My Overthinking

Philly Area mom, Life forever changed by adoption

A trip to the theater {Cirque Eloize}

I love the theater–and I don’t mean Masterpiece Theater/Downton Abbey (though I am a junkie and can’t wait for all to go to bed tonight so Mark and I can watch the Season 3 Christmas special online).

I was a theater junkie in my youth in the audience and on the stage. When I heard there was a show in Philly that I knew the big kids and I would all enjoy, we were there.

Just when the after-Christmas blues could hit hard, we ventured out with hot cocoas in hand to downtown Philly where we entered a beautiful old theater on a street all lit up and decorated still for the holidays. I sat in orchestra seats with my children and together saw art and beauty and magic converge in Cirque Eloize. I’m so glad no one was sitting directly in front of them because they clutched the seat backs in front of them and were on the edge of the seats for the entire show. It was simply amazing.
Ashlyn said she hopes Lydia will do this kind of thing when she grows up so we can come watch every show. 
3 more theater junkies in the making–and, who knows, maybe we can get Lydia to use her crazy monkey flexibility to join the troop someday. 

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Snippets of Christmas

Having one wake up with a high fever and proceed to vomit on you…three times over by the end of the day…doesn’t lend itself to the merriest of Christmases. But, somehow, the spirit of the day allows a mother to overlook having Christmas vomit and toy packaging flesh wounds to simply enjoy the day and the fun that being together and giving gifts and celebrating Jesus can bring.

The gold gifts of the horse playset and the electric scooters were a real hit. Heard Ashlyn say today as the three-man scooter mafia took over the ‘hood, “This is the best gold gift ever!”
And, I may just relive my own childhood dreams and sneak out during naptimes with Ashlyn’s new metal detector. Anyone else looking forward to using some of their kids’ new gifts? 
It’s a shame my mom didn’t plan to have enough food for the crowd. I’m sure folks went to bed hungry. 
And, Christmas wouldn’t be complete with the pseudo mean old Uncle who promises 8 children that if all of them are silent for 15 minutes, each will get $5 cash and then tries tricking them into making noise. Good thing Lydia was sick in bed or she woulda totally wrecked this for them all, no doubt.
Now that I know they can actually physically do this, life is changed. “You absolutely can wait here for 10 more minutes. I know you can because you sat still and quiet for 15 minutes last Christmas!” Oh yeah, I’m totally using this to my advantage. 

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Advent {My Spiritual Booster Shot}

It’s time. The perforated cardboard doors are all open. All the felt pockets are empty of their trinkets. A couple days ago, we read about Ezra and Nehemiah. But, the very next reading jumped ahead hundreds of years to what they all had been talking about and waiting for. My audience was captivated.

The God who flung planets into space and kept them whirling around and around, the God who made the universe with just a word, the one who could do anything at all – was making himself small. And coming down…as a baby.

That’s what advent is all about.

Anticipation.

Preparation.

His coming near.

Sacrifice.

The perfect to the broken, the holy to the unholy.

Jesus came.

Tonight, we will sing with countless others around the world that God with man is now residing. Somehow we will sing in unison; we’ll invite each other to come and worship, come and worship. We will light candles. We will dress our daughters in pretty dresses. Fight our sons to smile for pictures. Tomorrow, we’ll hug cousins and aunts and uncles. Laugh together, eat together, share together after we get the kids all settled in their sleeping bags or beds, wherever we can pile them all in.

Meanwhile, the needles from our tree continue to drop, and the trashmen will be greeted next week by bags of ripped paper. Credit card bills are on their way.

But, advent doesn’t just stop when the Christmas carols are no longer on the radio. I want an advent spirit. Lord, will you give me that for Christmas this year? An advent spirit? I want a spirit of expectation, to live in expectation, to live with watchfulness. It doesn’t have to be just for 24 days in December each year. I want it all year, everyday. Eyes that no longer hold my spirit back with only seeing the mundane but release my spirit with glimpses of the extraordinary.

I want to be one of the saints before the altar bending, watching long in hope and fear…everyday. Advent and Christmas at the culmination of it is just the booster shot I need.

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He is There

Christmas 2009. Three 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.

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 for Christmas, what was her first Christmas.

And, though I was anxious and wondering and thinking all the time about her, 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–a 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 were put in it, not just nice yellow hay. It was dirty, maybe moldy, smelly.

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

As spunky and full of life as Lydia is now, it wasn’t that long ago 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 more recently 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 the time. There were older children in that orphanage too, children we weren’t allowed to see. And, I wonder what their days were like.

I’ve heard a lot of stories–about adopted children who flinch when someone moves their direction in fear that they will be hit; children 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 right now. 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 3 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 around our table, 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 He’s about. That’s what advent is about. 

photos courtesy of KC Photography

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