Grace from His Fullness

Sitting there in the corner of that little 500 square foot house, I looked around the room at the little faces of the kids that had gathered together that Saturday afternoon, almost thirty of them. It was hot and cramped and little two-year-old Francisco was not happy that his mom had brought him there.

Taiwani sat next to Mariclene and my mind went back to when they ran the streets together. They were like the dynamic duo, stealing fruit from the trees in our back yard and throwing mud at the house when we said it was time to go home. Now Mariclene has been part of our family for a year and a half this month, and oh how she has transformed. But Taiwani still wakes up to the same troubled house she lived in when we first met her two years ago. The stories I know are horrific.

I see the others. This one being raised by her elderly grandmother because her mom didn’t want her and her dad got remarried and his new wife didn’t want her either. This one who will likely not make it to thirteen before she has a baby of her own because all of her four sisters before her have walked that same road. This one who is so selfish and overbearing because her parents give her every last thing that she wants because it’s easier than teaching a child. After all, no one ever taught them.

Then there is little Chico who stands outside the doors all wide-eyed. He refuses to come in because he prefers to “run the streets”. He’s five.

There is Rafaela who has the sweetest little timid voice and I swear she hasn’t grown an inch these last two years. Her dad is a drunk, but her mama, who can’t read a single word and asks Rosa to count her money because she doesn’t know the difference, works hard to provide for her and her brother and sister, always smiling as she walks several miles to work and back.

And so many others sitting there laughing and coloring and listening and learning. I know pieces of their stories and this room feels so much smaller.

I feel so much smaller.

It’s always made me a little uneasy when I have people tell me that the ministry we do is “amazing” or “incredible” or “awesome”.  

To me it feels heavy and not enough. I feel inadequate and overwhelmed by the needs. I look around and I think, “We could never do enough to change-really, really change--this town.”

I know how weak I am. I know my own faults. How many days I just want to go away, back to the comforts and familiarities of my homeland. Imperfect, unable.

I know Rosa’s family struggles. I see the personal battles she faces and I watch as the “church” criticizes her every move as she seeks to be faithful to the calling He put in her heart twenty years ago. Imperfect, unable.

I know the financial needs. The funds are limited and I feel like we aren’t doing enough but a dollar only stretches so far so we have vitamins to supplement the physical lacking and prayer to increase awareness. Imperfect, unable.

I know the stories of these littles as they file in and out on Saturdays. I know many of the houses they go back to and I wonder, “Does this really even matter?” Imperfect, unable.

And then I hear it. When I step away from myself and all this imperfect, it’s there. That still, small voice again that faithfully reminds me:

“I AM enough.

I AM sufficient.

I AM here.

I AM at work.

I AM the Creator of all things.

I AM the Sustainer of all things.

I AM amazing.

This IS amazing. Because of Me.”

{Or, in the words of Francis Chan, “God says, ‘This is MY party and I invited YOU!’”}

And so I applaud this ministry and say at the top of my voice that YES! this ministry we are a part of IS amazing. YES! the work we do here IS amazing.

Because we are so very weak, but He is so very strong.

Because we can’t see past this difficulty or that obstacle, but He holds the future.

Because we are so far from perfect in our endeavors, but He sees the intentions of the heart.

Because... Grace.

“Indeed, we have all received grace after grace

from His fullness...”
John 1.16

The Ugly Side of Adoption

If you find yourself encouraged, follow my new blog at www.streamsandthorns.com for more posts like this one.

I found this entry the other day while randomly flipping through an old journal:

“January 2, 2013

Today, sort of in passing and sort of without even realizing it, I prayed a prayer.

‘Do something great through me… No matter what it takes.’

I meant it when I prayed it, but my next thought was: ‘Uh-oh.’”

Dear Ashley from almost two years ago: that next thought was very appropriate.

You see we used to have the “ideal” family. I'll never forget when I was pregnant the second time and we found out we were having a girl and how perfect that was for us. We had our boy and now our girl to complete the balance. Two little picture-perfect blonde haired, blue-eyed beauties.

We always talked about bringing another child into the family down the road. Maybe adopt from Africa or Asia, a newborn who needed a home. We could do that in a few years, no problem.

I did not anticipate that later that same year we would move to a little town called Benjamin Constant and that shortly thereafter, when Raegan was just 4 months old, we would meet a little brown-eyed girl that would rewrite everything we knew about parenthood and ourselves. I will never forget the night I laid there in bed and told Richard I felt like we should pray about adopting her.

I had no idea--not the slightest clue--what I was praying for.

I remember discussing the challenges we knew we would face. The language barrier, the physical and mental delays, the criticism from the locals; we knew it would be difficult.

Those things now seem like child's play.

When you hear people talk about adoption, you hear about how beautiful it is, this Gospel picture. I say it myself. The idea of redeeming a child from pain and suffering and hopelessness is undeniably inviting. To be a part of bringing hope and life to a child is one of our callings as followers of Christ. Beautiful indeed.

What we do not hear a whole lot about, however, is the ugly side.

Without tragedy, there is no need for adoption. If something were not broken, there would be no need to fix it.

If it were not for the fact that something went terribly wrong, adoption would not be necessary. Be it death or abuse or abandonment, intentional or otherwise, there is a tragic reason this child is in need of a different family from the one that shares the same bloodline and facial features. There is a broken past with every single adopted child out there and it leaves a mark. Sometimes that mark is a faded scar that is barely noticeable to the untrained eye.

Other times, it is a gaping flesh wound that needs constant attention and care.

God chose to give us the latter.

And it has been ugly.

Because nothing prepares you for having to hold down that sought after child as she kicks and screams, “I want to go back to the street!!” And all because you are doing what no one else in her life ever has: you are loving her.

I will never forget googling “What if I don’t like my adopted daughter” and the relief I felt when articles actually popped up, announcing that these feeling of mine are actually common.

In August, she completed one year in our home—and the single hardest year of our life. I look back at the child who stepped into our home that Friday night. Her scalp was so full of infection that the doctors prescribed four different medications to heal it. Her teeth were little pieces of black and brown bone jutting from her infected gums. Her hair was brittle and orange in color from lack of nutrition. Her eyes were wild, pupils enlarged as she tried to understand what was happening, her body conditioned to remain in a constant state of fight or flight. She carried her small backpack full of dirty, hole-ridden clothing that a person would not even consider donating to Goodwill.

This isn’t what it should look like, a family bringing in another. It should be that her biological mother tucks her in at night, along with her 7 biological siblings, assuring them of love and care. They should laugh together and go on outings together and she should know the love of a family with siblings and parents that look like her, speak like her. She should know the value of discipline and should be taught consequence.

But we live in a fallen world where parents leave their own to roam the streets because they never knew any different themselves.

So our life as we knew it was destroyed that day. It was destroyed for the sake of redeeming this one. But we never knew what that would entail.

It has been painful.

No adoption is pain free. I am not referring to the hours spent at the courthouse or the paperwork that seems insurmountable. I do not mean the waiting game of home visits and Psychologist appointments.

Those are the easy parts, my friends.

The hard part is loving. And that is the part I never anticipated.

Shortly after our daughter moved in, the giddiness of having a new child wore off. It was like having a newborn to care for except that this newborn had been in survival mode for six and half years and thought she had a better idea than you of what she needed. The lies began and the manipulation commenced and suddenly, after just three months of having what now felt like a stranger in our home, we began to recoil.

“What have we done?” I would ask myself, remembering our “perfect” family of four.

I would scroll through my Facebook newsfeed and the pictures of perfect families would dance across my screen, almost taunting me. I would close the app feeling guilt, regret, confusion. Pain.

I often say if we had known what we were getting into before we got into it, we wouldn’t have gotten into it. And I know that is exactly why God does not often reveal His plans for us, because we would run away in fear of the trials that lie before us, not valuing the refining process that makes us a just a little more like Him.

Yesterday I looked at her as she sat across the table from me, unaware of my thoughts. Her hair is dark brown now and shines in the light. Her teeth, bright white and clean. We have had to buy her new shoes three times this year as her body catches up to the size it should be for her age. She is able to read now, something we had all but given up hope on as she didn’t know the difference between a letter and a number this time last year.

She is beautiful on the outside—a whitewashed wall.

Because you don’t raise yourself on the street for six and a half years with no consequence. So the lies and manipulation and disobedience flow so naturally to her that at times she doesn’t even perceive it. She resists our love. She has yet to grasp the fact that she no longer has to protect herself; she is safe here. So she hides behind the walls she built so long ago of self-preservation and self-focus and replaces each brick as we attempt to take them down.

There is a common perception out there that implies that adoption, because it is a concept based on the Gospel and because it is redeeming a child from their orphan status, is simple. Of course, we may be quick to admit that the process is complicated. The attorney and the judge and the biological parents or the orphanage and the paperwork and the waiting and the waiting and the waiting… that part is hard, but then—THEN—it’s smooth sailing.

“All we need is love.” Right?

Adoption is far from simple.

I see heart-warming adoption quotes on social media all the time, especially in this month of November that is National Adoption Awareness Month. In fact, not long ago I stumbled across my own “Adoption” board on my Pinterest that coincidentally I created about the same time that journal entry was written and couldn’t help but laugh out loud and what my picture of adoption looked like back then. Back before the long nights and tears and confusion and calling out to God.

Because once the Facebook pictures are posted and the excitement dies down over this new addition, you find yourself face to face alone with a reality that you did not stop to consider before:

Yes, the Gospel is a picture of adoption into the family of Christ. And the Gospel includes immense amounts of suffering. Without death, there is no redemption. Without pain, there is no joy in victory.

Over a year has passed now and mostly we are thankful that we have survived. In the beginning, all day, every day was consumed with teaching truth and consequence, faith and repentance, and trying to discern the truth from the lies. And now most days are still that way but they have become graciously spaced out to where sometimes we actually feel like a functioning family of five on some level or another.

Grace from Heaven.

Why do I say all this? Not for a pity party, I assure you. We are taught to rejoice in our sufferings because it is through them that we are formed more into the image of our Savior.

I say it, believe it or not, as an encouragement. I have read several blog posts and books this past year and the ones that encouraged me most were the ones that said something to this effect, ‘This adoption thing? It’s hard. You are going to fail at times. You are going to cry and ask ‘why?’, possibly often. You are going to feel overwhelmed. And guess what: sometimes you are going to struggle to love. But it is ok because you, on your own, can’t love anyway. It is impossible. But the good news is that through Christ, you can love unconditionally and without reciprocation. Hang in there. His mercy is new every day. And His grace is sufficient.’

So to my fellow adoptive parents, who find themselves overwhelmed and overcome and cringe when they see the idealized photos of adoption: do not give up. God has a purpose for this child and part of it is to refine you and teach you what unconditional love really looks like—messy. Another part—maybe the biggest—is to give you the slightest glimpse of the pain that Christ went through and the miracle it is that He can love us as He does. Oh, the miracle.

To those in the adoption process, do not let this discourage you, but also don’t write me off. There is a certain naivety in every new adoption. I know, I have been there and I believe that is also God’s grace measured out to us. Often God keeps us blinded to the realities of the trials we will face in order to grow our faith. It is necessary. “Oh, but you adopted an older child/out of birth order/foreign speaker. I’m adopting a newborn/young child/English speaker,” you may say. Irrelevant my friends. I know personal stories of children adopted from birth that have immense struggles. So listen to those who have gone before and prepare your hearts. Pray for God to prepare you in ways that you do not even realize that you need to be prepared. Pray for faith and endurance. Pray for peace and hope. You will need all of these as you embark on this journey.

For those who are reading this and have had a “smooth” attachment to your adopted child, hold your judgment. Instead of casting stones, throw up some prayers for those who adopted the more severely injured, those struggling to love, and those who dread another day. Be careful not to become self-righteous because your experience looks different. Rejoice that God chose to give you a child with less baggage in tow.

This adoption thing is ugly. It takes time for broken things to mend. It takes time for wounds to heal.

But you know what’s amazing about it all?

He gives beauty for ashes. And that, my friends, is beautiful indeed.

{UPDATE: You can read my follow up blog The Ugly Side of Me}

I Finally Let Myself Say It

I finally let myself say it.

I've been waiting for someone else to say it. Another mom. Another missionary. Anyone really.

But no one ever did. They'd say, "Wow, how do you do it?" or watch while I fumble--oh how I fumble--at trying to control screaming, whining, disobedient children, be a “good” missionary, maintain my sanity.

A house full of sinners just like me.

And all the while I kept thinking, "I don't know how I do it. I just know I do because I don't have a choice." I have been in survival mode for months now and I just wanted someone to take my stubborn, I-won't-ask-for-help-but-please-offer-it-and-I’ll-take-it-in-a-hartbeat hand and say, "It's ok. This thing you're doing, it's hard work."

I wanted permission to feel overwhelmed and burnt out. I wanted to hear that this "if-I-can-just-get-through-the-day" mentality is normal at times—or almost always—and does eventually pass.

But no one ever said that. Which in my mind just confirmed that something was wrong. I should be able to do this with a smile on my face and patience in my voice.

Then I read this book and I felt the greatest sense of relief because finally someone said it.

This is hard, overwhelming, exhausting work.

And I'm doing just fine.

I'm doing just fine because I realize I can't do it right on my own. And I'm learning—learning to lean on the One who can make all things right and new.

There are days I can muster up just enough strength to get out of bed after a long night with my one year old who still wants to nurse and stumble to the kitchen as I remind my whining, apparently famished older children that, yes, they will get breakfast this morning, just like every morning.

I go through my days of washing dishes piled high and sweeping the floors for the umpteenth time and wiping noses and settling disputes and running to grab the laundry off the line because its starting to rain again. Somewhere in there I mean to sit down and practice the alphabet with my oldest and work on numbers again with my boy, but my littlest is tired and now it's time for lunch and I need to pump more water and my washer is beeping at me and a family of Indians just showed up and well, I'll just remind myself that my kids won't be 30 years old and not know their numbers and letters.

I look at my life and remind myself of this:

Raising little humans is hard work.

Being a wife is hard work.

Living in the jungle is complicated, hard, exhausting work.

Constantly thinking and speaking in your second or third language is mentally exhausting.

Adopting a child out of birth order, with a traumatic past, and that doesn't speak your first language is exponentially challenging.

Rarely getting to speak to or see family and friends is emotionally taxing.

Living in another culture is frustrating, lonely, exhausting at times.

Now take all these and add them up and you get a messy, tiring, hard job.

So I'm trying to lighten up a little myself. Let myself mess up every now and then [or often, as the case may be] and rather than beat myself up over it, I'm learning to slide back under that umbrella of grace and say, "Thank you, Jesus, that your mercies are new every day and that your grace endures forever".

I'm so thankful that God is sovereign and that He has a plan for my children, my husband, and me that can't be thwarted. I can freely acknowledge my incompetence and failures and it is in that freedom that I find the motivation to try again.

To lean on the One who makes all things new.

To let my failures be growing moments instead of defeating mountains.

To trust Him as he takes me through the fire to make me pure as gold.

To stop worrying about what others think and say, because God knows me.

God knows me.

This is hard work. Just like Jesus promised it would be.

But oh how sweet to know He also promised He'd walk us through it, patiently, lovingly, always.

Is it time you let yourself say it, too?

“For it was You who created my inward parts; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise You because I have been remarkably and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, and I know this very well. My bones were not hidden from You when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw me when I was formless; 

All my days were written in Your book and planned before a single one of them began.”

Psalm 139.13-16

Pray Small, Too

Sometimes, when I pray and get the answer I'm hoping for, I tell myself it was a coincidence.

Lame, I know.

Why pray if, when it's answered, you write it off, right?

Here's an example:

About a month ago, Richard was on a trip to the Jung|e and I was at a beach house here in Brazil--suffering for Jesus--with some new friends.

One night, I was particularly tired. Elliott had been extra, shall we say, "passionate" that day and Raegan, while a very good baby, was still waking up during the night for feedings.

It was about 2am and I had just laid Raegan back down to sleep when.... she got the hiccups.

This may not seem like a big deal, but I knew from experience that these would keep her awake for at least 15 minutes and then I'd likely have to bounce her back to sleep for another 15 or so.

At 2am, that's just not on my things-I'm-excited-to-do list.

So, I prayed. As petty as it seemed, I prayed. Something like, "Lord, please--PLEASE--make these hiccups go away so I can sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep."

[There was admittedly some desperation sprinkled in there.]

What's funny? Before I had finished praying, the hiccups where gone and she was out like a light. Slept the rest of the night, too.

Again, may not seem like a biggie, but when this baby girl gets hiccups, they last a good 10-15 minutes. This had been less than a minute. That has never happened before.

Even in my foggy brain so early in the morning, I thought, "Really? Just like that, they're gone? Must've been a coincidence." And then I slipped off into dreamland.

The next morning, I remembered the incident and thought through it again.

Was it a coincidence? Does God really care if I get sleep? Aren't there more important things He has to deal with like the teenage girl who gave birth to a baby and had nothing for her that I had heard about earlier that same day? God is so much bigger than my sleep deprivation issues! Coincidence it was.

Then a thought hit me:

I'm not magnifying God by thinking He doesn't care about the little things in my life. I'm actually making Him very, very small.

Here's what I mean:

If God isn't big enough to care about the details of my life, how big does an issue have to be for Him to care about it? And does God have to divide up His "time" to make sure the "most important" things are taken care of in the world first?

Yes, I need sleep to survive... but there was a girl who gave birth to a baby and had nothing for her.

Yes, it was hard for this girl to give birth with nothing... but there are children starving around the world.

Yes, there are children starving around the world... but there are also children being sold as sex slaves.

So, how does God prioritize what He cares about?

What I'm saying is this: 

We serve such a BIG God that He can care about the seemingly insignificant things in my life, while simultaneously taking care of the needs of the dying, destitute, lonely, hungry, hurting, tired, lost, and broken all around the world.

He doesn't have to prioritize. He can meet all of our needs, all the time, in the best way possible.

He's GOD!

At the same time, God is not a genie in a bottle. I certainly don't think that He answers all of our prayers just how we want them. Trust me, if that were true I would get a full night's sleep every night!

He just loves us so personally and intimately that He can and does in fact take the time to listen to our "little" prayers.

Of course there are needs much greater in this world than my sleep. I could list a million of them right here!

But the point is we serve a BIG God. He loves us. He knows our needs. He hears our prayers. He knows the number of hairs on our head for goodness sake (Matthew 10.30)!

So now I find myself praying more detailed prayers. Things that, before I would have written off as "unimportant", I pray them. Because I know that, even though they may not be answered the way I would like, I have a Father in Heaven who is listening (Ps 145.18) and loves me because I am His child (Ephesians 1.5-6), created in His image (Gen 1.27) for His glory (1 Cor 10.31), and He will answer them according to His perfect plan (Rom 8.28).

Who knows? Maybe He answers my "small" prayer for rest to use me to answer someone else's prayer for a listening ear from someone who is fully engaged (hard to do when you're exhausted!)

There's a much bigger plan at play here. 

Let's remember how big God is and pray accordingly.



"Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond ALL that we ask or think according to the power that works in us--to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen."
Ephesians 3.20-21 (emphasis mine)

When Dreams Become Realities

I don't know how many times it happens in a lifetime, or even if it happens more than once or even once at all for everyone.

But, in the midst of the change and tears and fears and doubts and anger and stubbornness and discontentment and the hard over the last almost three months here, something happened.

Something beautiful.

For the longest I couldn't see it. I was too busy sulking in my selfish desire for what was and what will be that I didn't even realize that all the things I had prayed for were actually coming to pass here in the now.

I think part of the reason that this beautiful transformation escaped my sight was because it hasn't looked like I imagined it would when I prayed.

What I mean is, in my prayers it looked easy.

When I asked God to change me, to make me like Him, to bring me to the place where He wanted me, I pictured peace and ease. Isn't that what Jesus said, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light"?

I wanted the end product without the process. And in the process I have found that there is no such thing.

Today, I hold in my arms a tiny, big piece of that dream. Her name is Raegan Piper Grey and she is more perfect than I could ever have dreamed.

And I think back at the process of bringing her into this world with the nausea and the sleeplessness and the tired exhaustion and the aches and pains and emotions and fears and longing for family to walk this with me but knowing they were thousands of miles away.

I think back on those nine months now and remember that it seemed like an eternity. Days seemed like weeks sometimes when factored in with all of the other life changes going on.

At times it was hard.

But somehow now as I hold this baby girl, I see that without that long, difficult process, there is no beautiful end result. And I find myself thankful for process that leaves me with a scar to remind me of this journey that was necessary to bring this life into the world.

And I realize it's in the process that we find God is true to His promises.

The past three months have been a roller coaster of emotions as we walk this dream of a journey that God placed in our hearts over five years ago now.

Now as I look back at the process that brought us here, I bow my head and lift my hands in awe that the Creator God would count us worthy of this calling. Would take the time to work out in our lives a beautiful masterpiece of His will and, what's more, He would care enough to make it hard.

If it were easy, we would never see Him.

But just as gold is refined in the fire and diamonds are made by pressure, we are made more like Him as we engage in what is uncomfortable and trying and even downright painful at times. It's in that process that not only are dreams given, but they are made into reality as we walk by faith, trusting His pathway though we can't see the next step.

This time last year I remember sharing with so many the desire of our heart to have another baby, to be in Brazil, to begin the process of getting permanent residency so we could work freely with the beautiful people God has given us a burning passion for. Back then it seemed so distant if not an impossible goal.

I sit here now, in Brazil with our baby girl as Richard is driving to register her birth so that we can begin our permanent residency process and my heart rejoices for the journey that we have been on and I humbly ask Him to continue to make us more like Him.

Even when it isn't easy.

"Consider it a great joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials,  knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.  But endurance must do its complete work, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing." James 1.2-4