My Overthinking

Philly Area mom, Life forever changed by adoption

The sad part about Christmas

Nothing says Christmas like thoughtful gifts given and received and a fake fire on your tv screen.
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So, I may live to regret the gold gifts of box turtles for the boys this year. But, they were thrilled with their new buddies Jones and Timber. I may have seen a tear in Drew’s eye (and that wasn’t the pink eye he woke up with I’m taking about).

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I am typing in the dark now, sitting on the floor of a bedroom in my parents’ house with my husband out cold in the bed beside me, the man who somehow rallied despite jet lag and then finally collapsed, and the sound of snoring around me as one son sleeps in a chaise lounge by the bed and another on the floor in the walk-in closet. And, my heart is full.

Midmorning today, Lydia came up to me after we had opened our gifts and stockings and as we were packing up to leave for Nanma and Grandaddy’s house.

“Mama, I’m a little sad.”

“Why, honey?”

“Because we have to wait a long, long time for Christmas again.”

Yup. Let’s just hit rewind and do the day all over again. Fine by me.

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He is there. He is here.

Christmas 2009. Four Christmases ago. I was a wreck. We were so close to finding our new daughter. I just knew it would be a few weeks after Christmas; I hoped it would be a few weeks after Christmas. I was filled with expectation that Christmas.

And, that meant that though I didn’t know who she was or where exactly she was, what she looked like or how old she was, I knew she was. I knew she was somewhere across the world, alone on Christmas, what turned out to be her first Christmas.

I was anxious and wondering and thinking all the time about her. Yet, there was something that gave me great peace.

God was there.

In Luke 2:6-20, Luke mentioned the manger three times. Why?

The manger was messy. It wasn’t what we picture and what our children play with as part of our little nativity sets they can hold in their hands. It wasn’t a symmetrical wooden contraption with a sweet bed of hay. It was more like a box looking thing or basin made out of clay mixed with hay or stones and held together with mud. All kinds of food for animals was put into it, not just nice yellow hay. It was dirty, likely moldy, smelly, not anything we’d want our child anywhere near.

And, God was there. Very literally, God was there.

As spunky and full of life as Lydia is now, there was a time that she was in a pretty messy place. I believe her orphanage was one of the better ones—her needs were met, and we’ve learned that there were quite caring women who took to her there. There was a wall of windows with natural light in the room where she lived 24-7. In that room were 40 cribs and a few toys for all to share to pass their days until they graduated to another room and then another. There were older children in that orphanage too, children we weren’t allowed to see. I wonder what their days were like.

I’ve heard a lot of stories, stories about adopted children who flinch when someone moves their direction in fear that they will be hit; children with flat heads who were never held; children who have come to accept that no one wants to bring home a child their age, only babies; children who suffer significant consequences from not having the medical treatment they needed earlier.
And, yet, I believe God is there.

God is not only not afraid to get his feet dirty; He is about getting His feet dirty. That’s what advent is all about, isn’t it? God coming down, the perfect to the broken, the holy to the unholy.

Psalm 34:18 tells us He’s close to the brokenhearted, and there are so many, so very many. I can only imagine that He is very close indeed to brokenhearted children—here and there—whether they are aware of their brokenness or not. He’s there.

I prayed for our daughter four Christmases ago, that He would be close to her, that He would remain close to her. That He would be tangibly felt in that room where she slept. That He would wrap His arms around her when she was cold. That He’d rock her when she needed comfort. That He’d be in the manger with her.

I know He was there.

And, somehow, in the dark places of orphanages around the world, I can’t explain how or what He always looks like there, but I believe that He’s there. In the warmth of the sun pouring in the windows, He comforted my child. In the smile of a nanny. In the gaze of another orphan. In the provision sent by charities around the world. In her broken heart—emotionally and literally.

Somehow, He was there.

Now, as my children listen to us read about His story every night, sing familiar and unfamiliar words together to prepare, sneak Hershey kisses in their mouths as we make reindeer eyes, and use entirely too much scotch tape on crafts and wrapping paper alike, He is here…and, He is there, somehow making an unholy place, holy.

That’s what advent is about. That’s what He’s about.

photos courtesy of KC Photography

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Santa Claus isn’t the only one coming to town

By the time I wake up in the morning, this here man (see FaceTime screenshot below) will be on a plane somewhere over…I don’t know where…already hours into his 13-hour flight home.

Facetime pic

 

The anticipation of his arrival home has everyone here all abuzz. You’d think it was Christmas morning.

wait…

Not even sure I’ll be able to sleep tonight. Maybe I should just stay up and wrap presents because apparently my cat did not magically learn how to do anything of the sort except sleep on the tissue paper. Geesh.

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I believe in bridges

from bridge1Every time we drove over this bridge, he’d say he loved this spot. It really was beautiful. The water moved fast, and everything else always seemed beautifully still. I took this picture as I drove over that bridge without him once. With four children in the car, I pulled over to the side on that old bridge and texted him a modern postcard, a little “I know you love this place and now so do I.”

The bridge is a humble bridge, made even more humble by what surrounds it. While it isn’t worthy of a picture with its layers of paint, chipping bolts, and repair scars, there’s something remarkable about it simply by definition of what it is. Bridges amaze me. They are long thought out and planned for; every detail is accounted for. Their construction is time consuming, labor intensive, and costly. All that because a bridge needs to be safe; it’s no good if it is not. A bridge makes a way where there is no way. Even the most humble bridge becomes beautiful when you see it that way.

We’ve been reading this month together, sometimes reading stories that seemingly had nothing to do with Christmas. Joseph and his technicolor dream coat? A big tower people built to try to reach heaven? Where’s the wee three kings? Where’s the heavenly angels singing? But, every story we’ve read and every story we haven’t read were all part of God’s long thought out plan, every detail accounted for. All of it led to the perfect blueprint for the most remarkable bridge, expertly executed as only He could do. This God, our God, He made a way where there was no way because He’s a waymaker. That baby born on Christmas, the one the kings sought out to find, the ones the angels sang about, and the one that stirred Herod’s jealous heart, He’s the bridge. And, all these stories help us better understand the bridge rather than simply focusing on the world around it, and they help us see how desperately we need that bridge and how stuck we would be without it.

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