I can't believe it's been six months since I last posted. I've been reminded in recent days that writers write daily, and though I don't know if I can be a writer first (my mom, wife, daughter, house-cleaner, teacher, chauffeur, soccer cheerleader, reader, employee, lot-clearer, house painter, director, grocery shopper, and job seeker duties often trump what I desire to be and be doing), I do want to write more regularly, even if what is produced is small.

It's kind of funny that as I looked over my four entries on this blog, none of them really get at joy. They're kind of burdened, really. I think I tend to be more compelled to write when things are heavy - it's kind of a free therapy for me. I process, work through, and give voice to my deepest soul-type affectations that I cannot express in any other way. And though I'm supposed to be chronicling only the joy here, I'm starting to wonder if joy (real joy -the "becoming more Christ-like", "less bound", "more deeply understanding who we are" kind of joy) and sorrow are one and the same.

I was so deeply blessed this week by my very best friend from high school, Lily. It seems that no matter where we are or how long it has been since we have talked, she knows me, and what's better, she seems to know where my heart is and how to encourage me even when it's been months since we talked. These friends, I know, are treasures when we find them. I hope I can do the same for her and others. Lily sent me a book this week by long-time Christian author Carol Kent called When I Lay My Issac Down. In it, Kent details her journey through one of the worst tragedies I think any mother could imagine - life after the day her only child, Jason, committed first degree murder. She writes (as I've agreed above), "As much as I don't like the process, I am learning that the cup of sorrow can also be the cup of joy...I believe God's great invitation is to engage us in the process of discovering the power of choosing faith when that decision makes no sense. There is power in our unthinkable circumstances" (12). What sweet words for our hearts in moments of both joy and sorrow. It seems that lately, I and many others in my world have been in some unthinkable circumstances also. As I'll expound upon this some in this post, I've been thrust into situations of late in which I don't like any of the available choices. I've felt like I wanted to undo, to go back, to give my earlier self a moment to pause, and to tell her what she was about to walk through. I'm ashamed of those thoughts. When I think of who I was and who I am now - how deepened and more beautifully complex my relationship with the Savior of my life is now from what it was then - how can I be anything but grateful for the struggle? How can I be anything but joyful that God is giving me deeper and harder challenges to bear because He knows I can?

When I Lay My Isaac Down is not the only book I've been reading of late. I've read Francis Chan's Crazy Love and Forgotten God (also recommended to me by my dear Lily) and David Platt's Radical (prompted by my sweet husband and a wonderful couple at church) recently all of which challenge "easy faith". While I would love to include some quotes from these amazing books, I have (as I do with all good literature) passed them on for others to enjoy and do not have access to them right now. Summatively, though, these authors both argue that faith may be described as many things, but "easy" is not one of them. Chan and Platt challenge the Christian community in the United States to do things that are hard, sacrificial, and even dangerous for the God we love and who so, so dearly loves us. The authors challenge us as a body of people who believe in Jesus's death-defying love to not place comfortable living and easy retirement as our highest priorities. They challenge us to give in a way that hurts, to surrender in a way that humbles, and to be with people and in places that make us uncomfortable in our own skin.

Tony and I are not in the foreign mission field (not yet, anyway), but we are in a mission field in our own home right now. We have been called to love a big girl who is really a gravely wounded little girl inside(and will be called, I suspect, to do so for many others like her). In her woundedness, like any hurt animal (which in our biology, we are), she strikes, bites, and writhes at the touch of hands which attempt to heal all the while she is in a slow, deathly emotional internal bleed. Sometimes I wonder why God called a woman like me with such sensitive emotional skin to do a job in which He knows I will be bruised, cut, and forced to bleed profusely for everyone to see. It's hard. The confrontations are dramatic and repetitious; the outside input is sometimes hurtful and sprinkled with what feels like self-assured judgement (though I know that it is not intended in this way); the pain is powerful and depleting. In one of the conversations I had with a friend recently about the ongoing struggle, she said, "Well, we had our concerns when you adopted an emotionally unstable kid with a six-month-old baby in the house." I was a little stung, and I don't know if it was because my emotional nerves were so raw at the time or if this is actually what she meant by this comment, but I took this up as, "We knew you guys were crazy for taking her in." When I thought about it, though, she was right. Who does that? Who takes in a twelve-year-old girl with three younger kids in the household? Who adds an adoption to two jobs, two young boys, an infant, and a looming doctoral dissertation? We ARE crazy. I think, though, in the context of Chan, Platt, and Kent, if people are calling us crazy, then we just may be doing something right (or at least maybe we're taking steps in the right direction). God didn't call us to sit still, or even make decisions based on the amount of stress we can handle. He called us to obey, and that's what we did, even though it was crazy. I just have to trust that through the pain, He'll either carry us or help us walk and that He'll make us more like Him with every single, slow, and deliberate step. There is fathomless, resonant joy in this because we are no longer at the helm, so to speak. And what freedom from responsibility for the outcomes of our work! All we have to worry about is obeying. That certainly simplifies my to-do list.

As a brief aside, I say the above not at all to pat ourselves on the back - in fact, we recently visited with an attachment therapist who told us, in effect, that we have, thus far, done everything wrong if our goal was to meet our struggling daughter's needs and to prepare her for life outside of our home. I can say that with a genuine smile, because the conversation was so appreciated and actually brought us much freedom and peace, and because I know from a very dear friend that feeling that everything has been done wrongly is very common among adoptive families. We are in no way perfect or even any good at all in our own right as anyone around us can verify.

I can say, though, even though this too sounds crazy, that I wouldn't take a moment of it back. We are not in a great place right now. Our family is not fixed or fine. Some days, I'm still so sad and a little frustrated that there doesn't seem to be any progress at all. Some days, we just survive. We haven't even really made solid decisions about steps we take to move forward. I am still hurting, still surrendering, still sick, still aching for easy days. But so what? God is still God, and He is still aboundingly good. I am joyful from head to toe, and on my better days, I'm even happy and excited about what God is doing in my heart, in my husband, in the lives of all of my children, and in my home. In Paul's letter to the Roman church community, he writes, "We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us - they help us learn to endure. And endurance develops strength of character in us, and character strengthens our confident expectation of salvation. And this expectation will not disappoint us. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love" (5:3 - 5) Amen, and amen! And as Carol Kent says, "Even in this, Lord, even in this, I will praise you!" This is joy that endures in the easy and the hard, the beautiful and the ugly, and I wait with "confident expectation" for this to grow like Kudzu in my heart and in my life.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who listen to us, cry with us, comfort us, uphold us, challenge us, and rejoice with us in our lives. We could not have dreamed of a more perfect community with whom to walk than you all have been to us.