Puzzles

I have done quite a bit of traveling for my work (and sometimes for fun) over the last ten years. Most of the time when I fly I try to bring along something to read and/or listen to, and sometimes I read a little faster than I planned. Thank goodness the airlines provide their "in-flight magazine" for our reading enjoyment. There are articles that highlight the features of Tulsa night life or the great restaurants of Omaha.

Sanwiched between these journalistic revelations and the various airport maps, customs form instructions, and menu of available drinks, there are a few sodoku puzzles as well as a crossword.

The magazine that I pick up always has puzzles that have been started by a previous passenger. Started, not finished. And they didn't finish because they made some mistakes. They may be close enough that the words fit in some places but the blanks in the "down" entries don't have a chance of being right. I spend some time working through the obvious errors; but there are some that I can't clean up. I don't know what they were thinking and I've only got an hour on the plane wheels-up to wheels-down. It is frustrating that I can't get the puzzle completely fixed; if only the puzzle had been blank, maybe I would have had a chance.

It's like that with H sometimes - I feel like I've been given an incomplete crossword puzzle and somebody has messed up a big chunk of it. I have to go back and try to fix the wrong words and I only have so much time, I worry that I won't be able to complete the puzzle.

You're safe...

I'll never forget one of the first nights that A was with us. Our younger daughter was throwing a tantrum (as two-year olds can do at times) and I scooped her up to remove her from the family area and take her to her room. There she could thrash about and have her tantrum while everyone else was in relative quiet.

A asked my wife "what is he going to do to her?" Given her experiences it was a reasonable fear to have.

So here we are almost four years later, A has been in our home this entire time. She has had tantrums, time outs, and we have had to restrain her from time to time. We've never given her the same experience she had from the past (OK, I will admit there are times of yelling that I'm not proud of, and certainly don't help the cause). Through all of this we tell her our job is to keep her safe.

A's outlook on the world is one of doubt and fear, because of what she has experienced. It is hard for her to believe that she has someone who loves her and looks after her, to keep her safe. And there are a lot of times that she says she wants us to go away, she wants to go back to her old house which she has fond memories of...

It reminds me of the Israelites on their trek in the desert..."At least we had food in Egypt. Have you brought us out here to die?" This same group of people had a loving God that had rescued them from bondage and it was hard for them to see that God was taking care of them.

This same God provides us freedom from bondage to Sin, yet how many times do we want to go back to our old house, how many times do we forget that God is really taking care of us. NO matter how many times we see it happen and know it to be true.

I love my family and God.

I am sorry that I am, sometimes, I am mean

but I forgive the people that hit me

I love God the best.

Sometimes you wonder if things are getting through; and sometimes you find out.

The above note was written by my five-year old daughter a few days ago after we had put her to bed. We found it taped to our bedroom door.

Give me your eyes!!!

So many metaphors for God's relationship with us come from being a parent...

I have five kids, three of which live in the house and are of an age that I expect them to listen and follow directions. Of course, they are kids and listening is not always a strong trait of that species. We came up with a saying in our house to make sure we had our kids attention. It usually follows several repetitions of their name, in increasing volume, and is "Give me your eyes!"

When I have my kids eyes I can be sure I at least have 50% of their listening attention. Sometimes we make quiet offers of fun things and then say "oh, I guess you're not interested." They go on with "What? what? what were you saying?" and we say "oh, nevermind."

I wonder how many times God has called my name and even said "Give me your eyes" and I've completely ignored it...and maybe missed out on something great.

Unconditional love...

A quick story to break up some of the philosophy-type talk...though it does fit in.

A couple of years ago I got a call that one of our kids was in trouble at school and had been arrested. It wasn't the first time for him, but it was the first time I had to go and pick him up. I listned to the school resource officer explain the situation; I listened to the counselor. I watched my son sit there in a haze not really hearing any of it, only sitting with his head hanging down.

Neither of us said a word until on our way out to the car. The only thing I could think of to say was "I love you, and I don't know what we're going to do but we'll figure it out." I wasn't sure he even heard me or paid attention.

A few months later we were in a discussion group at church talking about parent-child relationships. In this discussion he brought up that story and vividly recalled the words that I had said and even shared how that had made him feel, had taken some of the fear out of his mind. There were certainly consequences, and he expected those, but I wanted to tell him that he didn't need to doubt our love or commitment. I'm glad he was listening.

So many times in our lives we have to deal with problems, some of which we created. In those times we need to hear those words from God (He is always saying them, we just may not be listening). Sure, there are consequences just from our humanness (we have all fallen short), but that doesn't take away God's unconditional love.

Second - finding similar thinking

As my wife and I were looking into adoption issues, especially the concept of attachment disorders, we came across a great book called (duh!) Attaching in Adoption:
Practical Tools for Today's Parents by Deborah Gray. I had started to consider some of the similarities in how kids with attachment issues manifest those in their behavior and how humans behave toward God.

I happened to find this at the end of the acknowledgements section of the book:

“I have come to acknowledge myself as an attachment-disordered child of a loving God, slow to trust and confused between life and God, in spite of evidence of love. I am grateful for this extragant love, flowing through my life, through my work.”

(excerpt from Attaching in Adoption:Practical Tools for Today's Parents by Deborah Gray, Perspectives Press, Inc.: Indianpolis, IN, 2002, used with permission)

I was taken aback by this and glad to know that I wasn't the only one seeing this connection. I've looked around on the net and haven't really found anything that made such a comparison or explored this aspect.

First realizations...

One of the first times the comparison between earthly and heavenly adoptions occured shortly after we had made the decision to adopt our oldest son, J. J had been with us about three years and actually had aged out of the foster care system. We had told him we wanted to adopt him and he was going along with it - an "adult" adoption. These are unusual but not unheard of, and we wanted to provide a permanent family for J and give him that sense of belonging no matter what.

We had a habit of leaving notes at times when things needed to be said but weren't necessarily comfortable. J left a note one night expressing how happy he was that we were going to adopt him, how glad he was we had stuck with him through the hard times (and I think even how sorry he was he had put us through it...)

As I read that note (I'm sure I have it somewhere) I had such a sense of joy and happiness that he wanted to be adopted by us! He could have stopped it at any point but we would have fought hard to keep the decision. I couldn't help but think that if I feel this small amount of joy, how much joy does God feel when we make the choice to be part of the family; our decision doesn't change whether or not we're adopted, but our attitude can bring joy to all!