Meow...

I've seen the idea on a few blogs of going to google and typing your name needs. For example, I typed "Missy needs" and I was slightly disturbed by what I found...

Missy needs her medicine...(aka Fererro Rocher's)

Missy needs THAI (Amen to that!)

Missy needs help (clearly)

AND

(my female ferret) Missy needs to mate by March, what do I do?

That's just wrong to have anything with the phrase "needs to mate" come up when you type your name into google.

What was meant to be a fun and mindless game has only played into an insecurity of mine that I bear a cat name. Indeed, most of the entries were about cats needing a home. I am not a cat person. Unless said cat has a dog personality.

Anyway, now I have to deal with the crushing blow that my name is worse than a cat name. It's a ferret name.

I guess I'll go drown my sorrows in a box of Caramel Delites. I hated being a Girl Scout(camping-yuck!), but I sure do love knowing them now.

If I was the Academy

the Oscars would go something like this...

Best Picture- Get Smart
Best Actor- Donny Osmond in College Road Trip
Best Supporting Actor-Moto Moto in Madagascar 2
Best Actress-Tina Fey as Sarah Palin (Sorry, I have to include TV, I don't go to enough movies. Besides, I am the Academy remember? I can do whatever I want)
Best Supporting Actress- Tatiana on American Idol. She can't really be that annoying can she? It had to be an act
Best Script- Chris Harrison "Ladies, Jason, this is your final rose for the evening. When you are ready..."
Best Teenie-Bopper Movie That Moms Can Enjoy Too- High School Muscial 3
Most Collective Sighs From The Audience-Twilight

She stole my Valentine

My husband and my daughter have a little Valentine's tradition. He takes her out on a date to the place of her choice. Last year it was Taco Bell. This year she upped the ante to Carlos O'Kelley's. She planned coordinating outfits for them to wear: Mr. Happy and Little Miss Sunshine shirts.

She's the only girl in the world that I'm happy to share my Valentine with. I'm thankful to have him model for her the way she should be loved and pursued and honored one day. One day a long time from now, hopefully.

Not only was he romancing his little girl, but he took pretty good care of the Mrs. too with his gift for me...

Which reminds me that I'll have yet another girl to share him with before too long!

But I got him all to myself for dinner. Well, kind of. We went to our church's annual Valentine's dinner. We were the entertainment for the evening as we did our rendition of "I Got You Babe", which we have long considered our song. I have no shame apparently, so I will let you watch if you should choose. First the disclaimers: sadly my children were playing with my long black wig last week and I didn't realize it was MIA until minutes before we had to leave. So I don't much resemble Cher. Bill is a different story when it comes to resembling Sonny, however. FYI, it is very hard to dress like Cher for a church function. Not that I would go anywhere accurately dressed like Cher. And finally, please keep in mind that we are NOT singers. I guess you'll find that out soon enough.

Without further ad0, here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj88YtHG1u8

Confirmation that I will do anything for a laugh. And that my husband may not be the mild mannered guy everyone thinks he is.

i miss my daddy

It's a sad day. My Daddy died six years ago today.

On this day I want to remember him. And remember how blessed I was to have him as my father. He was a General in the Air Force. He was Vice President of a major corporation. He served on many boards in many leadership positions. But the title he loved the most was Daddy.

When I was a little girl my Dad would come home from work and many nights as he would read the paper, I played beauty parlor. Not with my dolls, but with him. I put his hair in curlers. I painted his nails. This man was made to have four daughters. He cuddled me at night and made me breakfast in bed in the morning. Well in high school it was 'breakfast in the bathroom' in order to lure me out of bed. Okay, so it's possible that I was a little bit spoiled. If a man is going to have a flaw, this isn't a bad one to have. This coming from one of his spoilees, of course.

I struggle with a lot of doubts in my walk with God, but I don't think I have ever doubted the love God has for me as a Father because I saw it lived out in this man. The foundation he (along with my mother) gave me is something I will always be grateful for. I saw Jesus in him. The way he loved people. The way he served others. The way he honored people. The humility in which he lived his life. Ask anyone who knew him, my Dad was the real deal.

Not everyone gets to say goodbye to the ones we love. But we did. I'm thankful for the 10 days my family had to be with him as he was dying. I'm also thankful for the 7 years that preceded that when we struggled with the reality of his Alzheimer's. They call Alzheimer's "the long goodbye" and that is true. Bit by bit, he had to let go of abilities he had once had. To drive, to remember names, to read, to write, to remember loved ones, to walk, and finally to swallow. Through it all he was so courageous. His acceptance of what God had allowed in his life, helped us to accept it too. It gave us all an example of trusting God in good times and bad. Slowly and painfully over the years, we said goodbye to my Daddy.

It was hard to watch him deteriorate. I remember sitting with him for two hours as he struggled to write the simple message "I love you" to my Mom on a card for Christmas. I remember helping him get dressed and bathe. And I remember the time I realized that he didn't know who I was. He thought I was a nice woman, but a guest in their home. But what stays with me from those painful memories most of all was the incredible privilege it was to serve that man who had loved me so well all those years. I will always love my Daddy. I just miss having the opportunity to show it to him.

I miss his smile. I miss his laugh. I miss the way he called me, and all my sisters, "sis". I miss dancing to Glenn Miller songs with him. I miss how he would watch "Murder She Wrote" episodes as if they were Oscar winning movies. I miss how he would walk his beloved dog and carry him most of the way because he worried the pavement might hurt his paws. I miss the way he would turn his lips to the side to get a little side kiss from my Mom. I miss watching them grow in love and grow old together. I just plain miss him.
And I miss SO much my kids getting to know him. He would sing them to sleep (with his terrible voice that was beautiful to me) the same songs he sang to me. He would tell them Chocolate Covered Candy Cane stories and Chippie the Chipmunk stories. He would take them to his lake house. And he would love them with the love of Jesus because that's just who he was.

He taught me about Jesus. He showed me Jesus. He walked through adversity with Jesus. He faced death with Jesus. And now he lives with Jesus. Thank you, Daddy. To the one I was so blessed to have on this earth and the One who gave him to me. The One who will always be my Abba Father, Daddy.

I love you.

I'm listening but...

what if I don't like what I hear?

My focus for this year is the word "listen". God impressed something on me recently and, although it wasn't the most pleasant revelation ever, I was listening. It had been an unusually frustrating night with kids. The kind when I yell at the kids for no good reason (not that there is ever a good reason). The kind that I end up in tears during our bedtime Bible and prayer time. The kind where I want to self-medicate with an episode of The Bachelor.

After they were asleep. I opened up my Bible and journal and just sat. Dazed, drained, and dejected by the events of the evening. As I processed what was troubling me and opened my heart up, this is what I "heard"...

Miss, you are a control freak. What? I would never have described myself this way before. That term is reserved for type A personalities. Or anal-types who have all their ducks in a row. Or people who actually move furniture to vacuum and remember to wash their baseboards. Or people who tell you what you have to order at a restaurant. Sorry if I have offended anyone. It's just this has been my definition of a control freak in the past. I'm not like that.

I'm worse.

I'm worse because I'm a control freak who doesn't think she is a control freak. And I'm worse because what I want to control isn't things, it's people. I want people to feel the way I want them to feel. I want them to respond the way I think they should respond. I want them to say things that my ears would like to hear. The place it most often plays out, like most things in life, is right here at home.

This is why parenting can be such a struggle for me. I want to control my kids. I want them to obey with a right heart, love each other, have good attitudes, tell the truth and follow Jesus fully their whole lives. But I cannot control ANY of this. They are people with their own wills, desires and emotions. Strong wills, intense desires and big ol' emotions. Sure I have a responsibility to train and nurture them. To focus my reactions and instruction on their hearts, not just their outward behavior. But I can't determine who they we be or what path they will walk down.

So what can this control freak do? Really, I'm asking you. All I know is that I belong to the One who really does have control and He is good. He can change hearts. My kids as well as my own. I want to submit to Him. Well I guess I don't always want to. But I know he is worthy of my trust and worthy of my whole life. I know I can pray to Him about all the things I can't control. And I know when I find myself in "control freak mode" yet again, I can fall on His grace. But other than that, I'm kind of at a loss.

On a lighter note...I listened to someone else today: our dog Ruby, otherwise known as the Hairy Beast. Last night she kept standing in the dining room near the front window of the house whining. Good pet owner that I am, I ignored her. But she continued this morning and it was driving me bonkers. I wondered if she was missing the family that she stayed with over the weekend. That hurt my feelings, so I searched for another reason for the whining. Well I found it. I opened a little drawer in a side table and there lay 3 mini corn dogs. Seriously? This is my life.

Good thing I listened to the Hairy Beast.

Puppy Love

14 seconds of sweetness.
I walked in on my son singing this
love song from Camp Rock...

to the dog, of course.

Translation: "You're the missing piece I need,
the song inside of me, I need to find you,
I gotta find you". Guitar riff...

The Back Story...

This blog started out as a way to journal our process of adoption. But I haven't really explained out how we ended up on the path toward this incredible adventure. Until now.

It all began one quiet afternoon almost six years ago. I was driving in the car alone and heard a vision spot on Family Life today about international adoption. Being a naturally empathetic person, I was moved. But there was something more stirring in my spirit. I had a sense that somehow this was something for our family. I asked my husband later that night if he had ever considered adoption for us. Being the man of many words that he is, his answer was simply "no". After that short conversation, life went back to normal.

Every so often the idea would come back to me, each time with more and more fervency. It would come up in conversation with Bill, but never anything of consequence. Until July of 2006. Something had changed in Bill's heart and we both had the sense that God was calling us to start looking into adoption. We were thinking China. I was elated! Before we even got started exploring different agencies, we found out (surprise!) that we were unexpectedly pregnant. Though we were confused, we were excited. I loved being pregnant and I knew I would love our "Baby Cali". Then just one month after that, we found out that we had lost our baby. We were hurting and, yet again, confused. Each time we thought we knew how God was leading us, we found out there was something else He had in mind. During our grieving and confusion, we just put the thought of adoption on the back burner. And there was plenty in life to keep us occupied.

But we continued to be confronted with the idea of adoption in various forms. Honestly, I tried to escape it. I would ask myself how it could make sense given our lively family and lifestyle in full-time ministry. Yet through times in His Word, impressions from prayer, the counsel of others and lots of conversations as a family we came to the inescapable belief about a year ago that this is the path we are supposed to walk down. I don't think it is for everyone. But I love that it is for us!

We are captured to our core by the idea of being able to live out what is spiritually true of us. We have been adopted by God and now belong to Him. That our lives can, in a small way, reflect the heart of God and how He relates to us is thrilling. And intimidating. In fact, there are moments that I'm scared out of my mind. Financial issues. Racial/ethnic issues. Bonding issues. There are so many unknowns. And then there are the deeper fears about my own limitations, inadequacies and sin. I already feel stretched as a mom and pretty cranky a lot of times. But, I cling to 2 Corinthians 9:8 that God is able to make all grace abound to me. Even me. If God is calling us to this, then it is about HIM, not us.

We had Psalm 67 read in our wedding. Since we got married, it has been our consistent prayer for our family. "May God be gracious to us and bless us, and make His face shine upon us; that Your ways may be know on earth, Your salvation among all nations." We believe international adoption is one way that God may be answering this hearts cry of ours to be a blessing to the nations. Ethiopia is part of us now and always will be.

You may ask "Why Ethiopia?". And I will answer. But, alas, this post is already long enough.

I will leave you with the thought that is weighing heavy on my heart. Somewhere in Ethiopia, a mother carries a child. A child she will not be able to raise. A child who will call me "Mommy". This is what moves me to pray tonight. And to tears.