How did I get here?

A few days ago I was thinking about my parents’ 50^th wedding anniversary that was coming up.  I thought of the fun times and the hard times and the everything-in-between times that they have experienced together.  Inevitably, I began to think about how God’s plans for each of us involves so many ups and downs, twists and turns, unimaginable joy and unthinkable sadness down to the tiniest detail. I began to reflect on the events of my own life and how they have shaped me and changed me and taught me.  So if you’re up to it, follow me through parts of my journey and bits and pieces of others’ journeys as well, because, well, I’m not in this by myself.  If you’re not mentioned specifically, please know that it doesn’t mean that you haven’t played a significant role in my journey—just trying to keep this from being a full on autobiography.  I’ll save that for another day.

I’m not sure where to start, so I’ll just pick age 16. I needed to pay for my car, so I got a job at Payless Cashways as a cashier.  On my first day of work, there was a meeting for all store employees, so I stayed to see what it was all about.  I had only met a handful of employees, and was still very shy (hard to believe, I know!), so I hung back and let everyone else sit down.  There were two “yard guys” wearing camouflage pants sitting together and acting silly.  One of them even had two black eyes that I would later learn was from a fight the night before.  Right before the meeting started, the non-black-eye guy turned and asked if I wanted to sit in the seat that was open next time him.  I told him I didn’t talk to strangers (in a flirty way, of course!) and stayed where I was.  Can you guess who he was/is?  If you guessed my hubby dearest, you are right!  Defining moment:  about a week later, we talked again and started dating shortly after.  So what?  Here’s what:  just a couple of years earlier, he had hopes of playing football at Oklahoma State.  He broke both of his wrists within a year or so, and gave up football.  If he hadn’t, we likely wouldn’t have met.  A hard time in his life ended up bringing us together.  He’s my best friend.  I’m so thankful that he broke those bones and didn’t move to Stillwater, because I’m not sure where else our paths would have crossed.  God did that. 

Let’s skip ahead about 8 years.  We decided we wanted to start a family.  We thought it would be easy.  We were wrong.  It took more than two years and a surgery for hubby dearest for us to finally be able to conceive.  We were thrilled.  But something went terribly wrong.  My body didn’t enjoy pregnancy and I developed HELLP syndrome.  Our critterboy was born at 30 weeks, weighing 2lbs 11oz.  Click HERE to read a little bit about his start in life.  We were terrified, angry, sad, confused, and pretty much every other emotion possible.  Why OUR little man?  Why ME? Why US?  We’re not strong enough for this!  No way.  But we WERE strong enough, and so was our critterboy.  At the time, I had no idea why my pregnancy and delivery happened the way it did.  Why my baby was born too soon.  It took a few years to begin to piece it together.  God knew what was coming and this was only the beginning.

I need to back up a bit, though, because a few other significant things happened while we were trying to make a baby.  During that time, we nearly became parents (of the temporary kind) to two young family members.  The paperwork was done.  Everything was ready.  Except it wasn’t God’s plan.  I was devastated.  As far as I was concerned, they were MY boys.  I loved them wholeheartedly even though I barely knew the oldest and had yet to meet the newborn.  I had clothes ready, toys ready, and my heart ready.  Why would He bring us so far, then not see it through?  I wasn’t sure I could ever recover from that pain. Not long after that, a friend told me about a mom who was hoping to place her toddler for adoption.  That night, I dreamed of a boy with blond hair and blue eyes as my son.  Though I never met him, I later found out that the little guy had blond hair and blue eyes.  Can you see where this is going?  Hold on . . . I’m getting to it. 

When the critterboy was about a year old, we decided he needed a sibling.  After about six months of trying, there was still no positive pregnancy test. Because of the complications the first time around, we consulted specialists.  After reviewing my records, the high risk OB said that he could “probably get me to 34 weeks with bed rest starting around 20 weeks.”  Ummmm . . .  what?  We have a toddler at home.  That just won’t work.  To make things even more difficult, we soon found out that it wouldn’t happen without medical intervention, and that wasn’t something we wanted to do given the likely outcome.   We started researching adoption agencies (together, although I had been researching international adoption since I was about 20 years old).  We applied with an agency and were approved to adopt from Guatemala.  But then a bunch of stuff happened.  Political tension surrounding adoption was high between the US and Guatemala.  We were nervous, because financially we had one shot at an international adoption.  If things didn’t go well, we wouldn’t have the ability to move forward with another adoption.  So we changed countries (to Azerbaijan) in hopes of moving things along at a bit quicker pace.  But wait!  Our child wasn’t in Azerbaijan.  Nope.  She was in Guatemala.  We changed back to the Guatemala program.  I firmly believe that He chose La Princesa to be our daughter.  (I know not everyone agrees with this way of thinking, but I’m not looking for a debate here, mmmkay?)  She wasn’t born yet when we were in the Guatemala program the first time.  He threw delays and frustrations, countries we’d never heard of before, and so many emotions at us to get us to wait until she was born.  Obviously this wasn’t clear at the time.  Many of the same feelings of fear, frustration, anger, etc. were there.  Why US?  Doesn’t anyone care that we want another child in our family? We’re not strong enough for this.  It isn’t meant to be.  But you know what?  It WAS meant to be.  La Princesa was/is meant to be our daughter.  We have no other explanation for the timing of our entire adoption process.  (If you want to see a slideshow about our journey, click HERE) What’s more (follow me on this), if we would’ve become parents to our young family members, we likely wouldn’t have had our sweet boy.  If our critterboy hadn’t been born early, we likely wouldn’t have pursued an adoption at all.  If we hadn’t come so close to being parents to our young family members along the way, we might not have understood that we could love a child that we didn’t create.  An extremely difficult time in their mother’s life opened our hearts in ways we had never imagined. God did this.  So cool.  And don’t even get me started on the timing of our visits with her in Guatemala and her homecoming.  Oh my goodness.  I could go on and on about that.

While I’m on the subject of Guatemala, during my time there, I saw things that changed me.  Not just on the surface, but changed me all the way to my core.  Beauty, poverty, and just another culture in general.  Armed guards were posted at the entrances of not only stores, but also parking lots.  Families, often including more than one small child, were riding on a single motorcycle.  People were walking even along the busiest of roads and highways.  I couldn’t live in my little dream world anymore, seeing first hand that not everyone in the world had even their basic needs met.  I’m still trying to be patient and see what God’s plan is for me in that respect.  At one time, I thought I should just GO and do SOMETHING to make it better.  In time, I realized that isn’t what I’m supposed to do, at least not now.  Someday I want to go back for a visit, and in my dreams, I would spend enough time there to teach business skills to women.  I’ll be patient and see what happens. Until then, let’s recap! J If we would’ve become parents to our young family members, we likely wouldn’t have had our sweet boy.  If our critterboy hadn’t been born early, we likely wouldn’t have pursued an adoption at all.  If we hadn’t come so close to being parents to our young family members along the way, we might not have understood that we could love a child that we didn’t create.  And if we hadn’t come to know that, we wouldn’t have our amazing daughter and the experience of another culture.  Did I do any of this?  No way.  This was all HIM.

So, picking up where I left off. . . shortly after we brought La Princesa home from Guatemala, we were invited to what I fondly refer to as a “Guatemalan adoption get together”, hosted by a family who lives not far from us.  There were lots of families with children from Guatemala in our area, and we had no idea!  During the course of the gathering, the host and I were chatting and she happened to bring up that their Sunday school class was re-inventing itself with a new name and a new direction.  Their first study would be “Effective Parenting in a Defective World” (can I get an amen??).  And guess what?  Their church was the same one where our kids had been going to daycare.  She kept in touch and emailed me when the study was scheduled to begin.  We visited the class and it was a great fit for us.  We connected with lots of other couples, many of whom had kids the same ages as ours, and even better, older than ours.  We hit the jackpot of parenting advice!  We started attending each Sunday and began developing relationships with our new classmates-turned-friends.  A few months later, I was baptized and we officially joined our church.  So if you’re following along, here’s how it goes: almost parents, then change of plans. Infertility, then fertility, then premature son.  Lots of hurdles and road blocks, then adoption, then church home and church family.  Awesome.  Every bit of this happened exactly how and when it was supposed to.  Perfect timing, not according to my plans, but HIS.

Fast forward about three years.  Our home was destroyed by an EF-5 tornado.  I was at work, while Mark was home with the kids (and his parents who were visiting from out of state).  By the time I could even get to what was left of my house, one member of our Sunday school class was already there.  Within a few minutes of me arriving, virtually everyone from the class was there helping us sort and load everything we could.  I still don’t know how they all came to be there.  Some say I posted on Facebook, but I can’t find a post during that timeframe.  Some say I talked to them on the phone, and while I vaguely recall one conversation with a friend while on my way, I distinctly remember telling her it was too dangerous and not to come.  They were the next ones there.  Many of them brought their children, the youngest of whom stayed in their cars watching in wide-eyed confusion, and the oldest of whom worked right alongside their parents. Several even came back day after day to help until there wasn’t anything left to do.  A family we barely knew from church had a house that was unoccupied and our things were being taken directly there.  When we arrived there late that night, a family picture, battered and a bit wet, was already hanging on the wall and friends were laying out clothes to dry throughout the house.  Our classmates, along with other members of our church family and immediate family, organized work days, took 20+ trash bags full of salvaged clothing, blankets, and towels to the Laundromat for us so that the borrowed washer and dryer at our temporary home could keep up with the day to day loads, brought meals, washed trays of silverware that were covered in debris, donated money, gift cards, clothes, household items, etc. We were completely overwhelmed by this outpouring of love and prayer.  The entire experience was awful.  But as I’ve said over and over again, when you look past the awfulness of it, it was and still is a blessing.  The home whose walls blew away, we learned, had been making me (and at times the entire family) sick in many ways.  When we left it behind, I was (mostly) healed.  The number of doctor visits for illnesses for our family was reduced by more than half during the months that followed.  We grew closer as a family, made new friends, and gained experience handling the aftermath of tragedy that we hope someday can bring comfort to others who may experience the same thing.  We saw the power of God in the tornado and in the healing afterward.  He was there through the entire thing.  He knew all of this would happen and he knew we could handle it because he had surrounded us with not only His love, but the love of our church family.  Need another review? Alrighty!  If we would’ve become parents to our young family members, we likely wouldn’t have had our sweet boy.  If our critterboy hadn’t been born early, we likely wouldn’t have pursued an adoption at all.  If we hadn’t come so close to being parents to our young family members along the way, we might not have understood that we could love a child that we didn’t create.  If we hadn’t adopted La Princesa, we likely wouldn’t have given our church a chance.  If we hadn’t joined our church, the tornado ordeal wouldn’t have been nearly as much of a blessing for us.  Amazing.  (The tornado will someday be it’s own post.  Nearly two years later I’m still trying to put all of my feelings into words . . .)

There was a time (okay, most of my first 25 or so years), that I tried to figure out life on my own.  God’s plan wasn’t something I considered, because I was too focused on what “I” wanted and how “I” wanted things to happen.  I’m a control freak by nature (can I get another amen??), and if something doesn’t make sense to me, I have to rationalize it somehow.  To think that I wasn’t in control was simply unthinkable.  People would say “things happen for a reason” and I would smile and nod.  I subscribed to the belief that if you lived right, good things would happen, and if you didn’t, well, that bad things would happen. I’ve never really believed in fate.  I always knew God was behind all of this, but didn’t take it to heart.   I believed in God, and “was a good person”, but didn’t pray much.  We had a hard time settling on a church to attend due to the vastly different denominations and church experiences we’d had growing up, so we just didn’t go.  You know what’s awesome?  God did all of this anyway.  Every single bit of this.  And not in a spiteful “I’ll show you!  Get your booty to church and this stuff won’t happen!” kind of way, but in a loving way.  Growing me and changing me and bringing me closer to Him by revealing his glory in all of these experiences.  It was really awesome at times and really hard at other times.  If you look closely, you can almost see the pattern.  Sorrow, joy, learning, growing, changing, then more sorrow, more joy, more learning and growing, rinse and repeat!

You might be reading about these hardships and trials and thinking, “how could she keep believing in a God who allows so much pain?”  I’ll tell you how.  My God is not a vengeful God.  He is a loving God who challenges us to be better people and better disciples.  I look at every hurdle that has been thrown in my way as a learning experience.  Each trial has added to my story of growing closer to Him and opened my heart to the possibilities yet to come. And you know what?  He’s not done.  While I don’t look forward to difficult times in the future, I choose to look at them differently now.  I feel God’s love for me in each one.  All things in life, good and bad and in between, are temporary.  We can allow them to shape us and teach us, or we can run and hide and ask “why me?”  But asking all those questions will get you nowhere.  His plans for our lives are much more complicated and more fulfilling than we could ever imagine.  If I have anything to offer as advice, it would be to look beyond the hard times, whatever they may be.  Look for the lesson and look for the gifts that are hidden among them. It makes the thought of an eternity with Him that much sweeter. J

If you’re still reading, I hope you have enjoyed the much abbreviated story of how I got to this point in my life and in my faith.  If you don't know me well on a personal level, you might have learned a lot about me.  If you do know me well, you probably still learned a few things. (I'm pretty exciting, right?!) I’ve left out lots of details, but I think it’s pretty clear that this journey isn’t over.  The good times, the bad times, the everyday run-of-the-mill times; they’re all important in understanding how this puzzle of life comes together.  It’s so exciting, and I can’t wait to see what’s next . . . now back to your regularly scheduled programming.