My Christmas Babies

December 24, 2010 - I took a pregnancy test that turned out positive
December 23, 2013 - We got the call that Jordan had chosen us as adoptive parents

If you think you are sentitmental about your kids at Christmastime, you have no idea.
I very much believe that God was intentional in timing the news of my coming children - their hearts were gifted to me in the same season that God gifted Jesus to the world.

When I was pregnant with Phoenix, I needed to know that God was orchestrating something larger in my life, and Mary's story rung hope-bells in my heart. I wrote this a couple years ago about the night we found out:

During the Christmas Eve service, I was (understandly) a litte absentminded. The weightiness of my pregnancy hadn't hit, but I knew on some basic level that my whole life has just changed. I was already starting to worry about what this meant for my life, and was desperate for a word from God. And then, during one song, it occurred to me: my Christmas gift was not unlike Mary's. Granted, there were some significant differences - I was married, I wasn't especially saintly or surrenderd in obedience, there was no immaculate conception, and my baby was certainly not divine. But the unplanned, life-altering pregnancies? Mary and I most certainly had that in common.

That night, during that service, I distinctly felt myself a part of God's metanarrative. The story that began with Genesis included me and my unborn child. The character of God, as revealed in scripture, was being disclosed to me, and God's working in the world felt remarkably consistent. I felt an incredible kinship with Mary, and it was strangely comforting to know that the whole unplanned-pregnancy-thing had worked out well for her. Not that it was easy, but she was a part of God's redemptive plan.

When we were waiting for Jericho, I needed a very different word. Instead of being desperately afraid of having a child, my whole personhood ached to welcome another baby to the world. And, as I wrote last year, God used the Christmas season to re-fix my eyes on Christ, and to remind me that God does not withhold the greatest gifts from his children.

I read this (written by William Willimon) in my advent book a couple of weeks ago, and it seems an appropriate expression of how those two pajama-clad babies have wrecked and made my world.

"This is often the way God loves us: with gifts we thought we didn't need, which transform us into people we don't necessarily want to be. With our advanced degrees, armies, government programs, material comforts,  and self-fulfillment techniques, we assume that religion is about giving a little of our power in order to confirm to ourselves that we are indeed as self-sufficient as we claim.

Then this stranger comes to us, blesses us with a gift, and calls us to see ourselves as we are -- empty-handed recipients of a gracious God, who, rather that leave us to our own devices, gave us a baby."

Merry Christmas, friends.

Sibling Prayers

"See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant."

I think about this verse a lot, and have for many years. Like much of my spirituality, it was sown into my heart during my days in Philly, though I don't remember the specific context. 

More recently, I think about it in the context of my kids. I'm a name nerd. and I pray that their character will someday be a reflection of the ideals woven in their names. I pray that Jericho, with his wall-tumblin' name, will break sin-chains, demolish strongholds and weed out selfishness. I pray that Phoenix, with her ash-rising name, will minister redemption, heal heartaches and spin beauty from pain. And I also pray that someday, in some way, they will minister together. What a team they would make, destroying evil and building love.

I already see echoes of answered prayer in Phoenix's sweet spirit.

I was frantically searching for my phone earlier this afternoon, and admittedly overreacted. I was harsh, intense and just plain angry with Phoenix, who was an innocent bystander hit by my crazy-shrapnel.

She found it, I apologized, and we headed to the post office.

While we were driving, her little three-year-old brain processing the earlier events, she said, "Mommy ... sometimes when grown-up girls get frustrated, big-sister girls can make them happy. I like to make you happy because I love you."

It is not her role or responsibility to attend to my emotional health. But she has always been very empathetic, very aware of the emotional realities of the people around her. Her generous, loving response to my frustration was to not to hide but to heal. 

I feel very grateful to have a front-row seat to the lives of my children, to the unfolding of their being. 

And I was reminded tonight that I also get to help write the script in a small way, not just though my day-to-day parenting, but through prayer. 

So I keep turning that verse from Jeremiah over in my head and my heart, asking that God will appoint them over nations, that they will love God and take territory for the Kingdom.