A Quiet Week – A Quiet Heart
My Learning Curve: As Soon As rather than Not Until
Refreshed
A New Song
Honeybee’s First Email
Tell it Well, Part 5: Bitter
Grandparents
Sunday Visit: Mark Schultz and His Adoption Story
Doing my Best to Tell it Well
I admire fun moms who play games with their kids, because it doesn’t come naturally to me. I’m great at nurturing, teaching, and keeping the family running, but play — well, not really. Play is important, children not only learn the skills a game requires, but they learn social skills as well, such as taking turns, not cheating, and being happy whether winning or losing. These are not skills a child learns in an orphanage!
I have a new article up on Empowered to Connect today, Giving Voice to Our Other Children. It was a difficult piece for me to write, but it is probably one of the most important things I have to say about the impact of adding children from “hard places” to our family. Let’s remember to give “voice” to all of our children.
I hope you all are learning from my struggles, mistakes,and learning curve – because that’s pretty much what you get around here!
While you’re at it, if you haven’t had a chance to read Rusty’s post from yesterday, Thirsty, I know it would mean a lot to him if you would read it and share it. If you use Facebook, there are little buttons at the bottom of the post that make it easy to share.
Hi, this is Rusty, Lisa’s son.
Last summer I spent a lot of time sitting on top of strangers’ houses, tearing shingles off their roofs. As I sweated it out in the summer heat, I began asking God what He wanted me to do before I start college. Over the break, I spent a week at a church camp, and later went on a short-term mission trip, but still didn’t feel pointed in any direction. I didn’t find my answer until late August when I was asked to speak to a group at my church about the water crisis and my experiences in Kenya; I had just over half an hour to prepare a presentation and I was not looking forward to it. But by the end of the talk I realized that this was the opportunity I had been looking for to continue the work I started last winter in Africa. Six months from now I will graduate from high school. My prayer is that I would make this time matter.
I had the joy of spending Saturday with my middle child, Ladybug. When Ladybug tells people that she is a middle child, they imagine her as the middle of three, not the middle of eleven. She holds a unique place in our family. In many ways she fits with the older five, but by age, she is closer to the younger five. This is a tough position to hold and we are constantly navigating the complexities of it.
Today, October 26, 2011, Russ and I have been married for 10,000 days.
Ten Thousand
I smile every time I think of it.
Those days hold:
thousands of mornings waking together
hours of long conversations
hopes and dreams
mistakes
so much love
Today my parents celebrate fifty years of marriage. I’m so very thankful for their example of faithful devotion and love.
How I wish I could write something significant today about marriage, but I am in the flurry of packing my family to head out for a grand celebration tomorrow. I am so happy to be celebrating with our extended family and my parents’ lifelong friends. Life is rich.
Have a wonderful weekend, friends.
Lisa
Dimples with her counselor as we said goodbye at camp
Dimples is off to camp. I went to bed last night with a heaviness in my chest and woke this morning feeling the same. I know this is a good decision for her and for all of us; it’s just feels so unnatural and foreign to me. Rather than dig deep into that right now, I’m going to distract myself by writing about something not quite so important.
Dimples is doing pretty well on vacation, but she has a hard time figuring out what to do. I’ve said it so many times, but I still have to remind myself, she is happiest with structure. Free-flowing days filled with sunshine do not bless her little heart. She wants to know what is coming next, which is a bit tough when what I want next is to hang out on the beach with the kids.
We were invited to stay in this lovely home for two weeks – two weeks – can you even imagine! We’ve never taken a two week vacation and I wasn’t quite sure we could pull it off, but Russ could bring his work with him, and much of what I needed to accomplish could be packed as well. With Whidbey Island only a six hour drive and a ferry ride from home, we knew the older kids could join us sometime during our stay. It was perfect.
Then we looked at each other and remembered our vacation last year; it was a huge challenge for our little girl.
…it doesn’t get much more pleasant than this.
See those people way out on the beach? Those are our children playing happily playing while we work. Don’t worry, we’ve spent hours with them today, but now I’m working on homeschool scheduling while Russ works on a report of some sort.
It was at least an hour past his bedtime when I finally tucked Eby in last night. He was exhausted. I stood on Little Man’s lower bunk and reached up to rub Eby’s back as I prayed for him. Just as I was about to give him a hug and kiss, he said, “Mommy, what is the person called before you get married?”
“You mean the person you are engaged to?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“That person is called your fiance.”
