chains

this is my fifth year living in or near kampala, the capital city of uganda. i've been downtown many times- down like way down - to the taxi park on foot- and i'm always careful and mindful. i've lived in or at least worked in cities most of my life, so i know about keeping my bag closed and close and paying attention. and i've been very lucky.

well today in the car with mike, someone tried to steal my necklace. this is the story of my four mistakes.

i knew that we were going to an area where street theft is common and i've heard the stories of people reaching in and taking phones and bags out of the car, so....i wisely tucked my thin gold necklace into my shirt and kept the doors locked.

but that was it.

the windows in the front where mike sat and i drove, were down, because it was hot. we were in a jam, with lots of taxis and bodas and pedestrians weaving between cars, and we weren't moving. open window, close pedestrians, gold necklace.

i should have taken the chain off. i should have closed the windows.

a guy walked by, reached in my window and grabbed at my chest to get the part of the necklace he could see. he failed and walked quickly away into the crowd. i. was. appalled. i turned to mike and said, "did you see that! ahhh that man! i feel violated! what is wrong with people! i mean he just grabbed my chest, as if that is fine!" i put the window half way up.

i should have taken the chain off now. now i should have closed the windows.

but it was so hot and we were still in the jam so after a few minutes i put the window down again. then i see the guy- gray t-shirt, red shoes walking ahead in the traffic. i said,  "ahh there goes that thief! what a nerve he has to come back near here!"

but i still didn't roll up the window or take off the chain.

next comes the oldest trick in the book. there was a bang on the back of the car and we turned to look, he reached in my window and scraped at my chest to get the necklace. but he failed again. it broke and slid down my shirt. my chest was stinging and i was mad. like ridiculously mad. and in that place of anger and injustice i leaned on my horn and shouted,  "I HATE THIS COUNTRY!"

and that was the worst part.

i totally don't hate this country. i love this country- that's why i'm here.

what i hate, is the broken. and the justification of the broken, and the reality behind the justification of the broken. that guy probably thinks that snatching a necklace from some foreigner in a car is not that big of a deal, and maybe it's even deserved because life is unfair. and life is unfair. there is large, global disparity. there are many people who have not enough and many who have more than enough. and there is relativity to 'enough'. and just like there can be inappropriate justification of the crime, isn't there inappropriate justification of the more than enough? financial disparity brings a bidirectional disparity in understanding. a disparity in compassion. it breeds disunity. separatism.  but the broken is everywhere.

the broken is my stubbornness in not rolling up the window. a stubbornness borne from a place of refusing to accept the reality of our unjust world.

the broken is my response of anger and displacement.

the broken is my forgetting that ultimately i am no different from the guy in the gray shirt and red high-tops. we all make bad choices. we all hurt people. that is universal. i'm not excusing what he did- but i do need to offer him Grace.

because Grace has been given to me. 
and given to me.
and given to me.

My chains are gone
I've been set free
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy reigns
Unending love, amazing grace

transformative justice

sometime in november, when mike was away and i was single parenting, i was having moments of becoming easily frustrated with my 4 kids. i was finding myself doing more yelling than i wanted and more threatening the loss of things than i should have, and more feeling like 'poor me! why can't you people just stop doing the stuff i don't want you to do and start doing the stuff i'm asking you to do!' people were tired. people were done. all five of us wanted mike back.

and then i read a short facebook feel-good story about a tribe in africa (difficult to trace ) who deals with rule breaking in a very unique way. when someone in the community does something wrong, everyone gathers around them in a circle and recants every positive thing that person has ever done. they are told the good things about their character. they are reminded of who they are, that they are more than what they did.  to know they are known not only for the harm they caused, but also for their contributions.

so i decided to revamp the consequence/ punishment scenario at our house. i decide to try it. (and given where people were, it didn't take long before i had an opportunity to do that.) the first offender, was zoe.  interestingly... i can't remember what she did, but i called her down to the living room and the other 3 kids as well. zoe was angry- really angry- which is her usual response to getting in trouble (note- not apologetic but angry). then she became immediately suspicious because where was the yelling? and the loosing of things?  i asked her to stand in the middle of the room under the overhead lamp and the rest gathered around. there was a lot of , "mom what are we doing?" and zoe fighting me on standing in the middle.

i told them that we were going to try something new. that zoe had disobeyed a rule, but that we still love her and find her valuable and so her punishment was to stand in the center while we take turns saying what we love about zoe, what is special about her, what good things she has done.

these people were totally befuddled. they looked at me as if i were doing the opposite of what i should be doing, as if i'd finally lost it.

"seriously?" jude asked.
 zoe stood in the middle, with her arms folded tight across her chest and a twisted expression on her face.

"seriously" i said, "now who wants to go first?"

bryn spoke up. "i like that zoe likes to make people laugh."
zoe cracked a smile, arms still crossed in front.

jude was next, "well, i like that zoe sometimes shares her things." (note sometimes :)
her arms uncrossed and she was smiling, "really jude?"

rose said, "i like that zoe is always kind to me." (such a sweet thing to say- but totally not true!)
she was now totally relaxed, "well...not always" she said with a laugh.

my turn. it was my turn and i realized that i had forgotten what she'd done in the moments of listening to her siblings build her up. i realized that my anger at her bad behavior was gone and what i saw standing in front of me was a girl who i loved so much, who so desperately needed to hear her worth and value. a girl who can annoy the crap out of me, but has so many endearing and beautiful parts of her person. a girl who gets lost in her 'dis-ability', and who needs reminding of her ability. who needs to know that standing in the middle of the living room, she is surrounded by love, just as she is.

"i love that zoe loves animals. and that she gets people who others don't. i love that she takes risks and doesn't give up in socially challenging situations. i love that she quietly fake screams when she sees a vacuum. i love that she still laughs at children's books.."

"mom! it's my turn to say more about zoe!" bryn said.

it was this little miracle. right in front of my eyes, zoe was being gifted with soul healing words from her brothers and sister. right then and there, my other kids were seeing and hearing and speaking the value of their differently-abled sister. 

it was transformative. joy replaced anger. the mood in the house shifted, not just for zoe, but for everyone. it became a safer place. a place where all of us can be- in our success and our failures. it was de-shaming. it was uniting.

and it kept going. she was thrilled. beaming really. and happiness is contagious.

when it wound down i told zoe that she was all of these things, and to remember that, but also to please remember to be obedient.

"when do i get to stand in the center?" said bryn.

"when you need it love. it's here."

for a loosened heart

 it's known from animal studies and from life experience, that random, irregular trauma is more traumatic than consistent trauma. you might think that it would be worse to experience something painful everyday than twice a week at unspecified times, but it's the unpredictability that worsens the stress and anxiety. there is something in us that wants to wrap our mind around our days- to know- to prepare- to plan- to find normal, whatever that normal might be. basically dependable consistent bad, is more tolerable than less, but irregular bad.

this is part of the joy of being a parent of a child with special needs- which by the way, makes me a parent with special needs ;). the thing is, you can be sailing along thinking things are going well and are moving in the right direction, when all of a sudden, THINGS FALL APART. it doesn't need to be a massive falling apart to bring on the trauma- it can be the simple over reaction to not being allowed to have your 4th large helping of french fries that dissolves into "you never understand me! i hate you! you should just put me in a mental hospital! i'll never be okay!" which then continues like a tornado, sucking things into it's vortex. things like siblings and parents and bedtime routines. and all that somehow negates the wellness of things- as you remember that nothing in your life is normal, nor will it ever be the normal you expected, that unpredictability is the only normal you will get.

the dissolving carries things with it. it's not just that hour of disruption, it's the memories of backward steps and seasons. it's the fear of forever, and never, and always.  it's the anger at the injustice of it all, and the guilt that you are resenting your own child, and the sadness of knowing that what i'm hearing is only a part of what it must feel like for her when things fall apart internally, the frustration of not being able to regulate. 

but it's time to be done with normal and fairness. because it doesn't need to be that. expectations and comparisons are tight and binding and stunting and limited. it can be so. much more. when it's about choosing and allowing. 

I will not die an unlived life,
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise…

Dawna Markova

all this is my living. her living. our living.  as it was and is and will be.  it's what i've been given and it's up to me to inhabit and allow and loosen.

for the freedom of a wing. the vision and warmth of a torch. the hope from a promise.

what do answers look like?

we Christians do a lot of praying. we pray for people who are sick, or hurting, or suffering. we pray for forgiveness for the things we've done wrong and the things we've failed to do right. we pray for wisdom and the strength to use it. we pray for peace. we pray that we will love well and accept love well. we pray that we will be more like Jesus and practice kindness and gentleness and patience and self control. we pray for many, many more things that are much more mundane like parking spots. and we also pray for what we want (in case God doesn't know).   the last prayer, we are really good at.

in the middle of december, we started praying hard about rose's adoption. and we told all our "prayers" to be praying about rose's adoption- because miracle of all miracles- we had actually gotten a court date for december 17th. our prayer had been that things would go smoothly, that all the moving pieces that need to come together would come together, that people would show up when and where they were supposed to show up. we prayed for the best for rose. we prayed for God's will to be done, and while we felt very confident that His will would be the same as our will, we prayed knowing that it might not be, and saying we trust Him.

rose's story is complicated and messy and has had many chapters. there have been twists in the plot and turns that we didn't expect. but her story, like all of our stories, is amazingly special as it is and because of the complicated. her story reminds me that God is at work behind the scenes - that she is firstly, His child, and i get to be a part of the story.  one day she was a child abandoned on the street, then she was one of many children in a babies home, then she was our foster child, then our foster child with a found birth mother, then a found birth father, and now she is the child of two biological parents whose language she no longer speaks, and the child of two legal guardians who she calls mom and dad, with her american accent. 

that week in the middle of december we prayed for lots of things to happen and none of them happened. the social worker refused to write his report, the fingerprinting place had been relocated and the affidavits to be signed by rose's biological parents, weren't signed. it wasn't just logistics. they weren't signed because we found out, after talking to them with translators and the lawyer, that they are not ready. they fear we may leave the country with her and never return. they fear judgement from their tribe. the answer to all that praying was totally not what we'd hoped for or expected. the answer was "no" to smoothly, "no" to the moving pieces coming together, and "no" to people doing what they were going to do. we had to cancel the court date.

i suppose it could be tempting to look at it and say that God did not answer our prayers.

but He did.

after many, many years of inquiring and listening and requesting and waiting on God, we have learned to trust Him. to trust that His way and in His time, is what's best for rose, and what's best for everyone. and there are a lot of everyones in rose's story. 

our bible study is studying joshua right now. it's another book about the israelites messing up and God forgiving them, over and over again (which i love because this is me too). it's also about a lot of violence and wars as they conquer other tribes to move into their promised land. one of my favorite things is that many times before battle God says to joshua, "i have given them over to you. do not be afraid." i love that it's the past tense. the fighting hasn't happened yet and God is using the past tense to describe their victory. that was the feeling i'd had for those weeks in december about this adoption, that God was saying- it's already done.

so once we had the court date, i had started to imagine life with this chunk over. with a big unknown settled. i imagined having the freedom to travel with rose, to go back to the states in the summer and visit family and friends. i imagined the safety of knowing that if there was political unrest during the elections in february and we had to leave, that we'd be fine leaving the 6 of us. i started imagining applying for her US passport and adding 'reid' to the end of her name. i imagined i'd have some more control over my life.

but the answer was 'no'. or at least 'not now'. the answer was wait on me, live the secure adventure of trusting me always. be okay with living in that in between space. know that I have all of you in my everlasting arms.  God is still using the past tense to tell me that her story is already written perfectly, but what exactly that will look like, and when and how things will happen, is a big question mark.

this is why God says the second part to joshua, do not be afraid. He knows how hard it is for us to trust and live in spaces we didn't choose, that waiting and growing and learning are painful and scary. He knows.

it's so easy to be afraid.
it's so hard to not let the 'what if's' run circles in my mind.
it's so hard to be still. to trust. to wait with out fear. 

this is holding the tension of the opposites. i love my 4th child deeply. i don't know if we will ever have the same last name. it's welcoming the blessing of raising her in her birth country. it's living with ambiguity, and embracing the truth of not knowing the future. and i can do this because i have seen God hide goodness in places that i didn't want to go. because He has let me see incredible beauty in painful things. because growth happens in the darkness. we are enlarged in the waiting. and Grace abounds in the hardest seasons. His way is life to the fullest- and that's how i want to live mine.

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart,
and try to love the questions themselves
as if they were locked rooms
or books written in a very foreign language.

Do not search for the answers, which could not be given to you now,
because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps then, someday far in the future,
you will gradually,
without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke