Dad Story, Part 3: The Moment

Disclaimer:  I'm writing a tale of our journey to adopt our third daughter who is our fifth child.  Yes, we're crazy.  No, I haven't won the argument to get an Armored Personnel Carrier to carry all these people.  And yes, I'm writing it from a dad's perspective.  I hope it helps some dad out there who wonders what in the world God has put on his plate.

With our other two daughters (both adopted from China), I distinctly remember The Moment.  

With Peanut, it was when we got an update picture and she was sitting there holding the pillow with our pictures that the Queen had sent over.  I was undone.  Over.  Through.  I literally stood up from the bed (where we were looking at the update) and walked to my computer.  The Queen asked me what I was doing.  I said I was buying plane tickets because I figured I could fly over there and just show up at the orphanage with my nose pressed against the glass until they handed her over.  And no, I didn’t buy the tickets.  But no, I wasn’t kidding in the moment.

With Minion, I knew from the moment I got a screenshot of my beloved playing with a little cutie.  I was ready.  I told The Queen to stay there and I’d do the paperwork.  I just knew.

But in this process, I hadn’t had The Moment yet.  I definitely felt like I had been obedient.  I had prayed diligently and listened quietly.  We had organized a compromise that put us in the process and readied us for more without committing us to something I wasn’t fully committed to yet.  

But this was different.  The only thing I was certain of was that my wife was more certain than me.  The picture clarified a little more when we stepped out in obedience to get a home study done.  But no certainty.  Just struggle and a consistent plea for God to make things clearer than they were.  I am a big enough boy to know that I am not owed The Moment.  Faith-filled obedience is enhanced by something like that but it’s not a key ingredient.

The thing that I took from this stage was that my feelings and my obedience can be wondrously congruent. But sometimes they are not.  I get to obey without feeling like it (and model the fact that I’m obeying for eyes and ears close enough to see) because that’s what God asks of me in every area of my life.  I tell our people at church at least twice a year that feelings are great companions but terrible guides.  

And now was the time for me to live that out.  

Dad Story, Part 2: At Odds

Disclaimer:  I'm writing a tale of our journey to adopt our third daughter who is our fifth child.  Yes, we're crazy.  No, I haven't won the argument to get an Armored Personnel Carrier to carry all these people.  And yes, I'm writing it from a dad's perspective.  I hope it helps some dad out there who wonders what in the world God has put on his plate.

My wife and I were at odds.  We weren’t being ugly to one another.  Not that kind of “at odds.”  It wasn’t a fight.  It was a disagreement.  And there’s not much common ground between Adopt and Not Adopt. 

True story:  I am personally inclined to say yes to my wife as much as possible.  Some see that as weakness.  If that’s you, you’re an idiot.  My wife is wicked smart, empathetic relationally, strong of personality, has grit to spare, and has sacrificed beyond measure in just about every sphere of her life for our family.  Why wouldn’t I want to say yes to her?  It’s easy.

But on this issue, I was struggling.  I wasn’t saying no because I’m anti-anything.  I was simply inclined to believe that what we said on the front end still stood and that God hadn’t made it clear yet that we should do differently.  She wants me to lead in situations like this.  I want to lead.  But we stood on different sides.

As an aside, I love this about us.  We work through things like this.  We pray alone and together.  We talk honestly.  We give each other space.  She’s especially gracious on the timing, because I’m a crockpot thinker.  She practiced debate in high school and left opponents weeping and seated in their shame.  To date, I have never won an argument with her.  Which is why it takes her gracious patience to let me think and pray.  I hope, if you’re married, you get to the point of healthy engagement over issues without arguing.  We sought to hear one another and hear God.  That made the conversations heavy but easy.

After a few weeks, which seems like an eternity to a natural-born, DNA-inclined peacemaker, we came to a compromise.  I honestly can’t remember whose idea it was, so I’ll go ahead and claim credit.  

The compromise was this:  if we were to go on a mission trip, it would require a passport.  If we were to adopt, it would require a home study.  So we set out to figure out how to get a home study done.  At first, it looked cost prohibitive because we’d have to join the full China program.  That was an initial investment of about $6000.  We both felt like that was our answer.  It didn’t seem like good stewardship to drop $6000 for a “maybe.”  Lo and behold, a few days later our agency let us know about a different option that was close to 1/3 of that.  That was a pill we could swallow. 

Had we not had that compromise, I honestly don’t know where we’d be or what (if anything) I’d be writing about.  But my experience as a pastor (and certainly as a husband) is that when my heart is inclined toward my wife and hers to mine and both are submitted to God, something tends to work out.

Dad Story, Part 1: Yes, we're adopting again

Disclaimer:  I'm writing a tale of our journey to adopt our third daughter who is our fifth child.  Yes, we're crazy.  No, I haven't won the argument to get an Armored Personnel Carrier to carry all these people.  And yes, I'm writing it from a dad's perspective.  I hope it helps some dad out there who wonders what in the world God has put on his plate.

The Queen and Bear went to China in September, 2019.  I remember managing kids most of the week and praying hard for the two on the other side of the world.  

We had a deal, though.  A pact.  No additional kid needed.  God would have to write it in the sky or the kid’s name would have to be Leroy.  That was the deal.

Upon return, the Queen was tired but alive on the inside, advocating for the children she had the opportunity to evaluate as a medical professional.  I don’t know how many people across the US heard from my stick of lit dynamite.  She had Facebook conversations, phone calls, text exchanges, emails, smoke signals, and two carrier pigeons.  I lost count of who all and how all she was communicating with people and what all she was saying.

My wife has a way of generating ideas that release untold good in the world.  If I get the chance to say what is on her tombstone, that’s what I’d say.  It’s an unbelievable gift to me, to our church family, and to the world.  Her idea was that she could network like a wild woman and come up with families who would be glad to step into the process of adopting and changing the world for the better by bringing an orphan home.  So she went on about the business of carrying out her idea.  

There was one little one who kept coming up that didn’t really get much traction.  At one point, maybe there was a family but it was a complicated situation because of another agency being involved.  So she told God and then me (in that order) that we were open to being her family even if we didn’t feel called to it. 

I was…less than thrilled. 

We had a deal.  A pact.  The kid’s name wasn’t Leroy.  No sky writing.  Nothing.

And I was pretty sure she was nuts.  

That’s how this whole story started.

July 13th is a good day

July 13th is a good day around our house.

Actually, it's a GREAT day.

It's a miracle reminder kind of day.

We were in the middle of the longest wait in human history.  Olympics.  The flu.  All sorts of craziness was keeping us away.  Pins and needles.  Frustration and tears.  General anxiety.  We called and were told that if our papers arrived by July 3rd, we'd be good to go.

And it arrived.  On July 3rd.  Just like we prayed.  Bam.  God moved.

Except the office was closed that Friday because the 4th was Saturday.  It's admittedly hard to worship on Sunday when you think your life is on hold waiting for paperwork and permission.  Especially when God came through but the office was closed.

So the Queen called on Monday at 8am.  One thing you do not want to do:  get on the other side of the Queen when she knows she's right.  Believe me.  I've known her for 23 years.  I've been married to her for 19.  Don't do that.

She said to the nice lady:  "Hey, so we're good to go, right?"

Nice Lady:  "No.  Sorry.  Our office was closed and we can't get the arrangements made."

The Queen:  "Uhm.  That wasn't the deal.  You said if it's there by the 3rd, we're good.  It was there.  God moved.  We're going, right?  You're going to hold up your end of the bargain, right?"

Nice Lady:  "Well, all I can do is try to see if they'll make these arrangements.  We've never done it on such short notice."

The Queen:  "Great.  I look forward to your phone call in the morning."

Tuesday at 9am, the phone rings.  We are headed to China to get our baby girl.

In less than 48 hours, we packed, bought plane tickets, and were out the door.  In four short days, we had her in our arms.

Happy Gotcha Day, Peanut.  You are a gift to us from God.  And a reminder of His miracle-working power.  Mommy and Daddy love you very much.

What I'm Learning about Patience

Here's the setting:

Son comes down to eat his 87th snack of the day at 10:00pm.  I'm wrapping up, locking up, and turning off lights.  He sits down at the kitchen table.  I do too.  

He eats like a sloth on barbiturates.

Every cracker gets divided into 64ths.  Chewing is like glacial activity.  The peanut butter between the crackers gets licked off...every microgram of it.

Me-to-myself:  JUST EAT YOUR @#$)#%*(@$ CRACKERS SO WE CAN GO TO BED BECAUSE I'M FREAKING TIRED ALREADY AND ISN'T THIS YOUR 12TH PACKAGE OF PEANUT BUTTER CRACKERS TODAY???

Me-to-him:  Hey bud.  Tell me about camp.  What was the coolest thing you learned or had reinforced? (while still steaming on the inside)

Him-to-me:  Some thoughtful responses, some late night blather.  

Me-to-him:  What's one thing you need to do to reinforce all that?

Him-to-me:  I need to _____________.  (a solid action step)  Hey dad, you want one of these crackers?

Me-to-him:  Nope.

He finished just short of 22 hours later (it seemed), washed his hands, brushed his teeth (again).  Then, at the top of the stairs as he was headed to his room and I was headed to mine...

"Hey dad.  Thanks for sitting with me.  It was really great to talk to you.  Goodnight!" *big hug*

Me-to-myself:  Thank you God that I didn't say out loud all the impatient things I was thinking...

Here's what I'm learning about patience:

I'm only patient when things don't go as I planned in either direction or timing.  That's the only time I get to exercise patience.  When it goes my way, no patience is needed.

Be smart enough not to say everything that I'm thinking.  And be gracious enough not to hold other people to what they said but may not have meant in the heat of the moment.  Parents.  Kids.  Spouses.  Bosses.  Employees.  They all apply.

I can't think of an example in my life or those I know where someone says, "Gee, I wish I would've been less patient there."  The payoff for patience can look like a life-giving hug at the top of the stairs or something meaningful to you.  But it almost always pays off.  To be clear, I'm not talking about passivity here - sitting and doing nothing and expecting God to sort it all out.  I'm talking about patience - the kind of intentional and active waiting (or sitting at the table conversing over peanut butter crackers) that the Bible describes.

Here's hoping that helps someone today.

3 Years

I have kept myself busy today with helpful chores around the house, but The Shadow has always lingered back behind me somewhere.  It's 9:00pm and I figured it's time to look it in the face.

Today is three years since The Phone Call came.  "Hey Trent.  It's [Queen's Best Friend].  You need to get the kids settled and get back to the hospital as soon as you can.  Maggie has had a stroke."  I can take you to the place on the Gulf Freeway where I answered.  It's not etched into my memory.  It's more like seared.

Let me tell you (and The Shadow) what I've seen in the last three years...

God's faithfulness in saving the life of my little girl and bringing her back to health.  He'd still be faithful if it had gone a different way, but I'm glad He chose to display Himself in this manner for her.

God's strength in our lives and life.  Thank you, God, for seeing us all through.

Resilience in my kids.  They bounce back like rubber balls.  I don't doubt that they've been marked by these three years.  I think they consistently show how resilient they are.  And not because we're perfect parents, but I think love, attention, and some intentional investment keep them bouncy (in a lot of areas of life).

The church is the greatest institution in the world.  I serve as a pastor, so I know it's not perfect.  But it's great.  And I have a legion of stories - chapters that were written by the love and selflessness of others - that prove it.

Faithfulness.  Strength.  Resilience.  Church.

I hope that encourages someone who has their own Shadow that's in pursuit.

Zombie Response Vehicle and a Warfare that is much more REAL

Dropping the Bear off at school the other day, I took a different way home because I was grabbing gas for the Queen's minivan extraordinaire.  Yes, I am that good of a husband, I know...

On the way home, I ran across an old ambulance made up in Halloween garb that declared itself a Zombie Response Vehicle.  Not exactly this, but something like it:

I laughed a little, judged the people who owned it for being strange, and kept driving - wondering how in the world a TV show like The Walking Dead could affect people's vehicle choices.  And then the thought crept in.  "What if Zombies are real and we just don't know it?" (** Please note:  I don't believe in zombies.  I just hadn't had enough coffee to be sane **)

But here's what hit me (after another cup of black liquid sanity):  we do have an Enemy who is real and is yet unseen.  His effects are genuine.  His power legitimate.

I look around my world right now - much less THE world right now - and see the craziness that exists and seems to be contagious.  I don't know the ins and outs of the recipe, but I do know that spiritual warfare plays into it in more ways that (a) we can see and (b) we acknowledge.  There is not a demon under every rock, but there are demons who wreak havoc and create all sorts of trouble for people.  There are Tempters who invite us to do everything but the right thing.  There is a real spiritual bondage that comes when people reverse the polarity of their moral compass.

It's real, dear reader.  Be aware and be on the alert.  A roaring, proud lion seeks people (and marriages and teenagers and reputations and ministries) to devour. (cf. 1 Peter 5.8)

Back to Blogging: Transformation

Well, it's more than a little odd to be sitting here typing since it's been about a billion years (in blog years, of course) since a new post has gone up.  The truth is, after quite a run with hospitals, etc., I just didn't have much to say.  I was committed to saying exactly that.

A long time ago I heard a guy say that if I concerned myself with having something to say, God would provide the opportunities to say it.  I have lived by that credo ever since.

So I'm back because I think I have found my blog-voice, so to speak.  And the word of the day is transformation.

Chipper Gaines loves #DemoDay.  He loves it so much he even prints shirts about them that you can buy at Magnolia Market.

If you're not a Fixer Upper fan, sorry.  Because of our Waco connection and one of their first houses being two doors down from us when we lived there, we're fans.

The thing about #DemoDay that no one glorifies is the pain involved.  There is so much to be destroyed, taken down, beaten out, rolled up, carted off, hauled out, and trashed.  Sinks.  Floors.  Sheetrock.  Wood.  Cabinets.  Appliances.  Some come out pretty easy and some take more than a little bit of elbow grease.  There is blood.  There is sweat in buckets.  And there is loss.  That's what #DemoDay is.  Removal of the old to make room for the new.

You see what I did there, don't you?

The most painful part of transformation is the #DemoDay part.  There are times when, in order to build something into us, God has to take something out of us.  There is blood (His...since we don't have to resist to the point of shedding ours according to Hebrews 12).  There is sweat - most often ours as we worry about and work toward the cleansing.  And there is loss.

If you're in the position where it's mostly Sledge Hammers instead of finish work, I want to encourage you that God has "far, far greater things ahead than anything we leave behind" (C.S. Lewis).

One Baylor Alum's Reflections on a Dark Day

First, let me say that I'm just a single voice and others will speak more eloquently and possibly more accurately.  Part of blogging for me has been a method of saying things that I couldn't get to without writing them.

I am so sad.

Baylor has fired Coach Art Briles, demoted President Ken Starr, and sanctioned A.D. Ian McCaw.  A damning report by an outside law firm has crushed many in the Baylor family.  Baylor failed - the kind of failure that all of its constituents feel.  We were not who we said we were.  My wife, the Queen, will tell you that I'm a cup half-full guy.  I was on this too.  No way my beloved Baylor was as bad as the rumors were.  The truth will win out and it will turn out okay somehow.  But no.  We were worse than most imagined.

We didn't learn much from Dave Bliss, apparently.  Athletics trumped righteousness (in the biblical sense of that word).  We valued disproportionately what was (and is) not all that valuable in the end.

And that's not the worst of it.

The worst of it is that there are ladies who are scarred for life whose stories are now interwoven with a national news cycle.  Anonymity and healing will be a lot harder now.  May God have mercy on them.

I am mad.

I am angry that athletes were allowed to treat others like this with impunity.  I am angry that there was no clear-headed person who could call it what it was.  I am angry that there were assumptions and arrogance and absences of judgment.

I am wary.

I am wary because, according to the report, there was a systemic failure of good-natured people.  I'm not talking about those who dismissed or failed to do their duty.  I'm talking about the people who thought that it wouldn't happen at Baylor.  I'm talking about the people who should have been working to put the appropriate Title IX systems in place but slow-rolled it because either (a) leadership above them didn't prioritize it or (b) they had other things on their plates or (c) some combination of both.

It's a terrible leadership lesson to learn.  Let me be clear:  as a Christian university, I actually think it's correct for administrators and other leaders to expect it not to happen at Baylor.  We ought to expect men not to act like animals, especially those who claim Christianity.  But just because we expect one thing doesn't mean we don't guard against another.  And that's the leadership lesson:  expect the best but have guards in place against the worse.

On a personal level, I know I've implemented this in my own life.  I expect faithfulness to God, my wife, and my family for life.  However, I have also built in some personal legalisms that guard against the dreaded "what could be."  We've taken steps recently as a church to do something similar regarding facility usage, etc.


O!  My heart hurts.

Follow ups and catch ups

Thanks for all who have stayed with us and prayed for us in these days.  Below are some notes that will hopefully catch everyone up to speed on where things are.

Currently, Maggie is home and doing well.  She was discharged Tuesday evening because she was holding stable on the medicinal regimen she was taking and they were willing to take "stable."  What that means is she still has her pleural effusion (the fluid around her lung) but it didn't appear to be increasing.  The hope is her body will catch up and clear it now that we've plugged the leak in the dam, so to speak.

And that leads to today.  She has a follow-up appointment today close to noon.  The blood work and x-rays will tell us a lot about how she's doing.  That's definitely a point of prayer.

So many have asked about her seizure on Sunday.  Because of her prior strokes in 2014, she has a lower seizure threshold where her brain activity can overcome her brain chemistry leading to bad things happening.  This can be caused by dehydration, exhaustion, fever, and a myriad of other stimuli.  In her case, we **think**, it was the extreme nausea from the potassium supplement she had to take.  Maybe.  But honestly, no one knows.  They have upped her anti-seizure meds to hopefully help her with these struggles.  It was and remains a scary part of her medical makeup.  

Out of the many people we have met during our tenure at TCH, the conjoined twins from Venezuela have captured our affection the most.  They are so sweet and genuinely joyful, matched by the sweetness and joy of their parents.  The Queen and I have coordinated (well, mostly the Queen) an effort to try to get them some items that would be nice to have as a sign of God's love and favor for them.  I'm amazed at how generous some of our friends are and how God typically provides in advance what we can pass along.  In one case, an iPad was sitting around waiting to be given away by one of our friends.  And...boom.  The twins have an iPad with Spanish movies.  So fun to see how God works and moves even in the midst of a very difficult situation for their family.

In addition, we've had conversations about Christ with a Muslim nurse, conversations with one of our favorite nurses about adoption, a long conversation with a doctor about following Jesus as a professional, and a conversation with another favorite nurse about being real while being people of faith.  The Kingdom is still worthy of pursuit - even when my circumstances aren't easy (Matt. 6.33).

Throughout, we have known we are loved (evidenced by so many of you who have loved us well for the sake of Jesus).  Our circumstances have never changed His love and disposition of mercy toward us.  I have a quote from a Puritan pastor under the glass on my desk that reminds me of this.  And so I leave you with this from Thomas Wilcox (1621-1687) and his sermon Honey out of the Rock:

Judge not Christ's love by providences [circumstances], but by promises.  Bless God for shaking off false foundations, for any way whereby He keeps the soul awakened and looking after Christ; better sickness and temptations, than security and superficiality.