Category Archives: post adoption

getting it right: finding grace on unknown roads

Posted on by November 22, 2023

Reagan brings me her journal so I can check the sentence she just wrote, and some days this is how it goes:

I will be done the green Book with pretty soon.

She means her math book, the one I told you about months ago, the one she’s wanted to finish since forever so she can move on to the next book. And you probably see the same errors I did, so I remind her that the words need to be in the right order and that only the first letter of this sentence needs capitalized.

getting it right: finding grace on unknown roads

She returns with this:

I will be done with the grrrn Book pretty soon.

I’m not sure if this is on purpose or if she’s just being lazy. There’s no way to tell; sometimes she knows what she’s doing, and sometimes she doesn’t. But she does know how to spell “green” so I tell her to fix it, and she returns with this:

I will be done with the grenn Book pretty soon.

And then this:

I will be done with the green pook pretty soon.

You see it? I do, so I ask, “What does ‘book’ start with?”

“B,” she says, and I tell her to fix it.

I will be done with the green Book pretty soon.

Aaaand we’re back to uppercase. “How do you make a lowercase B?” I ask.

“I make…one…bump?” Her answers almost always sound like questions.

I will be done with the green Pook pretty soon.

At this point, I’m pretty sure it’s on purpose. Yes, it’s one bump but she knows which bump it’s supposed to be.

We could do this all day, fixing one thing while adding little errors elsewhere, refusing to get it right and never making progress.

“Do you want to do school today?” I finally ask.

“Yes!!” she says, urgently.

And that’s when she fixed the sentence and brought it back, written perfectly. What’s the saying? Seventh time is a charm. Something like that.

We all fight new levels and battles on many fronts, trying to get everything right, and the details can be overwhelming. For us, one of the big new levels in this season is that three of our kids turn 18 in the next five months (!) and we’re in the process of filing for guardianship for two of them. Afton is the other one, the biological one, who just has five months left at home with us because he wants to move out as soon as he can – sayonara, adios, I hope he misses us sometimes – but of the other two, Reagan will probably always be with us and Andrey needs at least a couple more years of help with daily responsibilities and care.

It’s what we signed up for, sorta. We just never really know what we’re signing up for until we’ve lived in it for a while, and that’s probably for the best.

So last week we had our second trip in as many months to the Palmer Courthouse – clerk’s office, to be exact – to submit paperwork for guardianship, and yes, it is as boring as it sounds.

We drove through town and stood in line and went to the counter and handed over documents. I raised my right hand under oath. This part is easy; I’ve done it twice now. It’s all the other paperwork, applications, deadlines, visits, and court hearings that I’m not sure about.

Then we drove back through town on the other side to go see Grandma, who turns 92 next week. We passed Afton on the road like ships in the night and waved; he was picking up a friend who lives in her neighborhood.

Grandma’s hair swoops to the left across her forehead, and she brushes it aside. My dad’s hair does the same thing, and mine does too unless I force it to submit to the attentions of a flat iron.

She sat in her rocker and I sat in the other, and she told us stories about her aunt and uncle who built barns, and how she lived right next door to her grandparents for the first ten years of her life, and how that was the best thing ever.

It makes sense to me that she adored those grandparents, because she grew up and became like them. She’s the grandparent I most adored, too.

She kept asking how the kids were doing, and I updated her on the guardianship and how we’ve also been trying to navigate Andrey’s health issues. I mentioned a couple months ago that he had a cyst that showed up again and needed oral surgery, but six appointments later we discovered that it’s not oral surgery but reconstructive plastic surgery that will be needed because of how the cyst has destroyed some of the bone structure in his face. And that’s a battle we never saw coming. In light of his 18th birthday and guardianship proceedings coming up, the surgeon recommended we hold off on that procedure until early next year when those are completed.

We all have our stuff in crazy overwhelming seasons. Yours is probably different from ours, but we overlap in the general mayhem of living on the brink of apocalypse.

It was a short visit and as we were leaving Grandma’s, a pickup stopped in the road and the guy inside waved as we passed. We reversed back and rolled down the window; he looked like Santa but with a short beard. Seeing us closer, he grinned and apologized.

“Oh gosh, I thought you were Thornsleys!”

I grinned back, leaning toward Vin’s window. “I am, I’m the oldest granddaughter.” It couldn’t have been my hair that gave it away; I’d wrestled the flat iron that morning.

“Well! I just know the boys,” he said. “I was comin’ to tell y’all about someone encroaching on your property –” and he went on about someone’s trailer that’s half on their own property but also half on “ours,” though I couldn’t tell which one of us he was talking about.

“Which of the boys is your dad, did you say?” he finally asked.

“I’m Greg’s daughter.”

“Oh, the fuel guy?” I nod. Small town. Most people know each other, and Grandma and Grandpa moved here when “the boys” were still in school, over fifty years ago.

We exchanged names and went on in our opposite directions, passing Afton again as he brought his friend back home. We wound along the old highway back toward town and I know these curves; I grew up on them, and there’s something so comforting and familiar about feeling them in the sunshine, gently swaying left and right as they follow the Matanuska River, while we navigate all these other curves we’re so new at.

It’s not easy to tell if you’re doing something right when you don’t have a template to follow. Pioneers know this, though I never saw myself as one of them until this year. But if you have followed a new or unusual calling without a map, role model, template, pattern, or any previous experience, you probably have wondered many times if you were going the right direction when it just felt like you were moving in circles. Homeschooling, adoption, self-employment, ministry, special needs parenting, whatever…transitional generations know this, the feeling of walking and wandering and weariness, looking for a signpost that confirms you’re on the right track.

Sometimes we know what we’re doing, and sometimes we don’t – and often, the answers we get sound more like questions.

Am I doing this right? has been the refrain of my life, and I am finally understanding that it’s the wrong question. For the last year or so He keeps asking me, “Do you want to be right, or righteous?” and now I understand why – because He’s teaching me to rest in the grace of His love for me, since He knows my heart wants to look like His.

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

– 1 John 4:16

When Reagan brings me her writing, I don’t expect her to have a perfect sentence every time. I expect her to do the things she knows, and to try with the rest. If she’s trying and fumbling but not doing it wrong on purpose, I have all the time in the world for her. It’s when she does things wrong on purpose – this is what we call transgressing – that I ask her if she really wants to make progress or if she’s deliberately self-sabotaging.

By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.

– 1 John 4:17

So I am learning that as long as my heart wants to be like His, instead of being consumed with perfection, afraid of punishment, He has all the grace in the world for me. He just wants me to resemble Him.

When my heart is at rest because it’s focused on the perfect love that casts out fear, I can trust that He’s giving me wisdom and helping me get things right, whatever the circumstances look like at any given moment. I don’t have to fear punishment for not knowing what I’m doing and for making imperfect efforts without a template to follow, because He loves our trying and investing and taking risks, and He rewards those efforts – but He rebuked the cowardly steward who buried his talent in safety.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.

– 1 John 4:18-19

I sat up late with a friend last night and confessed to her that I have often thought of every reason in the world why things were hard, or why they weren’t working out, or why I didn’t deserve this good thing, or why I did deserve that bad thing. I have spent years making excuses for the enemy, rather than resting in God’s love and agreeing with His will for me, because I felt like getting it right was my job.

But oh my gosh, it’s not.

Obedience and getting it right are not the same thing. As I’m typing this, it feels like a veil is tearing in the atmosphere. Sometimes we fear and worship all the details of obedience rather than fearing and worshiping God. Our performance goes up on a pedestal, and we climb right up there after it.

Breaking the lie is one thing, but renewing the mind is another. So the Lord pours us into this wide place with tight borders where it feels too overwhelming, like too much responsibility – and He tells us to claim the land. This is how He broadens our tent pegs, teaching us that we are bound by love, and therefore, free.

You gave a wide place for my steps under me,

and my feet did not slip.

– Psalm 18:36

A wide place for our steps seems like a great thing, but we tend to prefer more structure. Don’t believe me? When was the last time you had several good choices before you, and you hemmed and hawed about which one to take? That was a wide space.

Sometimes we’d rather have a small space and not carry the responsibility of choosing where our feet get planted. Sometimes we make ourselves small, so we feel safe, so we have less details to be responsible for, so we lower the risk of getting things wrong.

The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand.

– Psalm 37:23-24

So there is grace that covers our imperfections and unknowing, grace that flies in the face of our fear, pride, insecurity, and perfectionism. Gratitude and grace go together, because if we’re still earning our way, then we’re still taking credit…maybe not overtly, but in the back of our mind we’re still thinking, I did this.

That grace – knowing we couldn’t earn it, it’s all His love – removes the fear of shame and punishment and the next shoe dropping. No, we don’t deserve it, we deserved other. And even though the enemy convinced us that shame and grief was our penance for imperfection because we don’t deserve to be free, now we walk in gratitude, astounded by His many gifts we could never earn, achieve, or merit on our own.

But now we have them, because He paid for it.

It’s this kind of freedom that led us to celebrate at the ice cream shop that day, after the courthouse, after Grandma’s, after the stranger who recognized someone else in me. We pulled out of the ice cream shop and back onto the highway, and that’s when Afton passed us for the third time that day. We grinned shamelessly, waving our ice cream cones at him through the window as he drove past, ahead of us on the way home. And over these last few weeks I’ve felt dread and jadedness lifting, and a lightness that’s new in the midst of all these hard unknowns, because I am finally at a new level of tasting and seeing that the Lord is good.

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handle with care: the Kingdom’s response to grief & pain

Posted on by August 24, 2023

I walked down the hallway this morning toward the meeting room where we have weekly prayer. My friend whose husband died last Saturday was there, already being hugged by another friend, so I waited my turn. We prayed for her, and rejoiced for him – I’ve mentioned him to you before – and then we moved on to interceding for our church, community, nation, and world.

handle with care: the Kingdom's response to grief and pain

The world needs intercession. Maybe that’s why we’re noticing more alarms; there’s smoke everywhere. Something is definitely spiking in the atmosphere. More warfare, more attack – but also, more coming together, more standing back to back. More hugging and generosity. More looking out for each other. And we need to look out for each other.

One of my friends is losing her hair and facing hard choices about cancer treatment, and another is on alert for wildfire evacuations while her husband recovers from a chainsaw accident. We have close friends dealing with extreme financial hardship and health challenges. All around, we are fragile and broken, healing and raw, on edge and in His hands, because there’s no other place to run for safety.

In our family, we got Kavanagh’s cast off last week just in time for more medical appointments for Andrey as we navigate the medical merry-go-round of specialists with varying degrees of knowing what they are doing, and equally varying degrees of how much they charge for their particular blend of experimentation and expertise.

So far, we know there’s a CT scan and then a surgery coming up. We are praying for healing and expecting mighty things, while simultaneously calling down fire upon the racket of Big Pharma and looking for the right ENT specialist. Someone who doesn’t charge $1200 an hour to those who pay out of pocket would be greeeeeat.

Also, since I’m giving you the big family update, guardianship proceedings are coming up – we finished the courses, and the first round of paperwork goes to the Palmer Courthouse this week. And my heart is…better…I’m pretty sure it’s better, at least…about it.

One of the things that helped was, shockingly, the courses themselves. While most guardianship cases in Alaska seem to be for elderly people who need assistance, there was one case study that sounded a lot like both Andrey and Reagan. Even better, the mother in that case also felt frustrated at the need to go through a legal process (because, GAHHHH) just to simply keep caring for her child as she had been doing all along, which has been my main beef, too. But in a move that shows the government can do a few things right (grin) even the state of Alaska acknowledges those valid feelings, and explained the need for guardianship in a way that was gentle and on the family’s side. Repeatedly, they described how this is a delicate process.

And suddenly I felt the relief of not having to plow new ground. I am so tired of plowing new ground. Here, finally, I saw that someone has walked this path who wears shoes like mine, and the trail has already been somewhat cleared. A weight lifted off me.

We are fragile, broken and healing. We all need to be handled with care.

Walking gently is imperative right now, because the bull in the china shop doesn’t have eyes or ears to recognize the needs around them. These are days to move cautiously and deliberately; it’s hard to cultivate sensitivity and discernment about the times without a little stillness.

“I did not send the prophets, yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.

But if they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds.”

– Jeremiah 23:21-22

This is why we listen for His words and then pray for boldness to share them in the ways He has gifted and positioned us. It’s easy to make excuses when we’re hurting and grieving, but those things don’t let us off the hook of praying and abiding. You know what happens when we pray and abide? He tells us stuff. And often, He tell us to share about it.

Let me make a huge understatement: The Church hasn’t always been great at this.

The Church is filled with people who really aren’t familiar with the love of God, and it’s shown by how we puff ourselves up at the expense of each other. Love builds up, but knowledge puffs up – and we already know that wounded and hurting people tend to wound and hurt other people. But Kingdom culture changes that, because in Kingdom culture, we abide and surrender. Rather than festering inward, those wounds and pain draw us outward and give us wisdom to recognize similar wounds and pain in others. Oh friend, I recognize those shoes you’re wearing. They look like mine, too.

When we are tender and fragile, we naturally lean toward the friend who wields words and truth gently, who holds wisdom humbly because they won it through pain without allowing bitterness to fester. A heart that is ready to be comforted runs to the friend who carries compassion forged through experience.

– Risk the Ocean: An Adoptive Mom’s Memoir on Sinking and Sanctification

Have you ever broken something, fixed it, and then broke it again because you weren’t careful with it? We used to have a baby gate like this – actually, we’ve had a million things like this, but the baby gate is a strong memory because we had to teach our kids to use it gently. If it was treated with respect, it worked perfectly to keep our toddler from trespassing upstairs. But if someone just swung it open or slammed it shut, it would break again.

Because things are more fragile where they’ve already been fractured. We are, too.

So we are walking in more weakness, but also more strength. We are abiding and watchful, listening and interceding. Pain and hardship haven’t won the day; God has and is continuing to take everything the enemy throws at us and turning it for our good, for His glory.

For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

– 2 Corinthians 12:10

We are wiser and healthier. More strategic, more mature. Less prone to falling for the lies and manipulations of the enemy. Less likely to act out in puffing insecurity toward those around us who are also hurting, and more equipped to create an atmosphere of healing.

We can know things for ourselves but still need to hear them from others. We can encourage each other with truth and fight each other’s darkness, but still need others to shine that truth into us on the days that fall pitch black. We stumble and get our hands and knees in the mud, and a fellow traveler says, Here, I’ll hold your lantern for you while you get back up again. There you are. Bravely now, onward.

– Risk the Ocean: An Adoptive Mom’s Memoir on Sinking and Sanctification

We’re not looking down on those dealing with affliction and darkness because we remember our own pain and fumbling. Grief is not a competition.

But when we allow the Lord to use it to make us more like Him – the One who was acquainted with grief – it is a qualifier.

The wisdom and maturity wrought from it empowers us to lead others back into wholeness. Our brokenness helps break the path ahead, and plow the ground for others. And as we go there, we are bringing the culture with us.

with book: introducing the one I always meant to write

Posted on by August 15, 2025

Long gone are the days when I would sit here, hitting these keys until 3 am. But not long gone – in fact, extremely present and frequently of late – are the hours of overtime on the couch after the kids are in bed.

with book: introducing the one I always meant to write

I have forgotten to eat dinner, left bowls of my beloved popcorn untouched, neglected normal writing schedules, and overlooked watering the garden. But this book is alllllmost done in spite of computer disasters and apps that eat landing pages and several unplanned medical appointments including two trips to urgent care in the last month…one for a kid who broke his arm and one for a bigger kid with a cyst who needs oral surgery again.

And we’re not quite done yet because, just for fun, we’re considering a new book distributor at the last minute.

But hey, friends…let me introduce you to the baby I’ve been pregnant with for eleven years.

“It burned me from within. It quickened; I was with book, as a woman is with child.”

– C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

risk the ocean: an adoptive mom's memoir of sinking and sanctification

This is a memoir of my post-adoption journey through the chaos of mothering and homeschooling six kids in the midst of multiple special needs and my subsequent depression and sanctification as I learned to surrender. If you read Upside Down and Oh My Soul and wondered what was really going on behind the scenes, it’s in this book.

Because we never know how far our dreams and callings will take us when we start pursuing them. The initial rose-colored ideas only get us ankle-deep along the shore, digging our toes in warm sand, before reality sinks in and we’re up to our ears in work we didn’t anticipate, opposition from out of nowhere, obstacles we don’t know how to solve, and expenses that threaten to suck us under.

At some point, we have to decide if it’s really worth the sacrifice to turn our vision into reality. And if it’s a daydream, maybe it’s not worth it. But if it’s a calling – a mission – then it’s a different story.

This, friends, is a different story.

In 2010, Vince and I started a process we didn’t know how to finish. We had four kids, a three-bedroom house, and two old vehicles. We lived frugally with one main income, one micro-business, and a little in savings. And God called us to adopt two children with special needs, bringing them home two years later to freedom, a new homeland, and our family. For good, forever.

And then hell broke loose.

We didn’t know what it would cost, or what it would take out of us. We didn’t know what we would gain, or how it would change us. We didn’t know how the story would end.

And I hate to spoil it for you, but years later I still don’t know how the story ends. We still live this story every day. But here’s what I’ve learned, and am continuing to learn, in the process:

We can talk about following our dreams all we want, but our calling is only achieved through giving up what feels safe and comfortable. It involves scary things like obedience and surrender, and letting go of our preconceived notions and penchant for control. We have to move out of the comfort zone and do hard things. We have to risk the ocean if we want to follow Him as He walks on water.

When we move out of that comfort zone, God may allow us to discover more about our own brokenness than we ever wanted to know. This is especially true when our dreams and callings entail facing someone else’s trauma in close proximity.

And I won’t lie to you – in our own weakness and brokenness, sometimes we look at the waves and can’t take it anymore, and we go under, to be refined like a rock worn smooth in the agitation of violent surf.

The sanctifying process might chafe you raw, until you think you can’t take anymore.

Doesn’t that sound fun? Still want to sign up?

The thing about obeying God in these big, scary callings is that it’s not about what we’re doing at all. It’s about what He ends up doing in us. Because as we follow Him in one task, He will lead us to another, and another, and another. And we discover that we’re not just called to a mission, but to a character of obedience – like children who watch what their Father is doing, and then they do it, too.

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”

– John 5:19

It turns out that achieving a dream is not about tying things up in the pretty bow we always expect, because redemption and achievement rarely look like a Hallmark Christmas movie.

They usually look more like God moving in deep and lasting triumph in spite of everything the enemy throws at us.

Risk the Ocean is available here. Thanks so much for supporting our family. xo

Risk the Ocean: An Adoptive Mom's Memoir of Sinking and Sanctification "Vulnerably shares the blood, sweat, and tear that real sacrificial love requires." "Integrity beams up and out of every page."