Don't Waste Your Wait

Sometimes I want to be done with waiting. All this week I have been waiting, fairly sure we would hear some news. Instead, I am still basically waiting. Then I wondered if I would ever actually miss this time and I wondered if I am wasting this time. A few years ago, our pastor wrote an extraordinary little piece called, "Don't Waste Your Cancer." I totally copied him but mine is called, "Don't Waste Your Wait."

You will waste your wait if you do not believe it is designed for you by God.


You will waste your wait if you believe it is a curse and not a gift.


You will waste your wait if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God.


You will waste your wait if you think that adopting is just about your family and your child.


You will waste your wait if you spend too much time reading about adoption (and blogs and emails and youtubes and....) and not enough time reading about God.


You will waste your wait if you let it drive you into solitude instead of deepen your relationships with manifest affection.


You will waste your wait if you grieve as those who have no hope.


You will waste your wait if you treat sin as casually as before.


You will waste your wait if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ.

Meatless

Joel is reading a book called Born to Run. It is full of extraordinary feats of a tribe of Indians who run hundreds of miles on vegetables and barbequed mice.

We decided to imitate them in one area for now: more vegetables.

That led Grace to ask if she could be a vegetarian for a week. I said yes.

This morning I heard this exchange:

Grace: Hey Levi, I'm going to be a vegetarian.

Levi: What? For Halloween?

There are Days...

Most days of waiting for an adoption are completely uneventful. They look maddeningly like every other day because they are. Today was not one of those days. And what I think will happen if more of these days come along is that:

1. I will completely relate to anyone who is ADHD.

2. Eli will never know what least common multiples and greatest common factors are because I taught them incorrectly today.

3. I will have 15 projects in varying degrees of doneness but nothing that is even remotely close to 100%.

4. Advil will be a food group.

Home Again

We went "up north to a cabin" this week. We don't own a cabin nor do we have an uncle, a parent or a brother who do. We have to do the next best thing called VRBO: Vacation Rental By Owner, an online site that has more rental places than one might think existed. And somehow, in the midst of all the choices, we happened upon a cabin 7 miles north of Lutsen owned by a wonderful family whose spokesperson is Joyce. Joyce sends us a key in the mail, asks us to clean up the cabin when we're done and off we go.

We went up for 3 nights. Had a fire in the fire place, had lots of soup and hot chocolate, watched the waves of Lake Superior crash onto the rocks, ventured to Grand Marais twice, had no cell phone nor internet service and loved it.

We got home last night, unpacked, did a Target run, got a movie for Joel and me, tucked everyone in and collapsed into bed. I topped off the whole experience by using Zeke's toothbrush. Yes, it was gross and it was unintentional. The last time I cross contaminated was when I put Joel's contacts in my eyes.

I would recommend cabins for family bonding. I would also recommend boundaries when it comes to personal items.

Waiting

My friend and I are really good at waiting. Until we talk to each other. Which is every day and sometimes twice a day. Plus emailing.

Here is a statement from today's conversation, courtesy of my Really Bad At Waiting Friend who is a terrible influence on me:

"I just want to go to an Ethiopian restaurant. And sit there. And smell bad."

Me too.

A verse

Everything is making me think about Ethiopia: Eli's geography lessons, Levi's social studies lessons on Africa, and now a song called "Glory Revealed." It's Isaiah 40 sung:

3 A voice cries:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

I love to think that God will make a way, possibly through a desert, for our little girl to come home. And may all see the glory of the Lord.

Christmas Card Pictures?

We usually take our Christmas card pictures in October. This year, I have at least 3 major reasons to hesitate:

1. If we get a baby, I'll want to send out another card.

2. Levi just lost his fourth tooth. From the top front. He smiles and there are not any teeth to be seen.

3. The boys have not grown out of their home haircuts yet.

Maybe it's time for a new family picture called, "Everyone Sketch Themselves." Sounds like it has potential. Then I'll just crop in a beautiful, hot, dusty infant and we're good to go.

American Shopping vs. Ethiopian Babies

I was in a store today that featured all sorts of things for a little girl's room: signs that said "I'm a Princess;" pillows that said the same thing, stuffed animals and fairy dresses and crowns and beds with matching dressers. I think all that would be all right except that today I also read about some things kids in Ethiopia face during their "princess phase:" rickets, malnutrition, abandonment. The contrast couldn't be more stark.

I read an article that said "infants are usually hot and dusty."

All that to say, I cannot wait to get my arms around a hot, dusty, abandoned, malnourished princess.

Joel's reaction

Joel read the post, "While the Husband is Away...."

He had two comments:

1. You didn't know that soap was for dishes in the sink? I knew that.

2. The word you were looking for in the soccer game was "foul."

Some Things Wisconsin

Two signs tonight on my drive through a part of Wisconsin that struck me as very.....Wisconsiny.

1. Meat Raffle--sign on a "tavern"

2. TOPLESS silo--sign hanging from a mailbox that preceded, yes, a topless silo leaning against a modest (?) silo

I'm originally from Iowa. I've even lived in the country part of Iowa where I was advised to "not wash my windows until after harvest." I was asked at the grocery store, "Who brought in these green beans?" But I've never seen a meat raffle nor a topless silo. And after this post, I'm pretty sure God will have me move near to both.

While the Husband is Away, the Wife Will....

5:30 am: Joel leaves to go on a 50 mile run. He'll be gone until at least 10:00 tonight.

9:30 am: I take a look at each boy and decide they might be easier to shape up than it will be to put away the laundry. They each come to the 47 degree garage in pj pants and sit on a cooler. I turn on the "professional" clippers and think, "How hard can this be? Really..." The answer is, it's not hard to cut hair. It is very hard to make hair look good. My best description is: put a wild animal on top of each child's hair. Let them chew on the hair for 5-7 minutes. Take wild animal off. Have child shower. Yes, that's the look we have.

12:45 pm: Coach Levi's soccer team. All was well until #12 on the other team, smiling, injures three of my players, Levi twice. Suddenly, I find myself yelling, as most professional soccer coaches and believers in Christ would...."HEY!"

The game stopped. I'm on my own private island of shrillness. "Ummmm. Him, #12. He's hurting other kids. A lot." I had more pairs of eyes fixed on me than at any other point in my history. "Ok, then," says the other coach. "Cougars throw in?" I don't know what I was expecting: "Yes, you're right Coach Button. Never been a better call."

2:00 pm: I'm home, decided to run the dishwasher. Decided to use my new little soap packet that I picked up for free at a running expo. It's marked "Dish Soap." I squeezed it into the dishwasher. Twenty minutes later, there are bubbles on my floor. There are bubbles filling the dishwasher. I re-read the little free packet. No warning label. Just a stick figure lady admiring her wine glass as she holds a towel.

I had nothing to admire. The basil smell that sounded good in print was not as attractive when it was a basil film covering every one of my dishes. So, if you're ever tempted, at Target, to buy the Meyer's Dish Soap, I would say don't bother. Don't spend the extra money. It may look good but who has ever actually longed for basil-milk, basil-juice, basil-macaroni and cheese, basil-apples, basil-waffles and basil-coffee?

I did wash our bath mats today. For some reason, that feels like a bigger accomplishment than it actually is but I'm holding out there nonetheless. A day like this needs a trophy and here are my bath mats to do the honors.