How did Aladdin get into our Christmas?

This year, for reasons I will not get into in this post, Christmas has been hard.  I love to give gifts to my family and friends that will be appreciated.  I want my children's faces to light up on Christmas morning when they open their gifts.  I don't want to focus on the gifts, but I want the gifts to be something that means something to the one receiving it...I want the gift to say, "I love you, I know you'll love this, you matter to me."  

Yesterday, I shopped the stores with my list, searching for the "perfect" gift to convey how special each of my children and my husband were to me.  The gift that would say "I love you, and know you, and appreciate you."  This year one gift needed to say all that.  I found lots of stuff, so much stuff, so much plastic, at times I felt physically ill.  I know I could find the items on my list online, but I did not know if they would arrive in time for Christmas so I shopped, up and down the aisles, into the car and on to another store, and another.  Feeling more and more discouraged with every trip up and down the aisles...those department store lights are awful.  The vague feeling of sensory overload, and the absence of Christmas music or even worse, some driving new version of an old classic set to music that was jarring and unnerving.  No smiles, and Merry Christmas, no clerks in Santa hats, just plastic carts, and lots of stuff.  

I found a few things on my family's wish list and a few things that I felt would be 'ok' but my heart wasn't full of anticipation.  My heart felt something was missing, something more than the three elusive items still on my list.  

As I pondered my feelings this morning...looking for a way to express them that didn't sound too much like a Bah Humbug to Christmas, I remembered something that happened earlier in the week.  We pulled out the Fisher Price Nativity Scene, and discovered that Baby Jesus was missing.  Some how we also found Aladdin had sneaked in with the wise men.  Oh, that silly manger scene, reflected everything in my heart....Jesus was missing and Aladdin had taken his place. 

Aladdin believed if he just had riches he would be happy.  In the end Aladdin got everything he wanted, but he was still a "street rat".  He had to change on the inside and it was love (the love of Jasmine) that made him willing to change.  (It has been years since I watched this movie, this is my memory),

 All my searching left me empty...my bank account, my gas tank, my senses, but most importantly my heart.  Just like Aladdin I had to realize the stuff wasn't really what would fill my heart.  I needed the perfect gift.  I needed Jesus back at the center of our Christmas! I don't know how Aladdin sneaked into our Christmas.  I don't know where baby Jesus went, but just as I told the children, "we will find baby Jesus" and we will.  We will slow down and remember the greatest gift ever given.  The gift that saved the world, the gift of love that came down to become a sacrificial lamb.  Aladdin is going back to the Princess Castle where he belongs!!  

I need the Prince of Peace, and memories with my husband and children.  We don't need riches untold and more stuff.  

My prayer for my family and friends is that you too can find the baby Jesus and put him back in his place in your life. 

 Merry Christmas!

Our First Failed Adoption and what God showed me.

In honor of National Adoption month, I thought I would go way back to our first failed adoption.  You see it is very much a part of our journey and it has shaped me profoundly into the woman I am today.

The story begins like so many, it is an ordinary day, late fall I believe, and the phone rings.  On the other end of the line is my brother.  We don't talk on the phone often, so it is an unexpected call right from the start.  He tells me his girlfriend is pregnant with twin girls, and her other children are in foster care, and the babies will be placed in foster care, too...unless they have a different plan.  He asks me to adopt these babies.  As you can imagine the details are a little blurry, and this is my story, exactly how I remember it.  I know I talked to my husband. I know we prayed a lot! I know we decided to say yes.  I know we met with my brother and his girlfriend.  I know we met with a lawyer.  I know we made arrangements to bring home two baby girls.  I know my boys were excited.  We made arrangements for a Pastor and his wife, in the area where my brother and his girlfriend lived, to bring the girls from the hospital to their home, where we would meet them.  We had everything prepared except for two car seats, diapers and formula.  We thought we were ready.

That's when the second call came...this time from my mother.  I have no idea how much time lapsed between the first call and the second.  It was enough to believe that we were really going to adopt two little girls, and we were preparing to bring them HOME.  Some how during the conversation my mom let me know that my brother found out he could get custody of the babies and bring them home, and we would not be adopting them after all.  I never heard a word from my brother.  The anger, the hurt, the disappointment, all the emotions you could imagine raced through my soul and mind over the next few days.  How do you tell your sons 9 & 3 that they are not going to be big brothers after all.  How do you look at the crib, changing table, little girls clothing that you prepared, and not reignite the flames of anger and hurt??

The babies were born about two weeks later, a little premature, but healthy, and my brother did indeed take custody of his daughters and bring them home from the hospital to live with him and their mother.  These were his daughters, after all.

A couple of weeks later, our family was preparing for an Easter get together and I would see my brother and his daughters for the first time.  As I prepared, my emotions were running my show more often than I even realized.

One of those beautiful Spring days just before Easter I was push mowing our front lawn and rehearsing in my mind all the things I was going to tell my brother.  And reminding myself of how much I had a right to be angry!!  After all, he didn't even call me.  We had met with lawyers, and Pastors, and planned, and purchased, I had to explain all this to my boys.  He hadn't just hurt me he hurt my children.  He left me to call the lawyers, pastor's wife, box up clothes, take down the crib, etc.  I was building my case, argument, after argument, and I was going to tell him ALL of it when I saw him at my parent's house for Easter! I convinced myself I had every right to be angry, look what he had done to me! to my family!  Yes, yes, I had a right to be angry, and I was hanging tight to that right with every lap I made with the lawn mower that day.

Then I heard God's voice...not an audible voice, but his still small voice in my soul.  His Spirit speaking deep into my heart.  "You have no rights, you are a slave."  I had been attending a ladies Bible study and we had recently studied "being a slave to righteousness." I stopped the mower and went inside to look up the verses.  (Romans 6:15-23)  I read these verses over a couple of times, before I returned to mowing.  It was true, I gave up my rights to follow Christ.  I was no longer a slave to my will and emotions, but a slave to his righteousness.

"But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. 

Now you do those things which lead to holiness and result in eternal life."

  Romans 6:22 NLT 

I would be a slave to whatever I chose to obey.  I could hold onto my "rights" and become enslaved to them, or I could trust God and let Him deal with me, my brother, my family, all of it.  I chose to let it go.  I chose to accept that I had no rights, I did not get to stay angry and try to make my brother "pay" for what he did, or "feel" how bad I hurt.  This was not my battle to fight.  I swallowed hard and accepted what God was telling me.

So, I went to my mom & dad's for Easter.  I wish I could say I was gracious;  I wish I could say I was excited for my brother and his girlfriend and couldn't wait to see the baby girls; I can't say that.  What I did was keep my mouth shut!  I kept my distance,  I was cool and avoided any "real" conversations with my brother (with anyone).  I didn't rush in excited to hold my nieces, in fact that day I only held one of them.  I only held her, because my brother proudly deposited her into my arms.  He had every reason to be proud. 

I wish I could say that was it...we lived civilly ever after.  But a couple weeks later we received another phone call.  I cannot even remember who made that call, I think it was my mom, but I don't really remember.   I do remember that the call shattered us all.  One of the twins (the same one I held briefly) had died of SIDS.  The loss of a tiny life touches us all, so deeply.  We gathered a few days later for her funeral.  Two things I remember about that funeral.  The devastation of the tiny little casket with an even tinier lifeless body in it, and her sister crying in the same room.  I also remember putting my arms around my brother and sharing a sincere embrace as I whispered, "I am so sorry for your loss."  Because I was. 

I praise God to this day that He knew so much better than I what to say and do with my brother.  If I had shot off my mouth and voiced all the hurt inside to my brother that Easter weekend, I would have ruined Easter for my family, but most important I could never have been able to wrap my arms around my brother and sincerely, share his grief, and acknowledge his great loss. 

I learned forever that God's ways are so much better than mine.   I also learned that rights and freedom are not the same thing.  I had a right to vent my anger.  My brother had a right to take custody of his daughters.  But because I listened to God and lay down my perceived rights I was free to love my brother and stand with him on a very sad day in all of our lives.  I was free too, of years of guilt that would have followed shooting off my mouth and then losing this tiny life. 

I can honestly say that while I still struggle with my "rights" I rarely make decisions based on my rights...I look more honestly, and compassionately at the other persons rights and point of view.  I am more free to love others than if I never walked this path. There are lots of wounded hearts in this world and everyone of them needs to heal and be set free.