When we moved into our current home about five years ago, we got 4 ½ acres, three bedrooms and three bathrooms, a partially finished basement, and a pool. (For more inside information about our house-hunting experience and general illustrations of how easily I can embarrass myself, read this.) Since neither of us grew up having a pool (unless you count the plastic kind that is stacked outside of the Walmart garden center), we were skeptical if we could handle it. It didn’t help that when we saw it for the first time, it was a brilliant lime color with lovely, foam blobs floating freely in the deep end. This was way out of my expertise. Now that we’re starting our fifth summer as “pool people,” it’s become part of our family identity—for good and for not-so-good: It’s easy for an impromptu get-together but some mechanism breaks every year, costing at least $600 for a new whosie-whatsit that fits the whatsy-doodle and keeps the pool running perfectly (for about a month and a half). We inherit lots of left-behind swim goggles and diving toys but—despite our efforts to encourage toweling off before going inside to use the bathroom—the floors are always covered in wet footprints. Listening to the soothing sound of the pool fountain is a pleasant way to end the day but pulling dead frogs, moles, and mice from the skimmer basket is a depressing way to start a birthday party. Even when it’s over ninety degrees, our kids spend hours outside swimming with their friends and cousins but I have to buy sunscreen by the gross ton. Our kids’ friends enjoy hanging out at our house but sometimes those friends need instruction on how to use a tampon for the first time ever. (Side note: It didn’t bother me one bit to explain this technique. I love to teach things that I truly know how to do, probably due to the fact that I’m not an expert in many areas. It was just difficult to have to describe to a sweet tween friend the certain outcome when a maxi-pad is submerged in a swimming pool.) Swim noodles are cheap and fun pool toys. You can float on them, hit your sister with them, and even use them to blow a large amount of water at your friend like you’re a whale with an overactive blowhole. The downside, other than the fact that pool water quickly disintegrates them if they are left outside too long and you’ll find pieces of neon pink, green, and orange in the skimmer basket for weeks afterwards, is that they are too often used by boys to imitate the male anatomy. You can’t make it that easy for them, folks. Like everything else that has to do with owning and maintaining your home, we have learned a lot of things about the care of a pool, often from doing it the wrong way first. If I had a nickel for every time Brent or I ended a conversation with the phrase “Well, now we know…” I’d have enough nickels to buy a new whosie-whatsit or maybe even an entire whatsy-doodle. Okay, come to think of it, maybe this pool stuff is still way out of my expertise.

For the second year in a row, a couple of blackbirds have built their nest in the gutter just outside my bedroom. (Disclaimer: I don’t know if they are actually blackbirds. I just know they are black birds. I tried to look up what kind of big, aggressive nincompoops like to build nests in gutters but the search engine fairy failed me.) We built a sunroom onto our house a few years ago creating an L-shape with our bedroom. Apparently, the resulting corner gutter is prime real estate. As I sit in my room, I hear birds fighting for this property. I can imagine every awkward movement of their large wings in such a confined space. They squawk and snap at each other. It is in all respects ANNOYING. If it’s true what the naturalist John James Audubon said that “hopes are shy birds flying at a great distance seldom reached by the best of guns,” then these not-so-shy birds are the exact opposite of hope—misery maybe. And the gun thing is questionable. Being a pacifist and non-gun owner, I’m surprised by my growing desire to see their birdy bodies riddled with bullets, feathers floating slowly to the ground after the smoke clears…I digress. On days when I want to sit and write in this private sanctuary of my bedroom, I’m frustrated by the constant noise. “Cut it out, you morons!” I shout at them. “There are about forty trees within seconds of here! Why did you build your stupid nest in my gutter?!” For some reason, my yelling doesn’t make a difference. Perhaps they don’t know English. I’ve even resorted to sitting on the floor by the door to the patio with my laptop in front of me trying to get something done. Every time I hear them clattering around, I open and shut the door quickly to send them flying to the nearby pine trees only to hear them return in a few minutes. (Another disclaimer: Seeing as how this is the second year of this nesting, we would have been smart to place some sort of deterrent in the gutter during the off season. My husband Brent and I discussed this plan of action: What kind of material should we use? Who will stand on the ladder and who will hold a broom to swat away possible attack birds? Unfortunately we never got past the “planning” stage. I’m definitely regretting my laziness now since it’s illegal to remove bird nests that are being actively used unless they are home to an invasive species like house sparrows or European starlings. I’m not sure if these black birds are officially registered as invasive but they have certainly invaded my gutter.) If this year turns out to be like last year, another sound will soon be added to the thrashing and squawking. Soon I’ll hear the cheeping of baby birds and a new emotional conflict will plague my soul. Instead of just being annoyed by the pesky adult birds, I’ll succumb to my maternal feelings of cherishing anything newborn, even if it cries a lot. And this is all by design. The birds nest by design so that their eggs will have a safe place to hatch. No one teaches them what materials to gather or how to scout for possible locations but they do it every year. By design, mothers are compelled to love the fragile and tiny so that they will nurture and care for those too weak to care for themselves. I’m designed to see even the annoying aspects of nature around me so that I can be in awe of our Creator. Although I’d love for them to leave, I’m grateful for these stupid birds. I’m grateful to live in a place where I can witness wildlife—even if it’s just a squirrel drinking from a puddle in the middle of our pool cover or an over-sized groundhog pushing an imaginary friend in our porch swing (yes, that actually happened). Life and living things are a blessing and if I have to be reminded of them by squawking then that may be by design, too.

“My name is Abby and I am the mother of twins.” “Hello, Abby.” “Welcome to the mothers of twins support group…” It’s just in my mind, of course. I don’t go to any such meetings. Early on, I had plenty of opportunities to join groups when my girls were babies but I honestly couldn’t imagine using precious baby-free time to sit in a room with other moms every other week and eat light refreshments. There was so much I’d rather be doing, like sleeping. I got through their baby years the way our early pioneer foremothers did: I circled the wagons and held off the barrage of poop, pee, and spit up until the savages retreated to their naps. I’m just kidding. My daughters, now almost twelve, were never really that bad, although I’d have to be hypnotized to remember the majority of their first two years of life. It’s all a blur. I do remember feeding them with a special nursing pillow (“My Breast Friend,” Boppy’s odd cousin, with sharp angles and a fabric slipcover featuring psychedelic, dancing bears and giant, building blocks that spelled words like CAT and DOG) that allowed me to feed them at the same time. None of this nursing discreetly in a parking lot stuff for me, no sir. I had to be in bed and shirtless for everybody to be hooked up correctly. I also remember long walks pushing their stroller. We lived in an older neighborhood with wonderful, tree-lined sidewalks so we’d make the circuit around the block and head back. We had a double stroller but for the first several months the girls were too small to occupy a seat alone. Instead, they were tucked in together like they were still in the womb…but with straps. When they were a little older, their personalities began to emerge. Ella loved to sing and dance around in a dramatic fashion. A somber ballet was playing out in her head, no doubt. Lucy on the other hand was all about the facial expressions: Anything for a laugh. They were both bossy and very verbal, so there was nothing quiet about our home. They liked to debunk the stereotype that girls are dainty by wrestling each other at some point every day. I liked to debunk the stereotype that moms break up daughters who wrestle by sitting on the sofa and watching. They giggled and giggled until a pigtail was pulled or an arm got scratched then it was over. I would pull them into my lap and say, “That’s what happens when we wrestle,” as if I didn’t think it was a great form of pre-nap entertainment. They crawled then walked and their teeth came in but unlike better moms, I didn’t write anything down. I don’t know what their first words were but I do remember Ella saying “Maybe so, Baby Ho” so I knew their intake of Dr. Seuss books was more than adequate. They played together and were each other’s best friend/worst enemy. I stopped dressing them alike somewhere around kindergarten. For some reason, we’re expected to keep them identical (even if they’re obviously not) at all times. So if one poops out the back end of her striped onesie do I have to change the other one too so that both of them now have matching polka dot onesies? That sounds like too much laundry and maybe a level of hell. (An eternity of rolling a huge boulder up a hill with Sisyphus would be better than trying to remove breastfed baby poop stains.) I still got a few matching outfits out of them on Sundays but that eventually ended too. They wanted to be independent of each other, their own woman. Deep down, I suspect they felt comfortable loosening their reliance on each other because they knew the other sister was never going to be that far away. This year, we decided to put them in two different schools for 6th grade. It was a difficult decision but an attempt to preserve the fragile ecosystem of twin sisters. I get it. I understand being compared to a sister, only mine was two years older than me. Teachers met me with certain expectations, often unrealistic. Having a twin is even worse. As a parent, when I try to praise one, I end up dissing the other one. Everything is political when it comes to vying for pecking order with your siblings. So we’ve decided to do the only thing we know how to do, keep going. Keep making mistakes in spite of our best intentions and start saving for their future therapy sessions. The most I can hope for is that they will someday enjoy the benefits of having a sister. They will do as I do with my sisters, complain about their childhood and bemoan their parents’ parenting. They’ll be so grateful to have another person who completely understands their crazy family. At least, they’ll bond over something!

Like most people, I have a love/hate relationship with public restrooms. How many times have I heard one of my kids’ panicked screams break the calm reverie of a long car trip (thank you very much, inventor of the DVD) to tell me they “HAVE TO PEE NOW!!!”? We pull into whatever is the next available pee receptacle and do what needs to be done to save the car upholstery. It’s usually something that hasn’t been cleaned this millennia but it solves the problem and isn’t that why God created hand sanitizer? I’m grateful it was there but grossed out until I can shower. Recently, I went to a middle school swim meet at a very nice private school. The facilities were clean and mostly plentiful, but I had one issue with them: They were too quiet. After downing my large Coke Zero with vanilla from Sonic, I found the nearest restroom to the indoor pool complex. This particular restroom was only a two-seater, which meant several ladies waited in line behind me. The bathroom was as sound proof as a recording studio. Nothing from the hundreds of people just outside the restroom could be heard, only the tinkling from within. Talk about humiliation. I didn’t know anyone in line but I felt the need to small talk. Unfortunately, the sounds I couldn’t help but hear only made me need to go more. I couldn’t think of anything to say. “How about the weather? Looks like it might rain.” No good. All talk of precipitation was off limits if I wanted to get out of there without making a puddle. At that moment, I wished for two things: 1.) Some kind of music piped in to mask the bathroom noises. Macaroni Grill even plays “Learn to Speak Italian” CDs. Brilliant. (Dove posso trovare? Where is the bathroom?) 2.) To make as little sounds as possible when it was my turn. I was suddenly grateful I didn’t order any food from Sonic when I got my coke. Had I eaten a breakfast burrito there would have been sounds aplenty. There are so many examples of love/hate relationships. Usually, we prefer to say bittersweet. When our kids tackle the next hurdle towards adulthood, it’s a bittersweet moment. We want to see them grow and mature but we also want to keep them little and adorable and taking long naps. Some experiences are more bitter than sweet and vice versa, but I have realized most experiences have both. It may seem clichéd to look for the silver lining in every dark cloud but finding the love amidst the hate is the only way to persevere through some tough times. Finding things to be grateful for makes the low points seem more temporary. So I salute you, public restrooms! You have saved me countless times! Thank you or as my Italian friends would say: grazie molte!

I’m an excellent driver. Being a mom, I’ve perfected my ability to simultaneously drive the van, discipline the kids, and change the DVD—that’s multi-tasking, my friend. In spite of this amazing talent, my husband does the driving on long car trips. “It’s not because you’re a bad driver,” he tells me. “It’s because you can sleep in the car and I can’t.” Okay, valid point. I’m also an excellent sleeper. Due to my tendency towards motion sickness, I can’t read a book or check Facebook on my phone or crochet in the car. Turning around to pass out juice boxes even makes me want to puke. My husband will no longer humor me with car games (“Female actress from the 1980’s. You’ve got twenty questions…go!”), so I either sleep or daydream. When I’m not feeling very sleepy, I’ll recline my seat and just start thinking. Sometimes I fantasize about becoming a famous author. I’m being interviewed at the red carpet premiere of the movie version of my latest novel. Cameras are flashing as the paparazzi are yelling at me, “This way, Abby. Who are you wearing, Abby? You look amazing, Abby! How did you lose those thirty pesky pounds?” I would just smile and say, “Clean living, boys. I credit it all to clean living.” Sometimes I write a screenplay in my mind. For instance, I recently created an entire drama starring my husband and me. It was a “It’s a Wonderful Life”-type story where we broke up my freshman year (instead of dating all through college and getting married the day I graduated). He married a seemingly genuine, but–in my opinion–overly attractive girl. They moved away so he could enroll in medical school but she realized being married to a poor med student wasn’t what she had signed up for so she left him for a dermatology resident who was willing to help her finance a new Lexus. We met years later. I had never married and he still loved me. It was like that Dan Fogelberg song they play at Christmastime except we didn’t meet at a grocery store and I didn’t spill the contents of my purse while we laughed until we cried. And sometimes I just fantasize how I could organize my pantry better. With the current pace of our often-hectic lives, it’s a nice break to be able to just sit and daydream. A friend who is now cancer-free recently told me what a treat it is for her to go her oncologist every three months for a check-up to get a CT scan. She’s forced to sit very still under a warm blanket in a dark room. There’s definitely something appealing about that! We’re pulled in so many directions. We have calendars on our phones reminding us where we need to be in the next five minutes and yet we still feel like we’re a day behind. Even now, as I’m typing, I hear an annoying voice in my head telling me to go down to the laundry room and take the sheets out of the dryer so the towels can go in. It’s dizzying. So here are my New Year’s Resolutions: Slow Down. Pray More. Invite God into my Daydreams. I may not believe all of my daydreams, but I am a big believer in them. I’m going to make room for plain, old thinking and see where God takes me. *I’ve had the song “Daydream Believer” by The Monkees in my head for the entire time I’ve been typing. When I get to the part “You once thought of me as a white knight on a steed…” I always get stuck. I keep singing the end of the verse something like this: “But how much paper do they really need?” I looked it up and, believe it or not, that’s not how it goes. So disappointing.

A very sweet friend recently gave me a handmade necklace for Christmas. It had a pendant with a picture of a songbird, some lovely beads and a couple of tiny charms—one of a leaf and one that says HOPE. The accompanying card was chock full of scriptures and encouraging words about the successful completion of our son’s adoption from Africa. The main theme of the note was her charge for me not to lose hope. I wore it all of the next day as I ran errands and carpooled kids around town. Compliments were made by friends and strangers and my heart was cheered every time I looked at this thoughtful gift. It wasn’t until I was getting dressed for bed that I realized one of the charms was missing. That’s right—I lost HOPE. Even though I love a good bit of irony, it was a kick in the shins to my spirit. (That is, if spirits have shins.) You don’t realize how close to the edge of despair you are until you get a little shove sometimes. Some days it only takes a light breeze. Once I picked myself up off the floor, I began to ponder what hope really means. With the Christmas season in full swing, I can’t help but think about a night many years ago in Bethlehem and the hope that Christ’s birth brought to this world. When the angels told the shepherds, “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people,” it must have been a huge source of encouragement. These men smelled like sheep and were ruled by an occupying government. They needed a shot of hope. They went to the stable and saw that the angel’s words were fulfilled. And then what? They went home and slept and woke up to another day of sheep herding. Jesus didn’t start his ministry for thirty years. Chances are, He didn’t even begin healing and preaching during the shepherds’ lifetimes. So how was this hope? I can see now that I confused “hope” with “happiness.” Hope is a perpetually-filling reservoir and happiness is a fleeting rain shower. Hope is seeing God’s majesty to create anticipation for greater things and happiness is the majesty of one moment that doesn’t usually live up to the hype. Hope can be a long wait, but it will be worth it. Some part of the shepherds’ spirit must have known that night was unlike any other. (I’m guessing the chorus of heavenly beings probably tipped them off.) Even if they never saw the culmination of that miraculous birth, they were able to die with the taste of promising hope on their lips. That’s a gift…if you can hold on to it. A few days after I lost the charm on my necklace, I was sitting in the carline and talking to a friend on my phone. I was asking her if I could borrow some items for our church’s Christmas play. My list was full of props like gold, frankincense, and myrrh. (God works in mysterious ways…) As I was talking, I looked down in the floorboard in the narrow space by the console. I saw something glinting in the afternoon light. Yep, you guessed it…I found HOPE. I had to stop mid-sentence to collect myself. I hadn’t even tried to find the charm because I had assumed it was lost in one of the many places I had visited that day. But here it was, patiently waiting for me to pick it up and marvel at it. I carefully slipped it into the change part of my wallet so I could re-connect it to my necklace later. Now that I think about it, I may just leave it in my wallet. HOPE is that precious to me this year!

Ever since I discovered characters with names like Jessica Fletcher and Nancy Drew, I’ve enjoyed a good mystery. Maybe this fascination began because my mom was a huge fan of the PBS series, Mystery. As kids, we would often join her to watch the animated beginning of the show to see the sinister villains and damsels in distress, the dead body in the library and the ill-fated croquet game. We frequently commented on the woman on the roof. She was wailing, hand to forehead, while lying helplessly with her ankles loosely bound. “Just sit up and untie yourself!” we’d shout at the TV in utter disgust. Following that intro was an episode featuring professional detectives or problem-solving amateurs: Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and Miss Marple to name a few. They all possessed an incomprehensible ability to solve a mystery. The hidden clues were glaringly obvious to them, both in existence and relevance to the current case. The suspect’s shoes were too clean or his overcoat too dirty. He wore his watch on his left wrist but wasn’t he left-handed? It must be an evil twin! These obscure details always became supremely important by the end of the program. In real life, we’re bombarded with millions of supremely unimportant details and events. How can we ever know which ones are worth noticing and which ones are just filler? It’s all part and parcel of this mystery called life. When a major weather event happens, we call it an Act of God. When a good thing occurs unexpectedly, usually after a chain of bad events, we say, “God sure works in mysterious ways.” We are quick to attribute these unexplainable phenomena to God but when we don’t get a quick answer to prayers, we get all Psalms-y—and not in a good way. “My God…Why are you so far from saving me so far from the words of my groaning?” (Psalm 22:1) In other words, “Hello, God, it’s me, Abby…Anyone? Can I at least leave a message?” Then, when the answer still isn’t coming through, we get up a prayer brigade. In some ways, it’s the prayer equivalent of the climax of the book Horton Hears a Who. The miniscule folks who live on the speck, which is precariously resting on a flower, carried around by an elephant named Horton are desperate to have their voices heard. They must prove they exist so that the angry mob of jungle animals won’t boil their entire planet in beezle-nut oil. All of the townspeople are shouting and tooting their instruments, but it’s just not enough. The mayor soon realizes one boy named JoJo who isn’t making a sound at all. When JoJo adds his mighty “Yopp” to the din, the collection of sounds pushes its way through a portion of the cloud cover just in time. They are heard and they are saved. That our prayers can be heard by God at all is a great mystery. Having a large group people unite to pray isn’t because God can’t hear the one tiny “Yopp” that floats up all alone. Maybe the mass prayers are there to encourage the downtrodden by the force of their volume. Maybe this large group of praying friends is a great cloud of witnesses and they’re there just for that purpose—to witness what God will do with the petition laid before Him. As a recipient of such prayers for an extended amount of time, I can attest to the encouragement they offer. To know you’re on someone’s prayer list—quiet time, dinnertime, bedtime, all the time—is a wonderful balm to a wounded spirit. But there are moments when even this encouragement doesn’t feel like enough. Moments when my “Yopp” seems ignored. That’s when an even greater mystery comes in to play: the mystery of trust. When I am told to trust in the Lord and lean not on my own understanding (Proverbs 3:5, 6), it flies in the face of human reasoning. When I am told that God has made everything beautiful in its time and He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end (Ecclesiastes 3:11), my head spins with the utter unfathomability of its enormousness. I want to take God’s will for me a make it into a “To Do” list or an excel spreadsheet. I want to list it and dissect it and tidy it up so that it makes sense to me. But I’m beginning to see the folly in that kind of exercise. Every day is an opportunity to seek Him, plead with Him, and praise Him. My new goal every morning is to drop my worries and doubts at the feet of my mighty Lord. I don’t know why He hasn’t given us the answers we’ve been begging for but I do know He says I don’t have to go this alone. I’m trying to trust Him and His plan. It won’t be easy but if I can make it through this, I will eventually get to see the big finale of my show. It may not be on this side of heaven, but I will trust God to explain all of the seemingly unimportant details and plot twists that have made my particular episode so mysterious. “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.” (Romans 11)

I’m not a big fan of Halloween. Don’t get me wrong–I like carving pumpkins, making caramel apples, and coming up with fun costumes for me and the kids. And who doesn’t love to eat candy by the fist-full? My dislike stems from the fact that I don’t like to be scared. I don’t like scary movies or haunted houses. And with the deteriorating efficiency of my bladder, I don’t much care for anyone to crouch behind the sofa, waiting for me to pass by so he or she can jump out at me. Not my idea of fun. I’ve had very limited experiences with haunted houses, but the few times I have “got my scare on” they’ve been fairly well rounded. I’ve been the person being scared and also the person who scares others. I didn’t care for either role. When I was in high school, a bunch of people from our class went to a friend’s house for a bonfire or some other autumn-related activity. Once it got really dark, several boys arranged a haunted woods atmosphere for us to walk and scream through. The prelude to this uncomfortable adventure was a Jason-esque fellow who revved a chainsaw in our faces. I’m pretty sure I had classes with this doofus but his maniacal attempt to scare us was still unnerving. (If he had only put this much energy into learning geometry…) My friend and I ran through the haunted woods but I got not even a second of enjoyment from it. I realize now I’m just not the Haunted House type. I assume you have to be a girlfriend to a burly boyfriend you can hang on and hide behind or a Goth freak to truly enjoy the scariness of it. I was just too much of a nerd to get it. I remember coming out the other end of the woods and seeing a goat in a pen. Then my friend and I discussed the relevance of the goat to an episode of Quantum Leap we had just seen. Did I mention I was a nerd? My other memory associated with a haunted house was also in high school but in a different location—our church building. At the time, my family worshipped in a building downtown with several floors. The upper floors had previously been used as apartments but by the time we were there, the rooms were empty and dark and very creepy. A bunch of us staged a haunted house and kids from the inner city were bussed in to see it. Because these kids didn’t have it bad enough and what they really needed was some white people to scare their pants off at a church building. Being a team player, I volunteered to lie down in a makeshift coffin in one of the cobwebby corners of the stairwell. When a group of unsuspecting kids were ushered by, it was my job to rise up slowly and say something vaguely vampire-like. I got ready to do my shtick for one group as they stopped by my coffin. When I rose up, a upper elementary age girl took one look at me and punched me squarely in the face. Who could blame her? That was the end of my vampire phase. Personally speaking, it’s ludicrous to pay someone to scare you. I don’t need zombies or werewolves or vampires to get the willies. In real life, there’s plenty of stuff to scare us. Government shut downs, Ebola outbreaks, and killer bees to name a few. Why should we make up even more? So every year, I suffer through Halloween because I know what’s on the other side: Thanksgiving and Christmas. They are the only things that make the holiday gauntlet of Halloween worth getting through.

I apologize for my long lapse in blog posts. (All really great adoption blogs eventually have a post that begins like that, by the way. It’s true. Check it out if you don’t believe me.) Anyway, after waiting through (yes, through is the correct preposition to use when you’re talking about a thick, nasty bit of waiting. You’re wading through the waiting. Again, I digress…) We waited through more than six months of an investigation that extended our already lengthy delay in bringing our son home. After the six months ended, I called the US Embassy and received bad news about our case. Our son had been removed from his orphanage and there were questions about his paperwork. We were afraid we had just hit a giant speed bump. A week later, I called again and the embassy begrudgingly passed his case. They set his appointment to be interviewed at the US Embassy for September 25. Our heads were spinning. (Side note: When I picture him going in for his interview, I always think of him wearing a little suit and carrying a briefcase. He would set it on a desk and click the latches open, then he would pull out his resume and various letters of reference. I don’t think it really happened that way.) We learned that our Congolese lawyer brought our son to the appointment but didn’t bring all of the documents. (Up, down) A different lawyer brought those documents the next day and then we learned that another appointment was scheduled for next month. (Up, down) Then came a much bigger dip: As I was dropping off the boys who ride with us to soccer practice, I checked the email on my phone. I quickly glanced something from our agency but I didn’t get a good look at it until I pulled our van into the garage. I sat in the garage and read the full, sickening email. It contained an alert from the state department. Here’s a little of what it said: “On September 27, the Congolese Ministry of Interior and Security, General Direction of Migration (Direction Generale d’Immigration, DGM) informed the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa that effective September 25, 2013, the DGM suspended issuance of exit permits to adopted Congolese children seeking to depart the country with their adoptive parents. The DGM reports the suspension will last up to 12 months. This suspension is due to concerns over reports that children adopted from the Democratic Republic of the Congo may be either abused by adoptive families or adopted by a second set of parents once in their receiving countries.” I almost turned the engine back on and put it in reverse just to get out of the space I had just read myself into. Nevertheless, I pulled myself together and went in the house. Brent was making grilled cheese sandwiches to go with the soup in the crockpot. I took one look at his face and I knew he knew. We suffered through eating with Knox—the girls had already eaten while watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I tried to gulp down my soup and sandwich then I went to our bedroom to search the Internet for some ray of light. I’m unsure what I was looking for. Maybe a “Just Kidding!” from the State Department? Who knows, but I didn’t find it. What I did find was adoptive parents like me venting and scared on Facebook. I found a nauseating article about a child who was handed over to another family and this article is apparently the match that lit this recent explosion from countries who participate in adoptions with the US. I left my bedroom and went looking for Brent. I finally found him sitting in a dark room with the windows opened. He wasn’t on his phone and he wasn’t asleep. He was just sitting in an armchair. I sat in the chair next to him, listening to the announcer call the football game at the high school down the road. Neither of us could say anything. The hopelessness and the futility of the past two and a half years eventually weighed down on me and I began to cry. I just couldn’t stop. How many times have we been at this point where we thought we’d leave in a month or so? How many times have we kept our vacations and holidays tentative because we just weren’t sure if we’d need to buy plane tickets and fly across the world in a hurry?  What really convinced me of our state of wretched misery was Brent’s reaction. I held my face in my hands and wept while Brent sat motionless. In all our years together, it was the first time he was unmoved by my tears. I realized he was as broken as me. I stood and went to sit in his lap, trying to comfort as I drew comfort from him. So that’s where we end our evening, with questions and grief and anger. We’re running out of the energy needed to get back up to stay hopeful. Prayers are always appreciated. Thanks for loving us through this.

(A Sequel to “Grace Abounds at the Water Park”) On Saturday, I took the kids to Lake Winnie, self-described as “The South’s Favorite Family Amusement Park!” (Their exclamation mark, not mine.) We went with several church friends and approximately one million strangers. I have to admit, amusement parks are not my first choice in entertainment. It’s hot. There are long lines. People are everywhere. And then there are the rides… I used to love rides when I was growing up. I’m spinning so fast I have to squeeze my eyes shut? Super! I’m staring at the ground, looming a mile away? Great! I’m strapped to a creaky contraption and climbing a steel mountain until I’ll reach the top then I’ll drop quickly down a shaky slope all the while curving and swerving, upside down and screaming? Let’s get in line again! The Wabash Cannonball is awesome! Now that I’m older and can get dizzy if I stand up too fast, I just can’t take the rides. The other problem is that I know too much. Being an adult, I’m over-exposed to news stories. In the summertime, you can’t turn on your television, radio, or computer without eventually hearing a story about a woman falling off the top seat of a Ferris wheel or a lap bar not working properly on a roller coaster. Then there’s those teen park employees. Yikes. Have they been adequately screened? Can I see some credentials first? Why did he jiggle everyone else’s harness but not mine? I even included them in the Bingo card I’ve been working on for my next, inevitable trip to another amusement park. It looks a little something like this: Other than the dizziness and the barfing and the heat stroke, the other tricky part about riding rides is trying to board them with an odd number of people—like seven, for instance. At one point on Saturday, we decided to ride the ski lift.  Everyone paired off, leaving me to ride alone. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I was a little nervous. How can this be? It’s not even a real ride. If we were skiing the slopes, it would be a mode of transportation. I made sure I was in the exact center of the bucket. I sat back, never leaning forward as I rose up and over the man-made lake full of paddleboats below. As I rounded the end of the line and headed back to the ski lift dock, I began to relax. The ski lift had earned my trust. I hadn’t dropped to the depths below; even my purse remained with me. Lately, I’ve been struggling with trusting something that’s bigger than myself and out of my grasp to control. That’s how the ride started off for me. No steering wheel. No brakes. I couldn’t stop the ride or make it go slower or faster. No control. Then it dawned on me: I’ve got to keep putting myself out there if I want to rely on God more and strengthen my trust in Him. It’s hard but it’s the only way to really know where I place my trust. If I always stay on the ground in the safe bubble of my comfort zone, I might as well be telling God He isn’t big enough or strong enough to carry me across whatever obstacle seems to be looming before me today. When He calls me to board the next roller coaster and I can’t see where it’s going and how many times I’ll be hanging upside down, I hope I’ll answer Him, “Yes, I’ll go, but only if You’ll go with me.”

I’ve always been an emotional person. It’s just part of who I am. So what’s the logical activity for an emotional cry baby like me who is waiting to hear news about an adoption which has been languishing interminably long as we approach an important “deadline” (if such a word exists in the adoption world)? Watching home movies, of course. I recently took our videocassettes to a place where they can convert them to DVDs. I picked them up on Saturday and we spent the whole weekend watching them. I sat next to two 11-year olds and an 8-year old on the sofa while we saw babies and toddlers take first steps and blow out birthday candles. We listened to tiny, high-pitched voices sing the ABC song and “Jesus Loves Me.” I wept. The only thing missing from this tear-fest was some major hormones…oh, wait…I had that going on, too. The one section we didn’t watch was the birth of our son. My husband did the videoing (I was too busy pushing a human out of my body). He didn’t start filming until after our son was out and in my arms, getting kisses. Unfortunately, he didn’t realize what was in the periphery of the shot. Let’s just say I wasn’t ready for that kind of close up. When I took that cassette to be converted, it came with a backstory, a plea, and some nervous giggling. We decided to put that one on its own separate disc so I could do some cropping later. Other than that X-rated scene and the random 20 minutes of a dog show when someone from work borrowed our camera, it was priceless. It made it all the more difficult knowing how much we’ve already missed with our son who is in Africa. We’re sick of missing holidays and birthdays and regular days and EVERYdays with him. We’re sick of wondering if this will have a happy ending or any kind of ending at all. Here’s the truth: we’ve been in this additional wait for 181 days. This doesn’t include the year we waited to be matched and the nine months after that before this wait began. But here’s another truth: it doesn’t matter how sick we get of waiting. It just doesn’t. We’ll wait. We’ll wait for the email or phone call, and we’ll live in expectation of it everyday. That the human heart is capable of processing this overwhelming amount of emotions without imploding is as miraculous as it is commonplace. Nevertheless, I’ll be grateful when I can feel this and so much more with our boy in my arms, getting kisses.

Growing up I was like most kids, flitting from one career path to another. I wanted to cut hair or bake pies or be an acrobat in the circus. My possible future professions were sometimes based on one afternoon’s experience: giving my cousin bangs (whoops!) or baking muffins without a mix or receiving a compliment on my monkey-bars prowess. The passion for this new skill came with a sudden and heady anticipation but it left almost as quickly. I still cut hair from time to time and I’ve been known to do some baking, but they don’t inspire me or give my life meaning. (I’m not much of a monkey-bar girl anymore. My husband does make me watch American Ninja Warrior, though.) My real and lasting dream job—the one I would barely even admit to myself—was to be an author. In my private moments, I would imagine typing away (on a typewriter, “Murder She Wrote” style) in my writing cabin out in the woods. I would carefully script my interview on Oprah when she would introduce my book as the next “Oprah Book Club” pick. (“Thanks, Oprah! I’m so glad you enjoyed reading it. No, you’reamazing! I’m just a regular gal.”) So that’s what makes the last few months so special for me. If getting your book published makes you an author, then I’ve accomplished a big chunk of my bucket list. Actually that may be my whole list. (It’s a very small bucket.) The culmination of this dream-come-true experience has been my book signing events. My first one was at the home of my good friend, Melissa. It was open to anyone who wanted to stop by and pick up a signed book. There was definitely a baby shower atmosphere, with a few alterations. Here’s the formula: Melissa’s party = (Baby Shower – Baby/Gifts) x (Book + Signature) + tiny pecan pies It was amazing and a huge ego trip. Everyone who came already liked me and are sweet enough to congratulate me and buy a book even if I’d written one about mold spores. The next event was at my Alma Mater, Lipscomb University, during their summer lectureship. One evening after the keynote address, I sat at a table and chatted with people next to where the manager from the bookstore sold my books. They were so gracious and encouraging, but this came as no surprise. I was a student at the elementary, middle, and high schools affiliated with the university. Both my parents worked there. I was just a hometown girl who came home. I spoke to many people I didn’t know but my connection to the university bridged that gap. The next stop on my book tour was at the Vanderbilt Barnes and Noble store. Here, I took a much larger step out of my comfort zone. Though some very good friends stopped by to visit, most of the people I met were total strangers. I was forced to sell my brand, something I’m not very good at. I knew it would be more difficult, so I came prepared. Since my book is set mostly in Tennessee in the 1920’s and 1930’s, I passed out mini Moon Pies to the people who came over to inquire about my book. (According to their website, “The Moon Pie brand was born in 1917” and created by the Chattanooga Bakery. Perfect!) I stamped little bags, slipped a Moon Pie in them with my business card, and Voila! Chocolate bribery! The most difficult part of the book signing, other than the sweaty palms and awkward small talk, was deciding how to actually sign my books. Down to the final minutes before I left for my first event, I was still trying to decide what I would write. Would I go for something inspirational? “Reach for the stars!” or “Never, never, never give up on your dreams!” How about something a little more practical? “Final sale. No returns.” I wanted to have my own catch phrase like Ed McMahon or Fat Albert, but nothing came to me. I finally decided on something simple but true: God bless. It’s probably overused, especially in the South, but it’s no less true. For anyone who buys my book, even if they just want to use it as a coaster, I could wish for nothing better than God’s blessings. It’s also been a constant reminder to me that, yes, God blesses. He has blessed me more than I could ever deserve or acknowledge and it’s never been more true than with my book. So…God bless, ya’ll!