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On the Road
It is so hard to capture in a photo the experience of driving in Thailand. Before we moved, I was very worried about my ability to adapt to driving on what felt like the “wrong side” of the car and the “wrong side” of the road. In truth, making this change was not as difficult as I imagined it would be. It does not feel “wrong” anymore at all…just different.
Handling the flow of traffic and wrapping my mind around a whole different set of safety standards has proven to be the bigger challenge to adapt to. Getting into our car each day and driving to our various destinations is (statistically) the most dangerous thing any of us does voluntarily over and over again. In Thailand, this risk feels exponentially higher. The motorcycles weaving in and out between the cars as we drive at high speeds (some of them with 3-4 people piled on and moms holding babies in their arms); the trucks piled high with boxes, bags and people; the narrowness of many 2-way roads; and the street sellers who take advantage of the waits at red lights all require a greater level of attentiveness than any experience I’ve had driving in America!
Here are some of the daily sites of being on the road in Thailand:
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After 12 Days of Christmas: Epiphany!
As a grown-up, I don’t think I’ve ever taken the Christmas decorations down before today, and that was true before I knew Epiphany was even a thing. At first, I’d say it was just me dragging my feet about allowing the “most wonderful time of the year” to end. As far as it depended on me–I declared by lingering decorations–we would have our full 12 Days of Christmas even if the rest of the world around us was ready to move on into New Year’s Resolutions involving less clutter and fewer cookies.
The New Year celebrations in Thailand overshadowed Christmas, almost swallowing it up: the numbers 2024 were displayed in red and green almost as if it were synonymous with “Merry Christmas.” There are plenty of Christmas decorations around Chiang Mai, in keeping with the city’s intercultural flair. The last time I was anywhere a Christmas tree had been erected, it was still up…and I like that. 2024 is the year of the dragon, a tradition Thailand shares with other Eastern cultures: the red and gold New Year décor blends right in with the glitzy glittery sort of Christmas décor that seems to be favored here. [Sidenote: I’ve probably seen more of the puffy sort of tinsel garland this year than in the past 20 years of Christmases in America combined. It reminds me of my Grandma’s Christmas tree in the late 80s/early 90s…you know, around the same time in history that we rolled our jeans at the ankles so they poofed out like MC Hammer pants.]
Yes, our Christmas tree is still up. Christmas was truly lovely in all the most important ways for us this year. We had a joyful celebrations with the ZOE family, and hosted a Christmas party for the ZOE Child Rescue Team.
At our international church service, we heard scripture read in a multitude of languages I didn’t know existed and worshipped with believers from all over the world. We took our annual Christmas church service photo in front of palm trees instead of a Christmas tree, void of fancy dresses or sweater vests.
However, I admit the coziness of the days between Christmas Day and News Year’s Day left me wanting. I still snuggled under my “Joy to the World” blanket, drank my coffee hot (even though iced is more appropriate to the climate), and tried to bask in the glow of the Christmas tree in our living room for some heavy hours of reading and reflecting. But I missed my fireplace, the snow outside, the sound of the wind howling, and reddiwhip to put on my coffee.
I was today years old when I really realized just how culturally bound my “feeling of Christmas” has always been. Snow wasn’t a part of the first Christmas. There was no bedazzled Christmas tree beside the manger. Stockings weren’t hung by the chimney with care on the night Jesus was born in the stable. Of course I knew that … and yet those things have always been a part of how Christmas “feels” to me. Realizing that, Epiphany carries new weight for me this year and is more beautiful than ever before.
Traditionally, Epiphany is the day the church has set aside to remember the wise men coming to Bethlehem to find “he who has been born king of the Jews” (Matthew 2:2). The wise men came from the East. I am a Westerner, I think according to Western ideas and have been shaped by my Western culture. I now live in the East and am daily becoming accustomed to Eastern ideas and the deep-seated customs of Eastern culture. The men who came to find Jesus came from this side of the world. Buddha walked the earth hundreds of years before Jesus and so I wonder: were the wise men schooled in Buddhist thought like the kids here in Thailand are today?
The wise men were astrologers or magicians: wealthy men who accurately discerned a message written in the stars. They came to worship, but they were not Jews waiting for their Messiah: they were Gentiles from a foreign culture, with totally different ideas, practices, traditions, and culture. A lifetime of astrological study, a very long cross-country journey, and their diligent search for one bright star culminated as they “rejoiced exceedingly with great joy” over finding young Jesus (Matthew 2:10). They bowed in worship to a tiny king and lavished gifts upon him (Matthew 2:11). This wasn’t at the manger, but I am glad the wise men are a part of our nativity scene anyway…we need them in this story.
After the gifts were given and received, the wise men’s part in the greatest story ever told just ended: in a quiet, anti-climactic finale we are told they chose to “return home by another way” (Matthew 2:12). The wise men’s experience of Christmas brought exceedingly great joy and—also—complex feelings of a darker nature (fear? Anxiety?) that caused them to act in caution and secrecy. When they chose to “return home by another way” they were choosing to disobey the local government official’s direct orders (see Matthew 2:8). This, in part, led to the “Massacre of the Innocents:” the tragic deaths of so many innocent children at the hands of a power-hungry government. And so Matthew’s account of the Christmas story ends with weeping and lamentation that could be heard miles away (Matthew 2:18).
I scanned the Christmas accounts for emotive sort of words that give us clues to how that first Christmas may have “felt.” Here are a few of them, in no particular order: shame, resolve, contemplation, fear, rejoicing, great joy, warning, lamentation, weeping, refusal to be comforted, greatly troubled, fear, power, holy, wonderful, blessed, rejoicing, exaltation, mercy, great fear, great joy, haste, wondering, pondering, glorifying, praising, peace, marveled, give thanks, “and a sword will pierce through your own soul.”
Christmas is beautiful, as we celebrate our God who took on flesh in the most extraordinary way through the most ordinary of miracles. Christmas is complicated, for all the same reasons and more.
The celebration ends, after 12 days of Christmas, with Epiphany. Epiphany recognizes that Jesus is a gift not only to a specific people, but a gift unto all the world. The celebration of the coming of our LORD is one that transcends culture, and it has done so from the very beginning. Upon entering the world, Jesus radiated love so bright and so bold that the whole world could see. Those wise men from the East traveled far in search of the glory of God with lavish gifts and hearts of worship. Jesus came for the children of Israel AND for those in the East. He came for you. He came for me.
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Grace enough for this mom, too.
It is easy and fun to post pictures of our accomplishments when we are “ahead of the curve.” Like in 2019, when we dug in and worked hard to finish all of our homeschool goals in April before leaving for China to meet our Tallulah. Or 2020, when COVID shut downs left our homeschool days virtually unscathed. Or 2021 and 2022, when Selah set us a family goal to be done with school before her May birthday and we willingly complied with her request. It was an easy goal, we were on track to do so anyway.
It is now 2023. It is November. And we only just finished up the coursework that we’ve typically wrapped up in April or May. That is 6 months behind schedule for us, so it seems strange to take a picture…let alone post it for anyone to see. But in the spirit of #keepingitreal, here it is:
In a discussion I had about homeschool curriculum recently, it occurred to me that I have experience teaching all grades PreK-8. I’ve used the same Language Arts curriculum all along the way for every one of my kids (including various editions of the coursework as they were updated along the way). I suppose that means I’m your girl if you are looking for “mom who has experience homeschooling her kids using The Good and the Beautiful Curriculum.” Granted, that is a pretty specific niche of the world to claim expertise in, but I have found that I do indeed have plenty of advice to share as a part of a Facebook group or two.
Something I like about the homeschooling Facebook groups I am a part of is that people are genuinely asking for advice and help. When someone posts a question about the fourth grade concept they are struggling to understand themselves so that they can help their struggling child, others jump in within seconds offering exhaustive explanations, even posting pictures with steps written out or correct answers highlighted. There are always others who chime in with words of encouragement or at least a little huggy heart emoji, and rarely do you see any condescension or accusation. It is such a beautiful community of mothers who are taking responsibility for every aspect of their children’s education.
I am not on Facebook often enough (or in the right time zone) to be a part of most of those conversations, but I have chimed in several times when someone is asking for thoughts about the schedule they have put together for their day or sharing the list of curriculum they are about to purchase and the big question: “Does this cover everything?” I often have relevant input to offer regarding their specific schedule or curriculum selections, but most of my comments also include something along the lines of: “…but that is a lot, so be sure to give yourself plenty of grace if you can’t get it all accomplished each day!” Sure there are some who might seem not to be doing not quite enough regarding their kids academic development. However, what I see far more often is get-it-done, do-it-all homeschool moms like myself who pile too much on the plate and are in danger of forgetting to leave time for conversation, creativity, and the breaks that are sometimes needed for emotional processing when things just feel hard. It is easy to forget the WHY of homeschooling when we get caught up in the HOW.
I chime in when moms ask what do to at the end of the school year: “We aren’t done with level 1, can we just move on to level 2 so my daughter isn’t behind a grade level?” My advice is always DON’T SKIP it! There is so much good stuff at the end of each academic year: like wrapping up word lists, conducting final comparative assessments, the bigger creative writing assignments, and the sense of accomplishment they feel when finally getting through the “Personal Reader” that seemed so thick when they first cracked it open. I might say, “Sure you have the option to wrap it up early if you are just really burned out…but please don’t do it just for the sake of perception regarding grade level!”
I’ve also been known to comment on questions like: “My son is in second grade but reads at a 5th grade level, can we skip ahead a few levels to be sure she is challenged?” My advice, based on plenty of experience, is again DON’T SKIP! There are so many age-appropriate things to learn through the educational process besides just reading more advanced books. We’ve always just chosen more advanced literature for the personal reading time of our school day and taken confident baby steps when the concepts came easily.
Anyway, I say all of that simply to tell you that I decided to heed my own advice this year, and we didn’t skip a thing when we got colossally behind. We plugged away when we could, let life derail us when it insisted, and then plugged away again. I know that if it were some other homeschool mama living my life, I would have told her to relax and take the breaks needed for all the “life” that is happening. I might have said to her, “Give yourself some grace for the time being and jump back in when you find some semblance of normal that allows it (even if it is only a few days at a time).” And so, this time, I gave myself that grace as well. And I continue to do so daily.
We needed an extra 6 months, but I am glad we did not skip anything and I am also glad we took the time. We are all grateful to finally be moving on, though, too! Jeremiah shared one of his final writing assignments from Level 3 the other day, which you can read here. As a part of her Level 6 requirements, Selah practiced all kinds of prewriting strategies in order to create a series of autobiographical sketches then compile them into an autobiography. Part 1 is available here now and she plans to post the rest in pieces as she is able to add photos and re-format her writing for the blog.
Josiah actually finished his 8th grade curriculum before we moved to Thailand which is why he is not in the photo above. He has been working on high school language arts for the past several months, and I’ve asked him to share a recent “Insights Essay” he wrote on the blog as well. Potato chips and animal humor are more his M.O., but his talent is multi-faceted and deep. I pray his short essay will bless your heart as it did mine (I’ll try to remember to link it here when he publishes it). I do hope Tallulah will be included in our next photo as well: she is working hard on her letter sounds and may soon be ready for an adapted approach to this classical curriculum.
Homeschooling is not always easy: it involves so much input with very little recognition. But there are also days when these kids bless my socks off with the people they are becoming, the work they are producing, and ways they are thinking. I have the best seat in the house from which to watch it all unfold…but I am happy to give you all a glimpse as well 🙂
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Airing our Dirty Laundry
Last time I lived in Thailand, I failed to take pictures of the “normal things.” In the years since, I discovered it was difficult to explain the basin of water in the bathroom that we used for bucket showers and flushing the toilet, and I wished I had taken pictures. So every once in a while I am the crazy person who takes pictures of the most uninteresting things I can think of: like laundry drying on a rack. I am also the person who documents the trip to the laundromat with photos of my children. Because there is a story of what God is doing in our lives even there.
When we renovated our home in America, I REALLY wanted a laundry room upstairs. It was one part of a huge process of reworking our home. See, in order to fit a triple bunk bed in the boys’ room (Eli was supposed to come home in 2020), we needed to move a wall and take over some space in the bathroom. This meant reworking the bathroom. The bathroom was sort of awkwardly large (we think it was originally the entire maid quarters of our 1890s home). We had knocked the exterior stairs out at an earlier phase of the renovation, so the bathroom wall included a second story exterior door to nowhere and I thought that wall should be occupied by the washer and dryer. This was totally possible if we also moved the shower and the door to the closet. And rerouted plumbing through 130 year old floorboards. And also rerouted wiring, which meant replacing all the old knob and tube kind (eh, details). A huge benefit of this idea was that by moving the washer and dryer out of the back entryway by the kitchen, we could gain mudroom space for shoes and coats. And since we were redoing that, we could also take over some space from the main level bathroom to create a pantry…as long as we got all new kitchen cabinets in a new arrangement so that we could cut a pantry door where it would need to be. Cutting into all these walls was helpful anyway so that electrical and plumbing could be correctly routed upstairs (yep, details 🙂 ).
My dad and my husband were amazing and worked so hard to accomplish this feat! It was certainly no small task, but I truly loved the finished product SO MUCH! Seriously, it was a game changer EVERY day. I could get a load of laundry done each morning while also aiding Tallulah in getting herself ready. And it was easy to stay on top of getting it all put away because it was seriously only a few steps to each person’s closet. Laundry never had to be toted up and down the stairs and the dirty laundry baskets were right there next to the shower, so it was almost as convenient to put dirty clothes where they belonged rather than leave them all over the floor! It was every bit as wonderful as I hoped it would be.
Then we moved to Thailand. My washing machine is now outside and we don’t have a dryer at all. At first, I had no regular laundry routine. The laundry on the line was never dry by sundown (around 6 pm) so the laundry stayed out all night. In the morning, it housed THOUSANDS of mosquitos who were taking refuge from the smoke and breeding inside our damp clothes. It felt like an accomplishment when I realized that getting the first load of laundry in by 7 am meant I could get two loads on the line in the morning AND they would be dry and ready to be put away at 4 pm. If I did 2 loads a day each weekday, I could stay on top of my family’s laundry needs. I also discovered pretty early that if I took over the front porch with drying racks, I didn’t run the risk of losing my progress to an afternoon rainstorm. Sometimes things need to be rewashed due to the droppings from the birds who nest in this grate thing on the porch ceiling…but not nearly as many as you might suspect based on the number of birds that swoop over my head while I hang the laundry each morning.
That worked through the hottest season and into the early rainy season…but then the truly rainy phase of the rainy season came. Now the laundry can be on the line for days on the porch and not ever be dry, because the air is just wet. All the time. On a sunny day, we can move the racks to the driveway, but it is so difficult to tell when the rain will come: it is a regular occurrence that without a moment’s notice it is pouring–even though the sun is still shining–and we are scrambling to run through the rain to pull in the clothes that are once again drenched. So instead, the laundry often takes over the living room and we use a fan to aid the drying process. This works alright.
There are still details we haven’t figured out. For example, I am still working to figure out how to get some of the funk smell out of dry-fit fabrics, but I think it helped the other day when I boiled a pot of water and soaked the worse offenders in a bucket first (we don’t have a water heater so most of the laundry is washed in cold water).
There was also the glorious day a rogue gecko slithered out of the bundle of socks and underwear I had just brought in to put away in my drawer. And so my boys got to dig around in their mother’s underwear drawer to find it and take it back outside since that gives me the heeby jeebies. Every day brings a new adventure around here.
We have another line strung between two poles under an awning outside where we dry towels. Bed sheets, though, are another challenge. One bed set takes over all the racks… and the sheets get covered with lint residue worse than the clothes do (you know all the stuff that you collect in the lint trap of the dryer? A lot of that ends up on the floor of the porch from shaking each thing out before hanging it…but with sheets it just stays stuck). I have declared that the best way to wash bedsheets is to take them all at once to the Otteri (the name of a chain of laundromats here) and to take advantage of the wall full of dryers!
Tallulah is a grand laundry helper and especially loves to help with the coins.
While it is a whole new system I had to learn and a lot of convenience we left behind, I really don’t hate it. I’ve found a rhythm that sort of works most days and have developed a lot of patience for all the mishaps. Dirty laundry is just one of the many little things in our lives that is both the same as always and also so very very different.
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Get Used To Different
It has been over a month since my last post and a quick scroll down the homepage would say it is my “turn”. But words are coming hard for me. Everything is. Life just feels hard right now, but it is difficult for me to explain just how or why, beyond anecdotal examples of the small daily frustrations I encounter here and there. I think it is because everything is different. Not all bad. Not all good. But very different.
As a homeschooling mother, my main job right now is to re-establish the routine of the homeplace: basically doing the same things I’ve always done in a new place. But it is hard to do the same thing when everything is different. Knocked out of my rhythm, I feel a bit off-balance and even small daily tasks require too much attention and decision. Right now I struggle to think of a single thing I do each day that is the same as it has always been. EVERYTHING is different.
The sounds are different: different birds, different bugs…bigger. Different words and voices and songs.
The smells are different. I hear the rain and open the windows: but can’t find the smell I always knew. A smell I fail to even remember well enough to describe: help me friends…was it grass? soil? With something sweet? I don’t really know how to describe it here either, just different.
The flavors are different. We might find butter, chocolate, avocados: but in your mouth they aren’t familiar. There is a subtle nuance in flavors such that basic comfort foods fail to deliver. I am working to adapt to new staple ingredients, but new ingredients mean new recipes, new utensils, new pans, new methods. For some that might sound fun. For this cook and grocery shopper, I admit it is mostly daunting. Probably because the food is different, my body feels different, too. It is exhausting to have no respite from all that is unfamiliar, even inside myself.
I sit here at my desk a stack of papers and notes next to me. It is printer paper, but a different shape (My PDFs run off the page on the long side and also leave a huge margin on one side along the short side…an annoyance to this recovering perfectionist and her like-minded children doing school on lopsided worksheets). Also, the pens have smaller ballpoints, so my handwriting looks a bit like someone else’s. That is supposed to mean something. Am even I so very different?
I brought the most important pieces of the life we left behind with me: they are different, too. Rod has more confidence and purpose than I have ever seen in him and that changes my role in his life. We moved here with three “littles” and one very tall eighth grader. Now I am the mother of mostly high school and middle schoolers. Even our youngest will be hitting double-digits this month. All these new life phases are bombarding me each day without my permission. So much that is so different.
The kids and I are working on putting together our own synoptic gospel as we study all four gospels together during our school day. As a part of that process we are re-watching The Chosen. If you’ve been following with this amazing show, you might recognize the bumper sticker phrases #LookUp or #ComeAndSee. During Season One, it was #GetUsedToDifferent. That is the part of the story we are in right now. And so I am. We are. We are all getting used to different.
I fear my tone is–once again–desolate, sad, even whiney. That isn’t how I feel.
Sometimes a fog sits heavy around me, yes. Sometimes I feel I’m just spinning my wheels trying to do the same things I’ve always done (cooking, cleaning, and working to develop and find meaningful outlets for my children’s amazingness)…even though that same thing I’ve always done is different here, harder.
Still we plug away and find new blessings when we look for them. I’m certainly not doing it perfectly, but God loves me anyway. When I can see clearly, I am overwhelmed with gratitude.
God is too good,
his world too wonderful,
his work too astounding
to stay in the fog when the sun is shining.
Here are a few things that have me feeling blessed beyond measure recently:
#1) Have you ever heard a seashell orchestra in real life? The way the waves catch the shells and then send them clinking together on the way back out is such a uniquely beautiful sound. I’d never heard it before, and it took my breath away. The whole earth sings praise. (The video doesn’t do it justice, but we tried…)
#2) Baht are PERFECT for illustrating borrowing. Such a fun blessing as we wrapped up 3rd grade math and reviewed all the sticking points!
#3) I caught these two spending quality time making music together. I was able to sneak the phone around the corner just in time to catch this. They are both shy to share these talents, but I pray they do this together more and more!
#4) Isn’t this symbiosis of life so pretty?
#5) These two American girls brought up the rear in the three legged sack race.
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Bloom where you are planted.
There is a tree growing in the empty lot next to the home we are renting, and I love it. It has more flowers than leaves, and the color is striking against the blue sky.
Trees like this one are growing all over our Muubaan (neighborhood), standing here and there to bless me each day on my morning “walkabout”. Last month, there were yellow trees in bloom. With the onset of rain and the appearance of blue skies, these orange ones now shine.
I have always been drawn to the simplistic beauty of the adage “Bloom where you are planted.” I like the idea of a master gardener placing each seedling right where He knows it will do best. I like that a tree’s job is simply to put down roots and keep reaching up. I like that the tree reaches for food, sunlight, and water but can do little more in the way of providing for itself.
When Rod and I bought our first home, one of the things I remember stood out to me about the older neighborhood we moved into (as opposed to the newer subdivisions we visited), was the trees: they stood tall above the homes and shaded the roadways.
When we moved to the ranch, I fell in love with the ancient tree in the yard…
…the one with the baby raccoons and the tire swing.
When we moved to town, there was an old tree to greet us there, too. This one blessing us with seed pod helicopters in lieu of the cotton that “snowed” each summer at the ranch. It sheltered a fairy garden and held the tree fort that became the water slide.
Each home gave us a tree, each tree, a blessing.
The trees around me now inspire me because of their resilient growth.
They bend, adjust: growing around power lines and avoiding snares. Always beautiful. Still blooming bright.
I love that these people bent their wall around the tree. And the tree, in turn, bends out from their home, leaning over the road to provide a canopy of welcome shade.
And then there is this one. While standing tall and strong, it still finds a way to lean toward the water: drawn to its refreshing stillness and abundant source of life.
In each place I have lived, I have worked to put down roots, reaching deep and holding tight. Torn up, replanted, pruned, I admit I feel lost some days. I have been busy reaching, growing, dreaming in one direction: but if that way is cut off, I too must grow in another direction. Like these trees, I am doing the slow work of bending. Like these trees, I lean into the still waters where I find refreshment for my soul. Always, forever, finding new ways to reach up.
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Breathing Paradox
In the life we left behind, I was the kind of person who avoided shampoo with parabens or sulphates. I paid a premium for natural deodorant even though it stains your clothes (and admittedly doesn’t even always “cut it”). I chose all-natural soaps and lotions, but also felt that taking care of our skin was actually more about what we ate than what we put on it: so we avoided processed foods and ate a lot of fresh meat and produce. I chose organic when I could and most of the meat that filled our freezers were from animals that were raised and processed within 15 miles of our home. I loved having our own chickens to supply organic eggs and kept a compost bin so that I could grow garden produce and care for our landscape in a way I felt was most consistent with the garden of Eden. My kids ate more vegetables than most and knowing that I was doing all I could to keep them healthy was important to me: a part of my identity, really.
We rarely had sugary drinks, and never artificial sweeteners. Although we loved fresh-squeezed lemonade for a treat, we drank a lot of water…and GOOD water. For a while, we lived near springs that I felt must supply our well because we had the most delicious drinking water at the ranch that I had ever tasted. When we moved away from the springs, we ran our (still very good quality) city water through a reverse osmosis system to make it the best we could. And then got a fridge and ice dispenser that filtered it yet again. Our water bottles were stainless steel or glass…because that is easy enough to do if what they say about drinking from plastic is true. Our leftovers were stored in glass containers, too, and we didn’t even have a microwave. These were all healthy choices I had the luxury to make in that life: and prioritizing the health of my family felt right and good. After all, God made these bodies of ours and gave them to us to use in serving him and to enjoy living in every day.
You know what else we had? Something I never considered as a notable factor in our health: the air we breathed. I took it for granted. We lived in a small town surrounded by more plants than people. The air we breathed each day was probably among the purest on earth, EVEN when the wind blew the smell from the sale barn into town.
Then God, my God, the God who loves each member of my family in unspeakable ways, asked us all to move to the other side of the planet. For the last few months we have been breathing THE WORST quality of air on earth. This is not an exaggeration, but a confirmed fact:
Thai City Tops World Pollution Table
We’ve all suffered headaches and noticed just how tired we feel each day, despite the fact that we have equipped our home with several air purifiers and are able to stay sealed indoors during the worst of it. It has been hot and sunny, and yet the sky has been nothing but shades of gray.
This is a part of the paradox we live.
I no longer have a budget that can support my all-natural body care regiment, nor access to the same kind of food options to feed my family (though I am finding new treasures in the local markets). The water that comes from the faucet must do for showering, washing dishes, and even brushing our teeth; but it is not safe to drink…so we have drinking water delivered in big re-usable PLASTIC bottles. But all of these adjustments confronting our bodies pale in comparison to the difference I see and feel in the air we breathe.
I once spoke on the the Breath of God: teaching that the Hebrew word referring the the Spirit or Breath of God was the same as the Hebrew word for wind. In some mysterious way we are not able to fully comprehend, I believe the air we breathe is 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, and 1% other gases AND ALSO 100% the Breath of God. So it truly saddens me to see it so polluted. It breaks my heart to realize that most of the people we now surround ourselves with have NEVER known the kind of pure air I’ve breathed my entire life. Nor do they know of the life-giving, soul-cleansing, power that comes from the knowledge and acceptance of the Breath of God.
A few days ago we finally had a major cleansing rain. The difference between the air today and the air a month ago is stark. We can now see far enough to know that our entire city is surrounded by mountain ranges not just smog. However, now that I know how one measures air quality, I am aware that even when the air looks this clear, it is still not as clean as the air back home at its worst. And I imagine our Nebraska ranch land air is nowhere close to as perfect as it was the day God breathed the world into existence. (This idea has Rod thinking in kingdom metaphors as well, see his post: https://ourparadoxology.com/it-could-be-worse-is-not-the-same-as-being-good/). Someday, the kingdom will come and the whole earth will be made new. I pray my new neighbors will be with me in that kingdom, when we taste the Breath of God free of all contaminates. Come Lord Jesus, Come.
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Celebrating Tallulah
4 years ago, we met our Tallulah. When she first saw us, she ran away. When it was time to take her home, she kicked and screamed. When we got “home” to the little apartment we had rented, she was determined to keep her jacket and backpack on, ready to go at a moments notice. When it was time to go to bed, I laid beside her and watched huge crocodile tears roll down her face. When I laid my hand on her in an attempt to comfort her, she lifted it off and set it down on the bed beside her. She could not yet feel our love. She was so big and brave, and yet so tiny and broken.
I think they quit shaving her hair at the orphanage when they knew she had a family coming for her, but–even though she was dressed in pink–other adoptive families asked if this was our “little guy.” So I was determined that our beautiful girl should have long hair, and kept at it for years even when we had to adjust our plans to accommodate Tallulah’s DIY haircuts.
Last week, we celebrated Tallulah’s 14th Birthday, and our teenager got a new grown-up “do.” The gentleman who cut her hair was wonderful, and made her feel so so pretty!
When we returned home, she was eager to show off her new hair and was excited by the surprises and celebration dad and her siblings had prepared while we were gone.
But it’s this video that takes the cake…wait for the moment when she knows, for sure, that this song is all about her!
Love sure looks good on her!
