Quietly Racing, Fiercely Resting

I fell into the classic "woman trap."

Last night, actually.

It was ten o'clock, the lights were out, and the monsoon-like rainstorm had stilled to a dull roar. I had just had a wonderful text-versation with my brother in NYC, I had eaten a bowl of ice cream for dinner (perks of the honey being gone), and my house was spotless (thanks to a recent showing).

All was right in my world.

And I couldn't sleep.

I lay there, eyes peeled open, staring at the ceiling. Would our house sell? Does this guy want to buy? How soon would he want to move in? We could borrow my dad's trailer... we'd need  a storage unit... what clothes did I want to pack, which do I need... packing the kitchen would be a bear... baby isn't going to like this...

Courtney. For crying out loud, go to sleep.

I flipped to the side, cuddled down in my pillow, and... what if Scott doesn't get a job? What if I'm the reason that he doesn't get a job? Name one other profession where they care what your wife is like... I've never been good at pastor-wifey stuff... I don't like mauve and ladies' teas... what if they want me to do the flower arrangements for the women's bathroom? Is that something that pastor's wives do? I guess I could learn to like mauve...

Courtney. Stop it.

I rolled over. Face down. Would I need to find a new job? I will miss my current patients and coworkers so much... but could we afford to buy a house on Scott's salary? Where would we buy it? Where will we be? We want 7 to 9 children... how many houses can accommodate that kind of lunacy?

I turned over the Scott, "I can't sleep."

"Me either. Stop worrying."

"I'm not worrying. I'm just thinking about lots of different things."

"Honey... that is the very definition of worry."

He was right. The word "worry" in the Greek actually means (roughly) "to divide."

In reality, there was nothing that I needed to do right now. There was nothing that I needed to plan in order to be a good steward of tomorrow. Instead, I was splitting my mind up into a million tiny pieces. I put a little bit of my mind on selling the house, a little on where we will move, a little in Scott's job... and why stop there? Why don't I start thinking about my baby's development, my job, how much laundry there is, whether or not I paid the credit card bill... And my mind gets divided again, and again, and again...

Yes. I was worrying. Don't pretend you haven't.

My perfect worry time is after everything is done for the day, the lights click off, I climb under my fluffy comforter, cuddle down for sleep, and then... BAM. Suddenly, my life is devolving into total disarray and it all requires that I immediately have plans for every possible scenario.

The problem with worry is two-fold. The first is that it is literally like slapping God in the face. You would never dream of saying, "God, I'm sorry, I'm just better at this than you, so I'm going to take over the details and organization of my life. 'Kay, thanks, bye." But when you worry, that is what you're saying.

The second problem with worry is our finite humanness... Unlike the God of the universe (who, incidentally, you just assumed was incompetent by deciding to worry), you do not have limitless brain power and resources to throw at a million different problems. Your energy and emotional capacity are limited. When you burn up all your reserves worrying about things that may never happen, and/or, things that you cannot control, you are robbing yourself of one of your most precious resources.

You have a finite time on this earth. You only have a short number of days in which to live. And when you spend those days, wrapping your mind into knots, and dividing it into a myriad of small, unimportant boxes, you are distracting yourself from what you need to be doing.

Paul writes: Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

Worrying is beating the air. Your mind is out of control when you worry. And you only have a little time to run this race...

In Psalm 37 it says, 

Do not fret—it leads only to evil.
For those who are evil will be destroyed,

    but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land.

I will not worry... not only is my God in perfect, sovereign control... but I only have a short time here. And if I worry, I lose my effectiveness in many, much more important matters.

Who cares if we don't have a house, or can't sell our current house? What does it matter in eternity if we have no jobs, or are unable to have a future plan? Worse things have happened to Christians, and if that happens when I am seeking to please the Lord, then I can only assume it is for my good and His glory.

But I do care, regardless if I'm homeless, jobless, and plan-less, about sharing the hope that I have in Christ... Because apart from his gracious goodness, my life would be nothing but beating the air.

Grant Alexander: Wonder of Wonders, Miracle of Miracles

We are home.

I've done my first night as a mom flying solo without a battery of NICU nurses coaching me and taking the night shift. We've successfully completed numerous diaper changes, multiple feedings, and we put a sheet on a baby crib. Big stuff, folks, big stuff...

And now it's time to tell you the beginning of "Grantlet's" story. It's a good Christmas story--lots of miracles, sparkles, love, and cuddles. So, grab your favorite wintertime coffee blend, curl up in a big comfy chair, and let me tell you a story of how a wee-small baby changed our world.

It was a cold, incredibly normal Monday night. I was curled up in bed, diligently avoiding the remaining dishes downstairs, and browsing for Christmas stories on my Kindle. Scott was at the community center and I was feeling a wee bit lonesome, hopeless and nostalgic.

Two weeks earlier, on a brittle, sunshiny day, Scott and I had driven south to Bloomington to meet another birth mother. This was our third "connection" since starting the adoption process, and "anticlimactic" could not have more fully described our emotions on that drive. Hope was dead. After a very brutal let-down, and a slow fade-out by two other moms, I was very far from believing that we would ever get a child. Christmas was approaching, and memories of our lost little baby would make me cry on an almost daily basis. Each date around this time of year was full of very painful memories of last Christmas.

I am ashamed to say, I was wallowing in a very pale-blue despair, which gently permeated multiple areas of my life.

So, we were not excited to meet this mom. We were not anxious. We were not nervous.

Over a lunch of creamy potato soup, we chit-chatted with two social workers and the birth mom. Within the first 30 minutes we learned that she had considered an abortion (I almost cried), couldn't do it, and was willing to place her boy with us. She was due the end of December.

I cried three times at that lunch, because God knew. God knew Scott and I were biased towards having a baby boy (we agree on more boy names). God knew that I wanted a baby at Christmas time (Scott said it was like a Hebrew redemptive story-line, God restoring what was lost). God knew that we couldn't handle a long wait, so He gave us a birth mom due five weeks from when we met her. God knew! And He orchestrated.

We may have been calm driving to that meeting. We were definitely not calm driving from that meeting.

And then the waiting set in. I tried not to go crazy. I tried not to buy ridiculous amounts of clothing (and I succeeded... kind of... I lost my heart to some little elephant jumpsuits and corduroy pants with a cardigan--preppy baby!). I didn't plan. I didn't bank on it. Although we had met birth mom, she had not signed anything legally binding. She could still change her mind. Even when the social worker called and said birth mom was deferring to our wishes in several areas because it was "their baby, not mine," I still tried not to hope.

So, that is why, two weeks later, curled up in bed, sipping hot cocoa, I was trying to assuage my anxiety and despair with fluffy, Victorian Christmas stories. (This genre is my weakness...). A little after 10:30 my hubby arrived home, bearing a letter. A dear sweet friend, struggling with similar feelings of motherless, aching arms, had written me a letter. As I read it, all my frustration, fear, and worry, spilled over in tears of relief. I cry every time I think of that letter... We have prayed, every step of the way, that God would use this story to proclaim His sufficiency. Her letter breathed encouragement that this was really happening: that God was really being glorified. That the waiting and longing were being used to proclaim His glory.

Tears dripping off the end of my nose, I turned to Scott and said, "It's happening, honey. Someone saw. Someone knows that God is enough for us."Stifling my last little sob, I cuddled down next to my hubby and said, (what I had said every night since we had met the birth mom), "Maybe tonight a baby will come..." (because in my mind, women only go into labor at night.)

We were jolted awake at 11:25. Phone ringing.

"Courtney?"
"Yes?"
"This is Carol, from the agency. You guys need to get in your car. The baby is coming. Do you have a bag packed?"

Did I have a bag packed!?! No, I didn't have a bag packed! That would have created hope. It would have meant that it was definitely happening, and the baby wasn't supposed to come for another two weeks!

Fifteen minutes later, we're in the car, rubbing sleep out of our shocked eyes, with a bag full of slippers, a camera, baby clothes and a bra. Somehow, I labored under the delusion that I had packed everything I could possibly need. And, who cares? There was a baby being born.

We got to the end of our driveway, and we get another call,

"Courtney? It's Carol. The baby is here. The birth mom pushed for less than 15 minutes."

Another. Answered. Prayer. Birth mom's last baby came after 36 hours of labor, and she was terrified that would happen again. We had been praying with her for a speedy delivery. I wasn't banking on it being that speedy.

We learned that little baby was very tiny, and had been born with meconium in his lungs. He was in NICU. But stable. My heart took a motherly leap, and immediately started worrying. (Because God hadn't proven Himself faithful up to this point... right.)

We held baby for the first time at 2:34 on Tuesday morning. Grant Alexander was 4 pounds, 10 ounces at birth. Incredibly tiny for such an incredible blessing.

The next twenty-four hours were emotionally grueling. According to Indiana state law, a birth mother can not place her child until 24-48 hours after birth. There's always a chance she could change her mind. Fortunately, we were blessed with an amazing birth mother. She and I chit-chatted, sipped Starbucks, and talked about our lack of athletic ability.

I told her about Baby's name... Grant. I explained that his name meant "gift," and that each time I call him, all throughout his life, I will remember that he was a precious gift from the woman who carried him, and the God who protected him.

At 11:00 on 12/12/12, the final papers were signed.*

Grant Alexander.

Gift.

Man's defender.

And proof that God will write a better story than you can possibly imagine.

Grant, less than 24 hours old... and already given us dramatic faces. He was born for this family!

* Our adoption will not be finalized in court for approximately four months. Also, Grant's biological father has refused to claim the baby and sign the necessary papers. He has 30 days to complete multiple steps in order to claim the child. Technically, this is a "legal risk" adoption. However, we have been counseled by our lawyer to continue to pursue the adoption. In over a 1,000 adoptions, the lawyer has seen less than 20 contested. Pray ours is not one of that small number, please!

Let's Change Perspective, Shall We?

Welcome to the land of adoption.

It's very confusing here. Things change constantly. Your hope gets lifted up so many times, and then dropped so many times, that you start taking emotional Dramamine and praying for an end to the sea-sickness.

That is where we are living.

I cannot (and at this point will not) go into more details. Since I am I woman, I want to share every detail, but since I am also a rational being, I recognize that in thirty minutes, I could have an entirely new set of details. Everything is fuzzy. Everything is transient. Nothing is stable. Nothing is reliable.

That's domestic adoption.

Right now, we have no child. We have no baby. There is no adoption court date. We have talked to several moms, we have had phone calls with multiple social workers. Nothing is written in ink, nothing has even been sketched out in pencil.

We are learning so many things about God, that I have a slew of blog posts until the end of 2012. I've even started writing in a daily journal... there's just too much to even keep up with on a blog. I am astounded at the greatness, goodness, patience, sufficiency, sovereignty, constancy, joy, support, grace, mercy, forgiveness, gentleness.... (you get the idea).... of our God. What a blessing to walk through this with Him. I have no idea how you could do this without Him...

But as we walk through this roller coaster, we have had a shift in goals and perspective.

We want children. We started this process because we want children. In fact, we want so many children, we are crazy. And we know that. (Does 9 sound like too many?) But in our pursuit of children, we tried to be very careful that our first priority was the sharing of the Gospel. We want children because we want to raise a generation that fears God. We wanted to interact with the social workers, the lawyers, the birth mom, and all extended family in a way that showed who we serve and who we worship.

God was gracious with these desires.

And He expanded our narrow thinking.

He took our view of the Gospel and made it bigger. He took our view of the cross and stretched it farther. He flipped our expectations and dreams around, and showed us an entirely different perspective.

In short, God made this journey bigger than us. He made it bigger than getting children. He made it bigger than creating our family. He made it bigger than displaying love through welcoming any gender, skin color, or birth condition. He made it bigger than our dreams, our desires, and our (hopefully) huge future family.

He made it about HIM.

We desperately want children. But that is not why we are in this adoption. Our views have now changed. Our goal is to give God glory. That's it. So you may hear us doing some crazy things. We may get involved in some messy lives. We may have promises broken, take scary risks, and cry often. We probably do "crazy" things and live in a way that is not entirely safe... because we are learning to love as Christ loved.

If we have no children.
Fine.
If we have a million-and-one adoption chances fall through.
Okay.
If our hearts are broken again and again.
All right.
If I never earn the title "mommy" and Scott is never called "daddy."
It will be fine.

In fact, it will be wonderful. Because God has only good planned for us, and we know that "no good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless." Right now we are enraptured with the beauty of God's glory. And we are delighted, children or no children, to share that with the world. We don't know what that looks like, we don't know what tomorrow holds. But if, while we walk this journey, we fall deeper in love with our Savior, and we fulfill our roles as His children in our interactions with others... that is a beautiful thing.

And I would not dream of asking for more.

We have been blessed beyond measure.

You have said, "Seek my face," My heart says to you, "Your face, Lord, do I seek." I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!
~Psalm27~

Love in the Raindrops

Hello.

My lack of writing has not stemmed from a lack of learning, a lack of news, or a lack of desire.

No, rather my lack of writing has stemmed from a lack of news that I can share.

The adoption roller coaster has kept right on rolling. Here's the basic gist of adoption: "Yes. No. Maybe. Yes. No. No. Maybe?" It makes my heart hurt. There is no black and white in domestic adoption. There are a thousand shades of gray between a mother choosing you to mother her child.

In those shades of gray, there have been a lot of tears, prayers, and growth.

We still don't have a child, baby, or even a puppy. (Believe me, I've been lobbying for the puppy....)

But I'm becoming thankful for these days of waiting.

In these days I've learned that my God is gentle. He loves me. His plan for me is specifically designed to conform me to the likeness of His Son. Seeking Him. Seeking His glory. Isn't that why we set out on this voyage? Isn't proclaiming the glory of God through adoption our goal?

I'm not saying that peace has enveloped me in a cocoon of warm fuzzies. I don't smile with amicable joy every night as I turn off the light, "Look, honey, another day without an adoption. What a blessing." I think happily opening your arms to suffering makes you more of a sadist than a saint. But recognizing pain as an instrument in the hands of an all-knowing, all-powerful God, will give you delightful peace in the midst of chaos.

Uncertainty is not a fear that cripples. It's a scenario that strengthens. I recognize that my God is in control. My God is loving. And my God will work all things simultaneously for my good and His glory. He is making me like His Son. Think of that! Being made like Christ! I am a pathetic, self-absorbed, sinful person. And God is willing to take all this time--my entire life--to remake me. What a massive task!

And what a patient, loving God. He does not delight in suffering. He gathers my tears in a bottle. He will someday wipe each drop from my eyes. But He knows that in this fallen world, I need reasons to seek Him. I need chipping, polishing, and remolding.

I love the words of Joni Eareckson Tada:

“Sometimes God allows what he hates to accomplish what he loves.” 

Emissaries of Love

Today Scott and I are getting the opportunity to show the love of Christ in a very tangible way.

Life is full of pain. Misery. Darkness. People walk about with huge scars and gaping wounds.

And we're taught to say, "How are you?" in such a flippant and casual way. There's no way to answer but "fine," "good," "I'm hanging in there." We smile. We nod. We go on with our lives.

And I stand, looking at this world, a part of this world, and I have the answer. I know the hope. I have obtained the love. I have found the sunshine. I have unfading joy.

And I'm going to keep interacting with people as though they are "fine"?

You don't want "fine." You want abounding joy, unparalleled happiness, deepening passion, unconditional love.

And I have that.

May I share it today...

God's love has been poured into our hearts. God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. For those who love God all things work together for good, and there is not anything else in all creation, that will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Because of this we pray that the world may know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that all  may be filled with all the fullness of God.*

*(Summary of Romans "love" and Ephesians "love.")

Human beings have fallen in love with the echo of God's excellency in creation and lost the ability to hear the incomparable original shout of  

love.

(John Piper, "The Pleasures of God")

A Safe Gospel

We're in the middle of a backlash.

Young teenagers. Twenty-somethings. Career thirties. We are experiencing a pendulum swing of terrifying proportions and ramifications.

50 years ago, American Christianity looked different. We were a culture of church. We attended church. We pray at church. Our parties were at church. We tell others to go to church. We invite people to church. And every Sunday, we pulled on our pantyhose or dress pants, and polished our patent leathers. And we went to church. We sat in the pews and we heard the story of the gospel. Then we got up and shouted to the world, "Believe the gospel! Believe the gospel! Believe the gospel!"

We didn't go to the world. That would have been messy. God forbid our patent leathers get scuffed and we encounter someone who (gasp!) had committed adultery, was homeless, had an addiction, struggled with homosexuality. We didn't do that. Church was clean. Tidy. Presentable people only. So, while we acknowledged that the world was full of sin, and we recognized that the Gospel was the answer, we didn't take it anywhere. We stayed at church.*

We stayed clean.

In our bubbles.

Shouting at the world.

And my generation has seen this.

Looking at what can easily be perceived as "angry" Christianity--a Gospel filled with words (without actions), we are horrified at this callous approach to the world. We want to provide feet to the Gospel. We want to impact our world with the love of Christ.

And so, we've seen a rise in "social justice." Young people give up careers to dig wells in Africa. There are missions trips of orphanages. Sponsoring nights at homeless shelters. Raising awareness of diseases. Working with addictions and those struggling to survive.

But no words.

We reach out. We embrace a world. We give love. And then we sit back and hope that the love, on its own two feet, propels them to the Gospel. We dig wells, but we don't talk of living water. We counsel addicts, but don't discuss the One who satisfies all cravings. We minister to orphans, but neglect to mention the Great Abba-Father.

We, as a church, battle between the two ditches of Ephesians 4:15, "Speaking the truth in love." We speak truth. We love. But how often do they go hand in hand?

Our Gospel continues in narrow safety. If we shout truth from our pews--we will never get dirty. We will never get hurt. If we provide new wells--we are lauded for our philanthropy, without fear of judgment for our beliefs.

My generation is full of benevolent benefactors. Well-diggers. We will provide vaccinations, but we won't speak out about homosexuality. We cuddle orphans in Africa, but we don't fight for the unborn in America. We will crusade, but only for socially-approved messages. 

We speak of love, but practice its opposite when we neglect to share the great love that Christ has lavished. We are lashing out against the sterile Christianity of the previous years. Good. But is our philanthropy any less sterile? There is nothing dangerous about advocating for a truth that the world also holds to be true.

Dangerous Christianity is passionately pursuing the truth and the love. The world will not understand your truth, and your love may not look conventional.

We should get dirty. Dirty in the fields digging that well, and dirty in the battle for souls.

This is not a sterile belief. We do not hold a safe Gospel.

We have been given a dangerous, dirty, surprising commission.

What are you doing with it?

*I am aware that there are, and have been, and, God willing, will continue to be, men and women who have stood against the cultural mold of Christianity and have lived dangerously, adventurously, and bravely for the sake of the Gospel. When one writes of a cultural swing, one is always in danger of ignoring the powerful, Gospel-centered lives of those who live boldly regardless of their generation. This post is not for them. It is for the rest of us.