A single mom to three boys working hard to live my truest life. I hope as I share the beauty, the gratitude, the grief, the hard…you find inspiration + hope to show up to your life as honestly as possible.
Love once appeared beautiful and whole to me, deep wells that were free and generous, courageous and brave. The caverns of my soul began expanding showing me how to love beyond measure.
When I looked down to see the spots—pink and too bright and red—covering the stark, white soft paper my soul plummeted into the water below me with a splash.
Death is so quick, and grief is the price for such love.
This blue, tiny, 650 square foot duplex home has been fuller than full of blessing and goodness, tears and growth.
It marks the beginning of the long nights I wanted so badly, an insanely absurd amount of poopy diapers, sleep-deprived decisions, and the season I wrote my first book with two babies under one (and then two one year olds). It marks a messy marriage with more bumps than we'd yet known. This duplex home marks loneliness, grief, transition, joy, blessing, and chaos.
For so many moments, I've cursed its size and layout, the ratty carpet and holes covering the walls. Only to follow my frustration was the reality I knew I'd miss this space.
Part of the great gift of my grief is unpacking what it means to love others better than I did yesterday.
Grief itself is sprung out of deep, tender love wishing to be found and fostered, and kept safe.
Wading through grief has taught me both how to love well and what isn’t an experience of love: how to perpetuate pain.
Grief taught me both how to respond and how not to respond to other people’s hurt. It has led me to loosen expectations of myself, as well as others, regarding where we need to be emotionally, or how we ought to act.
To be honest, it's hard to process that I've written a legitimate book and real live humans outside of my mom are reading it. Have read it. And like it. And have been set free through it.
It really does bring tears to my eyes because it's a dream I know so many have, but so many fear to pursue. They fear they aren't good enough, or something. Who are they? They ask. I still ask that: Who am I? I'm just me.
And that's just the thing: Jesus uses us unlikely, little people to do "big" things, when we are willing. I have confidence in who He is and His love for me...which means no matter what I do—if it's a flop or an embarrassment or a big hot mess—I've still got Him. And that's worth any risk, to me. He's worth any risk.
I hope you'll join hundreds of others and preorder This Undeserved Life this weekend. It would be my honor.
"Are they yours? ... Both of them? ... Oh, so how old are they? ... They aren't twins, are they?"
"Oh, you must be the nanny."
"Bless your heart, I could never adopt or love a child that wasn't mine."
"I have always wanted a black baby."
"Interesting that one has curly hair..."
"Are they cousins?"
"You must be babysitting one of them."
Still in the fog of morning sluggishness and with a thinly veiled air of motherly annoyance, I dropped my four older children at soccer practice with water bottles and balls and snacks in baggies. I thought perhaps I could use a few laps around a field to clear my head. So I put two-year-old Bo in the stroller with no plan for where to walk, just knowing I needed to pound it out on the pavement. The chaotic early morning rush to get everyone ready and out the door had shredded my nerves. I struggled to like my kids in that single moment, and I surely didn’t like myself. I was remembering why we didn’t do these early morning activities very often.
The carpet fibers catching my tears were soaked with salty love poured out.
Month eighteen of trying to conceive had just passed and I was weary of purchasing pregnancy tests, only to pitch them.
I was exhausted from the physical pain of endometriosis. I was worn thin from the emotional pain of waiting.
When she placed him in my arms, my whole body released a tension I didn’t realize it carried and simultaneously grew a necessary wound in my heart.
The gravity of a tiny life—which wasn’t tiny at all—shifted my whole world, changing me.
I breathed in his sweetness, only to exhale a gripping understanding of the sacred moments I was living.
The season will eventually change.
But for now, as you find yourself here in the wait, whatever that might be, I’m praying the Father gives you eyes to see the subtle change of Spring, to see what’s really growing underneath.
I'm addicted to getting things done.
My greatest sin is that I never pause enough to truly rest.
I believe every sin is sin, so when I say "my greatest" I mean my most frequent sin.
It's the sin in my life I am very aware of, but do little to (repent and) change.
Sin, to me, is disobedience to God and what He intends for us. I believe He invites us into a whole and full life, one where He commands things like rest...because it is for our better good. It is for our best life.
I continue to live in constant disobedience of the commandment to rest, to enjoy the Sabbath. A commandment given out of love, a gift of grace. It was commanded not out of control, but out of love and gentleness.
We were created to rest.
The last two years have been filled with so much transition and all the blessings.
With all of this transition—going from a youth pastor and his wife to suddenly not working at a church and having two babies—we have adjusted pretty well. Now they are both one year old, I feel we are finally getting into somewhat of a groove. It's taken longer than some parents, but hey you know what? We do what we can. I'm sure another transition and change is about to be thrown at us.
Along the way, we have used some amazing products to help us transition and live life as a growing family of four.
Waiting.
The reality of life is that we’re all waiting on something. Maybe it's something smaller and less significant. But maybe it's something larger that consumes all your thoughts.
Financial breakthrough. Healing in your body. A baby. Your husband to return. A job.
Scripture discusses the topic of waiting over and over. It also addresses the topic of suffering and facing trials.
A GIVEAWAY AT BOTTOM OF POST
This situation felt unfair and I was furious. “I will never be the same again,” I thought as a burning fury formed into a profound amount of pain. I felt it searing, piercing my heart in a way that would change me forever.
When I invite God into these softened, honest spaces of seeing abuse and brokenness, I become more sad than angry with those who hurt us. The hardened walls of bitterness are shed and replaced with soft sorrow and an invitation to grieve the loss of what should have been.
Forgiveness is for our healing and wholeness. But I cannot find this freedom and joy until I truly begin to walk through the dark parts of my suffering and pain.
Time and time again, I find I cannot skip the night to arrive to the morning. Joy comes in the morning, but the morning comes after the dark night. Sometimes the night lasts longer than we want it to.
Motherhood demands I reach out to Him, need Him more than I did the previous moment, and ache for His presence.
It is in the hidden and unseen moments of my motherhood journey I encounter Him fully. In the long nights without sleep, the books and toys sprawled out across the house, the food sticking to the walls, and the imperfect way I meet the needs of my two toddlers.
Transracial adoption can be an incredible way to build families. When adoptees work through the pain and difficulty, when we understand our story as adoptees and as transracial adoptive families, we have the impact of not just making small changes, but making world wide, impactful changes.
Generational changes. How we care for our children. How we see our children. How we build bridges between white communities and communities of color. It all matters.
My morning arrived but it was birthed through a long, long night of labor. And just because I am currently in a morning doesn't mean I don't have marks of the night. The darkness in the night can scar us, sometimes leaves marks of trauma from nightmares.
I'd dare to say the marks of trauma have made me a better person. They've taught me how to sit on my hands, to listen better, to do my best to quiet my defenses and explanations.
I've learned I can grab ahold of the immense joy in the morning and continue to acknowledge the darkness preceding it.
It's this beautiful journey of pain and healing crashing into one another, continuously.
While in the infant adoption process and awaiting our match, every day I battled urgency.
I felt urgency to be matched with an expectant mama making an adoption plan, but was simultaneously fearful we didn't have even half the funds to be due.
There existed in me a void, one created by the wait.
Whether motherhood came to you unexpectedly and too soon—without warning—, right on time, or far longer than you had hoped...the motherhood journey is not without loss.
But I'm wary to even post this blog. I'm wary because of fear: what if people think I'm complaining, when I'm not? What if people think I'm wishing we didn't have two one year olds, when I don't? What if people think I expected motherhood to be easy, when I didn't? What if people misunderstand?
I write for you, mama, who needs to know I see there is loss in the gift of motherhood. You have permission to acknowledge that loss, too—just as you have permission to acknowledge and grieve any other loss.
It doesn't make you less of a good mom, it makes you a whole mom. A human mom.
"Oh so it worked for you! You got adopted and then found out you were pregnant. I'm so happy for you." Her words were confident as she loaded the belt with groceries, one by one, smiling at me. Beaming.
I'm becoming more and more aware there may never be a time when this myth falls away, when this stigma ceases to exist. But a mama can dream, right? A mama can dream that one day her son won't feel like he was some means to his brother?
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