One might think, from the infrequency of this blog’s posts, that I am no longer suffering from sinking spells, hence the silence. Alas, sinking spells are still in order, but I have not felt compelled to write into the lengthening silence.

You see, in the midst of all the excitement, the planning, the blogging, we hit a snag.  A small, positive change in our life circumstances, no matter how exciting and longed-for, has caused a delay in our adoption.  We must wait for the completion of a three hour move to a neighboring town, and then update our home study before we can finalize our paperwork.

This delay has been a terrible shock, and brought pain comparable to that of our secondary infertility, with all its attendant heartache, longing, confusion, and hopelessness.  To be honest, as with the infertility, there’s some misdirected anger thrown in for good measure.

I cannot speak for domestic adoption, because I have not experienced it, but I can say unequivocally that international adoption is hard.  The process is long, it is expensive, it is invasive.  For us, it became a call on our lives that we were powerless to refuse.  In this ridiculous “paper pregnancy” that has lasted years (we began this China adoption in 2006), we find ways to simultaneously compartmentalize, compensate, pray and hope.

Although it doesn’t trump prayer, compensation is key.  We are staying busy, we are finding ways to laugh at ourselves through this latest delay.  We are drawing on the comfort of family and friends, and the understanding of some who have walked this road before us, and some who walk it now.  Most days we get by without dissolving into frustrated tears.  Most days. 

So how is Jackson?  We are not sure.  We have not heard if he received his care packages. We are not certain that he has been told that there is an impatient, feisty family ready to welcome him home.  We do know that he celebrated a birthday last month, a birthday we had unrealistically hoped to have him home for.  And we know that we miss him more than we thought possible.  We hope that we are using these extra weeks profitably, preparing our hearts and home for him so that his arrival here will be as good as we were able to make it.  It’s not like we haven’t had time to plan.

Life, as they say, is not for the faint-hearted.  Adoption… ditto.  

Hang in there, Jackson.  We’ll be there as fast as we can!

Winter Blessings

It’s official… We have received approval from the Chinese government to adopt our new son. We can now tell the world and celebrate publicly. Welcome Jackson Chao Ju Alan Barringer!  This has all just transpired so there is a lot we don't know.  As the days go by, we will update here when we will travel, who will be going, how you can pray.  Meanwhile....

Exceed / Hold Up

Here is everything we do know:
Chao means “exceed”
Ju means “hold up”
We love these names
He is 5 ½ years old
He is from the Henan province, and he lives in the Pingdingshan Social Welfare Institute (orphanage)
He is named for three godly men. His daddy,
CS “Jack” Lewis, and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson
We love him


Once upon a time in the cotton fields of Missouri, I played with my baby dolls in the hot summer sun, and imagined a life of motherhood. I don’t believe I’d ever heard of adoption. Or infertility. Or of how hard life is. There were hints of pain, whispers of tragedy, but by and large I thought that those things wouldn’t happen to me when I was “big".


When I got big, grew up and went looking for work, I applied for my first full-time job at a bank. The manager asked me where I saw myself in ten years. I smiled and said, “Being a mama.” He didn't hire me.


It took a few more years than the ten I’d predicted in that interview, but I did get the mama job.


Have you ever wrestled with Palm 37:4, the part that says that God will give you the desires of your heart. I have struggled with it, and sometimes railed against it. Does it mean He gives you those things you desire, like a Divine Dispenser of the good things you ask for, or that He places the desires within you and you are left to grapple with them?


Could I have known all those years ago, a silly young woman in a business suit and too high heels, sitting in a bank, what “being a mama” would bring?


What if I had known? I would not have changed my mind, but perhaps I would have said it with a little more dignity. A little more gravity.


Motherhood is a fearsome and wonderful calling. There is joy unimaginable. Fulfillment found nowhere else. And yet, for me, it has had it’s difficulties.


Year upon year of month upon month of anguish when another opportunity for conception had failed.
Striving, striving for a marriage in which two very imperfect people try not just to be good partners but to be good parents together.


Watching those we love live in ways we cannot control. Watching our hopes fade, and seasons change, and sometimes seasons of life go forever, while trying to remember and make sense of a God who gives us the desires of our heart.


I did not hold my Samuel the day he was born, and for his first nine months. This breaks my heart.  Now a new life, Jackson’s life, will burst into mine, and there will be 5 ½, maybe 6 years in his life story that I cannot go back through and write “Mama” on each page.


These are not the baby doll dreams from the cotton fields of my childhood. There is no warmth today, only weak winter sunlight, slanting in the window onto weathered hands as I type. But I am thankful, and I am excited.


I will have a 5 ½ year old son, not a baby in a soft blue blanket. What a privilege. I will look into those eyes, and teach him that it is safe and good to look back into mine. I will whisper “I love you“, “you are home” and “I’m your Mama".

And I think that which ever way it works with Psalm 37, I have received the desire of my heart.

Once again.