Where the Present Touches Eternity

April 16, 2013 by Kelli

Image by AvodahImages.com

“We (the demons) want [man] to be in the maximum uncertainty, so that his mind will be filled with contradictory pictures of the future, every one of which arouses hope or fear. There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a himan’s mind against [God]. He want men to ce concentrated with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.” C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

This present time and age rocks and churns with uncertainty. With each bomb exploded, each innocent child killed senselessly, each cry of anguish and pain that gathers like a cloud over and around us, it’s easy to feel lost. Beauty is marred and history now tainted.

How many more cities must erect a memorial in honor of the victims?

In times like this, we have to be careful not to wallow in the uncertainty of this present age. As Americans, we are a toddler nation still youthful in our page of history. The rest of the world is pitted and scarred with the darkness of evil, but beauty and goodness shine bright. Just visit the cathedrals that still stand in the Italian countryside, their centuries old paintings revealing beauty in ashes.

Look at the statues carved from stone and close your eyes and take in the brilliant, soul stirring symphonies of Mozart and Beethoven, Gershwin and Chopin. Read Pushkin and Akhmatova and get lost in the words of those brilliant poets who weave pictures with pen and paper that send color into the dark world.

Most of the great beauty in this world has risen from the heat of evil.

When the world gets dark and smoky, it’s easy to fall into cynicism. We wonder what kind of world we’re living, what kind of darkness our children will have to endure as they grow.

But we can also remember that these things, though shocking and revolting and vile and senseless, are not new and they are not the end of beauty or hope or joy or goodness. All you had to do was watch footage of the first responders to know that goodness wins. And really, without the ugly how would we ever know what beauty truly looked like?

Without evil, how could there possibly be good?

These last few months have rocked me to my core. They’ve tested my faith and pushed me down into the heap of ashes. I’ve lamented and cried over the child in the orphanage who may never know how much she was already loved – a child who could have had a home but now may never know the comfort and security of a family. I’ve wept bitterly over the children who could have known love.

I’ve looked hard at the darkness, the ability for man to make all of life into a giant mess, and I’ve wondered where the beauty lies in all of it. I’ve looked around and seen the world with new eyes and realized…we are all covered in ashes. And what are we to do with that?

We keep loving. We keep rushing forward into the dark and we be the light. We teach our children what it means to be the light. As for me, I am working on finding the beauty. I can’t focus on the darkness because there is no hope there and life without hope is life without beauty. I cannot dwell on the fear of the future, the unknown and unfulfilled desires of the heart – instead I must trust that the only true impact I can have on this world is living fully right now, in this present moment.

“The humans live in time but our Enemy (God) destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.” C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

It sounds cliche and almost trite to say I’m praying for Boston today, but I am. I am praying for all the hurting hearts and the darkened souls. And I’m praying that today I will be ready to act – ready to be light, to show love, to speak well and bring out the beauty.

Live for the Present friends. Let’s touch eternity together.

Filed Under: faith, Grace, Life Tagged With: Beauty in Pain, Boston Marathon Bombing, faith, Life, The Thinks I Think

Catching water in your hands

April 9, 2013 by Kelli

“Now you will have noticed that nothing throws [man] into a passion so easily as to find a tract of time which he reckoned on having at his own disposal unexpectedly taken from him…[This] angers him because he regards his time as his own and feels that it is being stolen. You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption ‘My time is my own.’ Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours.” C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

This curious assumption of time is a topic that is not unfamiliar to anyone, least of all the mother of three young children. Time is a curious mystery, fleeting and entirely elusive, yet ever constant and unchanging. Each day allots the same amount of time in which to operate, but it often feels as though time slips right through our fingers like a gush of water.

Lee first read this passage to me late one evening. We were laying in bed and I was trying to do something wildly important like read Facebook statuses and catch up on blogs. My husband, on the other hand, was trying to improve his mind by reading an actual book.

(You remember books, don’t you? They’re made of paper and bound together so that you have to physically turn each page in order to find out what happens next. Fascinating contraptions…)

As he read, he would put his arm on mine and go, “Ooohhh…listen to this.” It was cute the first time, endearing the second time, annoying the third time and so on. He was interrupting my quiet time – my time at the end of the day when I can turn my brain off and waste time without guilt. Could he not see the reverence and near holiness of my solitude?

It was at this point he read me the above passage that made me stop and think. Do I regard myself the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours? I believe that I do!

How has this attitude affected my life and the lives of the people around me?

I will confess that there are few things that irk me more than my kids waltzing in and interrupting me when I am alone. I feel immediately violated and ridiculously offended at their assumption that they can just come in and make demands of me when I am clearly having a moment to myself.

How dare you want food, water, love, attention?!

Shame on me.

“You (the demon, Wormwood, who is tasked with tempting this particular man) have here a delicate task. The assumption which you want him to go on making is so absurd that, if once it is questioned, even we cannot find a shred of argument in its defense. The man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift; he might as well regard the sun and moon as his chattels.” C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Time is a gift. Every moment of every day is purely a gift. None of it is mine and I have no right to claim possession of a single moment. What I do in each moment is a reflection of how grateful I am for this ever changing, moving and fleeting gift.

Does this mean I shouldn’t guard some time to be alone? Absolutely not. A healthy mother knows to teach her children the importance of granting her time alone. Time spent away from children strengthens every parent and should be taken regularly.

Time together with my husband is not to be interrupted and I guard it as jealously as I can because this is a healthy use of my time. This is using the gift I’ve been given wisely.

But when the time does get interrupted, what is my reaction? Many times, I confess it is not a holy reaction. As C.S. Lewis wrote so beautifully in this same letter from the demon Screwtape, “The more claims on life, therefore, that your patient [man] can be induced to make, the more often he will feel injured and, as a result, ill-tempered.”

So what is my reaction? Well, more times than not, it is ill-tempered and that makes me sad, because such an attitude toward life is, I believe, what makes life often feel so fleeting.

If I recognize time as a gift and do not hold firm the belief that I am the lawful possessor of my moments, I can react graciously when time is interrupted – when random hugs need to be given while I’m working on a blog post, or the phone rings when I’m working on my book – when a neighbor knocks on the door while we’re eating dinner, or my husband wants to read to me while I’m trying to shut down for the evening.

What’s more, when I regard time as a gift, I will be able to use my time to bless others. When I’m less focused on time being my own then I can help those who need my help and do so in a way that makes them feel important and not so much like they were an interruption.

If I embrace each moment as a gift, I am more likely to live for the moment, to love in the moment, to bless in the moment and maybe every once in a while, I could catch a moment in my hand and hold it for a lifetime.

Filed Under: faith, Grace, Kids, Motherhood Tagged With: C.S. Lewis, faith, Grace, Motherhood, Raising children, The Scretape Letters, Time

Love Wins

March 27, 2013 by Kelli

In light of the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision on marriage equality, I’ve wondered if I should/would address the issue at all on my blog. There are enough voices clanging through the interwebs and I’m not a fan of noisy blogging.

That said, I read an article today that really speaks to how I feel about the issue at hand and I thought I’d share it here. I hope we can have respectful dialogue…if you want to have dialogue at all about the issue. Maybe you’re done dialoging. In that case, just leave a comment and tell me your favorite Easter candy.

Either way, let’s remember that above all else, love wins. Love is the thing that always, always wins. It’s also important to remember that disagreement does not indicate a lack of love.

There is no law that says we must all agree with one another in order to love one another well.

This is an issue without an easy answer, as much as many people want it to seem easy. But healthy, open dialogue is always a step in the right direction. No matter what the Supreme Court decides, I pray we can all remember that love wins.

And my favorite Easter Candies are those Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups shaped like Easter Eggs.

*wink*

The Article: How Might Christians Respond To The Question of Homosexual Marriage?

Filed Under: Grace, Life, Marriage, politics Tagged With: Grace, Love Wins, Marriage Equality, Supreme Court Debate

On writing and grief and finishing that book

March 26, 2013 by Kelli

I finished my initial read through of the book last night. My first reaction? Thank God it’s not too bad. I’ve never done this whole writing a 450 page novel thing. This is my first rodeo, so I didn’t know what to expect. Couple that with the fact that it’s been almost three years since I started this draft of the book and you have a writer who’s a bit nervous.

I wrote the beginning of the book a long, long time before I wrote The End. What if it didn’t connect?

Now admittedly, there are a few gaps to be worked out and the ending needs some sharpening. I wanted to finish so badly that my fingers were literally flying over the keyboard. It took me a little over two years to write the first 150 pages of that books. It took me just shy of 9 months to write the final 300 pages.

The story finally came tumbling out.

In a lot of ways, the book writing process very much mirrors a birth process. Only, honestly, I think it’s mentally and emotionally harder to write a book than have a baby.

I am connected to this story in a way that no one else will ever really understand. The characters became real to me. I dream about them at night. I hear their voices in my head. It all sounds so strange, but it’s not unlike the connection I felt to my unborn children.

I knew them before I saw them. I dreamed of them. I was connected to them in a way no one else could be, because they were a part of me.

Parts of my story are connected to this story. I used to feel a little ashamed and embarrassed about how long it took me to write this book, but I realized in the last week as I read through it that I needed to take that time. There are parts of this story that I could not have written if I hadn’t had the experiences I had.

I needed to experience childbirth and motherhood.

I needed to experience the heartache of losing the hope of a child.

I needed to experience the darkness of depression.

Friends, the last few months have been very, very hard. I’ve tried not to overdo the drama of it all on the blog, but I have not been in a good place. I am always right on the edge of an emotional breakdown. Most of the people who see me on a regular basis know this all too well as I basically cry at the drop of a hat.

In truth, I hardly remember the month of January. It’s as though that entire month has been blocked from my subconscious. I have never felt more alone or experienced a deeper pain than I did in that month. I couldn’t eat, I was in a constant state of fatigue and I lived from moment to moment in a fog of emotional pain.

Feburary is a bit brighter, but the memory of that month is shrouded in fog. That was the month I began to process my heartache – to share it and open up about the depths of the pain I felt.

March has been a little better, but the wound is still fresh and the grief can be set off at any moment.

And in these two and a half months since grief crashed down on me, I’ve written 175 pages. The words poured out and they became cathartic and brought about healing in an almost beautiful way. I transferred my grief to my characters, people who were experiencing a darkness much deeper than my own.

I don’t know if I wrote the story well, but I do know that writing the story helped me heal.

Writing a book requires that you pour your heart out. It’s hard and long and arduous and painful, but in the end, a sort of life is birthed from the process. Your hard work produces a miracle. A piece of you is transferred to the outside and you have a tangible evidence of the labor and pain.

It is, indeed, like the birth of a baby…if you were birthing a baby while running a marathon and spinning plates on a long, tall stick. The metaphor gets convoluted – roll with it.

I’ve passed my book out to my first round of test readers. I have several people lined up waiting to read it and I’m both excited and terrified. I know it needs work, but I also believe in the potential of the story. There are edits to comb through and rewrites to prepare for. There are holes to fill and there’s probably more research to be done.

(Oh sweet mercy, how I hate research. Can I just take a brief moment to tell you how many times I wished I had been given something easier to write about? Why couldn’t I just make up my world and my people? Historical fiction?! Oy…)

But all of that is okay, because there is still room for healing in my heart. The world isn’t dark and lonely anymore, thanks to a few people who have stepped up beside me and begun walking through the grief with me, and also thanks to the process of pouring my heart out to the story that I was given.

I needed to write this story at this time – to give birth to the characters in this way. Soon I pray I will have the opportunity to introduce this book to the world, but for now I covet your prayers as I begin editing. I long to present a book of excellence – a story that brings honor not to my name, but to the God who entrusted me with these stories.

Will you pray with me?

Filed Under: books, faith, Grace, Novel, writing Tagged With: Depression, faith, Grace, grief, healing, Novel, writing

Bearing with one another

March 19, 2013 by Kelli

There is a lot of talk these days about social media, technology and the effect that it will have on our children. They are the first generation to grow up under a microscope and with the world at their fingertips, it’s a legimite dialogue. How do we keep our children engaged in real life? How do we teach them to utilize technology to their favor and not to their disadvantage?

How do we show them that the world is real and yet still give them all the tools of expansion that technology provides?

It’s a constant battle and our children will have to learn to navigate life in a way that most of us who grew up without the internet, blogging and smart phones never even had to consider. But I think there’s something that we’ve missed and there is a dialogue that has been brought up less frequently that needs to be considered.

We are the first generation of mothers who are letting our lives play out online.

This is an entirely new world for us, just as it is for our children and we are navigating motherhood under a microscope in ways that no generation before has ever done. Yes, it is mostly by our choice, but even those who abstain from documenting the day to day are affected by this world of online motherhood.

We’re all learning how to walk this journey together, but I wonder what kind of example we’re setting for the young mothers coming up behind us, not to mention for our own daughters who are watching and learning. This thought alone has given me a lot of pause in recent months. It’s why I’ve blogged less and held my cards a little closer to my chest.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to blend this technology with motherhood in a way that is healthy not only for me, but for those who are watching and learning. I didn’t have an example of how to do this – I am the example.

As mothers, and women, our natural instinct seems to always gravitate toward judgement – judgement of ourselves and of those who do things differently. This tendency is not new to our generation, of course. This ability to judge others, both negatively and positively, is part of the make-up of womanhood. Blame it on estrogen, I guess, but we are prone to gossip and judgement and that is a fact that cannot be denied.

Before us, these tendencies were confined to the playground or water coolers or the sideliens of the soccer games – whereever mothers congregated in packs, there was always the opportunity to share a tidbit, to vent a frustration, to share insecurities. Mothers lived out their offenses on a much smaller scale.

But now, these grievances are aired in such a public way that it leaves me concerned. I worry about what the young ones behind us are seeing and I wonder how my contribution to the noise might be affecting their perception of others and of the world around them.

The problem is, we are all different and different things will rub us all the wrong way. It must be very confusing for first time moms to figure out what should upset them and what shouldn’t. This viral post tells them to get their eyes off the iPhone, while that one tells them it’s okay. This Facebook post tells them to be upset when someone urges them to enjoy every moment with their kids because it goes by fast, but that Facebook post tells them it’s true! It does go by fast! You should enjoy the little moments.

This post says be upset if someone asks you if you are going to try for a boy/girl, if you are going to breastfeed, if you are going to homeschool or public school or private school and on and on the list could go. Every post written has a different one that contradicts it. The older generation must now walk on pins and needles lest they upset us young moms with our fast fingers, constantly ready to tell the world how offended we are.

It’s noisy, isn’t it? And I’ve contributed to the noise in my own way. But more and more I’m learning to just accept people for who they are. I’ve found that 99.9% of the time, people don’t mean to be offensive so I’m working on giving the benefit of the doubt and moving on knowing that my way won’t be the same as her way and that is okay!

Can I, perhaps, offer a bit of encouragement to us all? Let us not be so easily offended. Let us not feel the need to publicly correct every stranger who says something that rubs us the wrong way. Let us try harder to give one another the benefit of the doubt.

What if we spent less time getting offended by others and more time simply loving one another? How would that look online? If a woman at the grocery store comments on our number of children, or asks if we “know what causes that” *wink, wink* what if we just smiled, thanked her for her interest in our family and moved on…without sharing it online? What if we bore with one another patiently, knowing that sometimes people say things that bother us not to be offensive, but simply because we are all different and are affected by different things?

I don’t know how good I am at this business of bearing with one another, but I’m learning. Even writing this post, I wonder if I’m helping the problem or perpetuating it. But my heart is to encourage myself, and all of us, to think before we type.

Because we’re being watched and we are the first to walk on this particular path of motherhood. Let’s show the generations to come how to do it well.

Filed Under: Blogging, Grace, Motherhood Tagged With: Bear with one another, Grace, Motherhood, Technology

To Mother – with love

March 5, 2013 by Kelli

“At the very least, they (man) can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls. It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things in their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.” C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, Letter #4

Two weeks ago, I pulled out the final box. Nearly eighteen months in our home and this one box sat in the office closet, taunting me with the unpacked contents. I lifted each item from inside the brown cardboard and carefully decided whether to keep or purge. As I pulled out the final photo album, I looked down to see a single, red book.

It was thin and hard bound, the binding worn just slightly. As I picked it up, I inhaled deep the smell of history. I don’t ever remember seeing this book and as I turned to see what treasure I had just uncovered, I drew in a sharp breath.

The Screwtape Letters. C. S. Lewis.

I sat down in my plush yellow chair and slowly opened the book. It smelled musty and worn. The pages were crisp and yellowed. Opening the cover, I noticed the inscription:

To Mother,

On this Mother’s Day – with love

Fred

5-11-46

Purchased and gifted with love in 1946 by a man who wanted to give his mother something special on Mother’s Day. I ran my fingers over each page and wondered what stories this book held. Bought at the end of the World War II, a subject and piece of history that consumes most of my days right now as I finish my novel, this particular copy has a story.

A story for Mother.

Read the rest at Kelli Stuart.com

Filed Under: faith, Grace, Motherhood Tagged With: C.S. Lewis, Motherhood, prayer, The Screwtape Letters

Miracles in the Pocket

February 27, 2013 by Kelli

Peering out the airplane window, all I could see was glaring, sear your eyes white. The morning sun stood high above miles and miles of clouds, completely obscuring the world below. With no real marker below to give away our speed, it felt as though we were floating. Were it not for the man crammed very snugly against my side, I think it would have been the most serene and peaceful I’ve felt in many months.

The bell chimed and the captain’s voice broke through the speakers. “Folks, we’re making our initial descent into New Orleans. We have a bit of weather ahead of us, so I’m going to ask that you return to your seats and put on your seatbelts as we make our way down.”

And still I watched, my forehead pressed tight against the cool glass, as we slowly drifted down, closer and closer to the white peaks below. The clouds were thick and full, a world of shapes dancing beneathe me, all waiting to be discovered. Just beyond the horizon of white stood the vibrant blue sky and a perfectly round sun beyond that. And still we dropped until…

Read the rest at Kelli Stuart.com

Filed Under: faith, Grace, Life Tagged With: faith, God, Hope

When your soul is not well

February 13, 2013 by Kelli

Necklace from Lisa Leonard Designs

I sat in the front of his tiny boat, my hands gripped to the slippery sides with all the strength I could muster. Huddled beneathe a plastic tarp, I looked at all their faces for some sign that told me it was okay to panic. We were all being brave, laughing nervously to stave off the terror as wave after wave crashed over the sides, the full wrath of the Carribbean falling upon us.

When we set off from Spanish Wells, Bahamas, the sea had been calm. The day was bright, perfect for a short three hour cruise to Nassau. I can’t remember our exact number, but there were a lot of us to pile onto the small boat that day. We were at the tail end of a week long family reunion. This was our Bon Voyage.

The storm came up quickly, as they tend to do over the ocean. Before we knew it, we were hunkered down in a rocking boat with only a few life jackets to go around and though I am almost always game for a grand adventure, on this particular day I wanted nothing more than to get off that boat.

Terrified and sick, I couldn’t see for the wind and the rain. The salty ocean water stung my eyes. And yet every time a wave hit our boat, I felt an odd sense of peace thanks to the man who stood at the helm of the ship, steering us through the storm.

As the boat rocked, he smiled broadly. When the waves crashed hard, he let out a roar of delighted laughter. He did not delight in our fear, but rather in the joy of the ride.

He knew where we were headed and he knew what stood on the other side of the storm.

Read more at Kelli Stuart.com

Filed Under: Adoption, Blogging, faith, Grace Tagged With: faith, God, Kelli Stuart.com, Sorrows

I ran a mile the other day

February 1, 2013 by Kelli

On Wednesday, after yet another fitful night’s sleep, I forced myself out of bed, threw on my running shoes and pushed myself out the door before I had time to consider the ramifications of my actions. I started running before my not-totally-alert brain could convince me otherwise.

I was about a quarter mile in when my brain issued a “What the BEEP?” signal to the rest of my body, at which point my lungs constricted, my legs turned to lead and I remembered how much I have always hated running.

But still I kept going, because while I may hate running, I hate defeat even more and I simply cannot let my body defeat me this way.

It’s been a long, hard month and a half, which has left me feeling sad, tired, sluggish and trapped under the weight of so much heaviness. Beyond the potentially failed adoption, there have been family issues, hurting friends and looming changes that have so weighed me down that the very act of smiling began to feel tiresome.

So I’m making some changes. Change number one – I’m spending a little less time online. For the most part, the people I interact with online are beautiful, wonderful, encouraging, happy people. But I’m also prone, at this time, to drift toward sites that discuss the current adoption situation, and I dwell on the faces of the children who made it home and it makes my heart ache.

So, I’m stepping back a bit to let my heart heal and to let God realign and reconfigure the dream a bit. He’s doing that, by the way. God is completely and totally shifting things around for both Lee and I. It’s exciting and scary and heartbreaking and relieving and it’s still developing. I don’t totally understand what He is doing or what next step we need to take, but I feel confident that He’s not done with us yet.

I just need some time to let go of the dream the way that I saw it playing out.

Second thing I’m doing is drinking more water and tea, taking vitamins and trying to sleep more. The sleep thing is tricky, though. Darkness and quiet foster too much thinking. I’m working on shutting my brain down at night.

The third thing I’m doing is exercising, because it produces endorphins that help combat sadness, stress and fatigue. Incidentally, I quote Elle Woods from Legally Blonde every time I lace up my shoes to work out:

“Excercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people don’t kill their husbands…they just don’t.” Elle Woods

Ha! That quote makes me happy. It should also make Lee happy, too. And make him feel safer at night…

So back to exercise. Working out has always been a big part of my daily life. I wake up, I eat, I work out, I go about my day. That’s been my routine since college. But lately, particularly the last year, I’ve lost my workout mojo. It’s just been hard to stay motivated.

Add stress and heartache to the mix and you have a recipe for disaster. Remember, I am the wisp of a girl. Letting myself get lazy is not healthy. There’s also the added stress of this being the year I turn 35, which doesn’t help matters. I’ve officially dubbed the next five months Operation Kick 35’s ~~A$$~~ Bootay.

In an effort to stay on top of this very important part of my road to emotional recovery, I have joined up with Team Pretty Muddy as one of their Tampa bloggers! I’m so, so excited about this partnership for a few reasons.

One, it just sounds like fun. Running a 5k? BO-RING! Running a 5k that exists entirely in the mud and has slides? SO FUN!

I am already recruiting my local team of runners and if you want to join us, let me know because the more the merrier in my opinion! I plan on running a few times a week so that I can at least survive the run without complete and total embarassment, although I did inform my potentail teammates last night that should the running portion of the race be over my head, I will totally fake a sprained ankle.

I’m not too proud to take myself out of the race if it means saving face…

But really, it’s only 3.2 miles and it’s in the mud! It can’t be that hard, right? Right?!

It’s taken me two days to recover from the one measly mile I ran on Wednesday. I think I have my work cut out for me….

If you want to join me in this year’s Pretty Muddy Race, visit the website and register now, then let me know so we can plan our post race party! *wink, wink*

Filed Under: Adoption, Exercise, Grace, Guest Post, Running Tagged With: Elle Woods, Emotional recovery, Exercise and endorphins, Fitness, Pretty Muddy Race Tampa

Not Impressed

January 14, 2013 by Kelli

I’d like to go on record with saying that I am so far entirely unimpressed with the year 2013. Really, I’d be fine if we skipped it. Like an old hotel, I’d like to move straight from floor 12 to floor 14. Bell hop? Anyone?

It’s been a rough few days and I have the bags under my eyes, the twisted muscles in my neck and the knot in my stomach to prove it. I look at the calendar and I look to the heavens and I wait. Because things have to go up from here.

This morning, I flipped open my (in)courage daily inspirational calendar to this quote by Holly Gerth:

Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1

“I’ve always thought of those words in the context of believing in God…But that morning it seemed the One Who Loves us whispered that part of faith is also about believing that our obedience makes a difference – when we can’t see the results.”

The past few days were hard for more reasons than one. I talked my kids through the events that have transpired over the last few weeks and it broke my heart. I sat with my nine year old as anger and pain and doubt clouded his crystal blue eyes.

“Why would God let this happen?”

“We have a good family and we want to love a little girl who needs a family. Why wouldn’t God let us love her?”

“Why do these bad things happen?”

“What’s going to happen to those kids in the orphanage?”

His questions were great. They were deep and real and honest and beautiful and I didn’t fully know how to answer them because I have the same questions. So I told him.

I told him everything I’ve been telling you and myself for the last ten months. Hope is slow. It’s so slow that sometimes we can’t see it.

I told him that God promises to be the Father to the fatherless and we have to believe with a faith beyond our sight that He is there with those children. We have to believe that they experience God in ways that we never will because He is all they have. We have to trust that He hasn’t forgotten the children – all the children – around the world who are waiting for love.

We have to believe and in this moment, we must build an altar for our kids. We must set a place for them to look back on and remember. We must guide them in this thing called faith that so often requires blind action.

Officially, our adoption is not yet terminated. There is still a thin thread of hope, but that thread gets dimmer each day. I feel like I’m preparing to lose a child. I imagine that this is much like it feels to miscarry. We haven’t given up hope entirely, but we are preparing ourselves to move on.

But can I share the miracles in this story of ours?

Friday, after I listened in on a call from the Department of State for adoptive families in process, I hung up the phone discouraged and defeated. I sat next to my husband and sobbed in his arms. In that moment I felt like it was over completely.

You see the thing is, I’ve always thought I would adopt a child from Russia. I’ve been waiting for so long for God to give us the signal to move forward, but I never once doubted that He would. It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t bring home a Russian child. Not once.

But Lee, my steady and wise husband, has a different vision. He has a passion for adoption…not just Russian adoption. To him, whether the child comes from Russia, India or America doesn’t matter. This brought me a lot of comfort, particularly because the idea of adoption was initially difficult for him to embrace. He had deep reservations, but in the course of this past six months, God has really opened up an excitement in Lee about the beauty of building a family through adoption.

Miracle.

Later that night, I sat down and opened an email from an old college friend who didn’t even know all that was going on inside my heart. This is part of what it said:

I’m writing to you because God has been sending me clear messages for you. I’ve been praying for you all and following along here and there on your journey. And every time I read one of your posts, I get an image of Christ riding in, like a soldier redeeming this situation for good. EVERY TIME you write something about the current situation in Russia or your heart breaking over the possibility of loss, the words “promise” and “redeemed” come flashing in my brain. I immediately get a sense of urgency to tell you that God will follow through on the promise He has given you. He is good. He has made a promise to you. He planted seeds so long ago in your heart for this country and for the people there. This horrible situation will be redeemed. His promises will be made known to all who know you and hear your cries.

She ended her message with a beautiful prayer that I have printed out and read over and over. Because I’m so heartbroken right now that I don’t know how to pray. But her prayer gives me the words to lay before the altar.

Miracle.

My heartache goes beyond the potentially failed adoption. There are other things mixed in that have worked together to form an emotional tsunami. But this one thing I know – God is good. He has not left the throne. Right now, I cling to the fact that our faith must be manifested in obedience. Like the quote mentioned above, we have embraced our faith through obedience and we are learning more and more each day about what it means to live courageously – even when the steps of faith don’t look like we thought they would.

We took a risk in moving forward with the adoption. It was a step of faith. It was obedience. And in our obedience God has worked miracles. I pray He’s not finished. I pray that the redmption of this story does include the completion of our adoption.

But I’ve no doubt that our family’s story is not finished yet. I believe my friend’s vision. I believe that God has redemption in store for us and we wait in expectation with hands held high. And when it is all said and done, no matter what the outcome may be, we will build an altar of remembrance.

We will look at our children (all four of them?) and we will point to these days and we will say, “Look, kids. Look at what God has done. He is faithful!”

Pray with us?