She's Not The Only One . . . Part 1

Did you ever notice that "Crazy" tends to exist on a continuum?  And that that line is wavering, blowing madly in the wind, and different for every bit of "Crazy" that is out there?  Head over HERE and read Stefanie's post.  Then come back. Cuz I've got something crazy to tell ya.

And believe me, sometimes my crazy feels a whole lot crazier than I care to admit. But it's my crazy and I love it.

Most of the time.

Are you ready?  Did you read that beautiful, crazy, vulnerable, convicting post?  Really, if you didn't, then not much of my crazy is gonna make sense to you. Not that crazy really ever makes sense. At least not to those looking in from their non-crazy, safe places. . . .

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Here's my crazy.

Right now, sitting in our "inbox" is an application to the Waiting Child program through Living Hope Adoption Agency. Incomplete, but sitting there, nonetheless.

The fact that it's sitting there at all is testament to a work that only God could do. In my heart. In The Boss's heart. In our marriage. In our home.  It's our own little version of "crazy" and we are embracing it slowly and carefully.

None of you, my dear readers, will be surprised, I'm sure, to know that I've longed for another adoption journey almost from the day we joined the Waiting Child program back in the winter of '08.  Something burrowed into my heart in that season, once I threw my heart's doors open to the gentle, repeated knocking of my Jesus. Something that invigorated me, that inspired me, that challenged me, and that brought me to my knees. Figuratively, internally, and literally, in my little prayer chair.

The desire, no the NEED, to advocate for these precious kids has become my passion.  I have learned so much. I have been able to share so much. And I've found a whole new level of excitement about my life and my calling as a mom. I LOVE writing now more than ever and have been so blessed to be able to share that in some really cool venues. But in all of that, underneath that simmering excitement, I still had a sense that advocacy wasn't all that there was for me. For US here at The Gang's headquarters.  I kept approaching The Boss about it, planting little seeds, trying not to nag, wondering if he was on board with building our family further.

At the same time, The Boss was loving on our kids, settling into the idea of being a dad to five, and feeling like this latest big life change was enough for him. That it was time to settle in, settle down, and coast in our new "normal" for a little while. Not that he ever really gets to coast. Between the pace at his workplace, our involvement in our local school and local church, the busy-ness of five really active and interesting kids, and a fairly high-maintenance wife (he says I'm not, but I really think my high need for TIME with my hunny and my kids makes me kinda high-maintenance...in a good way), there's not a lot of actual coasting going on. More like holding steady the course and navigating safely through high seas. Snort.

Fast forward to last winter. We'd slipped into the groove of that new normal, The Boss was gearing up for one of the biggest, highest-pressured projects of his job description, and I was feeling increased need to articulate that we were not finished building our family. What followed was a series of about 6 or 7 months of "tabling" lots of conversations that were too involved, too complicated, too intimate to be solved or resolved in one sitting. And for many of those months, one sitting was all we had. Heartfelt communication and really connecting over dreams, goals, and our family mission was not high on the priority list. For this communicator, it was a quiet, denying of "my rights" kind of season (I don't say this to be noble. In fact, I also learned some ugly truths about how selfish I am). For my "one focus at a time" guy, it was necessary survival. For our marriage? Well, let's just say: Lesson learned. This is not the recommended way to keep your home vibrant and moving forward in healthy ways!

(Looking back now, I see that we chose to table a lot more

than should have been tabled. And then some.

We may have been married 20 years and

learned a lot along the way, but we're still learning.

And that lesson was learned the hard way.)

Come back tomorrow for the rest of the grand adventure into "Crazy" that we've been on . . .