just getting started: the overwhelm that equips us

Posted on by May 26, 2022

The first few weeks were fine: Cute little birds in their cute little boxes in our slightly overcrowded bathroom. Little peeping noises from the chicks, beautiful cooing noises from the quail. We could watch them for hours.

just getting started: the overwhelm that equips us

But then the chick dust started.

And, oh my friends, do you know what chick dust is? It’s a combination of things, but mostly it’s dander from the feathers that are growing in from about two to six weeks of age. If you have a history of asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis, or other respiratory issues, it’s no bueno to be around.

The feathers are important, of course. They’re what help them endure the elements, and they’re what make them beautiful. But the dirty, ugly-cute season has to be endured in the process of growing them.

I started to notice the burning in my throat and chest, reminiscent of pneumonia. It felt like I was suffocating. So I started taking supplements for lung support and we cleaned the brooder multiple times a day.

But the dust took its toll. So I was banned from the bathroom, and as soon as it was warm enough outside, the chicks were banned from the house.

(No, it has nothing to do with bird flu. If you believe what the news is telling you about bird flu, I have some oceanfront property in northern Wasilla I’d love to sell you.)

Now the birds are seven and eight weeks old: Their feathers are in, the dust has settled, and they’ve upgraded to the coop and the yard, all beautifully fluffy as they peck at dandelions and bugs. The quail have even been laying eggs for almost two weeks now, and it feels like we made it.

It was a long, crazy month, though. Learning how to care for birds while having several other irons in the fire was a level of overwhelm I haven’t felt since…well, maybe since having a newborn. In this case, we had 38 chickie newborns, a kid graduating, several work and writing projects, grades and progress reports to turn in for six kids, garden seedlings everywhere, and the normal societal unrest that has become so common in the last few years that it’s stopped surprising us.

It’s not special; you have all your own stuff you’re dealing with, too. We’re all just living normal life, but doing it in an era that is kicking up dust everywhere.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” 

– John 13: 6-8

We don’t understand why all these things are going on around us, but Jesus is getting our feet wet.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had conversations with friends in recent weeks about how the events of the past few years have taken their toll, and we are feeling the effects of it. We are overwhelmed. Feeling scattered. Fighting burnout. Wrestling anxiety again that we conquered years ago. Dealing with a few health issues from all the stress.

Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. 

– John 13:9-10

Don’t make it weird, Peter. I’m not drowning you, I’m equipping you.

One friend mentioned how prayer feels like more of a struggle lately. The words don’t come as easily, and since they don’t, she has to force words, which feels less genuine. But she’s learning the discipline of mature, fighting prayer. The truth is, my friend is doing great with her prayer life. She’s growing and persisting in it in new ways.

If you feel like you’re not doing well in your prayer life because it’s not as easy as it was, you’ve probably actually moved to the next level and are feeling the stretching of growth.

Our success can’t be gauged by how comfortable we are with something; usually our success is indicated by our willingness to continue doing the right thing even when it’s hard and uncomfortable.

We’re not going under; we’re graduating. We feel the dust burning in our lungs because it’s time for an upgrade, and we need to take new territory.

We watched the fruition of it this week when our daughter graduated. She’s our second grad but the first to walk, the one who was born after a horrible miscarriage and brought redemption even before she breathed outside the womb. She’s beautiful and gifted and brilliant, and just so you know, she’s getting a shotgun as soon as she turns eighteen. (If you believe what the news is telling you about gun violence, I also have some lakefront property in our chicken coop you really ought to see.)

The grades are in, the paperwork is done. But she isn’t finished; she’s just equipped for the next level.

And I have been feeling this upgrade, too. Last week when I was at the desk, trying to settle into a few hours of work, I felt like a deer in the headlights, unable to figure out what to tackle first. I was stunned by the amount of needs and directions I had to go in.

It was too much; I turned the page and started making a list of irons in the fire, and got almost halfway down the page before I stopped and put the pencil down.

Lord, what do I do with all this? I asked. Where do I start?

The Holy Spirit started asking questions back:

Are any of these temporary?

Yes. There’s a temporary partnership, a smallish project to finish, a bigger task to be done, and Iree’s graduation. Those won’t be on the list forever.

Are any of these negotiable, or not necessary?

Um…no, not really.

Are they all bringing life and bearing fruit, even if you can’t see the fruit yet?

I think so. There’s one I might be able to eliminate but it’s too soon to tell.

Start at the top. Do the thing closest to you and work your way down.

So I made the phone calls, returned the texts, wrote the articles. Filled out the paperwork. Graduated the girl.

The list has started to shrink; it doesn’t quite hit the middle of the page anymore. And I know it will always flux and change – things will be added to it as others are crossed off.

But you and I, we are growing, and upgrading, and effectively engaging a culture that is reaping the consequences of simply going with the flow, refusing to do the hard but necessary things. We’re persisting in doing the right thing even when it’s not comfortable.

We’re not finished; we’re just getting ready for the next level.

I’m not suffocating you, Love, He tells us. I’m equipping you. No feathers, no flight.

turning it up: support for adoptive families comes to audio

Posted on by April 11, 2023

Here’s a confession that those of you who are regular readers here already know: I go in phases of sharing about adoption and special needs. Sometimes I forge ahead in it and share several posts here or on social media, and other times I pull back to recuperate.

It’s hard to share. It’s super personal. The issues are painful. But those issues need to be seen.

Not everyone will stop to notice. Most will probably keep scrolling — no shame, we all need a little mindless scrolling sometimes — and some will click “like” on the posts without even reading them because they’re too long.

I get that. I skim or skip posts sometimes for the same reason.

But we miss things when we’re always too busy to stop and notice them.

And adoptive, foster, and special needs families are collapsing from people being too busy to notice them.

These families are in our churches and neighborhoods — until they’re not. Until they give up on church or they give up on marriage. Until it all becomes too much because people are so busy scrolling past, giving a thumbs up to the concept of adoption but having no clue about what’s really going on in these families.

How do we move upstream to prevent divorce, depression, abuse, and suicide? How do we draw people into the church and community instead of driving them away from it?

By seeing people. But we have to look past the surface and stop scrolling for a few minutes to do it.

So I’ve collected my adoption posts in one place here. They are full of the stuff under the surface, behind the curtain, while we try to walk the line of privacy and transparency. They are by no means the full story, but they are enough to give the respectful, caring observer plenty to think about…and to send a message to other adoptive, foster, and special needs families. Here’s that message:

YOU ARE NOT ALONE. And you’re not going crazy. You are seen and loved and understood. 🖤

I know some of you are done with church. Some of you are done with marriage. Some of you, for the sake of younger children and your entire family, have been done with adoption and had to disrupt.

(If you’re not one of those families, that means they had to give up their adopted child to be adopted by another family — and face all the judgment, condemnation, and assumptions from a society that doesn’t know what goes on behind the scenes and is also unwittingly ignorant of the role they may be playing in the disaster and heartache these families endure.)

None of this should ever happen. Adoptive families should never feel alone and be left by the communities around them to quietly implode behind closed doors.

We can intentionally be part of the solution. 

And we need to be, because there are plenty of people who seem intent on being part of the problem, too busy reveling in their know-it-allness that they cannot fathom there might still be something to learn about this — like the Goodreads reviewer who gave Upside Down a mere 2 stars because I am “only an adoptive mom” and not a trained, lettered professional who actually (smirk) knows anything about attachment issues, mental health, or adoption.

That’s right; instead of studying for years behind a desk, I have only lived this out in my own home, 24 hours a day, for more than twice the amount of years it takes to get a bachelors degree. Clearly I have no expertise on the subjects of adoptive family support or adoptive parenting worth sharing.* #blessherheart

When I originally wrote Upside Down as a series of posts, I got emails, messages, and phone calls every day from adoptive, foster, and even biological parents who were going through the same stuff — but they thought they were alone. These were their most common responses:

“I thought we were the only ones who went through this.”
“I don’t know who to talk to.”
“I didn’t know how to explain this.”
“I thought we were alone.”
”I wish everyone we knew would read this.”

But you know what the most common response is from non-adoptive/foster families? It’s this:

“Whoa. I had no idea.”

No wonder these families feel alone.

It’s past time to change that.

And now there’s no excuse not to, because Upside Down is now available in audio (as you read that, you should hear it in a victorious sing-song voice, like TA-DAHHH!) and the first three segments are totally free and full of the inside scoop people needed yesterday, before they did that thing that triggered the adoptive kiddo to regress. So grab them here and share them with your friends, teachers, pastors, nosy neighbors, favorite aunt who stillll doesn’t get it, and anyone else who needs to know how they can truly support adoptive and foster families without unintentionally causing further harm.

Because we’re gonna change this thing. The world will see that what adoptive and foster families are doing is vital, but the work cannot be done without understanding and support. And we shouldn’t have to anymore.

*In case you’re wondering, I have similar inept, unprofessional, raw, untrained experience in pursuing God while being a mom of many, dealing with special needs and fighting depression and encountering other messy life circumstances in motherhood — so you should *definitely* stay away from Oh My Soul and ABIDE and Work That God Sees too, since I don’t have the right letters after my name and therefore have nothing worthwhile to share in those, either. Seriously, those books are only for the rest of us. xo

not dead, just sleeping: when you need a resurrection

Posted on by April 21, 2022

In the last few weeks of brooding almost 40 birds in our bathroom, I’ve learned a few things about chicks and quail:

They will poop on new bedding before you even finish laying it down.

They will poop in their new dish of food before you leave the room.

They will poop in their water before you turn your back.

Aaaaand quail look dead when they’re sleeping.

not dead, just sleeping: when you need a resurrection

That last point, at least, I knew ahead of time, and it’s a good thing I did. During the first week there was often a moment of panic as we looked in the brooder to see them passed out, collapsed on their sides, legs out. But that’s just how they sleep.

They’re great, though: snuggly, nosy, clumsy, and messy. The water dish was their favorite hangout when they were small enough to walk in it – sometimes for drinking, but mostly for wading and splashing, and then tracking little wet toe prints everywhere. They thought they were ducks, though I told them otherwise.

We lost one within hours of bringing them home (truly dead quail differ from sleeping quail in that they’re cold, stiff, and not breathing) but the other 19 are happy and healthy in spite of our complete lack of experience. A week after we got the quail, our chicks arrived, and even the sick one we thought we’d lose managed to pull through. We call her Toughie.

And, can I interrupt this bird trivia to just point out how amazing that is? Isn’t it incredible that we can just take something on that we’ve never done before, and still muddle through with success?

I mean, it hasn’t been super easy. We’ve spent months researching, learning, gathering supplies, and building shelters for them. But as with most things, deciding to do the work is almost harder than actually doing the work.

During the first week, I often woke up at 3 am, anxious about how they were doing. I ran downstairs, opened the door, and heard their soft, happy twittering; they were fine, all nineteen, scattered and sleeping and eating and climbing all over each other. They thought they were puppies, even though I reminded them they are quail.

But there was that one time they weren’t all fine…when we went from twenty to nineteen because one of them was cold and stiff under the heat lamp. So for a split second when I opened the door and saw them asleep, looking dead, I would get a little nervous. We remember those times when things weren’t fine, and try to guard ourselves against the uglier parts of normal.

Because it’s not just quail that look dead when they’re sleeping: See also deciduous trees, rose bushes, and hobbies that get shoved to the back of the closet. But bigger things, too – like creativity, achievement, solutions, dreams, and goals. Certain relationships. Breakthrough.

Each time one of those falls asleep, we wonder if it’s actually dead. Should we give up on it? Because we’ve seen death, and it leaves a little scar of trust issues and anxiety to work through every time we encounter anything that resembles it. Is this worth resuscitating? Do we nurse it back to health? Do we keep feeding and watering it in faith, or do we pull the plug and move on to the other 19 needs vying for our attention?

Some things just need time and surrender, but others need persistent attention.

For example, my houseplant that we affectionately call Anne Shirley. As soon as she (or it, I don’t care – don’t come to me with pronoun nonsense) feels the slightest bit parched or neglected, she wilts in the depths of despair.

The first time it happened, I thought I killed her for sure. Woomp – all leaves down, this one’s a goner.

But I felt the stems, and they seemed okay. So I gave her some water, and lo and behold – the next day, Anne Shirley was as perky as ever. Such a drama queen.

(My glorious fern, on the other hand, is a different story. We’ve started calling her Eleanor – as in, Dashwood – because if she’s neglected she will just slowly turn paler and paler, suffering in silence.)

So some things must be watered, and others must be waited for.

And many require both. We water in the waiting, not knowing how long it will take to see life again. These are the situations the Lord must move in, because you cannot force growth – overwatering results in death as much as neglect does – and He must perform the rescue because we’ve tried everything and still it is stiff and cold, not breathing: A loved one’s salvation, a child’s return, a favorable ruling. After we’ve done everything we know to do, we’re desperate for what only He can do.

But this is what He does. When life is in the red, He intervenes out of the blue in ways we never could have imagined.

And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?”

– Luke 24:38-41, ESV

This life of watering and waiting is where faith and obedience intersect. It is the lesson of walking steadily on without constantly checking progress, checking email, checking notifications, checking the mailbox. Faith and obedience knows the answer is coming, and does not have to constantly ask “Are we there yet?” like a kid on a road trip.

You’ve done and are doing what you need to do. So give them time, they’ll perk up soon. Those situations might think they’re dead —- you need to remind them they are alive.

The trees outside know; the pussywillows are growing again. The time for things to wake up is here.

_______

Related: What if you see the rescue coming, and it scares you? The newsletter comes out next week and this is what we’re talking about. Sign up here if you need it.