Dollar Tree Therapy

I bet you think I'm going to write about shopping.

That only proves
you don't know me very well.  
Um....no.

I'm not a happy shopper.

That is, unless I'm finding some great stuff 

in a thrift store.

Which goes back to Dollar Tree. 

In this store, everything is only one dollar.

But...therapy?

Yes.

the love thing...again

You know, it is relatively easy for humans to believe that since we are a sinful race, 
God can't truly understand our pain.

  Intellectually, we may know it to be true,
 but sometimes we discover it
 on a visceral level...
and it is liable to be in a place where we are not quite prepared to be undone.  

still here......hanging on.........

Yesterday, I spent most of the day

 on the computer.  

That is very rare.

 Usually during the school year, 

the kids are on the computer all day

 doing various assignments.  

Shadows of the Mind ~ Shadows of the Heart

She cannot verbalize what is bothering her.

Her behavior is self-destructive and mystifying.

Prayers are offered up to the One who knows the secret places of the soul.

A Needed Word

The weekly physical therapy appointment gives an hour to catch up on grading papers.

 Not much was done last week because I was not here to oversee it.

 Not much was understood because I was not here to explain it. 

Instead, my time was diverted by a child whose needs seem to be growing every day.

The Power of Words

For the past month, I have been thinking about the power of words. Encouraging words, discouraging words.....we all know their power. 

But what I have discovered is the odd way in which it sometimes does not matter where the words originate.....and in others.....

well, it makes all the difference.

Loving Lainie

She is twelve.    

She is excited to be twelve.   

Twelve means she can ride in the front seat of the car.      

Twelve is almost thirteen.  

Twelve is a milestone.

Twelve is not the number I rest on......it is nine.

Nine and a half to be more exact. 

That's how long I've known her. 

That's when life changed for her and for us. 

She is closer to nine than to twelve and yet I try to balance the chronological age with the age of her understanding....

...it gets more challenging each year.

When I saw her for the first time she was a tiny 2 1/2 year old screaming, head-shaking, under-no-circumstances- do -I- want- anything -to -do -with -these- people scrap of a person with

hair cut too short,

 clothes too small,

 and feverish mosquito bites all over her. 

Non-verbal except for that squawking noise and a few baby babbling words in Russian. 

I wondered what in the world I had gotten myself into. 

 I was soon to find out......

I was an experienced mother of six children.....for sixteen years.......tough cookies, some of them.......but I had never encountered a person who had learned to be a survivor by the age of one......who deciphered her world in bits and pieces....."who knew what she wanted and how to get it" as our interpreter commented......

A child touched by neglect....illness....disabilities....poverty........

one who was picked up and taken from the only world she knew and  put down on the other side of the world into another "orphanage" where nobody did anything the way she was used to or spoke the language she had learned to interpret......

for "orphanage" was what we were to her for a long time, 

I am sure of that.

I remember telling her over and over that I was her Mama.....

but in the orphanage, 

every woman is called Mama.

I had to re-direct and claim my personal possession of her...

"you are MY girl......you stay with ME".....

over and over...."look at Me......look in My eyes".

I remember watching every odd behavior and trying to figure out if it was neglect, fetal alcohol, orphanage behavior,

 or just her personality.

I remember thinking that I was not ready for this assignment.

I was failing.

And then, I found it.  

The newsletter from a ministry that we'd supported. 

They had played a side role, but a large  one in our adoption.

 I had saved it because we had sent money for baby formula. 

There had been no milk for the babies and they had been feeding them sugar water. 

As I read the letter of thanks from the missionary, (a woman I now knew and had visited in her 'flat'- who was a big part of our adoption), she described the children who were helped.  

She listed the locations of the orphanages where the formula, "the best money could buy", had been sent.  Listed among them was one I recognized. 

I had been there.....in that "baby house"....

with the director, a physician, who mixed up her own medicines because they had none....

with the workers who had loved Leanichka......

who were washing all the clothes by hand because their only washing machine was broken.....

who had cried tears of gratitude over the instant oatmeal we left because they had nothing to feed the children for breakfast......

This had been one of the orphanages to receive the baby formula before we'd even known we were adopting. 

 What was the date of the letter?

  Wait.  

When did Lainie get there?  

No way. 

Couldn't be. 

Yes......it was true..........she had just gotten there when that baby formula was delivered.  

Before we thought about adopting and before the amazing series of events that ended with her in our home, we fed her. 

Because there was no milk for babies, we sent money......before she was even there, it was purchased and after she had just gotten there, it was delivered........

He had prepared the way........

the path we were now walking in...

even the path I stumbled in.........

through my questions and my tears, 

He had already been there....

Today she is twelve.

She is no longer a screaming, manipulating little scrap of a girl shaking her head at the speed of her no's.

She is a pretty girl who loves Jesus and loves reading her Bible even though it is a painstaking process to de-code every word of the third grade level translation. 

She works very hard to learn and to remember things. 

She practices words and keeps trying even when her tongue tangles up the speech sounds. 

She wants to be "big" and learn to do "grown-up" things like cooking and knitting.  

She enjoys doing her PT exercises to strengthen weak muscles that are causing her back to curve in scoliosis. 

She loves writing letters and calling her friends on the phone. 

She loves the teasing over the fact that she might have "turkey cake" or that everyone will be too full of Thanksgiving dinner to eat birthday cake. 

She laughs when we tell her that she used to think Thanksgiving was a holiday in honor of her birthday.

We are still walking down that path that He has set before us. 

I, fearful at times and unsure of the outcome, 

and she, trusting, holding my hand and running eagerly ahead. 

 I don't know the time she was born. 

I do not know what she has been through.....

but I know that He was there.....

and is there......

teaching me about what real love is all about. 

 That love is an action and not a feeling. 

That love is of Him. 

Agape.

Today she is twelve.

It is a milestone, indeed.

Grasping Gratitude: a desperate act

disappointment.

decisions.

disillusion.

depression.

death.

disabilities.

disorders.

disease.

these are things that we face every day.....they come unbidden.......      unwelcome.......      unwanted.......

How are we to deal with these things? What are we to do?

Analyze? Synthesize? Anesthetize? Sympathize?

I have pondered and prayed..... considered the truth that how we think and act are intertwined.......considered that gratitude leads to greatness of faith......and decided that it is necessary to obey God's command to give thanks even if one does not feel thankful at that particular moment......because the alternative is bitterness. 

I will write down my things to be grateful for......thankful for......no matter how small......small things are easily overlooked and they make up the bulk of my life anyway, so why miss life waiting for something large to be thankful for?

The large things are obvious.......salvation, husband, children, home, food, family......

....the small ones, not so much....

.....remembering the sound of that letter........pronouncing that word correctly.......ability to bend a finger that might have to remain crooked.......the loan of an exercise ball for therapy......children who love each other....grandparents who go out of their way to help...

stopping. noticing. writing it down.

I'd like to say it was my idea. I'd even like to say that when it was introduced to me, I jumped right on it and said, "what a great idea".  But no. I think that when you are dealing with the "hard things" so often, it becomes sorta like looking into a microscope. You see things that others can't see....but you have to see them and deal with them......you forget that if you step back from that microscope you can see the whole object in a different perspective.

That is how gratitude becomes a desperate act......it is necessary for survival....for life........for abundance.

It is not easy to "see" things to be thankful for.......but with practice, it becomes easier.......natural......nay, supernatural....because it forces you outside of yourself. 

The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him and I am helped.  My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.

 Psalm 28:7 NIV