friendship is not a razor blade. friendship is a life raft.

I don't know where this notion that friendships exist to filet you open to provide an opportunity to get healing came from. I've heard this perspective so many times and I have to say it is ridiculous. When I look at the Word of God, friendship is love. It is support. It is encouragement. It is life. Saying that real friendship is "messy" is like saying real friendship is volatile. Not true. Of course, every relationship whether it is familial, romantic or purely social is going to have it's ups and downs. When different personalities and backgrounds mix, you are sure to get some sensitive patches.

But I have seen so many situations in the lives around me and in my own when a friend is untrustworthy, manipulative or controlling and after the bombs go off and everyone is recovering, it is brushed off as "God is just doing something in me" or "God is just doing something in them" or "the enemy is after me". Then you hug and re-enter the destructive cycle you just hopped out of. Sure, God can use anything. But just because God uses something sinful or tragic to teach His people about holiness does not mean that He planned the murder or orchestrated a fatal car wreck.

I think I definitely subscribed to to this line of thinking for a long time. Mostly because I have spent most of my life in very unhealthy, self-seeking friendships. Because of their un-wholeness and mine. What I am realizing, coming out of an incredible season of healing, is that it just isn't true. For the first time, I am engaged in deep relationships with other women that are lifting me up and teaching me to serve. Do I sometimes get annoyed? Absolutely. Do I sometimes get offended? Absolutely. Do I still choose to believe the best about them? ABSOLUTELY. Do I still choose to try to be selfless? ABSOLUTELY. Do I feel safe? ABSOLUTELY. Am I perfect? No. Are they? No. Then when people on the outside look in on relationships like this, the only thing they know to do is to evaluate what it says about them. Even though nothing is being said.

I hope that if you find yourself in a relationship that is
- constantly producing drama
- inflicting emotional injury
- feeding insecurity
- surviving on manipulation
- encouraging negative behavior
that you can start to believe that although it is common, it is not acceptable or spiritually enriching. The easiest way to believe this lie - please hear this - is when it is the one dead flower amidst a colorful bouquet of sweetly smelling flowers like fun, humor, adventure and common ground. The important thing to understand is that this one rotting quality will eventually infect the rest and you will be left bleeding at the end.

Can people change? YES! I DID! When it all boils down, the simple solution is deciding you want to love someone vulnerably and selflessly and that you want not just to live life together, but that you want to live a fruitful life together.


WOMEN! STOP HURTING EACH OTHER. STOP COMPETING. CHOOSE TO LOVE.

Adoption Update - Winding Road & Extras

Oops, it has been two months since my last entry! Forgive! Forgive!

Much has happened in the last two months. My husband Joel went to Cambodia for a couple of weeks in March to shoot for a documentary and the boys and I held down the fort. He has been busy every since, plugging away at the project which will hopefully be completed in its entirety by June. You can find out more about it at thepinkroomdocumentary.com. It has been a privilege to work on something so amazing together.

Yesterday we said goodbye to one of our dearest friends, Stephanie VanTassell. She flew away to Africa to start a coffee farm, contract syphilis and have a love affair with Robert Redford. Wait! That was Meryl Streep. Nevermind. She went to work in Ethiopia with an organization called Drawn From Water (drawnfromwater.org) and although it was all I could do not to tranquilize and kidnap her before her flight, I am beyond excited for the adventures that await her on my favorite continent. Goodbye my love!

Adoption! After much political controversy and many adoptions gone South, Ethiopia made the decision to cut back their international adoptions by 95%. They have gone from processing approximately 50 adoptions per day to a maximum of 5. This would put us at about 5 or 6 years in waiting for a child match. We were disappointed and definitely let down and began to look at other options for our little family. After many phone calls, meetings and a stack of research on my desk, we have found an incredible adoption agency in Sacramento that specializes in low risk foster adoption. We have begun the process with them and hope to finish all of our paperwork by the end of May so that we can begin “child search” which is basically the waiting period where every time the phone rings, we hope and pray it is our agency telling us they’ve found our daughter. We are beyond thrilled to be able to adopt from the foster care system. It is something we looked into before and seemed as if there were not suitable options for our family. But Family Connections Christian Adoptions deals with families just like us and we can’t wait to bring our little girl home!!! It is hard to say how long we will wait before being matched with a child, so we will just have to wait and see. All we know is that she will be 0-2 in age. In the mean time, I am trying very hard not to begin making a wish list of wardrobe components from Gap and Jcrew Kids.

This week is Holy Week at our house and we are talking about the life of Jesus Christ, what He stood for and eagerly anticipating Sunday. Ethan loves Easter and can’t wait to decorate eggs, open his Easter basket, etc. This is one of those holidays that can really get lost in the mix of mainstream “holiday” stuff so we try to incorporate a focus for each day of this special week along with some fun things.

That basically touches on the major points of life as of late, but there is more to come!

Losing My Grip

So it is no secret that I have been in some what of a euphoric state for almost the past year. Although life has not been perfect, I have found a way to really enjoy it and grow. The past few weeks, however, have knocked me off of my saddle. The whirlwind of traveling for the holidays, events, saying a HARD goodbye to dear friends, passing the stomach flu around, settling into my new job, the endless sea of adoption paperwork and my sister’s unexpected (and a bit scary) delivery have taken the wind out of my sails.

I devoted yesterday to cleaning my house and stocking up on groceries so that I’d feel a little more in control and it helped a little. Then today, I lined up a long to do list on the adoption front and things were looking up as I began to check things off one by one. But then I got some updated info from our adoption agency about changes for the new year and found myself on my rump again. I feel a bit like I am walking through three feet of mud in my sneakers. Yuck.

When we got home tonight, I did the usual. Fed Josiah, put him to bed, loaded the dishwasher, switched the laundry, read with Ethan, tucked him in, did a little work, checked tomorrow’s schedule and plopped down on my bed with brushed teeth and clean pajamas on. I was half-heartedly praying when I said to myself, “Why can’t I get under control?!”. And then it clicked. I AM NOT IN CONTROL. I responded with, “Oh.” and then took a breath.

Christ was the freest human that ever lived yet he lived in complete slavery to the will of the Father. I hope that in the future I can remember to walk in true freedom instead of trying to create my own false sense of stability in the craziness of life.

Friends

Today I was reminded over and over again of the amazing friendships that we are surrounded by. It is funny because I have always longed for these kinds of friendships and sought them out but it was when I stopped trying to make them happen, that they finally happened.

I woke up and before Joel went to work we prayed for our friends who are in the last stages of their adoption and our other friends who are preparing to move overseas. Then I had to get my tail in gear because I am doing a fundraiser for our adoption tomorrow that requires a lot of baking. I was calculating how many cups of flour I needed and dreading the shopping trip in the wet cold weather with two kids. Then I got a text from a friend offering to take them off of my hands in case I needed to do any errands for the fundraiser. How convenient! Joel took a friend to the airport, then another friend and neighbor came by to borrow a book for her daughter’s book report and offered to take Ethan tomorrow afternoon. Another friend stopped by with a mysterious white envelope which I later opened and found a check (for a lot of money) meant to contribute toward our adoption. Although I couldn’t believe it, I could totally believe it. I did my shopping and came to pick up the kids from my friend’s house (who is also donating her kitchen for all of the baking tomorrow) and found yet another friend there with her. One friend was helping the other with her monthly budget. My friend fed me (our left overs from a “friendsgiving” dinner we had on Sunday) and I left to go home because she was getting ready to have my other friends over for dinner. I came home, my piano teacher (who is a friend) cancelled because of the holiday and so I made dinner. My friend/sister in law/neighbor walked over to hang out and have a glass of wine. She left and I sat down to go over things for tomorrow and got a text from a friend offering to help deliver baked pies tomorrow and another friend offering to watch Ethan tomorrow afternoon.

I have heard my friend Havilah use the phrase “doing life together” many times and have always wondered what that would really look like. I took a bath tonight with my glass of wine while Joel played with the kids while contemplating my day. I though, “This is what ‘doing life together’ is”. Today was particularly full of interaction, but the truth is that it is like that a lot. Every time I turn around, I have someone bending over backwards for me. I hope I am doing the same for them. I have recently been thinking that one mark of a great friend is their ability to spur you on when you can’t even think and keeping tabs on your life when you’ve lost track. I kind of disappeared last week because I catered a big event and had too much going. As soon as the dust settled, there were my friends, wanting to know every detail and any adoption updates. “What do you need? What can I do? How can I help?”. It is sometimes too much to believe. I sent off a packet of paperwork to our adoption agency today and we all kissed the envelope. We were all excited and beaming, but I could almost hear the chorus of people around us all celebrating too.

I have been trying hard to really savor this season. I know that life changes with time and it brings new things. Sometimes circumstances don’t always allow us to be in community with other people the way that we want to. But right now I feel like I am in the land of milk and honey when it comes to friendship and I want to enjoy every minute of it.

What Our Words Reveal About Our Hearts

I have been thinking a lot lately about how I encourage the people around me. It has always been a difficult thing for me to express affection verbally to people for different reasons, so it has always been easier for me to be sarcastic and coarse. I know that sarcasm is a huge part of humor in our culture, but for many, it has become the primary form of communication. What I have found for myself is that if I am sarcastic, I am protected and can keep conversations and situations on my terms. If I am vulnerable and caring, I am at huge emotional risk.

Something that is very common now is to jokingly respond negatively when someone succeeds. It is with a wink and a smile, so it is not taken as an insult. Last year Joel and I’s car broke down and we needed a new one. A family at our church decided to give their car to us because they had just gotten a new one. When I found out about it, I called a friend to share the news and her response was, “I hate you! Things like that always happen to you!” What kind of response is that? I also walked into church a while back wearing sweats with my hair pulled up into a pony tail and no make up on. When I came through the door, a friend of mine was standing there. She said, “Uh! How can you be dressed like that and still look pretty? I hate you!”. I never really think about comments like this, (because I am often the one giving them) but the other day I did this to someone and right after, I thought, “What am I doing? What am I saying? Why can’t I just encourage them?” For some of us, it is purely habit. This is how the people around us communicate and we have adapted. But for others of us, it is a self preservation instinct. Sometimes when we see others succeed in something that we want for ourselves, we are envious instead of happy for them. Or sometimes when we recognize something positive in someone’s character, we feel bad about ourselves.

I am not saying that sarcasm is wrong, but I am saying that positive and encouraging speech goes much further. If someone takes the time to look you in the eye and acknowledge something positive about you, it stops you in your tracks. It is like finding a drink if water when you are suffering from thirst. It is because we are all hungry for it. We actually need it and with the popular patterns of communication, it is very hard to find. Some of the most encouraging and vulnerable people I know are my friends Brandon and Rachel Naramore. It is true that they are both very funny people, but when the time comes to be real, they do not hide behind fake insults and jokes. They are not afraid to open their hearts and to say what they are thinking. And if someone experiences a victory, they are the first to rejoice with that person. I have been very challenged by them and am so blessed to be on the receiving end of their goodness. I will never forget some of the encouragements they have given me, but I am probably not going to remember the joke they told at dinner.

Joel and I even have to watch this with our son, Ethan. An entire afternoon will go by where we are being sarcastic and joking and one of us will realize that nothing real or positive has been said. I want Ethan to grow up being comfortable with saying what is in his heart, even if it makes him vulnerable.

For whatever time I have on earth with the people around me, I want to be a source of life. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the saying “What comes up in the bucket is down in the well” but if the only thing that comes out of my mouth is negativity (even if it is joking) then it is safe to say I’ve got a good supply of cynicism and envy. If I wasn’t hiding something or protecting myself, I wouldn’t feel the need to talk that way all of the time. However, if the majority of what I say is positive and optimistic, my words will mean more to people. This is something I have been actively trying to do for the past few months and I will tell you it has largely improved my quality of life. Of course I still joke around but I try to seize opportunities to speak life as they come instead of adapting my humor to it.

In the past, what my words have revealed about me is that relationships scare me and that I had a hard time being happy for those who had what I wanted. I hope that now what my words reveal about me is that I want to love people vulnerably and that I want to give life where I can.