Lolipops on the windowsill

I've had this post sitting on my mind and in my post list for a little over a month now, as I've scoured through literally thousands of photos, trying to find just the right ones. I think part of the hesitation in writing it also signifies a change that I don't know if my heart is fully ready to make.

We are in a place of transition at the moment. We are in the US this summer for what we'd planned to be 6 weeks but is now turning out to be more like 8 or 9. When we return to Beijing, our cozy little cottage at New Hope is packed up and we are physically ready to move to an apartment in Beijing...where we do not yet know, but hopeful we'll figure it out when we get there! My emotions, however, may follow behind a bit slower.

One of my favorite things (and mind you, there are many) about living where we've lived, both at Maria's Big House and at New Hope, is the constant sound of children in our midst. When I lived at Maria's, I loved sitting on the couch in the 4th floor kitchen and hearing children down the hall...laughing, crying, jabbering on as small children do, their sweet voices echoing into the room. I didn't always have to be with them, but I knew that they were there.

I loved sitting in the office when I was working on a piece or project and having kids run in and go straight for the middle drawer in my desk knowing that's where I kept my stash of Dum-dums for them and their friends. We'd go through a daily routine where they'd gather enough for themselves and every child in their nursery who was old enough to eat a sucker. Suckers were my way of making friends with those kids who were a bit slower to warm up, so I was always sure to keep a bag around.

When I moved to Beijing after we got married, our little home was located at the entrance of New Hope Foster Home and although we weren't in the same building as the kids, we were still on the grounds with them and the sound of their presence around us was still evident and full. Because I started teaching full-time at a school last year, I wasn't able to spend as much time getting to know the babies there as well as I had at Maria's, but it was still a sweet comfort knowing they were there. Saturday mornings were generally full of laughter coming from the playground that was located right
outside our front door.

 
At one point I remembered that I still had a bag of suckers and made my attempt at winning the hearts of some of the kids there too. I was quickly reminded that if you feed them (sugar), they will come! :) So it wasn't long before we had a little canister of loli pops on our windowsill, ready for any wandering toddlers we might have at our door. 

 I know that even in my current job teaching I am around kids all day, but there's something that I will forever treasure about the opportunity I had to live with and share my life with these special little ones. Even though my experience will likely never be able to be recreated, it is my hope that this is not the end, but rather just a change in getting to be a part of these precious little lives.

As we continue to transition, please pray for us; for guidance as we move forward in Mikey's schooling and desire to provide counseling for NGO and Christian workers abroad, for me as I begin a new school year, to be content there on days when my heart longs to be elsewhere, and for us to experience peace in the midst of change and uncertainty.

Morning by morning

This week we begin packing up the cottage as we prepare for our trip to the US and upon return, our move into the city. I know it will be a week filled with many varied emotions as we pack up memories and close a chapter in our lives and welcome a new one. As many of you know, we have spent the last year living in a cozy little cottage on the grounds of Hope Foster Home. Mikey has worked for New Hope (alongside of Show Hope) for the past 6 years and just recently ended his time of employment here as he pursues his Masters degree in counseling and further opportunities in that line of work. Once we return from our summer trip to the US, we will look for an apartment in Beijing city, closer to the school where I teach. Even as I type, I hear the sounds of little voices outside, laughing and yelling as they enjoy the beautiful weather outside. This, I believe, is one of the things I will miss the most about our home.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to return to MBH for a few days and to stay in my old room for the first time since I’d moved away. It felt somewhat what I imagine going back to your childhood room after being away for some time (my parents moved when I went to college, so although the bedroom pieces at their home are the same as they were when I was growing up, it’s still a different house and room). Many things in my old room at Maria's were just as I’d left them, despite others having lived and stayed in there. One of the things that stood out to me the most that had remained was the writing that I’d left on the bathroom wall. Shortly after moving there, I had written the words pictured below as a reminder of his daily faithfulness in bringing me to this place.

Shortly before leaving, I went through and erased all of the writing in preparation for the rooms’ new summer inhabitants. As silly as it may sound, it somewhat felt like a very small and feeble act of worship, an acknowledgement of the grace that had been shown to me in that place but also a letting go of something I have held so tightly, and an acknowledgement of the grace that continues day by day, morning by morning, regardless of where I am.

Now, as we pack up our little cottage, I am sure I will be nostalgic as we sort though the memories we’ve collected over this year. It has been a challenging year for sure, but as I sort and celebrate, probably cry a bit here and there, I hope to be able to look back and celebrate the ways in which his faithfulness as been shown to us, morning by morning.

Your Story Must Be Told

It has been nearly a year since I last posted. I have had so many thoughts that I've wanted to get down, but the time and the energy to do so have often been lacking. But I am realizing that for me, for now, this is a very necessary step. So if you are reading, thank you for taking the time to do so. It is my hope to get back into the habit of posting as life seems to be somewhat settling in. It has been a challenging year in many ways, but also one worthy of celebrating. I haven't done a very good job of celebrating this year; to be honest, I have sulked in place of celebrating and grieved even in times when I should have been rejoicing. It is my hope that through God's grace and through writing these posts I can celebrate the moments that he has given us and, even if in hindsight, see the grace that our Father has chosen to so lavishly pour on us. 

I am coming to the realization that over the past year, maybe even earlier as my time in Luoyang came to an end, that I began to believe that my story no longer mattered/matters. Somewhere over the past few years I have discovered a love for writing. It was never something I really enjoyed that much in school (when it was assigned), but something I’d come to really enjoy when given freedom and liberty with it. I don’t think I’m a particularly great writer or that I have really engaging things to say, but for me it has been a great outlet and a means of communicating what is on my heart and mind when spoken words don’t seem quite right or fitting.

But back to the belief that my story no longer matters…

I recently finished a book that a friend sent me last fall. The book’s subtitle is “thoughts on change, grace, and learning the hard way.” When I first got it, it sounded quite fitting for the season of life I was currently in (especially the part on change…wedding, move, job change, all in a matter of a few short months…and probably the bit about learning the hard way, too). But I wasn’t quite ready for the part grace yet. My heart had experienced so much change and in some ways perceived so much loss (in the midst of so much gain) that I just couldn’t open it up quite yet to receive the grace that we as followers of Christ are so freely offered.  Sometime after the beginning of this year though, something in me began to change, maybe to break or to soften, and became more open to beginning to receive this grace. 

I began reading the book my friend had sent and many of her stories of loss and grief resounded with mine, although in very different contexts. I have realized that in my own pain, I have somewhat closed myself off to the pain of those around me; of dear friends who were also experiencing seasons of change and loss, but which I missed because I had become so consumed in my own. To quote the author, “sometimes pain makes us selfish, myopic, and utterly unable to understand people whose pain is different than ours.” She ends the book with a chapter titled “your story must be told.” It was at that point that I really began to realize that I had believed a lie that my story no longer mattered. I had begun to believe that because I am no longer working in a day-to-day, life-to-life context with orphaned children, that no one really wanted to hear my story anymore. I didn’t feel like what I was doing was really all that purposeful anymore, so therefore no one would really care to read or hear about it. I confess that there was (and continues to be) a large sense of pride in those statements (and not the good kind of pride…) as if what I was doing there was more important than what I am doing here. And maybe for me it is, I really don’t know, but that is what I am trying to work through now, day by day. I had over the past several months of grieving (and sulking…) made the story about me. To quote the book once more, “I was afraid, then, that it would always be like that. I was afraid that this was the new normal, that seasons of lightness and peace were over in my life, and this brittle, fractured way of living would last forever.”

But the reality is that I am a part of a much larger and grander story that begs to be told. And regardless of what I am doing, whether I’m teaching orphaned children or caring for my husband or cooking a meal for friends, if it is done in light of his Kingdom, then it does matter and it is a story worth being told; not for my own acknowledgement, but to bring light to a greater story that I am a part of. 

As I write this, I think I have come to realize, at least for me, that there are times when I need to be the one who is writing and sharing my stories…and then there are times when I need to sit back and hear the stories of others and of God’s grace and faithfulness in their lives, and to be reminded that the same grace and faithfulness has and continues to be extended over my own. 

So this is my attempt to “get back in the saddle” as they say. I don’t know if anyone will read this, but if you do, I hope it in some way encourages you. But I know that in this season, the writing is very much also for me. “I believe in mining through the darkest seasons in our lives and choosing to believe that we’ll find something important every time…So now I’m mining through, searching for light, and the more I look, the more I find. I see the moments of heartbreak that led to honesty about myself I wouldn’t have ever been able to get to any other way.” (Niequist, Bittersweet)

So as I write, I hope to encourage and challenge myself, and anyone who has made it this far in reading:
“If you are a person of faith, it is your responsibility to tell God’s story, in every way you can, every form, every medium, every moment…when we tell the truth about our lives- the broken parts, the secret parts, the beautiful parts- then the gospel comes to life, an actual story about redemption.” (Bittersweet)