Shannon, Author at Copperlight Wood

About Shannon

Alaskan homeschooling mama of eight sweet kids. Loves Jesus, writing, coffee, Dickens, and snapping a kitchen towel at my husband when he's not looking.

the right fit

Posted on January 9, 2014 by ShannonMarch 12, 2026

It is January and we are in a new year. Christmas came and went at our house, leaving behind new sleds and snowgear, and everything fits perfectly. In the yard, four inches of fresh snow is just waiting to be violently trampled by our six kids.

There is frantic donning of snowgear and the garage door slams repeatedly as they race outside, each hauling a plastic disk that promises to send them down the hill at warp speed.

Except for one kid. Our youngest child is sobbing and wailing in depths of despair that would make Anne Shirley proud.

“This mitten won’t fit on this hand! And this mitten is on this hand” – she thrusts it at me as evidence – “but the OTHER mitten won’t fit on my OTHER hand because ITS thumb is on THIS side!!”

We can hear the bigger kids outside, laughing, yelling, breaking a path down the sledding hill. But she is left behind, left out…and her shiny red sled surely pouts in sympathy from the lonely garage where it waits for her.

She flings both her arms out to show me. “LOOK!” Her four-year-old vocabulary is limited, but what she really means is Hey! This infidel mitten dares to defy me! Behold!

I’m beholding. The thumbs do look…funny. The mitten she’s wearing also looks funny.

Because she has it on the wrong hand. Upside down.

I take that mitten off and hold both of them in front of her so she can see what’s wrong.

“This is how you had them,” I tell her. “Now, watch this.”

I slowly flip the mitten over and switch them to the correct hands…and they fit. No sticky-outy thumbs or anything, and all is right with the world.

She’s four, and learning. But she’s not alone.

We all try to put things on in the wrong places, and then fly into despair when it doesn’t fit right.

Moms, especially, learn that the discipline, training, and schooling that worked for their first kid usually won’t be a perfect fit for the next child. Due to God’s flair for comedy, every succeeding offspring is usually the opposite of their older brother or sister. It’s a mathematical phenomenon.

Kids are designed with the irritating trait of resisting to mold perfectly to the likeness of others. They won’t be made into their older siblings, and they won’t be made into us – their parents. We may share many traits and features with them, but they were created to mold perfectly to the image of the One who made them…and He doesn’t fit into any box we can come up with.

We have differing personalities and short tempers. We have special needs and often incompetent, pat answers. We are kept on our toes and on our knees.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

-James 1:2-4

Some days we are all thumbs, and they’re sticking out in the wrong directions all over the place: This kid won’t respond to this consequence and this teaching style doesn’t work for this kid and this other kid sticks himself out like a sore thumb that is pushing my buttons…and he’s doing it on purpose.

We are stretched and grown beyond our parenting wisdom, and we cry for more.

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

– James 1:5

So, we pray because we lack wisdom for the particular crisis at hand…but also, we pray because we have the wisdom in the first place to know that He must intervene in our lives.

Because honestly, what we’re really saying is, Hey! These infidel children dare to defy me! Behold!

We thrust the situation and these children and all of the sore thumbs at Him, and He gently shows us how to put things upright again. He shows us how He made us all to fit together.

Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

– Ephesians 4:15-16

As we pray with wisdom, for wisdom, for our kids and all of our differences, He does more than just show us how He is making our kids into His image. He makes us more into His image, too.

He says, This is how you had them. Now…watch this.

And He shows us how we are made to fit together perfectly.

warmly, xoxo

Posted on December 19, 2013 by ShannonMarch 12, 2026

We have a tree up, with lights and breakables and strands of popcorn clinging to it. We have a nativity and garland on the mantle, and many years’ worth of accumulated paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling.

We are festive. We are merry. We are…freezing.

It’s minus 22 out there tonight. I didn’t even send the kids out to play today, and we made forts and paintings and other messes instead. The temperature doesn’t really matter, because when it’s cold outside we can still keep it warm inside.

Unless we don’t. Unless there’s bickering and bossing and snapping and strife, and I assign consequences and replay lectures all day long. The temperature drops in our connections, and it takes lots of hugs and kisses and happy conversations to warm things up again.

It was warmer last week – outside, at least – and the kids were sledding and hollering on the hill behind us. And they know – they know, I tell you – about waiting to go down until the people at the bottom of the hill have moved out of the way so they don’t slam into them.

Especially if it’s the littlest sister at the bottom of the hill.

Especially if all five of her siblings are piled into one sled and bowling into her.

But no…there’s screaming and bossing and sheepish giggling and fuming and praise God, no blood, but mine is boiling. I have told you and told you…yada, yada. I wipe tears and give severe looks to older children and send them all off to play again.

Thirty seconds later, I peek out the window to check on everyone. Big brother and little brother are thrashing each other in the snowbank next to the sledding hill.

I knock fiercely on the kitchen window to get their attention. Three kids turn to look, and in my aggressive charades I point to the eldest, who has paused the friendly pummeling of his little brother. I motion STOP á la the Pointer Sisters, and he gives me a questioning look that says he can’t hear me.

I’m about to holler “I KNOW YOU CAN UNDERSTAND ME” through the glass, but the little brother – who I couldn’t see because he was standing perfectly behind the big brother – shoves him from behind, totally knocking him over. Faceplant in the snow.

I go down, too, hiding behind the kitchen sink and laughing hysterically. Sure, whatever – go for it, boys. If you can dish it, you can take it. Just don’t involve the baby sister.

A few minutes later they are back to sledding, going down the icy hill on their bellies, on their bottoms, on their boots. Actually, they start on their boots often, but end up on their backsides.

And after some years of experience, we’ve decided this is a no no, because sliding down rough, icy hills using expensive polyurethane thermal attire as sleds is poor stewardship of snowgear. It tends to create tears and shreds in the fabric.

The preferred method of repair is not, I’m sorry to say, my superior sewing skills. It is duct tape, Alaska chic.

Every winter we take inventory to see what fits, what can be grown into, and what is beyond even the appreciable scope of duct tape and must be replaced.

And we’ve talked about it. A lot. I have told you and told you…blah, blah, blah.

They finally come in from sledding and I assign consequences, and do my best to balance them with warm hugs and kisses. Extra chores to make up for the extra money we have to spend on more snowpants if they keep using them as toboggans. And, just to keep things sweet…they each owe mama a footrub, too. Like hugs for cold feet.

Warming up over tea, we talk about patches instead of replacements. We still have Iree’s old snowpants – the ones that were duct-taped on the rear from the last two years. There’s lots of usable material on them. Nice, thick, padded…hot pink…material.

Perfect. Festive, and merry.

I inform the boys that it will be used for patches on their snowpants, should patches become necessary.

And just to remind them how much I love them…because I have told them and told them so often but sometimes they just don’t listen...

…maybe I’ll even embroider a little something on those patches as a reminder:

XOXO.

a love that grows

Posted on November 22, 2013 by ShannonNovember 22, 2013

Dear Reagan,

You turned eight years old today. You had little idea what it meant, and you didn’t know what you wanted for cake or presents. You knew you got extra hugs and smiles today.

You came to us full of fear and hurts and hunger and unknowns. I would lean in, you would lean away. You were wary, untrusting, hesitant.

You were afraid of stairs, of playdoh, of not being fed. You panicked at the smell of food that was not right in front of you. You were afraid of us, especially of me.

You walked with a lurch and flapped your arms when you were excited. You still flap a little, but so much less. You would eat orange peels, apple cores, and watermelon rinds. Crumbs on the floor and food on someone else’s plate was fair game if you got to it before we did. You ate a few crayons. You only tried eating an eraser once.

You can wait for food now. You know that there’s a process to making it that you had never seen before. You know it will come to you as soon as it’s ready.

You play now. You love to play with buttons and cars, and you look at books quietly on the couch every day. You like…cookbooks.

Now you can run. You dress yourself, you make your bed, you fold clothes, and you even refuse food to push us away sometimes…but at least that means that you obviously aren’t afraid of us starving you anymore.

You used to be hot and cold, swinging from one extreme to the other in your affection and rejection of us. You would cling aggressively one day, and shove us away the next. Now you are…well, definitely not lukewarm. You’ve leveled out to warm and cool. It’s progress, and we’ll take it.

You are learning to speak. You are learning to give and maintain eye contact to those who love you. You are learning letters, colors, shapes, and you can count to eight. You know how much four is. You know that you were seven yesterday, and that you are now eight. Whatever that means.

But you don’t know that we prayed for you when you were a toddler. I’m so sorry it took us so long to find you. You don’t know that we saw you, found you, and chose you when you were five. That we waited and prayed and cried for you until we got to meet you when you were six, and that we brought you home months later when you were pushing seven.

You don’t know very much about the years before that. We don’t, either.

a love that grows: a letter from an adoptive mama to her daughter (Copperlight Wood)

We have a few pictures of you as a toddler, but they are undated. We can only guess how old you were in them. We have paperwork that mentions inaccurate diagnoses that are both more and less severe than the truth of what you are healing through.

a love that grows: a letter from an adoptive mama to her daughter (Copperlight Wood)

You almost never flinch anymore when I reach toward you. In the middle of the night, when you’re asleep and I tuck you in one more time before I go to bed, your arm doesn’t fly up in fear anymore to cover your face and head. I’m so sorry you ever had to do that, and that you ever felt like you had to do that here.

You are healing. You are growing and learning and we are seeing more and more of the real you, and you shine.

You are brave. You are strong. You are gentle and curious and tender and joyful.

You are growing in wisdom and stature, just as the One who redeemed you did when He was young.

You have a mighty future. We are so honored to be in it.

With a love that grows and prays for your mountains to move,

Mama

Copperlight Wood

Kingdom culture, deep + wide

Author Archives: Shannon

About Shannon

the right fit

warmly, xoxo

a love that grows