A glimmer...

glim·mer  

/ˈglimər/

Verb Shine faintly with a wavering light: "pools of glimmering light".

Noun A faint or wavering light.

Synonyms verb.   shimmer - gleam - twinkle - flicker - glint - scintillate noun.   twinkle - shimmer - glint - glimpse - twinkling - gleam

This word has been on my mind. It came to me today as I was cleaning up the kitchen after feeding my three big kids plus three additional neighborhood kids that I invited to stay for lunch and playing all afternoon. The baby was napping. They are currently playing "restaurant" and "house" in the little play kitchen and my living room. I'm keeping them downstairs while the baby naps. It's a little rowdy, but it's good. It's a stark contrast to my last few days here... think crickets chirping.

Last week, the hubs took the three big kids to Virginia with him and left me here with the baby and the dog. It was a last minute decision. We were on our way home from adoption training in Nashville and it was late, I could feel myself getting that "I still have to pack tonight" cranky feeling, and the idea literally just popped in my head and I suggested it to the husband. He surprised me with a reply of "that would be such a relief!" and the decision was made. The hubs had meetings on Friday and his mom kept the girls. 

I had Wednesday-Sunday with just the baby and the dog. I promised my husband that I would use the time wisely and complete our online adoption courses and our adoption workbook. I did. 

I also went shopping a lot.

And our good friend, Mike, came over to finish painting as well. 

I didn't cook much. I didn't clean much. I read a lot. The baby was in bed every night by 7, so the evenings felt long.

I discovered the tv show ALIAS and got sucked into the first season.

Did I mention that I went shopping a lot? :)

Anyway, it was like a stroll back to a life I formerly had. It was about 8 years ago, we lived in AZ and only had one child. I was a new mom. I still cleaned my house before having friends over, I still cooked amazing meals made with the freshest ingredients inspired by the most recent recipes in Cooking Light magazine (that I had time to read!), and I am pretty sure that my husband and I had regular date nights on a weekly basis. 

Ah, that was the life. It was a good life. A sweet life. I was on top of things. I could keep my house clean, keep the laundry caught up, and prepare good meals. I think I was even beginning work on my master's degree in counseling at the time. I had time to use my gifts of hospitality to make all of our visitors feel a warm welcome. Fresh-cut flowers in the guest room, fresh clean sheets, super sparkly clean guest bathroom.

Wait. Maybe it wasn't all that sparkly. That's how I'm remembering it. The point is this: I HAD SO MUCH TIME ON MY HANDS TO DO THINGS!

I'm remembering it vividly because that's how I felt when my husband drove off with my kids. I had a brief moment of "I should've gone with them!" And as soon as they were out of sight I was over it. 

It was a wonderful time of rest, relaxation, catching up on little things, and time to have the head-space to process all those things left dangling in my mind. 

You see, those of you who make the choice to go to work (or bless those of you who have to, but wish you could stay home with your kids)... you add the stress of responsibility... but you also add an element of head-space that just doesn't exist for me right now. Think of your free moments- driving to work, typing an email, sitting at your desk quietly, walking to an office for a meeting, having a lunch break... all of these are little free moments where your brain gets to process or work on those dangling things. I don't know how else to describe them. They are just these small processes that need to get worked out in the mind. I don't have any of those moments all day long. Literally.

Now I'm not about to get all high and mighty about the sacrifices I make to homeschool our kids. But my days begin and end with my children actively involved in all things family life. Running errands, feeding them breakfast, lunch and dinner at home, doing activities, doing school, doing life! It's all connected. There is no head-space for me. Ever. When they go to bed, and the husband is home, we are engaging in catch-up conversation (or something else ;) and it's not free time to process. Do you get what I'm saying? I'm hoping you'll see that this dividing and conquering was THE BEST GIFT EVER to someone like me in this season of life.

I also know it won't last forever and these little people are going to be grown and flying the coop before I know it.

I know that because:

1) I'm getting old so time is passing faster than I realize. My hands don't work like they used to. Thanks for the arthritis, Mom. :)

2) The kids I used to babysit after college, they are getting MARRIED. They were like, 5 years old YESTERDAY. 

3) My 20th high school reunion is this weekend. #needisaymore

Okay, so here's my point. (Yes, I have one!)

The first three days of my stay-cation was fabulous. I loved every minute!!!! I was so refreshed! 

On Saturday, though, I started to miss the noise, the revolving door, the constant questions, the rattle of the children and the family life, the neighbors, the drop-ins, the everything. Even the food prep- all those meals! I missed feeding my family and friends!

Now HOW in the WORLD can I take a three-five day break from the last 8 years of my life as a wife and mother and suddenly miss it? I thought for sure I'd be cranky the day they returned. I'd be annoyed that my sanctuary of a home was now cluttered, messed up, and lived in again. 

But I wasn't. I was so excited for them to come home so I'd have someone to take care of again! (Dog + Baby = EASY!) I wanted to cook! I wanted to hear the noise! I wanted to be exhausted from the busyness of the family life. 

And here is the GLIMMER: All this time, ALL this time I have sort of looked the large family, homeschooling, exhausted mom, no time for herself gift in the mouth-- I have seen it, lived it, and sort of loved/hated it at the same time. 

But when they left and I had the glimmer of my past life- my easy, sweet, quality-time life... (not to judge all you moms with one kid and a dog right now)... I was just left WANTING. I wanted my crazy life back. Because here, with all the kids, the messy house, the revolving door, this is EXACTLY where God wants me and it's where I'M THRIVING. I WAS MADE FOR THIS! THIS IS WHY GOD CREATED ME! HE CREATED ME TO HAVE A FAMILY- A LARGE FAMILY- AND TO BE A BLESSING! I LOVE IT HERE!

Won't you join me?

I'm currently reading A Woman's High Calling. Elizabeth George minces no words. She tells no fluffy stories. She says hard things with love. If you are a Christ-follower, if you are married with children, you need to be in the Word daily. Don't make excuses. Get in the Word. Pray for your children, your husband. It's exactly the exhortation I needed this past week and I realized very fully the role God has literally CREATED me for. I don't want to do it perfectly, but I want to do it to the best of my gifting and abilities. I want to do it so that it glorifies God. 

Get a copy of this book and let the Holy Spirit use it to speak to you. I like the "dated-ness" of it because I just don't think there are many woman authors these days that drop the hammer like Elizabeth George does. There seems to be a wave of thinking that we women can have and do it all. We can't. We just can't. It's such a trap and a lie to believe we can. I would encourage each of you to find your calling and make sure you're where God wants you. 

I am. 

I just know it. 

Where we are in the adoption process--- July 2013

I have a friend who has four kids and home schools. She pursued me a few years ago to pick my brain about adoption. She wanted the "real" story, the nitty-gritty, an honest look into our experience with international adoption. I gave it to her because she asked and was receptive to the truth of the hard things. She was actually interested in the hard things about it. And I was at this point where I was finally ready to share.

Let's just say God orchestrated the friendship at the perfect time in both of our lives/walks/families so that we could both learn from one another. I learned how to be honest about hard things. You can read her funny, heartwarming blog here at  Sarah's Blog. The super cool thing that God did with that time was two-fold: one, it got me to open up about a hard time in our family's life and it healed me as I shared it. When I opened up and talked about the hard truths, God was glorified and I was actually encouraged by it! I was also extremely encouraged by Sarah's response which was (in a nutshell) "Yes, I have my eyes wide open!" Better still, God used part of it to encourage Sarah and her husband, Jess, to pursue adoption in their family!

Here's the cool part and the whole point of that last paragraph. Sarah decided the best way to go about it was to keep the dossier assembly on the down-low until it was completed. Now that it's submitted, they are having fun announcing it to their close friends and family (not in that order!) It dawned on me that we have done the opposite (both times). We have shared our news with everyone and now we get the constant questions from those who are interested, "How's the adoption going?"

THANK YOU FOR ASKING! We love to keep you in the loop. We love to talk about what God is doing in our family and in Ethiopia, and in the adoption agency we chose to partner with this time! It's good for us to talk about it, so keep asking. And if you haven't asked how it's going, please do. We welcome the asking, because it reminds us that we're in this together. Thank you to those who keep checking in.

So where are we now? We started our Home Study in February and it's being reviewed by the adoption agency now. They are waiting on two things from us before it can be officially "approved." One is a workbook called "Eyes Wide Open" that has about 20 chapters. We have a few more chapters left to go, then we send it in to our case manager who reviews our homework for completion (can you say SCHOOL!?)

We also have completed about 8 online courses through Adoption Learning Partners. Friends and family members who are totally on board with us about adoption, I CANNOT say enough good things about this website. I wish it had been available to us nine years ago as we began our first adoption. It's like a GOLD MINE of information for families. And not just the adoptive families, but the friends and families OF adoptive families as well. I've gleaned so much from the classes! My favorite two are Conspicuous Families and The Journey of Attachment. Take them if you love us.

We have one more set of classes to take at our local agency in Nashville, called Parents in Process. We will go every Tuesday night from 3-8pm for five Tuesdays in a row.

So can you tell that this agency is STELLAR when it comes to preparing families for what lies ahead? If I had to tell anyone adopting ONE THING only- it would be to choose an agency that requires this type of learning and education. Not preparing yourself would be like buying a boatload of fancy, expensive, gourmet food and not knowing how to cook. That's basically what our first adoption felt like. It's like getting married without having premarital counseling. You're just not prepared. It's turrible. :(

So that's where we are now. Once the home study is complete, we will apply for the I-600A (Petition to Adopt an Orphan through Homeland Security) and do a few other paperwork things and then we will be done with Dossier assembly hopefully by mid-September.

Then we wait. There is a two and a half year wait right now in Ethiopia. Our home study has approved us for one child that is ten months younger than the youngest child in the family at the time of placement. That means in 2.5 years, Thomas will be almost 4.5, so the referral of the boy must be at least 0-3 years old. We plan to name him Daniel, but if you've ever heard Claire's naming story, you know that naming a child can change at the last minute!

Waiting isn't hard for me. The Lord has taught me to wait for many things. I waited seven years to have kids. Well, technically I waited five, the Lord added two years to "my" timeline to really teach me!

So what can you do? Keep asking how we're doing. Encourage us however you see fit. It feels good and we need it.

Pray for our family if the Lord brings us to your mind. Pray for us to complete our adoption education and paperwork on time.

Pray for our future son!

Pray for God to be glorified in us when we are most satisfied in HIM!

Until the next time...