Real Celebration

Easter is a funny Holiday.  

I grew up without an understanding of the importance of 

Resurrection Sunday and have a difficult time maintaining 

traditions at home that are authentic.  

Eggs?  Weird.  

Crosses and Bunnies?  

Weirder. Conflicting world views for sure.  

This year was the first year my kids were both too old to attend a local egg hunt.  

The one in town ends at 6th grade.  As soon as we returned from the mission field 

I took my kids to all of the American traditions I could as to re-acclimate them.  

Even the seemingly pagan ones.  

They had fun and I felt better as a mom.  

(Missionary mom guilt is a real thing.  Pretty selfish I know, but hey, I'm human) 

And my 7th grader looks 15, so no sneaking her in.  Our foster kiddo is not with us at 

the moment due to treatment needs and so we went to church. The girls served in the 

children wing and Dusty and I went to service alone.  It was actually really nice.  I had 

brunch after wards as a family to look forward to but no

Real Celebration.  

I live for authentic moments with God

It was weird.  
I felt odd about it.  

Like, abnormally weird about it. 

I knew people would be posting their family celebrations and egg hunts. Bright spring dresses and such.  Getting Amber into a dress takes a miracle, and the crucifixion- she will tell you happened 2000 years ago so why dress up today. Nice.  Ava seams to have morphed into Amber's sporty style this year and so there we are.  At church, in jeans and new Nike tanks with messy buns.  

I was really enjoying the worship set, because God brought us AN AMAZING worship pastor recently.  I think he came from IHOP (International House of Prayer, not Pancakes) 

for sure because he is legit.  

Spirit-filled, Ah-mazing. 

The room was PACKED.  

I'm 100% extrovert.

This means Awesomeness for me.

Corporate worship with 2000 of my closest friends!

At first I had a feeling of total peace, I'm thinking 'God is Good, his Word is true and I am going to be fine not having grandparents (on either side of my family tree alive), or aunts and uncles or cousins near to celebrate the beautiful holiday with...' 

I'm independent and I have this amazing husband and these 2 growing daughters to celebrate with.....

Then my thoughts went here? What the world.

Did I mention ever that my mom was adopted from Germany? She has a German mom and American dad.  A married military man takes excursion to Germany where he falls in love with young German woman.  He returns home to Pennsylvania never to see his girlfriend again. Jumps off a lock in a ship yard and dies.

Leaves behind 5 children.  

My mom was born shortly after in Europe. 

Wow.  
I'm destined to feel like a homeless drifter.  
How romantic. 

Where are the Grunwald's from Pennsylvania at today, I was suddenly thinking?  

I miss them.  Its Odd.  My mom already reached out to them years ago and I think they were not interested in meeting us.  I don't blame them. 

I know I must have a ton of cousins that might love God like I do and we could celebrate Easter together and be like minded and get each other cross necklaces for Easter instead of eggs....

Or how about the family in Germany that I DO know.  

That I met in 7th grade when we moved there for a year, and went to school with that I haven't seen since....  

Fragmented bits of my family tree and 

GOODNESS 

was I feeling the pain of separation, ouch....

Like a truck it hits me 

I felt God whisper to my heart that he is allowing me to feel the confusion and loss to heal my heart BUT to also understand WHY it is vital for the Church to take in American orphans through the foster care system.  

They grow up, and celebrate holidays w/who?  

Fellow inmates, track house friends? Johns?

Approx 25,000 foster kids age out of the system annually.  

They will be parents shortly after they leave the system, homeless, unemployed, uneducated, suffering from mental illness.  Very possibly pipelined straight into a trafficking situation they do not know how to walk away from. 

AND without family on Easter.  Christmas.  Their birthdays. 

Or, maybe like me, trying to create my own new generational normal centered around Christ. 

Lest I fall apart completely.  

OK, it was like this.  I think God let me into his heart a little bit.  He showed me his heart, how desperate he is to have His kids (the Church) open up their homes to foster kids and let them experience these Glorious holidays!!  Be discipled in His ways and remember how good he has been to us.  Celebrating with orphans.  Kansas foster kids. 

Celebrating LIFE w/the least of these.

YES, this is the people in our spheres daily, BUT it is also the foster child.  

Our foster kiddo's mom recently lost her rights to her children.  Add to that 

a father that has been MIA since her conception  & wallah, 

Orphaned. This girl is turning into a young woman in front of us and it is our job 

now to tell her she's worthy of the love of a father.  That she is beautiful.  She is wanted.  

I found myself telling God that if HE would provide a bigger house than we would take in 2 or 3 girls and Celebrate life with them.

Wow.  It was pretty cool. 

Then I after Easter church service I prayed for a young woman living in a track house in KCK.   I asked the Holy Spirit to come and help me touch this woman.  I had a vision of 4 different colored balls of yarn that were mingled together in the middle but were not tangle or knotted. They could be pulled apart easily.  They appeared to be a mess, but actually with true, authentic effort the mess could be handled. I love my church, did I mention that already?  I also love serving on the alter prayer team.  It gives me an opportunity to practice my God given gifting of hear God's voice and ministering to his kids.  So cool.
I can't help but wonder where her parents are.  Is she s product of a broken home?  The foster care system ?  

My emotions lately have been intense.  It's like I'm reconnecting with my own story.  I know what I know- in reference to my family tree and trauma, but I don't think I have felt what I should have felt along the way. 

"Unhealed trauma shrinks our world so that our main focus becomes suppressing inner chaos" 

Most def. My story. 

Denial has been my method of healing.  Instead of befriending feelings I pushed them away, the stronger they got the more frozen and panicky I felt.  

When I was 11 years old I was forced to leave all that I knew,  My home, my hood, my school and my attachments.  No more father.  No more late night drunken drug parties, or electric bills that would go unpaid.  No more trips on foot with my Dad to the the Church food banks.  

Off to meet my mother.  We were strangers. (She was a teen at my birth.  I don't blame her for my childhood.  She's in process just like I am. ) It was a totally different world.  The adjustment is still taking place.  I never adjusted.  I never progressed emotionally past 11.  I got stuck I think.  I went numb.  Survival mode.  I went through the transition from kid to young lady with no real connections or attachments.  With a developing body that was created in the image of God, I did not know my true worth and so I gave it away looking for love.  Am I pretty?  Do I matter?  Do you notice me?   These huge needs that only a father could meet were open ended now and I was desperate for connections.   Painfully insecure.  Running into trouble without seeing its potential for danger.

I paid a great price ignoring my body's messages trying to tell me to feel pain and loss.  I was handicapped and could not detect the harmful and truly dangerous detours in my teen years.  

I chuckle thinking that I did not see this Foster Care calling coming on the horizon.  God is so good to me.  He is taking the wounding I had from 11-18 (and then some)...and healing them through loving and caring for foster kids.  

I think I can relate! Who knew.  God did. Seriously amazing.  Full circle. Totally healing headed my way.  In the perfect season and time.  His timing and my desperate attempt to get it right.

I thought it was just what God was asking our family to do, be the hands and feet of Jesus.  

Living life on Mission.  

But it is SO much more.  

Ask God to speak you your family about how you can help the foster kids in your community.  How can we the Church be effective and meet the needs of the American orphan?

Father God,  minister to who ever reads these words.  Send you Holy Spirit to call your sons and daughters to house the orphan.  To the families in need of temporary foster care too.   Your plans for the Church are so sweet, I ask that you would ready the ears of the Bride to hear this great need.  To hear your heart beat for the fatherless, the motherless, the fragmented wonders that feel homeless. Those that miss their families and are in foster care.  Equip us Father for this call to love those that are not from our own wombs.  I have been given the robe, the crown and the keys to the Kingdom.  Should I not pass this opportunity along to the least of these? 

Quotes taken from the summary of the amazing book called 

'The Body Keeps the Score Brain, Mind and Body Healing in the Healing of Trama' 

by Van Der Kolk,MD 

Read the fast reading 11 page summary here:

http://www.leslievernick.com/members/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Book-Review-The-Body-Keeps-the-Score-revised.pdf

“The challenge of recovery is to reestablish ownership of your body and your mind – of yourself.”