The Prayers of a Five-Year Old...

It's often interesting the things that appear on your timehop and how they can relate to things you are continuing to go through in a strange, unrelated, and yet similar ways. This status update pictured here was posted on my facebook five years ago. I chuckled as I read it, and can  almost be transported back to Lucy's room and hear her sweet little five year old voice praying the first of many of that same prayer. It's not that she wasn't thrilled to have a baby brother, but if you knew Lucy during the time we were in the adoption process, you might remember that she was specifically asking for a brother and a sister, so when Gabriel was born, she wanted to know where her sister was! Lucy
has always been a bit wise beyond her years, a deep thinker and feeler who marches to life in her own beat. She also tends to see life in black and white, so since she asked for a brother and a sister, it just seemed logical that she was getting a sister and that response was somehow delayed somewhat, so she decided to just continue to ask...and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask! The way I see it, the Lord figured that she was so faithful in asking, that He might as well bless her with not just one, but TWO sisters for being so faithful in her request! LOL!
So Lucy ended up with not just a brother in Gabriel (whose name means "My God is my might"), and not just a sister in Annie (whose name means "prayer"), but also a bonus sister in Evangeline (whose name means "bringer of the Good news.")

The story of answered prayer does not end there though!  God doesn't hear just the prayers of sweet little five-year old girls; he also hears the prayers of precious little five-year old boys! You see, Gabriel has been asking for a puppy for quite some time. (Truth be known, so has his momma!;-) Recently, he re-watched the movie The Secret Life of Pets, which stars a dog named Max. Gabriel then began asking, again, if he could have a dog. Gabriel really hates getting his hair cut (it's a traumatic experience for him typically, although, as a of late, he's starting to outgrow it somewhat.) One day, we had gone to lunch, and he was asking if, afterward, we could go get a puppy if he did good with getting his hair cut. (Smooth one, GP! LOL) I told him, "Honey, maybe we can go LOOK at puppies, but we can't actually GET a puppy today. I tell ya what, though. If you really really really want a puppy, then you need to pray and ask Jesus for a puppy. That doesn't mean that you're going to get a puppy, because it may not be what our family needs right now, but we can always pray about anything, okay?" He smiled, quite satisfied with that response, and agreed, saying, "OKAY!"

Well, not two minutes later, I get a text from a church friend:

"Aren't y'all looking for a maltipoo?"

At first, I was confused and not even sure what she was talking about. Then, I realized that she was talking about a dog. I was like, "Oh! Um, no, we are actually looking for a goldendoodle because we need a hypoallergenic dog."

Just a little background info on our family: You may know we used to have two cats, Cappi and Frappie--Cappucino and Frappucino--and a beagle, Annabelle....yes, I realize that's quite similar to one of our daughter's name, but the dog came with that name! LOL If you think our family is sick now, you should have known us when we had all of those animals that shed hair everywhere back then. We loved them to pieces, but we were seriously sick ALL of the time. We realized if we were ever going to be pet owners again, we would need a hypoallergenic dog, but we probably wouldn't be able to afford one. So starting last Christmas, I began to pray that if we were supposed to add a dog to our family, that someone would contact us saying that they had a puppy that they were needing a home for that would be good for a lot of children to love on. In my mind, it was a goldendoodle, because that was the only dog I really knew of that was hypoallergenic. Plus, they're ADORABLE! However, they also get kind of big, and our house is already pretty jam-packed, and they are VERY expensive, hence us needing to find someone to need a home for one.

Anyway, back to the original story. She texts me back and says, "Maltipoos are  hypoallergenic!"

As you've probably gathered by now (and if you've followed our facebook page with our "Maxx the maltipoo" album"), we are now the very proud owners of an incredibly precious 16 pound puppy dog that we are absolutely in love with! And, yes, the original owners actually named him after, you guessed it, the dog from the movie, The Secret Life of Pets! It's just yet another example of how God hears our prayers and never ceases to to answer them in the way HE sees best. I think of how I originally had prayed for a goldendoodle and how that would have actually been a horrible fit for our family considering the size that they get! God knew our family needed something different, and He provided in the perfect timing and in the perfect way.

I think the reason that yesterday's timehop status really pricked at my heart so deeply is that on the particular day that it popped up, I was really struggling with a request that didn't get answered the way that I had hoped that it would. I found myself struggling with God, once again, with how His response could possibly be what it ended up being. I, too, had gone before Him faithfully, day after day, asking Him to work a miracle. But as a dear pastor once gently told me, sometimes God tells us yes and we praise Him, but sometimes God tells us no and He asks us if we will still praise Him. How grateful I am when I am able to lift my hands up easily in praise, but oh how I pray I can be gracious when God asks me to lift my hands to Him in broken praise. It's in the times of broken praise that we often get to experience how God transforms the beauty from ashes, the dry bones into life, and the broken glass into a beautiful mosaic. To cling to the pain only hurts us, but to lift up and let it go not only frees us, but it allows God to move, and when God moves, something amazing always transpires.

As we enter into a time of year that can be filled with both wonderful and painful memories, I pray that we can all lift our hands up in praise to the One who is worthy to be celebrated and adored during this Holiday season. Rest assured, He always hears us, He always answers, and He is ever on the move.

Your Ways are Higher...

There are a couple of ways that the Lord really allows me to pour my heart out. One is through blogging. I often stumble over my words when I try to speak, and feel like I am easily misunderstood, but when I write I can think through what I'm trying to say, and hopefully I come across more clearly and as I intend. If you really want to cut my heart open and see what's inside though, (although that sounds a bit graphic, doesn't it?) probably the best way to do so is to listen to me play the piano. I think that's one reason that all of these issues with my hands and the numbness and pain has been so difficult for me not just physically, but also emotionally because the unknown of how it will effect my playing has weighed heavily on me. I found myself sitting before the Lord with my fists clenched rather tightly looking up at Him with tears in my eyes, knowing that what He was asking me was a very simple, yet very difficult question, "Are you willing to let go?" Let go of what, you may be asking? Well, basically let go of my love for playing, my ability to express myself, my joy in being able to express myself so freely and creatively in worship to my Heavenly Father. Why would He possibly want to take something so good away from me? But the real question He was asking me was much simpler. What He wanted to know was this: "Would I trust Him?" And so I unclenched my fists. I opened up my hands. I laid my desires, my plans, my dreams, my ideas, and my passions at His feet, and I said, "OK God. You gave this to me, so I know you know the best thing to do with it. If that means you need to take it away from me, then I know that means You have something better for me, so yes, I WILL choose to trust You, no matter how painful it is. Help me."

I'd love to say I've gotten to experience miraculous healing from my issues, but I think maybe what I've seen instead has been much more beautiful: I've experienced grace through the journey.

My condition has basically stalled, so while it's not getting any better, it's not getting any worse. I'm still able to play, but I just experience some challenges that I didn't face before, and it's caused me to rely on the Lord in a new way, and that's a beautiful thing.

I am reminded each day to hold all things loosely (and sometimes I physically just HAVE to!) I never know if I will wake up and my hands will be number than they were the day before. The cause is basically unknown, so there isn't a way as of yet to be able to fix it. I continue to be faced with the question, "Will I trust You, Lord?" And in the mean time, I find myself sitting at the piano and just pouring my heart out in song as much as I possibly can, mostly putting Scripture to music. This week in particular, the Lord gave me a very special song that I found a bit interesting until something came up in my timehop today...

Five years ago today, we had our final home visit with our caseworker from CHFS before Gabriel's adoption would be finalized. And here I was today, dropping my son off at Kindergarten for his Thanksgiving feast at school, and then coming home to get the house cleaned up to prepare for our home group to come over tonight to celebrate Thanksgiving together, too. My son's birthmother made the most unselfish decision anyone could ever choose to ensure that this precious child could have a life filled with all she hoped for him, and I do not take that lightly at all. As we drove to school today and I prayed over the kids, we prayed for Rachel, and I thanked God for her choosing us as Gabriel's family, and I continually thank the Lord for paving the path to place Gabriel into our lives.

I think all of this must have somehow been in the back of my mind as the Lord laid this song on my heart yesterday, because the song I wrote was about our infertility journey, which is what the Lord used to open our hearts to adoption. Adoption was not our "plan B," or our "second choice," but God used our inability to conceive to make our hearts open to what He had designed for the course for our family all along. I'm so grateful that He is ever patient with us. He truly writes the best stories, and ours is filled with chapter after chapter that I could never have come up with had I been holding the pen!

I share this song with y'all today because I know so many of you have struggled or are struggling with infertility, too. My heart hurts for you, my friends. I don't pretend to know what you're feeling by any means, but please just know that I do not take your pain lightly at all. I know my story is not yours, but oh how I look forward to hearing how God makes beauty from the ashes in your lives!

Halloween 2017: Our Circus

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Not my circus, not my monkeys"? Basically, you use it when referring to situations you don't need to take ownership of. Soon after our family began to increase in number, though, I realized that the opposite was the case for us! This WAS my circus, and these were definitely MY monkeys! Our life is a constant source of laughter, suspense, thrills and probably some stinky smells wafting through the air from some unknown source! LOL! So, when DH came up with the idea that our family present itself as the greatest show on earth at our church's trunk or treat, I hopped right onto the circus wagon with
him.

You may well remember my April-watching days earlier this year. Lucy's bestie had decided she wanted to dress up as April the giraffe for Halloween, so Lucy decided she wanted to be April's baby giraffe, Tajiri, which fit in perfectly with our circus family plan. However, figuring out to make a boy giraffe costume wasn't super easy since everything on pinteres seemed to involve a tutu of some sort. I just kept thinking something would come to us eventually though...
Annie Beth was set on being Peppa Pig for the second year in a row (I think she wanted to follow in her Daddy's footsteps. He was Indiana Jones for I'm not sure how many years in a row as a child!), but then she got the idea of being a pink kitty cat, so we went with that instead. We found a cute little accessory set on Amazon and it turned out to be the most precious thing ever...especially since it had BELLS on it, which we had no idea about until we got it in the mail! Literally, she jingled every time she moved, which was just too cute for words! This was our first time trying out little piggie tails on her hair (paying respect to not being peppa pig this year, I suppose;-) I wasn't sure if she'd really want to keep her paws on or not, but she seemed to really like them and kept them on for the most part. It really was an adorable costume! She got to wear it to preschool for the day and parade around in it that morning for their costume parade--so cute!
Gabriel also had a last-minute costume change from Batman to a puppy dog. I think once he saw everyone else's animal costumes coming in, he realized it would be fun to join in on the Toller Circus idea, too. (Although we always support the idea of "Always be yourself, unless you can be Batman, and then ALWAYS be Batman..." LOL:) Amazon, once again, came to the rescue, along with DH's awesome face painting skills. Seriously, who knew DH had such amazing face painting skills? Gabriel looked adorable and was the cutest little Dalmatian puppy EVER! One of his favorite Paw Patrol characters is Marshall, so he was excited that he got to look  like him.

Evangeline was able to fit into Gabriel's old sock monkey outfit which wasn't technically a costume, but definitely worked well for this purpose. She wouldn't keep the hat part on for most of the night, and she ended up taking a walk in the "duck pond" game so she didn't have any socks on most of the night, but she stole the show in her sock monkey ensemble! It really was the perfect costume for her, because I swear that child is trying to become a monkey! She is CONSTANTLY climbing anything and everything! We literally cannot take our eyes off of her for one second, because she just is so mischevious! She's super busy, but I think it's because she's super smart. She also really, really, really likes bananas ;-)

Thanks to a sweet church friend's mom, DH and I were able to pull the Toller Circus together with the last piece to the costume puzzle with some awesome shirts with the saying mentioned at the beginning of my post: "This is my circus and these are my monkeys."  The past few years I really had given up on trying to get everyone to dress up as a matching group, so it was fun to get to make it
happen this year--totally not on my own accord though, but all thanks to DH's brilliant idea:)

Back to the giraffe dilemma though...you'd think after all of my April watching days that I would be full of ideas on how to concoct the perfect Tajiri costume, but I was completely stumped. I did, however, come across one pin where someone had used masking tape on a t-shirt to section off giraffe type spots and then painted the shirt and then removed the tape. The problem: it was supposed to be cold and rainy on Halloween (it hasn't been since then here!) and I couldn't find a long sleeved yellow shirt anywhere, not to mentioned that brown leggings were absolutely NOWHERE to be found in our city! After spending a good 4 hours trying to locate some, I was about to check one more store when I "happened" to drive past a store that caught my eye who "just so happened" to have an entire rack of brown leggings sitting out for $1.99 along with ONE lone yellow sweatshirt that "just happened" to be in Lucy's size for $2.99. ((((WHAT??!)))) I smiled as I handed the cashier $5 and

some change for the two items it would take to complete Lucy's costume. I know there's lots of debate on whether or not Christians should take part in Halloween or not, but regardless of that, the truth is that we serve a God who cares about every little detail of our lives. He's interested in everything that matters to us and is involved in all of it. He reminded me of that last week through a simple, affordable giraffe costume that brought the biggest smile to my little girl's face. You see, there's nothing we cannot bring to Jesus. Just as my favorite little boy's favorite show, Paw Patrol says, "No job is too big and no pup is too small," my Jesus wants to remind me that "No problem is too big and no request is too small..." And just like I could hear every single step Annie Beth took in her costume because of the bells on it, I can rest assured in the promise that my Jesus has walked ahead of every step that I am going to take, so I can trust Him fully to lead the way for me. I'm so glad that Jesus doesn't look at me and say "Nope. Not my circus; not my monkeys." Instead, he gathers us around the middle of the ring and invites us to join him for this thrilling adventure He wants us to join Him on! Just like I refuse to grow tired of chasing my little mischievous monkey around, my Jesus won't give up on me either. He loves me, He longs to meet with me and to guide me, and He has so many wonderful things in store for me if I will just wait and see!

Lucy turns 10!

November 1st, 2017: 

This time ten years ago, we were gearing up for a LOOOOONG night. You see, the hospital had somehow left the regulator off my morphine pump after me being way behind on pain meds from being stuck in the OR for several hours because they left a sponge inside of me from my c-section with Lucy. I was so out of it, but Lucy was far from anywhere near closing her eyes...OR her mouth! LOL! That girl had some set of pipes on her! Poor DH was exhausted, so the nurse offered in the wee hours of the morning to take Lucy off our hands until it was time for her next feeding so that we could get some rest. 

Keep in mind I was a child of the 80's who grew up watching made for TV movies, such as "Switched at Birth," thus creating my biggest fear of child-bearing as being given the wrong baby at the hospital. However, when you're sky high on morphine, you're not exactly aware of what all is going on around you. You are, however, aware of what your baby looks like, and the baby they wheeled back into my room at 5AM was NOT my Lucy Shea!

Yup. You guessed it. My fear became a reality. They totally brought me SOMEONE ELSE'S BABY...and they wanted to argue with us about it! Thankfully, ID bracelets don't lie (and neither did the precious face that was back in the nursery that looked exactly like her daddy!) and all was resolved, but I'll never forget that first night with my Lucy Shea--full of the unexpected, and yet also full of what I had worst expected. Basically, Lucy's first 24 hours of life was full of things completely out of my control. 

From the early stages of my pregnancy, the Lord had given me a phrase to live by that has echoed throughout mommyhood for me ever since:  

Live in faith and not fear. 

My Type-A personality wants to control every aspect of these precious lives I've been entrusted with, but that's not what God has designed for the life of this momma; He's simply called me to be the pointer, and not the clicker. 

Have you ever noticed how when you're trying to get a point across to your child, you tend to point your finger a certain way? I found myself chuckling at DH and myself the other night when Gabriel asked for a cupcake (after having chosen a donut first) for the fifth time. I looked over at DH, and not only were we both saying "No, honey, we already said 'no," but we both had our hands pointed in a certain way as we were trying to get our point across to him quite emphatically, since the previous four "no's obviously hadn't meant anything to him. We both laughed at each other and made a remark about about how we must think there's something magical about pointing our fingers when we speak to our children, thinking it's going to suddenly made something click with them. We so badly want to snap our fingers and POOF! They immediately obey! But God hasn't called us to make our children to do anything. He's simply called us to point them in the right direction, and it's up to THEM to choose which way they will go from there.

I don't think I will ever forget that fist moment I laid eyes on my Lucy Shea. I was overcome with so much emotion and thankfulness that God had entrusted such an amazing miracle to Michael Toller and me. She was an answer to a long-awaited prayer. She was a miracle that we didn't think we'd be able to have but that God knew would be the start to some mighty big branches! He also knew that she would be a continual source He would use to draw me close to Him to teach me more and more about Who He is as a loving Father, and who I am to be as an obedient child and follower of His.


It seems fitting that here we are, exactly ten years later, closing in on midnight, and Lucy is still fighting sleep:( Never wanting to miss out on a moment of life, she's a child eager to face every day, every moment, and every situation. She continues to beam light everywhere she goes, living up to her precious name which her Pappy was adamant he would call her by whether we ended up choosing it as her name or not. (He made that quite clear, so after my daddy passed away, we knew that her name definitely would be Lucy.) I so often find myself wishing that he could have met her, because if anyone could have melted his heart, it would have been Lucy. But who am I to question God's ways and His timing? Again, I am not the clicker, but the pointer, and I am not responsible for the response of others, but oh how my heart breaks when I can't see the response that my heart so longs to see and that my soul cries out to my Heavenly Father for. Yet still I will trust in who He says He is, and who He has made me to be in Him and is continuing to make me to be for my good and His glory...

...
 
I really can't believe my baby girl is a whole decade old! We've gone from being days old, to being weeks old, to being months old, to being years old, and now to being two digits old! I know there have been so many things I've not done right along the way, but my heart longs for her to know Jesus and to love Him and serve Him, and my prayer is that will overshadow all of the mistakes and shine through above all else.


Lucy Shea, you are truly a bringer of light and such a special little young lady! You are a unique and extraordinary little girl  who I am confident God has BIG plans for! You have given me such tremendous joy these past 10 years and 9 months of your beautiful and amazing life, and I am beyond grateful that I get to guide you through your childhood! I love you more than words could ever express! Happy 10th Birthday!

2+8=10!:-)