Self Care Hurts

My therapist told me Thursday that I should do two things: 1. practice self care in some form everyday 2. keep a log of that.

Well, friends, here it is.  Here is my log for the day.  Yesterday I got my hair cut (shout out to the fabulous Kelly!) and it was a glorious time because if I could get my hair washed and cut by my stylist every single day, I would.  Like Jo March from Little Women, my hair is my one true beauty.

Today I baked a new recipe: almond blondies with date caramel sauce.  Let me tell you, they are fabulous.  The date caramel sauce was a little less than stellar, but nothing a bit of honey won't fix.

Later we made HW a playroom.  This is the crux of my story.

Since the end of May last year when our adoption of BSD fell through I haven't been able to go into his nursery.  It was beautiful, friends.  Derek found a great changing table that fit just perfectly at a consignment shop for super cheap.  My childhood dresser was in there filled with all of our baby clothes.  Sweet little baskets sat around the room with blankets or stuffed lovies.  Derek got the crib liner thing that you're suppose to have to keep the baby from rolling into the slats just right the first time.  The rocker that was at my grandparents for 50+years that my PawPaw sat in every day is in this room.  Sweet moments were ready to be had in this room.

See, this room had been staged this way for at least a year with no babies sleeping in that crib.  We were going to become foster parents before we began the adoption round 2 so we just left it up knowing there would be babies.

After getting that awful call, "Rebekah? Hey, it's T.  She chose to parent.  I'm so sorry.  I'm so sorry.  I am so sorry." I just couldn't go in there.  It hurt too much.

I took some time of respite just for me and mourned and that was very healing, but I still couldn't go in that room.
I painted it.  Got some new curtains.  New wall shelf.  New rug.  New wall décor.
That helped.  It helped to almost wash away the grief.  Prepare for what was next.

All the while my heart tugged in another direction.  Oh, friends.  Have you ever felt the Lord saying something so out of left field you think you imagined it?  That was me.  The Lord kept bringing me to "It's not time, Rebekah."
"Trust me.  It's not time."
"Listen to me, child.  It's not time."

I fought this so hard.  I pushed it down deeper and deeper and deeper until I was miserable.  I finally talked to my best friends and Derek about it.  To say that conversation went over like a match in a gas can is putting things lightly.  We fought and fought and fought over this...this unimaginable thing I felt deep in my gut, in my soul.

The Lord is many things and constant is one of them.  He continually pressed on my heart "It's not time, Rebekah." I eventually broke down, gave in, and waited on Derek to join me.  That was not an easy wait.  We continued to show our profile to birth mothers and we continued getting the "she chose another family" emails.  We continued to be heart broken.

Thankfully, the Lord is also gracious.  Though we run like the prodigal son away from His goodness and calling, when we return there is celebration.

We have suspended our adoption for #2 for a little while.  We have opened our ears and hearts to where the Lord has for us and where he needs to heal.

Weeks ago I timidly asked Derek if we could take down the nursery and turn it into a playroom for HW.  I explained how I couldn't go in that room and he agreed.

 Today we did just that.  As HW pulled out his trains and train tracks and had the best time, we emptied the room of baby furniture and cried.  We put that last pieces of crib in our shed and began to bring in H's train table and stood in our shed weeping together.  That last word is what is most important in all of that - together.  Today we mourned together.  Today we cared for each other together.  Today we hurt together.

Self care isn't always fun.  It isn't always rainbows and butterflies.  Sometimes it is hard and it hurts.  Every time it is necessary and important.

We left the cross stitch Derek finished over Christmas as a reminder.  There is a thrill of hope.  Jesus is our hope when all seems lost and when all seems broken, there is hope.

As a family we spent the remaining hours of the day in this room playing.  I laughed for the first time in months in this room.  I had joy.  I have hope.

Chapter 2: December 2, 2002

***The names have not been changed to protect the innocent.  There are none innocent.***



It has been seventeen years yet I can still see the sights and smell the smells.

The sanctuary looks bare.  An empty tree stands tall and fluffed in the corner of the stage.  Glimpses of the brightest red and deepest greens can be seen speckled across the pews.
Fresh evergreen cuttings and a hint of cinnamon are in the air before the waft of mixed colognes and perfumes overtake its gentle aroma.

Dad stands and greets the crowd.  The excitement of the day is palpable.  This was his most favorite of Sundays - the Greening Service.

First, the candles are lit and tree is lit.  We read the scripture of the light that led the way.  Then the garland is placed - in windows, over pews, draped over the balcony.  Green everywhere.  Like the new birth of the greens, we read of the new birth of Christ.  Next, we bring our gifts like the magi.  As the congregation brings gifts for the Lottie Moon offering they are given  in return delicately handmade Chrismon ornaments to decorate the bare tree with.  Finally, the piece de resistance - the fire red poinsettias make their appearance.  They are placed in memory and honor of loved ones, but really they are pointing us to salvation.  Christ carried a cross like the wooden stem and bled fierce red blood like the blooms.  The real beauty, however, is the center.  The golden crown shining like the one Christ is wearing now as he triumphs over death reminds us of the promises of salvation for his people.

We all sing "Joy to the World" with gusto and leave joyfully.

Until.

The church is basically empty and I hear shouting - raised voices.  One I know well, my Dad's.  I turn and bursting from the back sanctuary door and down the stairs is my Dad being pushed and shoved by Terry and Tommy with poor old Alton tagging along.  I watch them grab my Dad's arms and proceed to ambush him up two flights of stairs to his office.  Closely behind are my dad's two best friends, Rick and David; Wesley, our youth pastor's husband; and my brother David.  Shouting can be heard through the floor and my brother is soon escorted back into the nursery where the families of our friends and staff are gathered.

The afternoon goes by in a blur until the staff children are sent away to the home of Wesley's parents out of fear that physical harm would come to my Dad and the church staff.  That night the entire staff resigned and no one attempted to protect us.

It is amazing how quickly my most fond memory of Christmas in the form of a Greening Service can become my worst nightmare and what would bring me to a hate of Christmas and the church for years to come.


****************************************************

This is a difficult, yet necessary piece of my story to tell.  One of many.  Each year on the first Sunday in December these memories come flooding back.  The symbolic beauty of the coming of Christ displayed among each other was turned into deep rooted hurt.

If you see any of us during this precious season and we are not exuding the glow of Christmas, know there is a piece of us missing in the physical form of my Dad but also in the spirit where we have seen the evilest of evil first hand.  This is a joyous time; please help us remember that.

Sabbath

sabbath:
noun
a day of religious observance and abstinence from work, kept by Jews from Friday evening to Saturday evening, and by most Christians on Sunday


Am I the only one who feels like this is a hot topic/word in our culture currently?

Let me make this perfectly clear before going any further - SABBATH IS IMPORTANT!

What I am speaking of is more of a seriousness to rest.  Unbelievers are sabbathing and taking in rest in the physical form only while believers are learning more about what it is to rest in the Lord and sabbathing their heart and physical bodies.

After our failed adoption of #bsd in May, Derek and I felt a strong sense to rest.  Rest from people.  Rest from things.  Rest from business.  Rest in the Lord with our heartaches.  Just rest.  During the month of July we said "no thank you" to anything and everything that was not already on our calendar.  If it was not a "have to" we weren't doing it.  We didn't get any birth mother summaries.  We spent time in prayer and seeking the Lord's healing.

It.  Was.  Glorious.

Growing up as a preacher's kid Sunday was a work day.  Let's be really blunt right now --- MINISTERS HAVE NO OFF DAYS!  Likewise, ministers' families have no off days.  If you think otherwise, you are sadly mistaken.  But I digress.
So, Sundays weren't a day of rest for us.  The thought of having some time, let alone a full day, where we got to just be and rest without a church call was unthinkable so Sabbathing fully was never something I even thought to be possible.

Fast forward to today and my pastor is speaking on it on Sunday morning, my current favorite podcast is talking about it, and there are new books everywhere about the Sabbath.

Derek and I are homebodies for the most part.  We like to spend time with the people we love but we also like our 4 walls too.  We do home errands on Saturday so Sunday is free and not so filled with Honey Do's.  And Sunday we church.  We prioritize nap for HW and have gotten quite a bit of flack over it.  A cup of hot tea in my hammock while HW plays on his treehouse is the best part of my Sunday afternoons.  That is what my life currently looks like to Sabbath, but is there more to it?

How do you Sabbath?  How can I and my family better Sabbath?  How can we take a lazy Sunday and turn it into resting our spirits in the shadow of the Lord's wing? We have seen a taste of the blessing of the Sabbath in the continued healing of our hearts and marriage and my appetite is growing for more.

A New Journey

I have always loved writing.  I wrote to release frustration or to express joy or a prayer.  When I couldn't say what I needed to out loud, I wrote it down.  While in counseling, I've always been encouraged to write it out.

If you've been around for more than a minute, you know my life has been anything but a cake walk.  Now, don't get me twisted, I've had many great tragedies but I've also had oh so many great joys that outweigh those tragedies or at least help ease the sharp edges of them.

I've thought and had many others tell me I should write a book.  My thoughts go to "no one would want to read this" and "I'm not good enough to write a book" and "nobody knows me so why would I write out my life".

The past two years have been a struggle at many times and I keep coming back to "tell your story" and "write your book".  Who knows where this will go, but here is my attempt to get my story out there.  You, my blog readers, will get chunks of raw story bit by bit as I make my way through it all.  Some of you will know parts all too well because you were there and lived it with me.  Some of you will only know bits and pieces.  In the end, I hope to express myself plainly, full of vulnerability, and transparency.  I hope to bring glory to God because in the good and in the bad, He is sovereign and deserves all praise.

So….here we go...instalment #1


There are three things that have been a constant in my life: faith, food, and family (the biological kind and the friend as close as a brother kind).  My earliest memories are of my Dad being in ministry.  Church was a staple.  If you aren't on your deathbed, you were at church and even then you should be so people could pray for you.  Dad was always singing and going to school to finish his MDiv (Master of Divinity).  On mornings after being up all night studying Greek or Hebrew, I would walk to the kitchen to find loaf pans filled with bread dough covered with every tea towel we owned waiting on them to rise.



Okay....that's all so far.  It's not much, but to me it is a huge step.  Stay tuned!

What If

I am queen of the "what if" game.  Truly.  I even read a book all about different "what if" scenarios and it was utterly fascinating.

We have recently been chosen by a birth mother to parent her child.  We were elated.  We were nervous.  We were amazed at how quickly we were chosen.  We were emmensly thankful.

We drove to meet our birth mother, which was new territory because we haven't had the priviledge to meet HW's birth mother.  We spent a couple of hours holding this precious miracle and talking to his birth mother and grandmother.  We got to know her.  She loves sushi like me.  She was in labor for three days before going to the doctor to find out she was already 3cm dialated 2 weeks early.  She was eating pizza when the pain was too much and decided to go to the doctor.  Her favorite color is blue.  She has an infectious laugh and beautiful tattoos, one being of sunflowers going down her arm.  She fights like cats and dogs with one of her siblings but only because they are so much alike.  She's never been on a vacation in her life.  She gave this baby a name based off of men in her life who meant something to her.  She has been hurt deeply in her life.  She loves this baby.  She showed us the picture that made her choose us from our profile.

We held this precious child with long fingers and a head full of hair.  He cooed at Derek's touch.  He calmed the moment he got into Derek's arms.  He wiggled and slept soundly.  He is beautiful.

With mere hours left in her relinquishment time we learned she decided to parent.

We changed family plans to prepare for this baby.  We discussed how to take pictures at my brother's wedding so he could be in them without violating the legal standards.  We prepared.  We dreamed of what life with two boys would be like.

We were left broken and empty.  I could not sit in the same spot where that picture was taken.  It pained, still pains, me to go into the nursery.  I began the what ifs.  What if I hadn't said we are dairy free knowing she loves pizza? What if we had chosen to use the name she picked?  What if we had never met her?  What if...

My big brother got married a week later.  It was beautiful.  It was perfect.  I cried all day out of joy for him but also out of loss for all of us.  We gained a beautiful and sweet sister but there was a void two-fold, Dad and baby boy.

For the past two weeks I've done everything to keep my mind and body busy knowing that I couldn't think on any of the joy or pitfalls at that moment for a myriad of reasons.  I now sit at my computer with music playing in the background and Laura Story's "Blessing" comes on.

     What if your blessings come through raindrops?
     What if your healing comes through tears?
     What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know you are near?
     What if trials of this life are your mercies in disguise?

Man, those what ifs are not what I had in mind.  Those what ifs are oh so accurate though.

     When darkness seems to win,
     We know that pain reminds this heart
     That this is not our home
     It's not our home

     What if my greatest disappointments
     Or the aching of this life
     Is the revealing of a greater
     Thirst this world can't satisfy

The ultimate answer to all of my what ifs is just that, there is a greater thirst this world can't satisfy.  My healing does not come from having a baby in my arms or my Dad to walk down an aisle.  Days are sometimes dark with sorrow of loss, but praise God this is not my home.  Praise God Dad is feasting at the ultimate wedding reception and joined with our savior.  Praise God that despite the pain this birth mother has been shown the one who can satisfy and baby B has been given life.  

I need you

It is only fitting that the song playing in the background at this very moment is "Lord, I Need You" by Matt Maher.

And where you are

Lord, I am free

Holiness

Is Christ in me

I need you

Oh I need you

Every hour I need you

My one defense

My righteousness

Oh God, how I need you

When I cannot stand

I'll fall on you

Jesus you're my hope and stay

Mmmm, what rich rich words about promises fulfilled by our Lord.


Anybody can attest to the truth of life changing on a dime with something as simple as a phone call.  Ours did with the call that we had been chosen to be parents then again with the call that Derek had been pink slipped not once but twice and finally with a 3:30am call from my mom.

I knew the day would come that my phone would ring and someone would be on the other end telling me my dad had had a heart attack or a stroke.  I knew it, but I feared it all the same.  When that 3:30am call did come, I went on autopilot for the next ten days until his last breath was breathed.

We are now 49 days shy of one year since that final good-bye.  One of the hardest things has been to keep going.  Our life doesn't stop because his did.  Business doesn't slow down.  School doesn't stop.  Babies don't stop having birthdays.  Life continues no matter how dreary the days are or how hard Satan tries to steal your joy and your thoughts.  The best part about life continuing is that so does the Lord.  Praise God, good-bye for us was Welcome My Child for my dad.  He met his Lord face to face and I can hear his deep bass voice singing Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah even now.  Here on this dirty earth I can rest easy in, as Peter says in 1 Peter 1:4, that "inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade." for when I cannot stand, I can fall on this.

Derek and I were at the very end of a grueling 10 week class to become foster parents when all of this happened.  I know beyond a shadow of a doubt Dad was our biggest supporter in this endeavor, so we knew we had to endure and complete the task set before us of becoming foster parents.

Grief then set in in such a way that there were days I could not physically get out of bed.  I could not care for myself, let alone my family or a child in desperate need of stability.  Thank the Lord again for his hope and stay and placing a wonderful counselor in my life to help me through this grief.  Do not get me wrong, there are days that are more difficult that I could have ever imagined, but the Lord is good and carries me through.

We also knew Dad would not want us to stand by and forgo our desire to adopt again.  He bent heaven and earth to help fund our first adoption.  After some conversations, we decided to begin pursuing our second adoption before finalizing our DHR licensure.  This was a difficult decision because somehow we felt like we were leaving God's calling on our life to go down another road, but again, the Lord is good.  He has given us a peace and paved a road for this adoption that could only be done by His mighty hand.

The cost is a little less, but not by much.  We will again be needing to fund an almost $30,000 adoption.  We will also be using the same agency, Lifeline Children's Services.  This agency is who our first adoption was with and our foster care classes.  They love the Lord and have a primary responsibility to birth mothers/families.  They share the gospel without hesitation or shame.  They live out going to your neighbor and showing the love of Christ.  This is why we have chosen to continue to grow our family with them.

Our fundraising for round 1 was extensive.  Though we will fundraise, we believe it will look drastically different.  Be on the lookout for what the Lord is orchestrating.

Behind the Scenes

Often I think my face tells a story of joy.  Many of those times my face is lying.  I paint on a smile and a happy word for the world when inside my heart is racing, I'm not quite sure of what day it is, and sometimes I couldn't tell you what happened just an hour before with complete clarity.

This is the life of anxiety mixed with depression mixed with PTSD mixed with cluster migraines mixed with busy mixed with Mom'ing a toddler.

I struggle to make "self care" a priority when I am needed in other facets of my life - being a mom, being a wife, being a business owner, church, the foster care process, and being a friend.  My dear WDD has reminded me over and over that when I'm not okay, none of those other aspects of my life are okay either.  If I am suffering my many hats tend to tilt or fall off and get completely neglected.

Many years ago I spent hour upon hour sitting on a couch in a counselor's office delving into why I thought I was "going crazy" just to find out that no, there are names to these things and there are healthy ways to live with them we just have to find my triggers and hone in on some coping skills.  (Of course there was a LOT more to it than that, but for time's sake there's the nutshell version)  Thursday I start again on another journey of seeking professional guidance.  I am equal parts excited and nervous.  There is a lot at stake with being vulnerable.  Here I type and it is an empty screen.  There I sit, I speak, and make eye contact which somehow makes the words and emotions come alive more than when I put them on paper.

We sing a song in church that says:
  "Lord I need you, oh I need you.
  Every hour I need you.
  When I cannot stand I'll fall on you.
  Jesus you're my hope and stay."
This is my cry, my plea. When my days are blurs of tears, confusion, frustration, and fear, I know and can stand firm in that the Lord cares for me and is faithful.  When I cannot stand, I can fall on him.  My strong tower and ever present help in times of trouble.  Where would I be without him?

Stay tuned.