Category Archives: adoption

guardianship: surrendering to a process of becoming more like Him

Posted on by January 24, 2025

Bedtime. I rolled over and tried to pull the pillow into place, and felt something tweak in my shoulder.

“Great,” I muttered, “tomorrow people will ask why I’m gimping around and I’ll have to tell them, ‘I’m 46, and I hurt my shoulder while wrestling with my pillow.’”

“Just tell them you did it in bed,” Vin said. “Let them use their imagination.”

And that did sound like a better idea.

guardianship: surendering to a process of becoming more like Him

Sometimes though, we can’t let people use their imagination. Sometimes their imaginations are less than gracious. And sometimes they believe the thing that seems most convenient but furthest from reality. Some things have to be clarified. And often the more important those things are, the harder they are to communicate.

For example, all week long I had a difficult conversation coming up. I had prayed and asked others to pray. But still, I was dreading it; I wondered if I should just not pursue it. Maybe I could get out of it.

So like every mature Christian, I tried that tactic in prayer:

I don’t want to do this, I told the Lord. I don’t know if I can do this.

You need to, though, He said. You know how to do it.

I don’t trust myself to do it right, though.

Do you trust Me? He asked.

Yes…but I don’t trust them. I don’t know how they’ll respond.

Do you trust Me? He repeated.

Of course I do. So I gave my feelings to Him (over and over, you know how this goes sometimes) and initiated the conversation. And the Lord gave me not only the wisdom and firmness I needed, but also the calm demeanor, composure, and discernment to say everything that needed to be said as I stood my ground. I did not waver; there was nothing on my list that was left unsaid.

God showed me again that He is faithful to work through us even when we feel unable and uncertain.

And that situation has been really good to look back on because a few months ago we learned about a whole new part of the special needs adoption process that we didn’t realize we signed up for almost eleven years ago. It’s called guardianship.

Maybe some of you are familiar with this. Maybe you’ve dealt with it and it seemed like no big deal. But for our family it feels like a Really Big Deal and we didn’t see it coming, and in some ways I feel stupid because it seems like we should have known about it or at least been given a heads up somewhere in the hours upon hours we spent in trainings and adoption paperwork.

For the equally uninitiated, it’s this: With their special needs and delays, our adopted kids will not be able to take care of themselves upon turning 18, when they magically become adults in the state of Alaska. This part wasn’t a surprise; we knew when we met Reagan that we were taking on a much bigger task than we originally thought and that she would always live with us. We did expect Andrey to be able to care for himself someday, though not as soon as he hits that magic number. What we did not realize is that continuing to care for them requires the legal activation of guardianship, and it is a fairly lengthy, somewhat invasive, legal process of courts, reports, and paperwork akin to the adoption process itself, except that it continues for the rest of our lives until we die.

Even after going through the original process and caring for them for over ten years, we must prove ourselves all over again to the government that we are able and willing to continue doing for our children what we’ve been doing all along. We cannot leave it to their imagination; it must be communicated. Again.

And that feels wrong to me. Oh, I know the reasons for it; you don’t need to lecture me. There have been exceptional cases of terrible people who take advantage of the system and do neglectful and sometimes horrific things to children. That is part of why we chose to adopt in the first place. The bigger problem is that more often than not, the terrible people out there doing terrible things to children are part of the system and work for the government.

So to treat all parents as guilty until proven innocent – over and over again – is unjust, inefficient, and a lousy use of resources. Putting the onus on parents who have already been through the fire and devoted years of their lives to caring for these children seems to be a “look here, not there” strategy.

But what can you do? There’s no other option. As it’s been explained to me, the reason it’s necessary is because Reagan cannot care for or make choices for herself, and without guardianship, if she were injured and needed to go to the hospital after she’s 18, we would not be able to make choices for her or authorize her care, either.

And yet if that situation arose, what then? Someone (a police officer, hospital staff, or some government worker) would arbitrarily end up making those decisions on her behalf, even though they would have no history with her, know absolutely nothing about her, and, ironically, would not have completed the process of guardianship, either. But we, her parents, must jump through the bureaucratic hoops in order to continue doing for her what we’ve been doing all along.

So we cannot leave things to the government’s imagination, and we will prove ourselves again by filling out more paperwork and going through more trainings and meetings so the government can check off their boxes, which is more important to them than actually spending all those hours with our children or nurturing our family, which is what good parents actually do.

I know, I’m a little bent outta shape about this.

The pressure wells and I am aware of every breath because I am inhaling deeply and deliberately, willing the oxygen to go in and the stress to go out. And then I eat a caffeinated energy bar because augmenting anxiety with the jitters seems like a capital idea.

I go downstairs to water the plants, and as I look at these tiny seedlings, I persist in telling myself the truth. The feelings want to be louder, but the truth is what needs to win the day:

The Lord knows this whole process.

He is protecting our family.

He has prepared us and is continuing to prepare us.

What surprises us does not surprise Him.

This won’t be wasted time; this will be found time.

This will be for our good, because He causes all things for our good. This will expand the Kingdom as we surrender to Him in it, and faithfully walk through it.

Nothing can threaten us.

That’s the thing that really gets me: It feels threatening and invasive. It feels like it’s sending us back to the beginning, and the beginning was so hard.

But wait, no, we’re focusing on truth and not feelings, so I keep going back to the truth. I plant those seeds deep, deep down so they will take root and grow. And it’s all well and good while I’m watering my lettuces and garlic, but as soon as I’m back upstairs on the couch researching the process, anxiety steamrolls through, scattering resolve and making me take deep, shaky breaths all over again. And I’m right back to telling Him, I don’t want to do this.

You need to, though, He tells me again. Do you trust Me?

I do trust Him. I don’t trust a lot of people, though. We’ve been burned so many times when they’ve used their imaginations, appointed themselves as authorities, or assumed something that wasn’t true. I’ve learned that outsiders can be dangerous and painful to special needs families and kids.

For years Reagan had a tiny, tiny bed. We tried giving her a twin-sized bed and she hated it; she slept on the outermost top corner of it because…well, use your imagination. She had a tiny bed at six years old when we met her, about half the size of a toddler mattress. I don’t know what her experience with bigger beds was, and she didn’t like the one we gave her. So Vin made her a small one that she did like, and it saved space in a bedroom that was shared by three girls at the time. But if you came to our house and saw her tiny, tiny bed, you would wonder. And I wouldn’t blame you for wondering. But I would blame you if you judged us for it without knowing the reason behind it.

A couple years ago we went on a short hike with someone we’d only met once before. A few days later I learned that this person had noticed Reagan walked awkwardly (because she does) and kept stepping out of her shoes (because she does). They assumed it was because her shoes didn’t fit her, so they generously offered to buy her some.

Do you see how that’s not really generous, though? They assumed we weren’t providing for her, that we hadn’t bothered to purchase shoes that fit her. They didn’t ask us, didn’t know anything about her, had never spent any time with her. They just assumed that the way she walked and acted was because of neglect and lack of finances on our part.

(Side note: Our generosity should never puff ourselves up or put someone else down. It should never be to exalt ourselves over someone else. Our generosity isn’t from us anyway, it is from God and we are merely the conduit and clerk He is going through.)

Why, when people have the opportunity to use their imagination, do they use it so badly?

But here I am, doing the same thing, because I’m imagining that the people on the other end of this guardianship process will be as ignorant and unhelpful as many that we’ve dealt with before.

You’re all safe, the Lord says. I’m right here with you. Nothing can threaten and harm you.

As a friend and pastor reminded me a few days ago as he prayed for us, the government is on His shoulders. The Lord’s not asking us to surrender anything to the government; we’re just surrendering to Him.

It’s a process that must be completed and endured. Knowing we are sheltered, safe from threat or invasion, and assigned to walk powerfully through it keeps us peaceful in the process.

So He’s teaching us to trust Him in new ways with the unexpected. We can trust Him even when we don’t trust ourselves or others. We can trust Him in our vulnerability, with surrendering to a process we would not have chosen but can expect Him to bring good out of, because He is our guardian: our keeper, protector, caregiver, champion, preserver, sentinel, and shepherd. And He’s showing us how to be more like Him.

Praying for you,

Shannon

P.S. If you need some deeper content on being burned, dealing with forgiveness and resentment, and/or you want to stop feeling threatened by those who have burned you, this is what we’re addressing in the February newsletter for premium subscribers, coming out in a few days. Upgrade for that here – there’s a free trial and also a reduced group rate. And if you need this content but it’s not in your budget right now (have you even SEEN the cost of groceries lately?!) just let me know and I’d love to comp your subscription for free, gratis.

Also! I made a little announcement recently and shared the first excerpt of my new book last week. That’s available to premium subscribers, too.

P.P.S. Links for you!

you can do what He’s calling you to: a kindling post

Posted on by November 12, 2024
you can do what He's calling you to: a kindling post

The Lord knows your breakthrough is taking a long time. He is waiting, too.

He knows the enemy has tried to wheedle his way in and get you on the merry-go-round of doubt:

Is it because I still haven’t learned my lesson? Is it punishment? Is it because I don’t deserve what I’ve been hoping for? Is it because someone else needs the answer more than I do? Is it because I’m too stupid to figure out the answers?

The Lord knows the lies and accusations you’ve been wrestling with. Here’s some truth to hang onto:

He is giving you the wisdom you need as you abide.

He doesn’t love anyone else more than He loves you. He’s not playing favorites.

His provision has no limits. He doesn’t have to choose between needs to fill.

His timing is protecting you from things you don’t know about, and preparing you for more than you imagine.

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

— James 1:5-8

You don’t have to know what you’re doing when the Lord tells you to do it.

You don’t have to wait until you have it all figured out. In fact, a lot of people do it that way but it’s just disobedience pretending to be responsible.

Yes, do some research. Figure out your first step. But if He tells you Go, then do it asap. Your joy is at stake.

Show Him you can be trusted with the little things so He knows you are ready to steward the bigger things you’re asking for, too.

You can do the thing He’s calling you to today. The big, brave thing, and the small, annoying thing. The new unfamiliar thing. The strong, steady, obedient thing.

He’s holding favor for you as you trust Him. He moves mightily on your behalf and loves your heart that pursues Him and chooses His ways over your own preferences. He is taking that surrender and molding your desires so they align with His, making it easier and easier to hear Him and know the way to go.

My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad.

Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack!

The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good?

Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.

Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

— Psalm 34:2, 9-15

There will be people out there who misunderstand you maliciously and religiously.

So caught up in their own misinterpretation, refusing to see other perspectives, eager to judge and be offended, they will miss the forest for the trees just as they have missed the point that could have broadened their own understanding.

Sometimes they cloak their condemnation with misapplied scripture to keep themselves on a high horse of self righteousness while criticizing those they know nothing about and quenching the Spirit they don’t understand.

But you will know them by their fruit, Jesus said.

So abide. Keep abiding. Keep doing what the Lord has called you to do. It is the only way we bear fruit, and our growth is helped by a good application of manure every once in a while. 😏😎

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.

— Matthew 7:15-17

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

— John 15:4-5

The Lord is not waiting for your perfection or performance to deliver you. He did not bring breakthrough or deliverance or answers to people in the Bible because they checked off all the boxes. He doesn’t deliver because we are perfect, but because He is.

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eucatastrophe: brace yourself for hope and joy

Posted on by September 14, 2022

I never rearrange furniture, but here we were doing it, moving shelves and purging drawers and hauling a chest up two flights of stairs.

Somewhere in the process of measuring to see if everything fit, I lost the tape measure. It wasn’t clipped to my pants, wasn’t on one of the shelves, wasn’t anywhere on the floor amid the piles of stuff everywhere. So I hollered upstairs to Finn.

“Did I leave the tape measure up there? On the counter? Maybe on the kitchen island?” I heard him rummaging while I sorted stacks of unused picture frames.

“Found it! It was in the drawer!” he yelled back down.

eucatastrophe: brace yourself for hope and joy

I walked back to the stairway thinking, In the drawer? I didn’t put it in the drawer… and as I came to the foot of the stairs, he approached the top of the stairs at the same time – and an image flashed through my mind of him throwing the heavy tape measure at me down the stairs. Because he’s six, and he might do something like that without thinking.

And then he did it.

His arm moved and the tape measure hurtled down the stairs at me, and I screamed.

And then I stopped screaming as it unrolled and flitted to my feet, harmless.

Here’s what happened: I was expecting the same tape measure I had lost – you know, the heavy, metal, retractable kind – but Finn had found the tape measure I use for knitting, which is just a long, plastic ribbon 60 inches long. And that’s what he threw at me.

Life has been throwing a lot at all of us lately, hasn’t it? We often don’t realize how on edge we are, just waiting for the next blow.

A couple weeks ago we finally had Reagan’s assessment. After it was done, I sat in an office with the psychologist (not the first one we miserably encountered; this one was terrific) and we debriefed on what had just happened.

We had sat through three hours of questions and exercises and tests, and Reagan had not even spelled her first name correctly. She answered the simplest of math questions wrong. When the doctor asked her how old she was, she said, “I twenty-seven,” and told him her birthday was in September. But she’s sixteen, and it’s not.

I was devastated. Ten years of parenting, homeschooling, trial and error, endless repetition, and this is what we had to show for it. All I could think was, What must this man think of our efforts as parents? It was Reagan’s assessment, but I felt like I had failed the test.

The doctor and I went over the results, her responses, her IQ, her behavior at home, the anxiety of testing, and the complications with all of her special needs. The whole time, I was bracing myself for judgment, condemnation, the pitying shake of the head, the professional condescension.

But none of that happened.

Instead, he said this:

“You and your husband have done an outstanding job with Reagan.” He paused. “The fact that she can read at all is remarkable.”

Aaaand that’s when I broke down sobbing. The weight lifted and relief flooded over me. The psychologist frantically searched for tissues, having no idea what to do with a crying woman across the desk. But he kept talking and he wasn’t just being nice; he went over all the challenges again and juxtaposed our efforts and Reagan’s abilities over them, and the result was stunning. I’m still not over it.

We often try to protect ourselves by expecting the worst. We brace for the blow because we’ve been hurt before, and we’d rather be prepared than be blindsided by calamity that comes out of nowhere.

But what about the good things that come out of nowhere, too? What if instead of the crash you expect, the Lord has prepared a soft landing?

A friend of mine said this a few weeks ago: Have you ever braced for a hard impact only to end up getting a soft nudge that barely upset your balance? It was like that. I saw the redirection coming and I expected it would bring me to my knees, but in minutes, I could already see His plan was better than mine.

I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind since. We white-knuckle our way through these crazy days, expecting disappointment and catastrophe, resigned to the worst. But this is not the way of the Lord, and this is not what Godly surrender is.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

– Romans 8:18

This brings me to a word I learned recently, so here you go:

Eucatastrophe: the sudden, unexpected, joyous turn of events.

J.R.R. Tolkien coined the term, but the eucatastrophe is all God’s doing. And this, friends, is where we’re supposed to live. Our fear can give permission to the enemy for what we dread, but our trust and expectation make way for the breakthrough.

No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”

– Romans 4:20-22

Often, we have perfectly good reasons to brace for impact because we’ve seen how things play out. But we’ll have more peace in the preparation if we recognize that we serve the God of the eucatastrophe – the one who stills the storm, breaks bread for the multitude, and causes recklessly thrown projectiles to flutter harmlessly to our feet.

It is the story of Mephibosheth, the crippled grandson of a previous king who was called into the presence of King David. Mephibosheth had no reason to expect anything but slaughter for himself and his family; it was typical then to completely eliminate the previous regime’s offspring. He knew he’d been living on borrowed time, and it looked like that time was up.

He had no idea that God was already moving on his behalf, that the eucatastrophe was already in motion. He could never have imagined that King David was looking for a remnant in his family line not for the sake of hunting them down, but for the sake of showing kindness to them out of love for his old friend, his best friend…Mephibosheth’s father Jonathan, who died years earlier.

And Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and paid homage. And David said, “Mephibosheth!” And he answered, “Behold, I am your servant.” And David said to him, “Do not fear, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan, and I will restore to you all the land of Saul your father, and you shall eat at my table always.”

– 2 Samuel 9:6-7

We keep expecting more situations like what we’ve already lost. But loss is not what God gives us when we turn to Him. Our losses are not compounding; they are recompensing.

Be glad, O children of Zion,
    and rejoice in the Lord your God,
for he has given the early rain for your vindication;
    he has poured down for you abundant rain,
    the early and the latter rain, as before.

The threshing floors shall be full of grain;
    the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.

I will restore to you the years
    that the swarming locust has eaten.

– Joel 2:23-25a

I had a dream recently that Vince had been emailing back and forth with someone about a history course he offers. The man’s name was Bao Leng, and when he purchased the course, Vin said, “Bao Leng came through!” In my dream, I immediately heard the Lord say, Look up the meaning of that name. So I tried to do it, but as often happens in dreams, things didn’t work – I tried typing letters into my phone but they wouldn’t enter correctly, the search engine was all messed up, and my laptop was just as useless.

But as soon as I woke up, I looked it up. And here’s what I saw:

A breakthrough. Huh. Not like we haven’t been talking about that at all lately.

Okay, so now we have two new words in our vocabulary. Let me give you one more.

Respair: The return of hope after a period of despair.

And this is also where some of us are being called to. We were never meant to walk in fear, talking ourselves out of the big things He’s called us to instead of getting to experience the eucatastrophe of His grace on us.

She had been setting her teeth and clenching her fists for a terrible blast of lion’s breath; but the breath had really been so gentle that she had not even noticed the moment at which she left the earth.

– C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

Yes, situations are hard and the world right now is a circus on psychotropic drugs. But no, fear does not get to win the day. Fear doesn’t even get to take a backseat and come along for the ride. Fear needs to be shoved out the door while we’re hauling down the highway.

This is not the season to entertain fear. This is the season for eucatastrophe, for bao leng, for respair.

What if our “what ifs” have been all wrong?

What if some of the struggles we’ve accepted as just part of life were actually just part of a broken mindset? What if some things are meant to be easier, and not harder?

What if the things we’ve struggled over in time-consuming labor came effortlessly in comparison? What if the path was made flat, the boulders moved out of the way, and we could spend more time enjoying the view?

What if the Lord is still turning Sauls into Pauls? Because He is, and each person transformed changes the trajectory of our culture in this era.

What if instead of bracing for impact, we braced for breakthrough?

While we endure, God is working on our behalf in ways we would never imagine. So we trust Him with great expectation. That hope is not wishful thinking; it is the powerful currency that buys us time before the eucatastrophe.