really, really yours?...

When you've got a child who's not the same skin color as you, you've gotta be prepared.

For the stares, sure.  But most especially for the questions.  From total strangers.

Are you fostering?
Are you babysitting?
Where's his real mom?
How old was he when you got him?

I was shielded from alot of these interactions with Caroline, but not so much with a transracial adoption.

But just because I'm prepared for the questions doesn't mean they're any less awkward to deal with when they come.  It's even more complex now that my daughter is old enough to hear and comprehend the questions herself.

This morning, immediately after meeting my children, a woman turned to me and said (in front of them), "Is she (meaning Caroline) really yours?  Like, really, really yours?"

(implying Jameson was not "really, really mine"...)

"Oh, are you asking if she is adopted, too?  Yes she is and both of my kids are really, really mine," I quickly responded, trying to gently correct her obvious misperceptions about adoption (and not to mention, lack of tact.)

"You've had them since birth?" she pried even further.

"Yes," I answered her shortly.  My mind was already spinning about what conversations I'd be having with Caroline upon this woman's departure.

At least the woman had the sense to wait until Caroline left the room before she began asking me about her baldness, assuming she was in remission from chemo.

Wow.  Right?

I'm careful to give people the benefit of the doubt in these conversations.  I don't expect people to know what alopecia is.  I don't expect people to know if Jameson is my son or not.  Naturally, our family raises questions in people's minds.

I know that in giving me this family, and these children, God has forever made me a spokeswoman and representative for things like transracial adoption and for alopecia.  Right there in my job description next to "kiss boo-boo's" and "teach manners" is "answer people's ridiculous questions about why my daughter doesn't have hair and why my son's skin doesn't look the same as mine."

It's my job as a mom to shield my children from people's insensitive and curious questions, and my goal is always to demonstrate graciousness while providing correction and awareness where needed.   I know my kids are watching and listening, and I want to empower them with the words to handle themselves in these situations as they grow.

But I'd also like for people to use a small measure of thoughtfulness, too.  Is that too much to ask?  Can I just request one thing-- DO NOT ASK IF MY CHILDREN ARE REALLY MINE IN FRONT OF THEM.

My children are really mine.  Like, really really really mine.

Does it matter in an introduction how my daughter came into this world and into my family?  We don't seem to say, "This is my 10 year old son who was born cesarean after 15 hours of difficult labor."  Does it matter if my children came out of my tummy or someone else's when you introduce them?

When I say I'm the "real mom," I am not implying that my children's birthmothers aren't.  I am ALL for birth families, (especially my children's- we love you!) and they are just as real and apart of my children's stories as I am.

But whether a child came out of her tummy or mine doesn't make a mom real or fake.  (that's called "adoptism" by the way)

Birthparents/biological parents are real.  Adoptive parents are real.

To imply otherwise IN FRONT OF MY DAUGHTER, who is beginning to have those natural developmental questions in her adoption journey, is not helpful or appropriate.

And it makes Mama Bear pretty darn angry, too.

But you know, God even uses the inappropriate words of others for His glory and our good.  Over lunch today, I talked with the kids about what had happened this morning.  "Mom, she was weird," was Caroline's first reaction to the situation.

"But yeah, Mom, there was this girl today who was asking me if Jameson was my brother, and I was like 'yeah he is' and she said, 'But what color is your mom and Dad?' and I told her our colors and she didn't believe me."

"Oh, because she probably thinks families have to match," I said.  "But do families have to match in color?"

"NO!" both of my kids answered in unison.  (Ahhh, I have trained them well.)

We began listing out all of the families we know who "don't match," including our sweet neighbors across the street.

We rehearsed what to say when someone says, "That's not your mom!" or "Your family is different."  (the answer to the latter being, "Yep, we are different and we love being different.")

We talked about how beautiful all skin tones are.  I asked Jameson if he likes his brown skin.

"Yes!" he shouted.

"You should be very proud of it!  We all love your chocolate skin."

Those are important conversations that need to be had in our house.

And I'm prayerfully hopeful that those same conversations are happening in your home, too.

protest...

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is one of our family's favorite holidays of the year.

"MLKJ Day," as Caroline calls it, gives our family the opportunity to remember that we wouldn't even exist if it weren't for the courage of those who led the charge in the civil rights movement.

"MLKJ Day" also gives us the chance to celebrate the realization of his dream that "one day little black boys will join hands with little white girls as sisters and brothers."

Of course there's much more to MLK Jr's influence than just his "I Have a Dream" speech, though that is probably his most well-known. Dr. King's insistence upon using love to drive out hate through nonviolence is what changed the face of society as we know it.

(By the way, I'd encourage you to watch the movie "Selma" to gain perspective of the Civil Rights era if you haven't seen it.)

Even though Dr. King walked hundreds of miles in peaceful protests, I honestly never thought I'd be engaging in one.  But God is growing me and taking me out of comfortable places to teach me what it means to follow Him.  He's been showing Marc and I our own idols of fear and comfort, and how we have placed those above Him.

In his letter from a Birmingham jail, Dr. King wrote:

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not . . . the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace, which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace, which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direction action.” . . . Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. . . . We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.

Marc and I see ourselves SO MUCH in Dr. King's words.  Who knows how many people have been hurt by our preference to have this "negative peace," as he puts it.  So in this particular instance, when an RUF student of ours began forming this peaceful protest, we decided we could not continue in our silence.

 The morning of the protest was FREEZING.  (Our kids would've never survived out there, thankfully a friend kept them for me.)

And we didn't have time to make a sign, so we literally took the artwork I made that hangs above our couch off the wall and used that as our sign.  (haha!)

As Marc and I drove onto campus, my heart was beating a hundred times a minute.  I'd never done anything like this before.  And I didn't know how it would go or be received.

We got out of our car and began walking towards the protestors' location, a place the police had designated which was ironically, not visible to anyone going to the Trump convocation.  At every point, we found ourselves blocked off by barricades and police officers.

How were we supposed to find our group?

We had to circle back through the university's largest building, and wouldn't you know, the long hallway we had to walk down was brimming with everyone standing in line to see Mr. Trump.

Just imagine it-- a hallway as long as an airport concourse filled to capacity with THOUSANDS of people, and Marc and I's only option of finding our small protest group was to walk that hallway AGAINST THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC.

"Sorry, excuse us," we repeated over and over again as we squished through the masses of bodies with our large MLK sign.  (Can we say AWKWARD?!?)  It was quite a picture-- thousands of people waiting in conformity, and the two of us working so hard to swim upstream for what we believed in.

After walking for what felt like an eternity, we finally found our group!  It was small, as I expected, yet it was beautifully diverse, as I had hoped.  Tears came to my eyes as I beheld it all: black, white, young, old, student, community member, disabled, and walkers.  All joining together to honor the legacy of MLK in the face of the university's racial insensitivity on such a day.  We were instantly welcomed, and it was such a bonding experience to be around like-minded folks who were also not going to continue the silence.

But on a frigid day, there's only so long you can stand in the shade unnoticed in a silent protest.  So we decided to take a little walk around campus and find a small spot of public land near the entrance to the university.

I guess I expected something like this to feel very "extraordinary."  Radical.  Dangerous, even. (I think the images of violent protests on tv worked a number on my anxious mind!)

 But it didn't.  It felt really normal.  Ordinary.  Just standing on streets I've been on hundreds of times, this time holding up words of love and getting to know the people standing around me.

I know there was a consensus around Liberty that the protest was disrespectful and created problems.  I would humbly disagree.

MLK said, "Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with." 

Boy, did the hidden tension come out into the open.  I guess I expected the nasty looks.  The heads shaking in disgust.  The middle fingers.  The cell phones taking our picture only to mock our protest on the internet.

I didn't expect the "you're going to hell" comments, but hey, it's okay.  Just because something isn't received well doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

Because even though our group was small and the protest was rather uneventful, there were hundreds and thousands across the country who chimed in to support our efforts and Marc's article.  Some folks came up and spoke to us, offering us their support.  Others honked in support as they drove by.  One black Liberty student commented on the article about the protest,

"I cried reading this because sometimes I know people don't get it and I know people don't care to get it. My friends, leaders, those leading me to Christ are completely unaware and it's terrifying.  So thank you. I cannot protest because of the organizations I'm apart of, but I support and encourage you to keep going."

Perhaps many would say the protest was a waste of time and that it didn't accomplish anything.  I'll admit, it was tempting to feel that way when I came home.  But it certainly gave everyone plenty to talk about around campus and the country, and the discussions it raised are the only way change can even begin.  (It's interesting to me that those who are Protestants have the word "protest" in our very name.  Our faith and our churches were born out of an important protest that changed society as we know it.)

Social activism certainly wasn't on my bucket list for 2016, but the more God is teaching me, the more I'm seeing it as Kingdom work.  Because all humans are made in the image of God, Christians work to end oppression and injustice and we desire that all people be treated with the dignity which they have already been given by their Creator.

why I will protest a school i love...

The following article (written by Marc) was published last Saturday by the Gospel Coalition.  You can view it on TGC's website here.  

I am a pastor who loves Jesus. Yet I’m also realizing I’m a pastor who loves comfort, ease, a good reputation, and money almost just as much. These idols cause me to fear writing the words you’re now reading.  

But even more scary to me are the words of Jesus: “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you” (Luke 6:26). After his first sermon proclaiming good news to the poor, people wanted to throw him off a cliff (Luke 4:16–29). Time and again in Scripture, we see Jesus upsetting the religious establishment of his day in order for God’s kingdom to advance. To put it mildly, Jesus was peacefully disruptive.

My comfort disappeared when my alma mater, Liberty University, chose to commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by featuring Donald Trump as the convocation speaker. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a pastor who advocated for freedom, equality, and justice for all human beings made in God’s image. In contrast, Donald Trump, in the last few months alone, has publicly mocked the disabled, used vulgar expressions to refer to women, and spoken derogatory words against Muslims, immigrants, and Latinos. 

In a nation still struggling with racial tensions, wouldn’t there be a plethora of other speakers for my alma mater to host on a day intended to commemorate racial equality?  

“We chose that day,” Liberty University president Jerry Falwell, Jr. explained, “so that Mr. Trump would have the opportunity to recognize and honor Dr. King on MLK day.” While admitting Trump is “not a civil rights expert,” Falwell believes the presidential candidate, along with the University, stands for King’s principle that all people should be judged, as King put it, “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

The Date Matters

Please hear me. I love free speech. I support inviting speakers from a wide range of backgrounds and ideas into a university setting, like when Liberty hosted Bernie Sanders last semester. I don’t have a problem with Trump coming to speak. I have a problem with the date.

What if Liberty had chosen Bernie Sanders, a candidate with a lifetime pro-choice record, as their keynote speaker to honor “Sanctity of Human Life” Sunday? The juxtaposition between the speaker and the date would be insensitive and offensive to the principles the day is commemorating, just as it will be this Monday when Trump speaks on MLK Day.

As a white father to a black son, MLK Day means a great deal to me. Without the efforts of King and countless other civil rights activists, my precious family would not exist. Whites and blacks in the South weren’t allowed to drink from the same water fountain back in King’s day, much less be in the same family. Through adoption, though, my children are a living picture of King’s dream that “one day little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”

Sometimes it baffles me why white Southern evangelicals didn’t march with King against the systemic injustices of racism. But then I look in the mirror and quickly realize that I, in my silence and comfort, am no better. 

In his letter from Birmingham jail, King wrote:

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not . . . the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace, which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace, which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direction action.” . . . Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. . . . We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.

To put it mildly, Martin Luther King, Jr. was peacefully disruptive. He protested in the face of hatred and violence. And eventually, through these peaceful protests, truth prevailed and society changed.

Protesting the University

I am proud of the Liberty students who’ve decided that the best way to honor Martin Luther King Jr. this Monday is to imitate him with a peaceful protest of the university’s racial insensitivity. Though I fear what people will think or do, I’ve decided to stand alongside them in their protest as a step toward repenting of my own idols of comfort and ease. Though I love my alma mater, I am planning to attend the protest out of my love and respect for these students, for all those who are marginalized in our society, and for the future of my son. 

Some think protesting is inherently disrespectful, but I humbly disagree in this case. King’s daughter, Bernice, taught us how to disagree when she referenced, in a 2009 Liberty convocation, an issue with her mother: “When there is unconditional love, you can stand strong in the position you have been convicted of even if it means you have to take a position that may be different from your own loved ones.” Christians can have differing opinions on what, if any, action should be taken.

Every single human being, including Trump, is created in the image of God. And that doctrine compels me and other Christians to actively seek justice for the poor and the oppressed as we attempt to follow Jesus. 

I won’t be holding up a sign with words of love because I seek to create division or hate. Quite the contrary. Though it will not be comfortable, I will be holding up a sign with words of love because I, in the footsteps of King and so many others, desire to see all people treated with the dignity they have already been given by their Creator.

Marc Corbett is the campus minister for Reformed University Fellowship in Lynchburg, Virginia, which includes students from Liberty University, Sweet Briar College, Lynchburg College, and Randolph College.

hands of love: christmas gifts...

Normally you'd be expecting some yummy recipes from a "Hands of Love" post.  I began "Hands of Love" posts five years ago when Caroline was losing her hair and we were trying to see if it could be helped through nutritional therapy.  At the time I had NO idea how to cook gluten, dairy, & soy free meals, and it truly became a full-time job for my "hands of love" to put food on the table.  

This "Hands of Love" doesn't have any recipes.  Instead, it has Christmas gifts I made this year with my "hands of love"!  (Thanks to a bazillion free tutorials on Pinterest and the excellent idea from my neighbor.)

 It was the year for burlap wreaths!

I was surprised how easy they were to make once I figured it out, and what's great about these wreaths is that the accessories on them can be changed out with the seasons so it can be a year-round gift.

 I even made them for our teachers' gifts.

 I think they turned out really cute!  I want to make one for myself now.

Family members got more personalized wreaths- like using initials and colors/things they love like peacock feathers...

 ...or even camouflage!  he he

I think my favorite was the one I made for my mother-in-law, who is a lover of all things deep red.  I ordered the red burlap online and it turned out gorgeous.

The burlap wreaths were a hit!  

Such a fun project for these "hands of love."

real mom, fake mom...

It was bound to happen at some point.  It's practically a milestone for every adoptee, I think.

I didn't think it'd happen this young.

But the other night in a fit of anger, out came the words, "YOU'RE NOT MY REAL MOM, YOU'RE A FAKE MOM!!!!!"

Whew.  That'll getcha.

It was like a dagger to my gut.

All of the painful years I spent being poked and prodded in invasive infertility treatments just for the opportunity to be called a mom flashed in front of my eyes.

The years I have spent every day kissing every boo boo, teaching every life skill, and tucking in bedevery night suddenly didn't seem to qualify as I stared into the angry eyes of the baby I took home from the hospital at 2 days old and have loved fiercely ever since.

And suddenly I'm not a real mom.  I'm a fake mom.

I burst into tears.

There's probably nothing more painful she could have said to me.  Nothing in the world.

When we were in adoption training, I remember being told this day would come.  It's normal identity stuff that every adoptee must face and deal through, and it's typical for it to begin in the school-age years.

Through my own tears, I sat down on the couch to try to understand her wounded little heart in that moment.

"Why would you say that, baby?  What makes you feel that way?"

"Well, I feel that if you were my real mom, you wouldn't be so mean to me, so you must be my fake mom."

Okay, that actually made me feel a little better, because I knew my "being mean" was that I had just said it was too late to watch Star Wars tonight and we would try again tomorrow.  The poor girl was physically exhausted... enter temper tantrum.

But even though those words were blurted out in a rage, I know Caroline's wheels have been turning ever since our super fun visit with her birthmommy Megan at Thanksgiving.  In the car on the way home from our visit, I could tell she was processing everything more than she had before.

"Don't you love it that we can visit your birthmommy?  What a gift that is because alot of kids who are adopted don't ever get to know their birthfamily," I started off the conversation.

"Yeah," she responded.  Pause.  "Mom?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you like my fake mommy and birthmommy Megan is my real mommy?"

"No, I can see how it might feel that way, but you have two very real mommies.  A birthmommy AND a mommy.  We're both your real mommies.  Mommy Megan gave birth to you, and I am the mommy who is raising you."

I could tell she was still thinking.

"Caroline, do you feel like you have to pick a mommy?  Like, do you feel like you have to pick which Mommy you like best?"

"Yeah."  I heard relief in her voice at the opportunity to be honest about her feelings.

"Oh, sweetheart, you don't have to pick.  Daddy and I hope you will love both of your mommies very much.  I want you to love your birthmommy Megan, and I want you to love your Mommy, too.  One isn't better than the other, they're both very important in your life.  So you don't need to pick one or the other, okay?"

"Okay.  That's good."

That's as far as the conversation went that time.  But I knew the other night when she screamed that real mom/fake mom comment, it revealed the deeper crevices of her own processing.

It's weird and a little painful at times to begin this new phase in the adoption journey.  I can't imagine what it will look like with my son, especially if he still has no contact with his birth family at all.

I know I'm not a fake mom.  Even the United States government recognizes me on her birth certificate.  

But at the other end of this developmental stage, my hope is that Caroline herself will see me as a real mom.

to infinity and beyond...

 Can't he just stay this little and sweet forever?......