- A Change of Face
- Thoughts From the Middle of the Night
- Back to School
- What’s In A Name?
- Welcoming Jack
- Photo Essay: 100 Days of Jack
- Commuting
- Crazy Is Our Normal
- Adoption? Really?
- We Couldn’t Help Ourselves
- Book Envy
- Snow Day
- Playing the Pregnant Card
- And then there’s that…a summary of a crazy day
- Bringing Change
A Change of Face
“In honor of you getting a hair cut today, I’m trying a new do too. What do you think?” Jerry said as I worked at my computer. I turned around and fixed my eyes on his hair, trying hard to discern a difference. Just as I feared I was about to lose major wife points by not noticing the difference, he pointed to his chin.
My husband had a fu manchu.
After we both contained our laughter, he shaved it down to the Ron Swanson mustache that he had been desperately wanting for some time. Fortunately, we both agreed that the molestache is not his style and off it went. While it is an adjustment for me (Jerry has always had a beard since I’ve known him), I think Jack is having the harder time figuring out who this man is with his father’s voice and a very unfamiliar face.
Thoughts From the Middle of the Night
“Count it all joy…” is Not what I want to be reminded of at 4 am when my son is in one of his “eat every-two hours because I want to be awake when the world is sleeping” phases. I shouldn’t have prayed for God to make me mindful of him in all things. Early this morning, my mental struggle looked something like this:
You are awake again?
Count it all joy.
I more than slightly envy my sleeping husband (note: he frequently gets up and lets me sleep through the middle of the night. This just happened to be my turn).
Count it all joy.
I’ve never been so tired in my life.
Count it all joy.
I’d rather sulk.
Count it all joy.
Ugh.
In What Did You Expect, Tripp says that every passage of scripture that talks about God, humankind, and his grace-filled solution to our sin struggles is a “marriage” passage (not just the ones that mention marriage). The same could be said about having a kid. Unfortunately Jack isn’t old enough to choose to annoy mom by being hungry at inopportune times, so I can’t blame him. As I see my impatience, my weakness, my selfishness, I just see more and more my need for God to refine the seemingly mundane areas of my life.
As frustrating as this is to wrestle with at 4 am, I find that there is some of the “peaceful fruit” of Hebrews 12:11 lingering throughout the day. God’s desire for me to not live in self-pity is one I am thankful for. The alternative is a much more appealing state in which to live (especially for those who have to live around me).
Back to School
I’m going back to school. Well, kinda. I don’t have to don a backpack or make a p.b. and j and put it in a Transformers metal lunchbox. I’ll attend class from the comfort of my couch with a cup of coffee in my hand. I’m beginning University of Missouri’s Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages program. As part of that, our teachers asked us to write an introduction about where we grew up and our dreams. It was fun to write. I hope it’s fun to read:
I was born in a town of 900 people where everybody basically looked alike, thought alike, and acted alike. Thirty years later I moved across the ocean to a town of 1.5 million people where everybody basically looked alike, thought alike, and acted alike. I liked the second place better than the first, so I want to go back there. In the middle I dreamed of being everything from a fireman to a professional wrestler to a doctor to a preacher. I tried some of those things, and I have the scars to prove it. Today, I’m still balancing the urge to be responsible and figure out what I want to be when I grow up and the desire to never grow up.
Here’s to milk mustaches!
What’s In A Name?
We chose to name our son Jack Braddock Howard. There wasn’t a lot of debate between us, no sleepless nights tossing and turning, wondering if he’d be scarred forever by our choosing the wrong name. We didn’t want to wait until he was born, size him up, and then choose between five or six names that we had picked out. We just liked this one.
I think at first we liked Jack for a lot of superficial reasons. It’s not trendy. Though it is one of the most popular names in recent years, you can find Jack’s in almost every generation. It’s strong. The curt nature of the word smacks of a rugged man, a man’s man. Plus, there are a lot of Jack’s we like, though our son is named for none of them: Bauer, Johnson, Nicholson, London, Black, or even C.S. Lewis, whose friends called him Jack.
Then one night, Sarah and I looked up the meaning of Jack. It’s a derivative of John, but it’s meaning was so apropos for the stage of life we’re in. It means, “God’s grace,” or “God has been gracious.” At the time we found out Sarah was pregnant, we were living in a free house driving a car that was given to us in a town we hadn’t even heard of two years ago. We were seeing his grace in his provision for us, in the friends he was giving, and in his guidance to places we never would have chosen but were becoming increasingly more grateful for day by day. Grace indeed.
We kicked around a lot of middle names, but we kept coming back to Braddock. We really wanted to honor Sarah’s family by giving our son her maiden name. Again, looking up the meaning made us 100% certain. From Old English, Braddock means “a broad spreading oak.” Psalm 1:1-3: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” Could we have a greater hope for our son, that he would love God and his word, that he would dwell in it, sink his roots deep in it and produce great fruit for the kingdom of God?
So, what’s in a name? For our son, many of our hopes and dreams reside there. We believe that Jack will be a man who grows to love Christ and others well, who tastes grace and produces much fruit that will cause others to taste and see that the Lord is good. My daily prayer has been that he will be more faithful than Sarah and I have been, that he will follow God closely and be spared many of the pains of disobedience and sin. For that to happen, he’ll need lots of grace. I’m so glad we serve a Father who loves to give good gifts to his children.
Welcoming Jack
Few moments of life can rival childbirth in the depth of emotion, joy, and excitement. Those few seconds where I went from pregnant to parent sure do pack an incredible punch.
From the time contractions woke me up at 5 am, to the time Jack made his entrance at 9:38 pm Friday night, I carry a mental album of snapshots from the day. Some are intense and painful, some are tender and intimate. Some made me laugh, some made me cry. Reflecting on the details day, I see so many evidences of God’s grace. Not only were we well taken care of by our doctors and nurses, but everything unfolded without complications or major concerns. Jerry was amazing to me in all the ways he served and loved me, and adding to our family has only made me love him more. To top it all off, I’m holding a beautiful baby boy who just gets more amazing every day.
I wish I could adequately share my mental snapshots, but some things are just meant to be stored up. I have certainly gained new perspective for how Mary “treasured all of these things up in her heart” (Luke2:51).
These truly are special days. Thanks for journeying with us as we welcome baby Jack to the adventure of life.
Photo Essay: 100 Days of Jack
Any day now little Jack will make his entrance on the stage of life. I plan on capturing his first 100 days of life in a photo essay called 100 Days of Jack. Each day for 100 days, I’ll pick a photo to add to the photo story of his life.
View 100 Days of Jack.
Stay tuned….
Commuting
Being 38 weeks pregnant, I have a new found respect for Mary and anyone else who rode 100 miles on a donkey this late in the game. My 5 minute commute pales in comparison, even if I did catch every red light (which doesn’t matter when there are only 3 lights). I wonder how many times Joseph had to stop the donkey for a bathroom break?
Crazy Is Our Normal
We’re moving…again. We knew we’d have to move sometime this fall, but a few factors moved up the time table, and we suddenly found ourselves driving around town last week looking for a place to rent.
Even though a cross-town move isn’t that ridiculous in the grand scheme of life (even with the impending birth of our firstborn son), life isn’t exactly calm around here. Crazy is just our normal.
We’re studying through Philippians at church, and as I reflect on the myriad of reactions I could have to potentially stressful situations swirling around us, I keep coming back to 1:12: “Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.”
May that be my knee-jerk reaction to complications of life. I confess it isn’t often the first.
While there are many details to be dealt with as we move and take on some new roles in life and work and ministry, I pray that I would care less about how inconvenienced something might make me and care more about how Jesus can be lifted up in the situation.
Do my words to others about life’s realities reflect honestly laced with trust in his faithfulness? Am I being intentional to care for and love new neighbors? Am I allowing Him to refine my heart through prayer and his word?
God certainly isn’t blind to the harsh realities of our lives, and he doesn’t ask us to be either. Learning to trust him and honor him through it (not outside it) is where worship becomes a genuine outflow of our hearts and not just a mental assent from our lips.
Adoption? Really?
We spent an amazing weekend with great friends in Louisville, Kentucky learning about orphan care, adoption, and God’s heart for children. Though we both expected to walk away with tons of practical information and resources, I’m not sure either of us was ready for the ways God challenged our motives and our understanding of Him. We left with lots to process and think through before we’ll be ready to adopt.
I wanted to adopt kids in order to have a picture of the Gospel right here in our family. One of the things God challenged me with this weekend is that there ought to be pictures of the Gospel evidenced in every piece of the way we live and do family already. If I am solely relying on adopting a child to paint the picture of the Gospel for us, we’re not living in the realities of it now. If I want to add a child who doesn’t look like us or talk like us, if I want to rescue an orphan just as a bridge into Gospel conversation, I am failing right now in talking about the truth of Jesus in the ways He asks us to. Adopting is a powerful way to show a tangible picture of the God who loves the hurting, the outcast, and the weak. But God has given us untold opportunities to love like He does each day.
In one of the main sessions, Russell Moore spoke about how we use things like adoption to make ourselves feel better before God and better than others as a means of self-justification. I know that part of my prideful, selfish heart wanted to use adoption as one more way to prove my spiritual superiority to others, as if to say, “We really get God’s heart. Look at these little orphans we’ve taken in. If you were as spiritual as we, you would adopt or foster too.” The truth of the Gospel obliterates such pride. It reminds me that I was bad enough that Jesus HAD to die, yet he loved me enough to do it willingly. The only reason we have any desire to adopt is because He has first adopted us. If he had not made us his children, I would commit atrocities FAR worse than those folks who abandon children.
Jedd Medefind’s talk was really helpful in causing us to count the cost. He spoke about how the kingdom of God’s invades the darkness of the world. In that collision, lots of mess is created: “Every adoption begins with tragedy.” This journey will not be easy, but it will be filled with countless moments of beauty and joy.
More than anything else, I was struck again with the depth of God’s love, both for orphans of the world and for former spiritual orphans like me. I realized the fear I live in, a fear that Andrew Peterson articulates so well, “It’s the fear that I’ll fall one too many times. It’s the fear that His love is no better than mine.”
But it is better that mine. There is no failing, no falling that can keep it from us. And that love compels us toward adoption and to proclaim the message of spiritual adoption. The only valid reason and motivation for adoption is the glory of the One who took us in when we were abandoned, hopeless, helpless, and dead. The only well from which we can draw the patience, power, and love we need to sustain us through the pain of adoption is the love of the One who loves us first and loves us best. The only hope we have for being the kind of people who can further then kingdom of God through adoption is to crucify our agendas, our egos, and even our ideas of ministry on the cross of the One who paid the price for our adoption.
We Couldn’t Help Ourselves
We’ve been at the Adopting for Life conference yesterday and today. In coming days, I’m looking forward to synthesizing some posts on all God is working in my heart and mind, but for now, here’s one take away. We thought we’d just adopt a bus full. They even put our name on the side.
Just kidding.
Kuddos to Jay K. for the photo.