightly to the unchanging budget and rest in knowing the money would be there, with a lot of room to wiggle in the event I wanted to splurge.

I was resting in the wrong thing. Resting in the wrong place. Resting in the wrong one.

And it's funny. Because God did exactly what I asked Him to do months ago. To give me just enough manna for today. I prayed for Him to help me let go, to stop holding on. But I wanted to save those jars of manna, even though I knew they'd rot and wouldn't benefit me in the least. It looked good for a time though, didn't it?

He's giving us just enough. Down to the penny. Just enough.

http://www.myspace.com/music/player?sid=73922834&ac=now

Nobody Better Lay a Finger on My Butterfinger

So I'm three days in. Well really 3.5, but who's counting?


I love it.

I'm trying to think of a way to have "I've spent the last two mornings cleaning bathtubs" sound glamorous. Maybe if I added "And I'm not even to the grout yet!"? Does that help?

It's weird, but I thrive here. In this bubble of cleaning and cooking and watching just a tiny bit of court TV.

I can't really think of making my days sound interesting to anyone but me.

We have our second yard sale this Saturday. I just know that God is going to pour out so many blessings on us and the Metzgers (adopting from China). We have been blessed to have people go pick up couches for us, donate tons and tons of stuff, and just pray for us. I'm ready to make this mountain move.

Truthfully, I was a little sad that two families who are adopting won't be there. Because they'll be in Ethiopia and Russia meeting their little ones!!!!! I guess I can't really be sad if I'm ridiculously happy about it. I'm so happy they won't be there! (See, that sounds terrible.)

I'm going to eat a butterfinger now.

Because that's what us stay-at-home wives do.