When it all falls apart

There is a song by FEE. It is called, "Everything Falls." My favorite lyrics are the following- "When everything falls apart Your arms hold me together When everything falls apart You’re the only hope for this heart When everything falls apart And my strength is gone I find You mighty and strong You keep holding on, You keep holding on" We have had a wonderful week at our house, but it has been tragic in our Church and community and even with some bloggy friends. True tragedy. I don't even feel like a real hip hip hoorah on our front because of all that has happened around us. It is hard to imagine what these families are going through. I will share a little just to get it out. I can't keep it in any longer. If you read this blog or you know me you know we lost our son at birth. It was a tragedy for us, but to loose one of my living children today I just can't fathom what that would be like. I really can't. On Thursday a week ago, our church family lost an 11 year old boy in a tragic car accident. The boy was hit by a car while trying to catch the bus. Although we did not know him personally, his family attended our church and many of our close friends knew the family and their children were friends with this child. The whole thing has just been so tragic for this family and for this group of middle school children who just don't understand GOD's timing. It is so hard for us as adults to explain this to children when truly GOD has not given us the ability to explain it. It just is and that is all you can say. My precious oldest is now an alter server and two months ago we found out that her alter serving buddy has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. He is 11. Should an 11 year old boy have to know what Hodgkin's Lymphoma means? I personally don't think it is fair that such a sweet, funny, and caring kid should have to know what this is and how it has to be treated. He should not have to go through grueling chemo treatments and loose his cute hair and deal with very adult life and death issues. My girl is seeing it up close and personal. Her friend served with her on Saturday. He is still the funny, sweet, caring kid he always was, but he is also pale and bald. He has had some very bad days and probably still has some ahead. I cried when I saw him walk up this week with my girl. I just tried not to show it. His parents were two pews behind me. I just am heartbroken to see him like this and we as a family are praying for him every time we pray. My heart breaks for this family. I am sure his mother had a rough week as a member of her sons youth group was buried. It had to hit her like a ton of bricks. I have weeped for her and her husband as she has had to deal with her own son's illness and now this tragedy as well. We are stacking tragedy here. I have blogged about a single mom whose husband died last summer. She and her husband have two young children and had just started the process to adopt again. After dealing with several months of anguish over what to do and then finally deciding to go through with the adoption she has once again been thrown a very heartbreaking blow. She had to go through more months of paperwork to bring her precious little girl home due to the fact she is now considered single. She finally got approval before Christmas and three weeks ago she received her paperwork to come to China. What a journey it had been. Then she got the news that has shocked our adoption community. This child that she has fought her own heart for is dying in a hospital in China. She has a terminal brain tumor and she is dying. I can not understand GOD's timing. I truly don't understand it. I don't. I can not imagine how this has happened. One dad on an adoption blog, who is quite insightful, came to a conclusion. Is it possible that this little girl's Daddy in Heaven, the father that fell in love with this little girl when he saw her sweet face in a picture, is it possible that he wanted her to be in Heaven with him. Maybe, just maybe, God thought she needed to be in Heaven with her Daddy. I am going to cling to this conclusion because nothing else makes since. Nothing. Once again this mother and her children grieve. They grieve the loss of a child and sibling. I am sure they are once again grieving the loss of a husband and father as well. I pray that this child does not suffer and that she dies knowing she has a family that loves her and is painfully mourning their loss. It is just so sad, so tragic, and so awful. As I and other parents think through maybe it truly is God's timing. If this mom had been able to bring this little one home sooner, all of this would have been on her. She would have been dealing with this tragedy by herself and with her young children in tow. She would have had the day in and out of it all on her. Maybe GOD thought this way was easier. It has been an insane two weeks. Our lives have changed for the better and all of these lives have been hit with tragedy. I don't understand God's timing and I guess I never will. I pray that good will come from all of this. I pray for comfort in each of these circumstances. I pray that God will heal and give peace to all, especially these children that are trying to make since of it all. As the song says, "God is mighty and strong and He keeps holding on!" If we don't cling to GOD in our worst times, he can't be there to carry us. He has carried me through many a heartache and I pray that he carries each of these families through this time in their lives. 29“Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. ...” Matthew 14:29-31 NIV

GOOD Friday

As we commemorate the death of our LORD, many things come to mind. Why did it have to be this way? Why could not have been a different type of death? You know most of us would not have ever known about crucifixion death if it was not for our LORD. I really feel a whole life time without knowing how gruesome and painful it was would have made my life less sad. It is just a horrible way to die. No way could this have been pretty or less awful. GOD had a plan and this was it. He chose His own son to endure it for us. I wept tonight as our priest reminded us of the scene in the Passions movie where Jesus looks at his mother as He falls on His journey to Golgotha. "The place of the skull" Even Google recognizes the word. It is not on spell check. Amazing, for a world that normally turns its back on our LORD. Jesus is holding the cross on His back and His mother has desperately been trying to maneuver around the crowds to get close to Jesus. As He makes His way he falls several times, but this time He looks up to her. She desperately wants to help Him, but knows she can't. She remembers a time when He was just a boy. The boy Jesus falls and scraps His knee and she takes care of Him. She can't at this moment. She can't help Him on this journey. She is distraught by it all in this scene of the movie. I believe she is thinking, "God in Heaven, I did not sign up for this. Take this from Him and this pain in my heart from me! Please!." I could not imagine in my life time the agony she felt at that moment. Or the moment they actually put the nails in His flesh. Her little boy defiled and destroyed in such a horrific way. I know the loss of a child, but I can't comprehend the pain of this helplessness in so much suffering of a child. I am sure there are parents in this world that know, but I am fortunate not to be one of them. I remember the scene where she cleans up His blood from the scourging. I can not imagine what was going through her mind looking at the site of so much blood. I just can't. My father told me right after we saw the movie when it first came out that there was no way that the LORD endured that scourging and then carried the cross on His back. It was just a Hollywood thing, that our LORD could never have endured that. I think He could have. Have you ever heard of someone picking up something extremely heavy to save someone else- a car, tree, metal pole, etc. They always say that something just gave them the strength to do it. I think it was GOD or a guardian angel. Something divine helped them. Maybe Jesus' love for us was so strong that it helped Him carry that cross to Calvary. Maybe GOD was helping Him at that one moment. I think about all that He went through and through it all He had love for us and even those that were mistreating Him to the very end. We will never know that kind of LOVE here on earth. It will never happen. GOD had to be right there watching it all play out, the agony of our LORD and the inconceivable pain that Mary endured watching all of it unfold before her eyes. One of my favorite pieces of art is the Pieta. If you have never seen it, please GOOGLE it right now. It is beautiful and every time I see it I visualize Mary holding her dead son and looking to Heaven for answers. It had been a long 24 hours for her. She had gone through an emotional nightmare and still it went on and on. There He is in her hands gone. That I can relate to. I have held death in my hands and it is not a pleasant experience. It is just not anything you can or will ever be prepared for. No one is prepared for it. I have held life and death at the same time and that makes it even harder. You can physically feel the difference. It is horrible and the greatest sadness you will ever know. It is just awful. As I think of that moment, I think that Mary must have just been spent. She looked down at Jesus and then she wanted answers, but she got nothing. When that baby was in her arms in the stable, she knew He was the Messiah. She knew that, but did she know the gruesome details? I doubt it. She, like any other caring mother, would have hid Jesus for as long as possible to protect Him. She would have done something to save Him from that death. She would have accepted death, but I don't think this was what she had in mind. Through it all she did not turn her back on GOD. She, just like I, wanted to go to Heaven someday and be with her LORD, her son, the Messiah, the Prince of Peace. She knew that she had to keep her sights on Heaven to be reunited with the LORD. I am sure it was very hard at times, but she was chosen for a reason. She was probably very strong-willed and that made her the perfect mother for Jesus. I have a strong-willed child myself and she has a great purpose in this life. I can't wait to watch it unfold. May GOD be with all of us and we praise Him for sending His only son, our LORD!

30 pieces of Silver

How do you pay for a persons death and feel good about it? You don't. Judas was all smiles until the deed was done. He knew that money was tainted and he did not want to have anything to do with it. It really became more than he could deal with. The guilt of it all literally killed him. He saw no other way out. I wanted to know what was 30 pieces of Silver worth. I got several opinions. At the time, 30 pieces of silver was four months pay. So, today that would be anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 dollars for the average American. Judas had a money issue. According to John chapter 12 Judas did not like the fact that Mary was washing the LORD's feet with expensive Nard. Jesus basically told him to get over it. Money meant something to Judas and he realized it meant more to him than our LORD. Did he know what would happen to Jesus once he turned Jesus over to the Sanhedrin? Did he care? We will never know the answers to these questions. What we do know is that Jesus knew the outcome and he still seems a little hurt, but after that scene with Mary I am sure he knew who he was dealing with. I know that GOD probably filled Him in that someone was going to betray Him. After the Mary scene he probably was no longer guessing who it was. Really, there were probably tons of clues. I bet Judas was the first one to pipe up and say, "Lord, send them home, they are going to want food and we have no means to feed these people." Some people really get obsessed with money to the point that it takes over everything. Security I get, but money obsession is something else. I have a grandmother that her whole world evolves around her money and everyone what everyone else has. She can't have a conversation with you without mentioning money in one way or another. She has very little money, but obsesses over it and all that others have. Money means nothing if you don't have life. Life means everything to me and all lives have meaning with or without money.

The Forty Days of LENT

What is the purpose of Lent? The Church teaches that it is a time of reflection and sacrifice to prepare for Holy Week. Reflection. Many of the recent homilies and scripture readings over the past few weeks have been on Holiness. What does that mean? We should reflect on our goal to be Holy like Jesus. We should aspire to be Holy. How do you become Holy? What do you do to move toward Holiness? I gave up yelling for Lent. I have caught myself yelling more in my house over the past week. I was good for the first few weeks of Lent but as my frustration mounted last week with my childrens' behavior I went back to old habits of yelling at my kids to get my point across. It never works especially since they are at the age that they can yell back. It takes me a while to reflect back on these behaviors and realize that yelling does not achieve Holiness. What does achieve Holiness? Reading the Bible, going to Mass, praying for others, taking care of others, doing what is right in all situations, standing for Christianity instead of popular culture norms, being active in spreading God's word. I try to do all of these things and many times I truly fail. God blesses me with another day. Each day He gives me a "do-over". Each day I take it. I don't know if it is God's goal for us to achieve Holiness here on earth, but I will try each day to move forward and not look back. I think of Abraham. He was a Holy man of God, but he did things that were not Holy. God told Abraham he would have a son that would become many nations. Abraham and Sarah speeded up the process by bringing Haggar into the picture. Bad idea, it caused them more problems later on, but God worked His plan around Abraham and Sarah's sidetrack plan. He just moved on with His plan and helped them deal with the issues they created. Abraham continued his trek toward Holiness and God continued to lead him on that trek. I think God does this for all of us. He has plans for us and we get side tracked and He continues on His plan for us and deals with the consequences of the messes we make along the way. I pray that the Lord will continue on with His plan for my life and will give me each day to move toward Holiness. As Holy Week comes I pray that every part of Lent offered me ways to learn, reflect and move toward Holiness.

REJECTED AND ALONE

I was just today watching a Christian show with Michael W. Smith performing. He was singing about our LORD being crucified and in the background they had the video of the LORD being crucified in the movie PASSION OF THE CHRIST. I was listening to the words, "CRUCIFIED, REJECTED AND ALONE." It made me think of the older children that are still orphans in China. They have not been crucified, but the words "rejected and alone" are words they know. I could not imagine waking up in the world each day and knowing that you are all alone. Another baby died last week waiting on the shared list. He had a seizure and died. It was a complication from the seizure. It does not make it any easier. I was taken aback because I knew this boy. I had seen him countless times on the shared list. He was so incredibly cute and his name was Tia Xian. I have a girl from Xian myself and that name and face just stuck with me. He was a beautiful boy and just a little fella. I just can't imagine how this happened. I know the LORD wanted him home, but it just seems so sad. I know that one of the charities I follow and send money to has lost a lot of babies this year due to pneumonia and other complications of winter and illness. It just saddens me that so many have passed away. I know that my baby could have been one of these statistics. Charities can work in any of these orphanages, but they can't change the fact that some do not have heat or air condition. They can only do what they can do in someone else's building. It makes me think how wrong life can be for some of these kids. How they must feel to be all alone? How God must feel that we continue to leave them there to die alone. It is hard to understand, but I am sure GOD will use these deaths to lead people to adopt others. I pray that happens.

Visions of Children Dancing in My Head

I have had a bout of insomnia recently and I hate when that happens. I get a little nutty and I start analyzing every part of my 40 year old life. Between 1995 and 2000 my husband and I went through years of infertility treatments and several doctors. In that time we had a miscarriage and countless disappointments on the pregnancy front. I also met my very good friends the Jays. They too had dealt with infertility much longer than we had and had given up. They were just a few years older than us and just at the point we met them they just did not care anymore. Dogs were good and they borrowed kids often when they needed a fix. For the life of me I could not understand how they just gave up and put it in GOD's hands. I just could not grasp it. I was constantly giving them doctors names and suggestions. They were nice about it, but just did not care. I was envious at the time because I did not want to care either. However, for me it was a nightmare and it was doing our marriage in. GOD brought me this couple to show me that life will not stop if you don't have kids. It does go on and you won't self destruct. Being Catholic is hard without kids. People at Church just don't get it. They always ask and they assume the worst about you. They assume you are on birth control and you are not leading GOD's plan for you. They can be rude and not really mean to be. Anyway, I was crazy at this point. I was hyped up on fertility drugs and lived this insane roller coaster life. I can not imagine how I kept my job and my husband. But in all of that my friend started praying for me and out of nowhere I had this crazy dream. In the dream there was a little light-headed toddler in the background and in the foreground (art teacher in me, lol)was my husband carrying what appeared to be a dark-haired boy and holding the hand of another dark-haired boy. They were toddler age and you could not see their faces. So, I woke up and I was at PEACE. I knew finally that I could no longer try to control when and if I would have children it was completely and totally in GOD's hand. There was nothing I could do. Absolutely, nothing. I had to let it go and live on. GOD's way of saying, STAY CALM AND CARRY ON! It did not make fertility drugs easier, but I knew if we struggled through, it was going to happen. I pleaded with GOD after my miscarriage to help us. Within in three months we were pregnant again. When we found out we were pregnant with twins, I decided that the light-colored baby must have been someone else or our miscarried child and the boys were our soon-to- be twin boys. When we found out we were having a boy and a girl, I just thought it did not add up, but I knew GOD had a plan. I then decided that maybe the dark-haired boys were a boy and a girl. When we found out that Will had the heart condition, I knew he was going to be fine because of the dream. I just knew it, but I prayed every day for him to be healed. In the end I gave birth to my son, who was stillborn and our daughter. I could not figure out what GOD was trying to tell me in that dream I had 3 years before. I did not get it. Both of my children had light hair. No dark-haired children were born that day. So I just questioned GOD for days and months after we lost our son. I just did not understand because I had been living on the dream and it was blown apart. It exploded before me and I did not understand why I was given a revelation that did not relate to my life. I also wanted some serious answers to why my boy was gone. In the end all I got from the LORD was peace and joy. Peace and comfort to heal my heart and Joy from spending all my days with my precious little girl. That was what I got that year and the years to come.

Who knew that five years later we would travel to China to bring home our Asian princess. Where did she fall in GOD's dream for us. I did not know. I thought just maybe she was one of the dark-haired children I thought was a boy. And the light-haired child, I just assumed that was our oldest. That is all I had and I clung to that throughout the adoption. I just assumed that we would go back and bring home the other dark-haired toddler some day.
TODAY! In the past five years not a day has gone by that I have not thought about adopting again. NOT A DAY! As I get older the more it comes to mind. Every thing I do in my life I consider what the ramifications of that would be if we adopted again. Purchasing cars, going back to school, getting a job, etc. Every decision that is made adopting again comes to mind and plays out in my head as we consider options, etc. So in the last few days of insanity due to lack of sleep, I have been racing these ideas of adopting more children through my mind. My husband is done so he says. If I came home tomorrow and told him I was pregnant, I think he would be thrilled. If I came home and told him I had paper work so we could be paper pregnant, he would ask me if we had won the lottery. I feel in my heart that GOD would provide the funds for us to adopt again. I am not sure my husband has that kind of faith at this point. As I was trying to sleep during insomnia insanity this weekend, I had another vision and it took my breath. It took me aback. It was a what if? moment. I had this realization that came over me and literally knocked the wind right out of me. It has been coming for a while. Just little things have reminded me of that dream I had more than thirteen years ago. It has been weird now that I think about it. About six months ago I had this horrific thought that something was going to happen to our oldest daughter. Like it kept me up at night. I got this feeling that the child in the dream that looked like my daughter was going toward Heaven or was near death or was dead. This child was like way in the background and there was like clouds around. Okay that has always been part of the dream, but it came to me that maybe death is what it meant. I freaked out and I let GOD know that I could not bury another child. It was not anything that I could do again. I just could not. So, realizations like that have been coming to me for six months to a year now about this dream and I guess it is because of my turning 40 and wanting another child obsession thing I have been dealing with over the course of six months or so. I think GOD was revealing things to me in small snippets before He gave me the big Kahuna. It all came together the other night and here it is. What if the light-haired child was my son in Heaven and the two dark-haired children were boys? What if the vision had nothing to do with my girls at all? What if the dream was given to me to let me know that even though GOD was taking my son, He would be blessing me with not one, but two little boys. What if GOD gave me the vision to help me through my soon to be darkest hours and I was not versed in Him enough to understand it at the time or at the time of my grief? What if it was a plan prepared 13 or 14 years in the making? What if we are still supposed to go back and bring home twin boys? What if I am just loosing my mind? Or What if GOD has genuine plans that we have to willingly ask Him to let us participate in? What if we just let Him have all the control and leave it in His hands? This is how I see it. I am going to pray daily for my unknown boys and my husband, their father to be. I am going to ask GOD to provide the means to bring these babies home and I am going to ask GOD to make this happen in His time and not my own. I will also ask Him to give me Peace in my heart about it and to truly let Him take control over the entire situation. If it is part of His plan that has been in the making for all this time, then the financial plan is in place as well. I know that GOD almighty will make it happen and there is nothing I can do about it. I can't force it to happen and I can't control when it will happen, but in my heart I know that GOD HAS THIS! He is all over it. The money will come and the babies soon after. I just have faith that it will happen. I am in awe of HIS love for me and our family. Just at peace and know that the LORD hears my prayers in all situations. I am just going to take it all in and watch GOD work right before my eyes.

He is after all, as Chris August sings,
"From the Birds that Sing, In the Tallest Trees.
To the Human Life, of you and me.
From the Desert Sands, to the place we stand.
He is God of All, He is Everything.

Waohhh

I'm giving my life to the only One who makes the moon reflect the sun.
Every starry night, that was His design.
I'm giving my life to the only Son, who was and is and yet to come
Let the praises ring, 'cause He is everything
'Cause He is everything

From the autumn leaves, that will ride the breeze
To the Faith it takes, to pray and sing
From the Painted sky, to my plank filled eye
He is God of all, He is everything"

Not only is He everything, but He can do anything, and these mountains will move!

Welcome the Year of the Dragon!

So we find ourselves celebrating another Chinese New Year! My heart once again pulls back to China. We watched videos of our first trip. The first second we saw our baby girl. I am still amazed at the whole process of adoption and how it works and how GOD makes it work. Mark and I both cried tonight as we watched the video and watched our little girl cry. It was very hard to watch, but we did and this time MA watched it with us. She was amazed by the whole thing and she had tons of questions. Some I told her we would answer at another time. As I watched the video I had so many thoughts going through my mind. Where does the time go? Were they both that tiny? I can't even remember that tiny? Am I a horrible mom because I don't even know where all of our videos are of them when they were small? I miss that age so much and yet I am enjoying them now. They are so grown up and I just love hanging out with them and watching t.v. or doing nails, or going out to the "smelly, smelly store" a.k.a. Bath and Body Works. We call it this because we walk around and spray stuff and say to each other, "smell this, smell this, no smell this." All we do is "smelly, smelly". If they charged for smelling, I would be broke. MA also likes to wash her hands in the sink and use all of the different soaps. She washes and we smell and then she washes again and we smell until the lady in the store starts coming toward the sink. We leave at that point and go mess around in the lip gloss which I still think is not germ proof, but the girls think different. I would love to think that some day China will call us once again, but my husband continues to say no way. I heard last week that some friends in our China group are going back to adopt 2 more boys. This will be adoption 5 and 6 for them. Mark believes they are millionaires. I don't think so. I think they do fundraisers for their adoptions. He just thinks financially it is out of our grasp at this point. I trust him, but I will continue to pray that we will be able to afford to go back some day. The thoughts of having another little one in the house brings a smile to my face. I don't know how I would do it with work and the girls and their activities, but people with many more kids make it work and I am sure we would too. The largest migration of people in the world has taken place over the last six days. People from all over China and the world migrate back to their Chinese families for the Chinese New Year celebrations. Tonight thousands of orphans have no one to celebrate with and they are heavy on my heart. I could not imagine my baby being anywhere but here. It hurts me to even think about it, but somewhere tonight there is a China baby waking up with 10 others laying next to him. He is alone in this world with only one caretaker for him and his 10 friends. He fights each day for attention and he receives little. He needs a Mama and Baba to love him and care for him. I pray his family finds him soon. I pray the Year of the Dragon is his year to have a family. Happy Chinese New Year to my sweet girl and to all the babies and older children that still wait for their family. May GOD give you peace in your heart and may the guardian angels come down from Heaven and protect you while you wait.