My Overthinking

Philly Area mom, Life forever changed by adoption

I don’t want to go {and other things that go through my mind when I’m leaving for China in 3 hours}

I’ve been looking at a bag packed full of supplies for a few days now. The top layer keeps changing as I’ve added new things when I’ve had another idea or the mailman or a friend drops off just one more thing. You’d think that the Mary Poppins bag in my dining room would have prepared me for this moment right now.

But, here I am. As I am every.single.time.I.go. feeling frazzled and anxious, wondering if I have everything I wanted to bring, overthinking if I brought the right gifts, feeling jet lagged before I ever even leave for the airport.

Every trip we go on, I act as the wise sage to the team: “Don’t be surprised when you have butterflies in your stomach right before we leave and you find yourself wondering why the heck you signed up for this and that it would just be a lot easier if you stayed home.” Yet, every trip we go on, I find myself right about there at right about now. And, I’m kind of surprised. There. I admit it.

I look at this 52 lb. bag of good things, and there is definitely a spark in me that knows that those good things are going to help create even better things. And, that thrills my heart a bit. But, there’s also part of me that remembers an inbox full of emails and Drew’s 5th grade ski trip after school tomorrow and the little girl asleep on my bedroom floor after a long day of a stomach bug. And, I hear myself thinking, “I don’t want to go. Can’t someone else do this?…the plane ride is so long…there’s so much going on…maybe there’s someone better suited for this…”

That’s where I am right now. 3 hours before we leave for the airport. And, in this place, I’m just going to finish turning my thoughts into words on a screen, and I’m going to zip up my suitcase (my non-Mary Poppins second suitcase where you will be glad to know I did actually pack clothing for myself), and I’m going to get ready to take a little nap right next to my little girl until it’s time to go. And, then we’re going to go. Mark, Ashlyn, and I are going to go. Because we’ve been called to go. And, because that little girl asleep on my floor has a mama to stroke her head and tell her how sorry she is that her tummy is “a lot a bit yucky” and because there are little girls her age right now who need that.

Yup. We’re going to go. We’re going to pour ourselves out and serve for a week aside 11 other people who may be feeling a lot of the same things tonight and who are also going to rally. And, then after that, the three of us are going to Shanghai where we will pour ourselves out for another week in a different way, encouraging and caring for the 24 men and women teachers we have the honor of supporting.

Only 3 more hours to go.

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My response to his 5th grade teacher

She may not have realized when she sent home a letter like this with questions like this that she was sending it to a mama who overthinks everything.

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I have literally thousands of pictures of Drew. This one is one of my favorites, taken just last summer simply using my phone discretely. The picture itself is nothing special; in fact, it’s really not that good. But, I experienced the moment it captured and know how it stands like a window into Drew’s heart.

Andrew Micah.

Andrew was the first called, the first disciple Jesus called by name. As our third child, we wanted him to know he was valued, called by name, known. Even as we were expecting his arrival, we prayed Micah 6:8 for him, that he would seek justice, love mercy, and humbly walk with God.

We love his heart, the mercy and compassion captured in this picture, the passion he has to see broken things made right, the unfair made fair, and his developing understanding of who he is and how he fits into a larger picture. That’s not an easy process; we see him struggling, easily injured and often hearing the wrong message that he’s not important, not valuable. We want to help him wrestle with all that in all contexts—in our family, as he considers his own physical frame, as he processes every part of school social and academic. His sensitive heart may get injured easily as he wrestles, but it also responds to nurturing easily. So, we work hard to give him what works to build him up, speaking affirming words and giving him lots of physical affection. As he matures and becomes more secure, he will likely need less of that. But, for now, we’re happy to give him what he needs, believing that the encouragement to his heart is infinitely more important than anything else and actually will be what makes all that anything else effective. With that encouragement, he’s better able to learn hard math facts and history lessons, better able to physically do what he thinks he can’t do, more willing to work as part of a team even when it’s hard.

Our desire is that his teachers would trust us and see us as willing able to be what he most needs and then to partner with us to reinforce how we are building him up to be the man God wants him to be and to give him the anything else so we can be freed up to pour into his heart.

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