Crazy Cash Part 3, The Crazy Cash Story

We are in the midst of trying to adopt our second child (YAY!).  We are back at the point where we wait for The Call that tells us we've been matched with a birthmother.  This time around has been very different than last time in many ways.  God has seemed a little quieter, though still very present and clear about certain parts of the process - but no Hope Quilts being dropped off on our door step so far.  And I know that this is a good thing.  We can't always have a super clear "go this way" sign from God - if we did, it wouldn't really require faith.  But it's hard for me sometimes...I like big, clear signs.  I can't help it.

In part, it's been hard because I want our second baby to have a story that's as amazing as Douglas', a story that tells them without a doubt that God loves them and was with them always, always, always.  That He never left them.  That He always had a plan for them.  That He knew all along whose belly they would grow in and then who would raise them and be called Mommy and Daddy.  And these things are true whether there is a Hope Quilt or not, and we will always teach our children this truth.  Still, it made me sad to think that this baby wouldn't have a story like the Hope Quilt.  I know that God loves this child just as much as He loves Douglas, and He knows what this baby needs...if they needed a crazy quilt story like Douglas', He would give them one.

Well, He did.

A tiny bit of background first, though.  Adoption can be a very expensive process, which is a very sad and frustrating reality.  Micah and I, however, haven't felt the prompting at all, either in Douglas' adoption process or in this one so far, to fundraise or ask others to give money to help out.  God has provided in a variety of ways, but we haven't asked for money.  Not because we don't believe in that or think that's a bad idea in any way or are unwilling to, but simply because we haven't felt a prompting to do so at this point.  I say this now because I think it's important to know that the following story was in no way a response to us asking for money or even expressing a need.  If it were, that would be a nice story, but it wouldn't have the same crazy factor that this one does.

So, my parents were in town last weekend, and one night when we sat down to eat dinner, I saw that there was an envelope at my plate that said "Ging & Micah (& Baby)".  My mom had put it there and couldn't contain her excitement as I opened it.  Immediately I saw a big wad of $100 bills.

The card was from my sister-in-law, Heather Ann.

It said this:
"Enclosed is a gift from God for Baby #2.  About a month ago, God told me very clearly to have a garage sale & that the money from that sale was primarily to be given to you guys to go towards the costs involved with the adoption.  It's been fun to see the Lord bring others into this process & be blessed by this adoption.  Most of the baby items at the sale (a car load) came from another family in the process of adopting an older child.  They needed to clear out the room they had been storing all their baby stuff in, so I told them about the garage sale & offered to take everything off their hands.  They were touched to be able to help another adoptive family in that way.  (Our friend's) brother passed away & the rest of our garage sale items were primarily his.  It seemed to bring some healing to her grieving heart, & a connection to praying for your baby as her brother's things were used for good.  I tell you some of the background so you can see some of the ways God is blessing others through your process and this baby's life, who we have yet to meet, but who God knows & loves & is in the process of bringing into your/our family.  I love you guys & more importantly, God loves you & he loves your baby & he hears you."

Wow.  Wow.

What makes this story even more amazing is the fact that my brother was out of work for a long time, and saying that finances are tight for them is an understatement.  So they really needed the money from that garage sale.  My first instinct was to be upset that she would give me the money when I knew that she needed it more.  But the second I started reading the card, I knew we were dealing with something entirely different here.  The money wasn't a gift from Heather Ann.  The gift from her was that she chose to obey, and we got to bask in the reward of that (as does she).  This money was truly a gift from God that He gave to us through her, just as the Hope Quilt was a gift from God that He gave to us through Debi. 

I am struck by who God chose to use to give us the Hope Quilt and this money.  First, He chose Debi who knew personally the pain of fertility struggles.  Someone who didn't know and was therefore not sensitive to that pain would not have needed as much faith to do what she did.  Then, he chose Heather Ann who knew how much they needed that money and, therefore, how ludicrous it seemed to do what she knew she needed to do.  If she had had money at her fingertips, it wouldn't have required the same faith for her to deliver that money to us.  It took a huge amount of courage and faith to listen and obey. 

I talked with Heather Ann on the phone, and she told me the whole story.  About how God clearly told her to have a garage sale and give us the money for adoption.  About how afraid she was because she knew there was a good chance that I would a) not even accept the money and b) be completely pissed that she was trying to give it to me.  About how God is teaching her about obedience, and that this is the latest in a string of things He's using to do so.  About how doubtful she was about it at times, but what peace she felt when she opened herself to what she knew she needed to do.  About how through this process she realized that we are all one family, all interconnected.

"The House of the World" - Guatemala
She choked up when she told me that she's felt how much God loves and cares about this child and our family and wants to provide.  She told me what a connection she feels with our baby already and how many lives this little one has already touched before even being born.

My mom and Heather Ann told some of the people who came to the garage sale what they were doing. My mom told the lady at the bank when she took in the ridiculous amount of coins that needed to be cashed.  Then there was the adoptive couple who donated so many clothes, the friend grieving the loss of her brother, my beautiful sister-in-law who obeyed, my sweet mom who worked tirelessly to help Heather Ann pull this thing off...all of them felt that they were a part of something good and beautiful.  And they are.

Lago de Atitlan, Guatemala
And now they are woven into the precious story of this child's life forever.

Over the past few years I have learned more about how mysterious God is and how much more there is going on than what we see.  It never ceases to amaze me that, in spite of all that bigness, God still cares about and shows up in the little details - the baby quilts and the garage sales.  I love that about Him.

Crazy Cash Part 2, God Makes Baby Quilts

In March of '09, Micah and I were in the phase of Adoption where you just wait for a call - your profile has been submitted for birthmoms to see, and you just wait until the right time comes, when your profile falls into the hands of the precious woman who is carrying the child who you are meant to raise and love forever and ever.

Lago de Atitlan, Guatemala

The road to this point in the process was a very painful one filled with over two years of fertility struggles and surgery and hopelessness and tears.  After a couple of years of trying for kids, we found out through surgery that I had Stage IV Endometriosis, making it very difficult to conceive.  The doctors wanted us to pursue aggressive fertility treatments - drugs that make you (at least) slightly crazy, possibly IVF down the road, and on and on.  I tried one of the Slightly Crazy drugs for a couple months, and after that we jumped off of the treatment train.  We needed a break.

Lago de Atitlan, Guatemala

Since the beginning of our marriage, we have talked about adoption as something we were very interested in and open to.  For us, it was important that we not use it as a last ditch effort to start a family.  In our spirits, we wanted to be choosing it, recognizing it as the beautiful miracle that it is, not treating it like it was a last resort.  Though there were several other fertility options to pursue, we decided to change courses toward adoption, a decision that was completely affirmed on my birthday a couple months later when God made it super clear to me that we were meant to adopt.

Lago de Atitlan, Guatemala

So fast forward 3.5 months and we're back to March, 2009, waiting.  It was March 12, and I was spending the afternoon at home.  I remembered that I had seen a package on our front porch earlier that day so I went outside to get it, and what I found inside completely rocked my world.  

The return address was for a woman named Debi who was my mom's college roommate and who I never receive mail from.  Debi makes quilts for her friends' grandchildren.  When I opened the box and could tell that under the tissue paper there was a quilt, I thought for a moment that this was some horrible mistake.  Some (inadvertent) cruel joke.  But it was definitely no mistake.

On top of the tissue paper was a card that said, "While minding my own business, God told me to make this quilt for your first baby.  Since I do not often hear from God like this I did not start right away.  He spoke again - this time I did what He told me to do.  He said this is to be your 'hope quilt.'"  She then mentioned her own fertility struggles years ago before starting a family.  She ended the card by saying, "What I learned is that God is faithful even though I am not and that His grace is enough for me.  I prayed for y'all with every square of this quilt.  I believe that you will find hope now and a little one soon."  Under the tissue paper was a soft, wonderful quilt for our little one.

I wept after reading half of the first sentence...and continued weeping tears of joy for about two hours. Somehow, in that first sentence,  it felt like something pierced right through to my heart. I cried in complete awe at the love of God.  Who is this God that loves us enough to have asked this woman hundreds of miles away from us to make a quilt for our baby?  It also brought me back to the center of the Reality that He was so far ahead of us, that it was not all up to us.  He knew who our baby was and when they would be born.  I have never felt so loved by God.  I mean, this is crazy stuff.  God (through Debi) made our baby a quilt...wha?!?! And God made Micah and me a quilt in order to give us hope and remind us that He was still there and that He had a perfect, beautiful plan even if it looked like a big messy disaster from where we were standing.

Antigua, Guatemala

I am still so amazed by the faith that it must have taken for Debi to do this seemingly ridiculous thing.  I mean, make a baby quilt for the couple who's struggling with fertility issues?  C'mon!  And someone who has gone through the pain of those struggles herself would know all too well how fragile a woman in my position would have been.  That quilt could've sent me right over the edge!!  But she was obedient, and we are both forever grateful for it.  I will never forget those moments and hours of feeling so overwhelmed by the love of God...for us and for our baby.  It's  amazing! I remember telling Micah, "I mean, this is the stuff of the BIBLE!  I didn't know God still did things like this!  I can't believe that God told someone to make a quilt for us!"

Cancun, Mexico

We slept with the Hope Quilt on our bed that night.  22 hours after opening Debi's package, I got a call from the law firm saying we'd been chosen by a birth mom.  Six months later, Douglas Thomas was born. The existence of that quilt is not only an amazing reminder to us of how much God loves us and how far He's willing to go to show it, but it is also an incredible part of Douglas' story that we will tell him again and again.  It reminds us that, no matter how painful the road is at times, God has a beautiful and perfect plan for each of His precious children.

Douglas, 18 mos, with his Hope Quilt (and Koala)

I love that this is part of Douglas' story.  I love that God is in the Hope Quilt business.  I love that life is so full of mystery.

2009 Revisited, Crazy Cash Part 1

So I have a story that I want to tell you about a big wad of cash.  But in order to really tell it, I have to give you the background (plus the background is equally badass).  And those of you who know me know that being concise is just not how I roll...it's just not.  What can I say?  So, here we go again on a multi-part series of blogs. :)  Perhaps there will come a day when I will just post a blog post that stands on its own, but today is not that day.  

The first part of the story begins with an overview.  This is a copy (with just a few changes) of our 2009 Christmas letter that I wrote.  Many of you have read it before.  It sets the stage, if you will.

From December, 2009:

2009 has been an incredible year for us, filled with the full range of human emotions.  Last November, God gave us several clear signs that adoption was the way He wanted to start our family.  On Christmas night we decided how we would move forward on that path.  Just under nine months later, our precious son, Douglas Thomas, was born!!

It amazes me how little we know - how in our darkest hour, when it seems that all hope is lost and we will never see the end of our pain, the Father is always, always at work…and everything can change in an instant.  There is a deeper Reality going on around us, full of mystery and so very much larger than us and our little lives.  It is easy to get stuck in the mire of our own microcosmic life and completely forget that we are but a tiny piece in an unfathomably large and breathtakingly beautiful puzzle that God created.  This puzzle, this plan, spans all of time, from beginning to end.  When I grasp this truth, how can I help but feel small?  And yet I am comforted in my smallness because the only One who is not small loves me and will never leave me.  And He has a good and perfect plan, even when from where I’m standing it seems as if He doesn’t. 

Last Christmas, Micah and I both were at the end of ourselves – discouraged and completely worn out from the years of emotional strain that comes with fertility struggles.  Little did we know that at that time, our son had already been conceived and would be born right before our very eyes nine months later.  Never in our wildest dreams could we have imagined what God had in store.

Our adoption journey has been one of joy and pain existing together in the same space.  It has served to challenge our ever-present humanness; our pride, our sense of entitlement and justice, our illusion of control.  In the midst of our smallness and struggles, God has been incredibly present and real to us.

Micah and I were extremely blessed to be in the delivery room when Douglas was born!  It was the most incredible experience of my life. 

We love being parents, and we completely adore our little boy with his wide-mouthed grin and his sweet spirit.  He is such a gift to us – a living example of the extravagance of the Father’s love and blessings.

People say all of the time, “he is so lucky to have you guys as parents.”  No.  It is we who are the lucky ones. 

May we all be confronted this year with our own smallness in the midst of God’s beautiful plan and the resulting comfort that comes from knowing that everything is not all up to us - that we need only walk in the way that He has already prepared for us.

How amazing it is that, in spite of our smallness, He comes into the deepest places in our lives, as if we were as grand and big as He!

There you go.  Consider the stage set.

Dad's Black Jacket, Part 3, "Sorprise!, Sorprise!, Sorprise!"

Though I love consistency, I also really love the things about people that surprise me, the parts that don't fit neatly in the box of "who this person seems to be".  Each of us has these seemingly contradictory parts of ourselves.  It can be confusing to some, but really it keeps us interesting and alive.  I love these little things about people.  I love it when someone acts in a way or looks some way that makes me do a double-take mentally...it's so exhilarating to be reminded that people are always, always complicated and complex and there is always more there than meets the eye.  No one is one way all the time.  These contradictions soften the edges of who a person is.

My dad's voice is soft though he has a very strong personality.  His smile, when you truly get the real deal, looks a little mischievious and excited like a child's, even though he is not childish at all...I love this smile.  I notice it and treasure it when it comes.

He can be silly and goofy from time to time, though he in many ways tends to be a serious person (time with his grandkids has begun to bring his silly side out more often, and I really love that).

My dad has beautiful sky blue eyes, soft and endearing and calming and lovely. 

He is a hard working, super-driven man who has a heavy dose of perfectionism in him.  He has always expected a lot of his children and those he cares about...something that can be both good and painful.  His soft blue eyes, to me, represent the gentle, kind, compassionate part of him.  They represent this man who stays up at night worrying about his family when one of us is sick or hurting or feels alone.  Those eyes, more and more with each passing year, well up with tears when he hears painful or joyful stories about others. 

 

I love his blue eyes because they represent the side of my dad that I love the most...they remind me who he really is under all the layers of self preservation that each of us in this world has wrapped ourselves in.  He is a man who has stood by his family for over 30 years, working hard to give us the things that we need and the things that we want, striving to bring us closer to each other and closer to Jesus.  He is a man who cuddled with us when we were little and made family vacations a priority and was home for family dinners and coached our soccer teams and worked hard to be at events that were important to us as often as he could.  A dad who is committed to being a good and loving dad even though his own dad was often cruel and didn't know how to affirm his children or teach them how to give or receive love.  His blue eyes are filled with all of these beautiful parts of himself...so much Light.

Thank you, Dad, for who you are...all of who you are.  The parts that are harder for me to receive and the parts, like your soft blue eyes or the kindness that they represent, which I have never had to work a day in my life to love like crazy.  Thank you for sharing your life and your heart with me and with our family.  I love you.  I love Dad's Black Jacket 4.0.  I love your loafers.  I love your soft voice and white hair and the things that you and your life represent.

 'Twas the Night Before Christmas

Dad's Black Jacket, Part 2, Consistency

There are things that I love about my dad other than the fact that he has a signature jacket - many things, in fact.  Some, like the jacket, I love simply because they have come to represent "Dad" to me...and having a Dad and loving a Dad and being raised and loved and cared for by a Dad (and a mom who rocks, btw) are all good and lovely things in my book.  Other things about him, I love because they are simply lovable, beautiful, sometimes surprising aspects of a person who I cherish.


I love that he calls me "Sweetie", "Babe", and several other endearing names and gives kisses on the head and pats when he hugs.  I love that he picks up his cell phone almost always if I call, even if he's in a meeting.  I love that when he is in town visiting, I can count on waking up to the smell of coffee even if it's still dark outside because he wakes up THAT early.  He always has.  I have so many wonderful childhood memories of waking up on vacations to that same smell of coffee and the sound of Mom and Dad's whispering voices as they started their daily coffee and quiet time routine and I rolled over to go back to sleep.  The fact that he wakes up crazy early is surely, at least partially, tied to his drive and perfectionism that tell him "sleeping in" (and we're talking about 7 a.m. here, folks) means wasting the day and being unproductive, but I still love this about him.  Because it is what I've always known.  It is consistent and dependable.  Like his black jacket.  And though I wish for his own sake he could sleep until 7 or 8 a.m. one day and not feel guilty about it, I do love me some consistency.

And while it is normal for each of us to love and cherish the things about each other that are consistent and predictable, I think love also requires us to leave tons of space for change.  I used to be the girl who was obsessed with laying out and getting as tan as possible on vacation (read: burnt to a crisp).  One year, that suddenly changed and I started wearing SPF 30 or 45 in Mexico and stayed in the shade a lot.  My family didn't know what to do with me.  They resisted this change at first, not because they in any way cared whether I was obsessed with sun tanning or not, but because the Ginger that they had known and loved for 23 years loved getting tan at any cost.  But, like all people who truly love someone, they eventually made room for the new Ginger to find her place, SPF and all.

We all continually change and grow - it is part of being alive.  If we aren't changing and growing, we are dying.  And we don't want death for the people we love.  We want life.  And, as it was with me and my SPF drama, typically we all find balance in the end.  I went from a cancer bomb waiting to go off to a pasty, white shade-sitter and eventually found balance for myself somewhere in the middle, slathered in SPF 30 while basking in the sun.

So, Dad, if you ever want to start wearing flip flop sandals every day, or if you want to sleep in (I hope you at least dabble in this, for your sake) :) or start drinking tea in the morning instead of coffee, or if <gasp> you decide to lay to rest Dad's Black Jacket, I will love you just as much as I always have.  I will love the new things about you (in time) as much as I love the predictable things.  I will love these things because I love you, and when people are alive they change all the time.  And I want you to be as alive and free and full of Life and joy as you can possibly be.

Dad's Black Jacket, Part 1

My dad has been encouraging me for YEARS to start a blog - I mean, since before blogging was cool.  So it just seems fitting to kick off my new blogging project with a series of posts on the man that I call Dad.  It took me a long time, but I've finally come to agree with my Dad that not only is this a good creative outlet for someone like me who loves to write and loves photography, but now is the time to begin.  I knew it was (beyond) time to begin when I caught myself composing a blog post about my dad's signature jacket while standing in the shower two days ago...

I was struck yesterday morning by my love for my dad's black jacket (and for my dad, of course).  This jacket zips up and is made of wind resistant material (but the chic, spiffy kind, not the super noisy, bobo kind).  It's the Fancy Man's hoodie, though it in no way resembles a hoodie.  Come to think of it, I highly doubt my dad even HAS a hoodie.  I can count on one hand the number of times I might have seen him in a hoodie.

My dad is the kind of man who wears cowboy boots or loafers pretty much all the time.  When I'm walking around in flip flops or slippers, he's got on loafers with or without socks (he has a fancy pair and a casual pair, which really is just a pair that he's had for a long time, thus becoming "casual").  His casual, weekend attire is jeans and a polo or a casual button down or sometimes a sporty pullover.  On vacation or sometimes on weekends when he's cuttin' loose he will wear a t-shirt.  And it's not that he's trying to look nice, it's just part of who he chooses to be - in the same way that dressing casually in sweat pants and cut-off jean shorts is part of who I choose to be. 

This black jacket of his (and its predecessors - this one is probably Dad's Black Jacket 4.0) have come to embody my dad.  It is familiar and predictable to me, it brings with it memories and comfort and security and love.  I love this jacket.  I love its consistent existence in my life.  I love that it has become part of the image in my heart that goes with the word "Dad".