Permission To Speak Freely?

Updates from the front lines:

1.  JET. LAG. AND. A. TODDLER. IS. THE. WORST. THING. THAT. HAS. EVER. HAPPENED. TO. ME.  After traveling 30 hours from China to Louisiana, with zero sleep and tight flight connections, our newest dumpling did not go to sleep until 5 AM THE NEXT morning, thus beginning the longest week of our lives.  Sleep deprivation is a beast you guys.  Shout out to all you mamas of newborns.  I get it now.  All the world was ending, I was dying, I couldn’t do it, my child was broken, I would never survive.
2. I forgot what it’s like to pee with someone in my grill, looking in the potty, messing with the toilet paper….etc.  I tried locking her out but that felt weird…so we’re just having a blast co-pottying.  It’s truly a blast.  Privacy?  What is that?
3. My two girls have a new obsession with my rear end.  I get slapped in the butt at least a thousand times a day.  It’s like the only language they can both understand, and so they have bonded over it.  I will declare that this is not dignifying nor does it make me feel sexy.  The other day I raised my voice and said, “OK!!  NO MORE TOUCHING MAMA’S BOOTY.  NO MORE…. ALL DONE.” as I used sign language to tell my Chinese speaking daughter.
4. When we first met QueenE we fed her, dressed her, changed her diapers…babied the mess out of her, only to find out that she can fully feed herself, and FAST, can dress herself and apparently knows how to use the potty by herself (she has watched me do it about a thousand times…learning on the job).  Bless her heart.  She was probably thinking, “well these weird white people seem to like to do these things for me so I guess I’ll let em.”  She is FAR MORE CAPABLE than we were giving her credit for.  (I’m pretty sure she tied a knot in a rope the other day…but we’re calling that a fluke because if not I’m terrified)
5. Esther is WILD….like loves-to-be-naked-and-run-and-scream kind of wild.  My kind of girl.
6. Toddlers are a whole-notha-breed my friends.  That’s all I have to say…it’s an unspoken prayer request if you know what I mean.
7. Esther has a cleft lip and palate (duh)….this was never more evident to me than when she sneezed and rice came out of her nose (?) maybe mouth (?)….and people…she was not eating rice.  So there’s that.  Where had that rice been?  And for how long?  We don’t know.

Just some highlights to brighten your day.

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Adjustment, transition, this is where we are.  We are in the weeds of it.

Our brave little one has been alive for almost 1000 days and has had a family for only 25 of those days.  She is in a new world, with a new language and people who do not look like her, and all of those people are constantly doting on her, talking to her, loving on her, giving her gifts and food….all things that are an absolute shock to her sweet little system.

She is a rockstar and has truly championed this new life of hers.  We could not be prouder.

But, permission to speak freely, this stuff is HARD my friends.

It’s easy to post all of the good moments…all of the funny videos and amazingly sweet things that are happening in our little family.  Don’t get me wrong, those things ARE happening.  We laugh a lot, we marvel at how amazing our E is and what her presence is doing in our family, reshaping us in the best way possible.

But the transition from once orphaned to now adored, securely placed, named, known…. it’s not an easy path for little QueenE and it’s not easy on us as a family.

We are blazing a brand new trail in her little life, and we have the scars and weary hearts to prove it.

Watching my little E reminds me so much of the Israelites in the Bible, God’s chosen people.  I can see so much of their story in her little life.

They had been in slavery for over 400 years.  Generation after generation was born into slavery, lived it out and died still a slave.  Controlled, owned, outcasts, not valued for who they were, only what they could produce.

400 years…that’s a long time huh?

YES.  It’s all they knew.

Slavery was their NORMAL.

Whole generations had passed in this one way of living.  They had adapted, shifted their expectations…a survival of the fittest response.  This was life and they were going to endure it, they had to.

So, you can imagine the confusion and probably hesitation when someone (Moses) shows up and announces that they are FREE…and that they are LEAVING Egypt headed for the Promised Land, headed for freedom.

Freedom.  What was that?

It’s not that they didn’t want it, they didn’t know what it was, so how could they want it.

But they followed him, I’m sure looking at each other and shrugging shoulders the whole time.

Excited?  Sure!  Freedom was feeling better and better with each step.

UNTIL…. they got hungry…and then freedom didn’t feel so free anymore.

It felt foreign and unpredictable.  Could they trust it?

“The whole company of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron there in the wilderness. The Israelites said, “Why didn’t God let us die in comfort in Egypt where we had lamb stew and all the bread we could eat? You’ve brought us out into this wilderness to starve us to death, the whole company of Israel!”  Exodus 16:1-3 (MSG)

The promise of the coming Promised Land wasn’t enough to keep them from looking back over their shoulder at what they were leaving.  Yes, they were slaves and lived oppressed lives, BUT they knew that life.  They were comfortable there.  They could predict that at least food would come.

They may have been living in hell, but they knew all the street names.  It was familiar.

Hunger.  Panic.  Knee-jerk to the old ways because the new ways were just that…new.

Living in freedom was uncharted territory.

And this my friends, THIS is where we are.

Our little one has found the Promised Land of a family…she’s been basking in it for almost a month.  It is full and glorious and has everything she could ever need.

BUT….it’s new, uncharted, foreign.

So, when hunger strikes, or thirst, or grief or panic….

Knee-jerk to the old.  Panicked glances over her shoulder at the former ways, the ways she used to coped, what she had to do to get what she wanted.

Survival of the fittest was the story of her life.

Can this new thing be trusted?

She’s not sure of that.

Only time will heal the memories of her past.  Only the love of Jesus, constantly, without ceasing, will erase the knee-jerk reaction to run back.

And do you know what’s so beautiful?  So challenging?

What was God’s reaction to His children, as they grumbled and complained and longed for the good old days?

Provision.

Miraculous provision.

This is how He won their hearts.  He didn’t quit.  He didn’t roll His eyes and leave them to figure out this new thing for themselves.

He pressed in and gave them the very thing they believed He wouldn’t give them.

Manna.  Water.  Shade.  Light.

A little jaunt through dry ground in the middle of the dad-gum sea.

And that is what we, as a family, are asking Jesus for the ability to do.

When she pushes against us…to give her the very thing she needs.

When she kicks and screams, to wrap her up and provide the stuff that only a family can provide.

When she goes limp in grief, to sit with her, showing her that she, indeed, is in her Promised Land.

She is safe and she is free.

And there will be a day that her new found freedom will feel…well…TRULY FREE.