Tuesday, September 4, 2018

home videos...

My kids have been getting on my computer to watch old videos of themselves on this blog.  We don't have home videos... we have this blog!

I haven't been filming them as much as I should, but now they're filming themselves, so here's a few videos I found on my phone to share.  

Who knows what this one was, but it cracks me up...



Caroline continues to have a beautiful singing voice.  Found this video of her singing & rapping her favorite Lecrae song...



Another one I found on my phone...



Her first attempt laying harmony tracks... although she couldn't figure out how to line up the timing, you can hear it's in there!



And how about a grand finale of Jameson screaming down a hill?

what's next....

Oh man, it’s been awhile. 

And life is completely different now.

For the past 17 years, this would be the “peak season” of our year.  College students are returning to town, and this is when all ministry events and meetings would kick into full swing. My body just naturally feels stressed this time of year remembering the pressure to meet and welcome new freshmen into our group.

But this year is different.  We aren’t in the business of welcoming students anymore.  We’re in the business of welcoming guests.  Into our homes and into our city.  In this break from vocational ministry, Marc and I have been given the opportunity to pour ourselves full-time into houses and Airbnb.  We’re making our life-long hobby into our job.  Fun, right? Emphatically I’ll say YES. But it’s not without its own set of stressors.

Because we don’t know if this house thing is going to be our next “thing,” or if it’s just an “in the meantime” thing. We can’t see into the future, and we don’t know where God may call us next.  So for now, we are staying put in Lynchburg and being resourceful with what we have and what we know.  We’ve got some rental property, we’re working on our 3rd Airbnb now, I’m co-hosting for several Airbnb clients (sort of similar to a property manager), we’re starting our first ever house flip very soon, and Marc will be doing some on-call hospital chaplain visits with University of Lynchburg students.

We’re busy, busy, busy, which is why you rarely hear from me on this format anymore. Usually all I can squeak out is a picture and highlight reel on social media here and there.  And as great as social media can be to keep us all briefly in touch, it’s a harder place to be real, to be vulnerable. 

That’s my hope for this blog.  It was always intended to be a “safe place” for me to honestly pour out my feelings and fears. If you know me in real life, you know that I value authenticity and transparency.  There just isn’t time in life to beat around the bush and pretend.  So here I am, back to type and process a little as I write.

We’ve received various reactions to our decision to step down from RUF without having a “what’s next” plan already concocted.  Some have called us brave and inspirational, some probably think we’re crazy.  And generally, it’s not a good idea to leave one job until you have the next one squared away, I agree.  I’m not a risk taker by nature, and I can’t tell you how HARD it was for me to walk into this no-man’s land.  No monthly paycheck.  No benefits.  No job.  Well, sort of.

I didn’t honestly know if we’d be okay, but here we are. We made it to the other side and WE DIDN’T DIE.  In fact, we’re actually doing quite well!  We’ve got a freedom that we haven’t felt before… a freedom over our calendar, over our choices, over our life’s direction and calling.  Ministry, as wonderful as it was with our students, had demands on us (particularly with fund-raising) that were beginning to feel more like shackles than freedom.  As we’ve gone through major identity shifts over the last few years, we’ve felt the need to leave our neighborhood, our institutions, our social and financial security in order to go where God was obviously sending us.

Like He did with Abraham, God has pushed us out of our comfortable places.  And He hasn’t yet told us WHERE we’re going. (small details…)  It’s frustrating and scary at times, yet we try to walk faithfully (though feebly) by faith and not by sight. 

We’re working with our hands and doing what’s in front of us.

Today I stopped to think about all the suffering we’ve endured over the past year, and a word came to my mind: “Re-formation.”

It’s funny how over the years we often used the word “reformation” in our ministry.  Even in the name, “REFORMED University Fellowship.”  It’s a theological word with tons of meaning with which we are well-acquainted, but not until today did I think to apply it to our family’s experience as of late.

But today.  It hit me.

If God is the Potter, and we are the clay, He has slowly and painfully decided to shape a new work with us.  The “clay” of our life is mold-able and changeable.  Life as we knew it, like the clay on the potter’s wheel, has been crushed in His hands. It’s felt like we’ve been spinning incessantly. He has seen fit to push us from every direction and it’s hurt like hell.

I have doubted His goodness.  I have doubted His presence. 

But even though we’ve felt knocked down, the Potter has never removed His hands from us.  He’s been at work the entire time to “RE-form” and re-shape us into a new masterpiece for His glory. 
And as we enter this time of “RE-formation” into who knows what, may we begin to feel the gentle touch of the Potter’s hands upon us.


Saturday, July 14, 2018

sleeping booty...

Hello, again! This is Caroline.

This blog is a combo of around three different topics.
I couldn't choose which one I wanted to share with you, so I'll share all of them.


My mom is starting an airbnb in our old house. This is the picture right before I happened to break the bone on the side of my foot. I was having a race with my friend and brother and I slipped on my Heely's and fell. The way I fell, I can't remember. But I do remember IT HURT.








 My parents took me to the urgent care and I got this scan; if you look where my orthopedic doctor marked the arrow, you can see a crack/fracture in my foot. My foot was and still kind of is now swollen. My foot was probably in tears by then.
 This is when I got home, excited about my new crutches. (BTW, NEVER like crutches. They REALLY hurt and annoy you.) I couldn't walk to the bathroom; I had to grab or have someone get my crutches. I got super annoyed. Boy! Glad I don't have to wear that bulky boot and especially use those crutches anymore.
 During my tragic experience with a fractured foot, my brother was having a happy first time losing a tooth. That kid can bring a twinge of happiness in sad times. He's the greatest.
 This is me and my little nurse brother trying to get into Coldstone Creamery. A lot of effort to get into an ice cream shop. (It was worth it, though) I couldn't walk on my foot so it was bounce after bounce on my left foot. Ugh.

And to make things harder, I had committed to the summer play at my school! We selected Sleeping Beauty, and I happened to get the role of Sleeping Beauty. I had a stand-in for the dance scenes, luckily. This is me in the Animal Scene and my friend Meliyah in the bunny costume behind me.



 Huge congrats to my friend Sophia who played the role of Maleficent. She was amazing. I mean, everyone did awesome in the play, but she stole the show.

I was in the scene where I got pricked by the spinning wheel and I fell on the bed, and when I fell, my parents saw my boot pop out from under my dress. We had a joke in our family that I was 'Sleeping Booty'. For little kiddos that think that's funny, keep on laughing! It is funny! But it's not the butt kind of booty. It's the boot kind of booty.





Our big finale was a huge hit. Our dancing and singing made it the star song. We all did amazing in my opinion. You must go see the plays at T.C. Miller. They are outstanding!










Meliyah is one of my best friends. She is so awesome and really nice. She played Queen Stephanie/bunny in Sleeping Beauty.


















#myplaceisonstage

My family is the best. They are really supportive and will help me with my lines in the plays I participate in. I hope next year I get a lead role because playing a role at T.C. Miller is probably the greatest thing ever. Do you have a child who is in grades K-5? Sign them up for the lottery list or enroll them in the waiting list (as my parents like to call it). Thanks for listening to me!


Wednesday, April 25, 2018

headlights...

It's now public and official, so I can announce to you that this will be our final semester of RUF.  

Wow, it's so bittersweet to even type that sentence.  

17 YEARS of a job that really feels more like a way of life for us, and all of that is about to change.

But WE have changed. 

I look back on who I was just five years ago, and it's like sometimes I don't really know her anymore.  (I should probably write more about that at some point.)  I know Marc would say the same, too.

In our process of sanctification, we've grown and we've changed.  Through the circumstances in our life, God has steered our path away from campus ministry and more towards a love for the city, a love for the poor, and a heart for justice and racial reconciliation.  

My counselor says we've undergone "major identity shifts" in recent years as we've raised a black son, lived in a poor urban neighborhood, and taken students on mission trips to the inner city each year.  Those things can't help but change you.  

There was a huge tension of what I was pondering all week in my neighborhood and how it was connecting (or not) to Sunday morning.  We were living in two vastly different worlds, which was terribly confusing and painfully isolating.

Change and transformation IS painful and even traumatic.  God has been pulling us away from the life we had before ("old life," if you read that previous blog post) and we are slowly entering into an unfamiliar, yet exciting "new life."   We've carefully and thoughtfully left jobs and churches and schools and people we've loved, and each decision felt more painful than the one before.  

(Can I give a quick shout out to our wonderful therapists at this point?  Seriously.  They've walked us through so many life transitions and we don't know what we would've done without them.  Everybody, go find a great therapist!)

But at each step, we knew it was inching us towards "new life." Towards freedom to pursue the things we feel called to pursue.

But here's the thing....what's crazy is that we've stepped out into a wilderness with no next job lined up.  We literally have NO idea what's next for us job-wise.  How's that for scary? (I mean, faith-building?  haha)

But what we DO know and feel confidence in is that we're on the right path.  We know it's time for a break from vocational ministry before whatever lies ahead, which is only possible financially from selling one of our rental properties.

Our plan in the meantime is to focus on our rental properties and my Airbnb job.  Doing houses together has always been our hobby.  It's hard work, but it's so rewarding. We can't wait to work together as a team.  We'll be intentionally seeking rest and spiritual & emotional nourishment, too.  In some ways, we know specifics of what that means, and in other ways, we're still trying to figure out from where/whom that nourishment will come.

Marc's sister gave a good analogy that comes to my mind each day as we prepare for this transition into the wilderness.... \

It's night outside.  

We're in a car driving with the headlights on.  

From inside the car, we can only see a few feet ahead to what the headlights reveal in the darkness.   

We can't look ahead or plan ahead because we just can't see very far in the dark.  

But what we CAN do is keep going those few feet ahead, and when we do, the headlights will then show us the next few feet, and so on.  

It's kinda like walking by faith and not by sight.

The "headlights" are showing us our next steps are to finish RUF in May and begin a season of rest from ministry.  I don't know how long that season will be, or where we'll end up after it's over.  I don't know what turns and twists are up ahead.  Many days that's frightening.  (My emotions are so all-over the place that I'm just learning to accept them and try to ride the waves...) 

But I suppose as we inch ahead in what IS revealed, God will make our path clearer and brighter little by little.










Monday, February 19, 2018

ten years....

Yesterday our sweet Caroline turned 10!!  Double digits, baby!  I guess that makes this blog officially a decade old, too!

We planned a fun overnight shopping spree in Richmond for our gal who wanted clothes.  

BUT, as life likes to do, our plans were thwarted suddenly when we noticed another skin staph infection developing on my leg (just inches away from the one I battled 2 months ago and landed in the ER...what in the world).

So what was SUPPOSED to be our fun birthday overnight was spent in the Urgent Care...

(That's how I'm blogging.  I'm in pain on the couch waiting to get in to see my doctor today...)

Thankfully I was able to pull it together to get to a few stores and Caroline got some cute stuff.  

Just not at all how we all wanted to celebrate 10.







But since I've got a little time, I'll give a super quick update....

Caroline's LOVING her new public school.  She's got a group of diverse friends, her grades are great, she's in almost every club and activity they offer... show choir, math club, jump rope club, gifted & talented program, she's got a major role in their big play this Spring, you name it.  She's also started on violin and if I could just get the girl to practice more often, she has SO much talent for it.


Now I am FAR from a crafty person, but she and I came up with this art project together with $3 canvases and a $1 bag of dried beans. 


Jameson is growing like crazy in every way.  He's taking swim lessons at the Y, going to pre-school every day to get ready for kindergarten next year, and is in love with everything that involves fighting and battles... Star Wars, Kung Fu Panda, and most recently Black Panther.

Jameson & his friend DJ
He BEGGED us to use his own money to get a Black Panther costume. 

Marc surprised him by taking him to see Black Panther on opening day.  He wore his full costume and people in the theater were all snapping pictures with him!  

My basement apartment Airbnb has been killing it.  Booked almost solid.

And I've been loving it so much that I've now got 2 clients who want my services to help me set up and manage their own Airbnb spaces!  Dream job.


Marc is doing great.  Back to work after Christmas break and rolling along this semester teaching Romans in RUF.  He's taking students to an inner city mission trip in Chattanooga, TN, in just a couple weeks. 

 Students over for the Super Bowl!
I know my recent blogs have been rather raw and ambiguously depressing.  There's no doubt we've endured our fair share of suffering in the past 6 months. But it's finally beginning to feel like we're coming through on the other side, and for that I am SO grateful.  We'll still wear the scars, but at least there is healing ahead.

Monday, January 29, 2018

finding my words...

Hello my blog friends,

I'm sorry if you came here looking for fun updates and cute pictures of the kids.  They're doing great.  I hope to share more about what they're up to soon.

But I'M coming here to write and process.  So much is swirling through my mind after the year we've had, and though we didn't drown in the flood of suffering, I'm still catching my breath from it all.

I'm trying to find my words.

There are layers to our suffering that are too vulnerable to share, most especially on a public blog.  Marc and I have been deeply wounded in many ways this year, and I'm limited in what I can say and who I can tell.

That alone makes suffering so much harder, y'all.

When my daughter's hair was falling out, I took to this blog to write my raw, honest emotions as they came.  It was a huge part of my acceptance process, not only to write it out, but for others to read it and empathize with us through our struggle.  Our suffering was "out there," public, on display for all to see and respond.

I suppose if I have to suffer, I prefer to take my suffering communally like that.  It holds me up to know that others KNOW and care and are WITH me.

If I may be so vulnerable to admit, I'm not feeling "held up" right now.

I'm navigating these deep waters with Marc, a good therapist, and a couple of close friends.

And I'm supposed to believe that Jesus is with me, making a way for me, directing me along this journey.  He's carried me thus far, and He has been so, so good and faithful in the past.

But my fears tell me this time it's different.  The evil one whispers lies to me.... "no one is with you," "you don't belong anywhere," "you should have never changed."

An older, wiser friend sat through Caroline's hairloss journey with me.  She opened up the Bible and showed me in the Psalms how raw and honest were the words of lament.  And at the end of many of the laments (not all), the psalmist suddenly makes an abrupt right turn to say something hopeful to the effect of "yet will I trust Him..."

I remember my friend gently and lovingly telling me, "Amy, you're not in that final verse yet where you're able to proclaim your faith.  You're still in verses 1-4 of the lament, and that's OKAY."  She gave me time and space to not be okay.  I didn't have to fix myself or change my attitude right away.  And you know, looking back, over time I guess Jesus did that for me.

Right now, I'm finding my words.

There's alot I'm trying to figure out.

And I'm going to heed my friend's advice.  It's okay if the words I'm finding are mostly those of lament, disappointment, fear and doubt.

Is this whole Christianity thing even true?
God, are you even there?
How long, O Lord, will you turn your back from me?

Lord, I believe.  But help my unbelief.





Tuesday, January 9, 2018

2017...

Good riddance to you, 2017.

You brought with you deeper sorrows than I've ever felt.  You took away people and things that brought great joy into my life.  You held all the most terrible moments in your hands and seemed to rain them down on my head. You turned my hairs gray.  You took away any sense of "normal" I might have felt before. 

And now, in this beginning of 2018, I'm still left trying to piece myself together from the havoc you created.

Goodbye, 2017.  I won't ever forget you.

I'm still recovering from you, but I have a sneaking suspicion I'll look back on you and see how all your chaos and pain changed me. 

I think you pushed me down the path a little faster than I wanted to go.

And one day, I hope I'll thank you for that.


Monday, December 4, 2017

transracial adoption and jesus in the chick fil A...

If you've been following our journey on this blog (where I share much more of my heart than on social media), it's no surprise that our family has endured one of our toughest semesters yet on so many fronts.  (Read back a few posts ago and perhaps you'll get a sense for the amount of stress we've endured.)

Some things are improving, and some things remain very raw, sore, and difficult.  We are trying to find our way.

Life looks so different now than it used to.  Through these trials, I've found myself reflecting often upon transracial adoption (adopting outside of your race/across racial lines).  It's changed our life so radically over the past five years. 

When we adopted Jameson, (and that was a whirlwind of a story- whew!) we took the adoption experts' advice very seriously when it came to incorporating our son's culture into our family.

I know lots of white families that have adopted black and biracial children.  Some of them choose to ignore the topics of race and our racial history with their children (as is custom in white culture).  Someone I know even touted, "My friend's children don't even know they're black!" 

Sigh.

To be fair, every adoptive couple, just like every parent, has the right to decide how they'll parent their children on various topics throughout a child's life.  I'd even guess it's probably more common for white couples adopting transracially to simply include their child into their own life and culture with very little changes to expose their child to his/her own culture and identity.  (That's tough work.)

But here's the problem. 

All those cute little black babies raised by sweet white families in the past few decades are now ADULTS.  And they're talking.  They're sharing their experiences of being raised in white families, in white churches, in white neighborhoods.  Research shows they're struggling through their own identity issues as they're now living as black men and women in life, and they're often finding themselves ill-prepared to handle life as a person of color in society once they're out from underneath their parents' white umbrella.

It's Marc and I's mission to raise our children in such a way to honor their birthfamilies and to honor their heritage.  Since Jameson's adoption is across ethnic lines, it's an added challenge but we want to do everything we possibly can to learn about, celebrate, and incorporate the richness of his culture into our own family.

Even when it puts us in a strange wilderness like now.

Because we're not black.  We're not white.  We're a black AND white family.  Collectively.

And so that makes us constant pilgrims longing for a place and a people to which we belong.
We're in process from "old life" to "new life," where there is alot more color and diversity.  That may sound nice and exciting, but in reality, painful isn't a strong enough word to describe that transition for us. 

Don't get me wrong, I love wherever I'm headed, for I know it's God that is doing the leading, and He will surely guide us. 

But I'll be walking with a limp to get there.

Last week, I was standing in the airport Chick Fil A line with Caroline and Jameson before our flight home departed.  (Marc was on baggage duty back at the gate while we got food.)  Jameson was in my arms, and he was being a total sweetie.  Our faces were close to one another, and we were just engaging in a typical 5-year-old mom and son conversation.  When Jameson laid his head down on my shoulder because he'd been up since the crack of dawn traveling, my eyes met those of another man.

I'd seen this man back at the gate.  He was kindof an odd duck, almost like a black Indiana Jones.  The adventure hat, the vest, the chiseled facial features and muscular build.  Intimidating at first glance, but at the back of the Chick Fil A line, he was staring straight into my eyes in a way that was incredibly profound, full of compassion.

Was he trying to tell me something?  Or is this just my imagination? I'm trying to figure out.  I really wish I was more intuitive...

But he continued looking at Jameson and me, and he nodded his head slowly. 

I see you, Mom, his expression and nod told me. 

And then, he nodded at me AGAIN!  Slowly, intentionally, deliberately.  TWO NODS!  He was telling me something.   He was non-verbally affirming my motherhood to my chocolate-skinned son in such a tender way that I was incredibly humbled. 

I fought back tears and smiled knowingly back at him.  Thank you for seeing me, I wanted my face to say.  Thank you for affirming me in such a difficult season in life.

I turned around and we continued through the line.  As we ordered, the girls at the cash register were striking up conversation with Caroline, even to the point of name introductions.  And just as it was time to insert my credit card into the machine......almost out of nowhere the man walked up with his credit card in hand and told the cashier, "It's on me."

Y'all.  I just about burst out crying!  (It's a moment I've been WAITING to type about because it won't leave my thoughts and memory.)

I don't know who that man was, and I've even questioned if he was an angel?! 

Because to me, that moment was as if it was the Lord himself affirming me....

Amy, I see you.  You're doing this.  Though it's painful, and people will reject you and think you're crazy, you're on the right track.  You're giving everything you have to love your children and I'm proud of you.

It was like God was saying:

Not only am I going to affirm where you're headed, do not fear.  I'm even going to PROVIDE for you along the journey.  You won't go hungry.  Trust in me.  I'll feed you along the way, and I'll send the most unlikely people to do it.  

I know it's a little weird to compare this guy in the Chick Fil A line to Christ himself, but out of love, this guy rushed to the front of the busy line to pay my debt.

And in that moment, my faith was increased.