Traditions Heal {CELEBRATE This Week: 221}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

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I was listening to a podcast last week discussing the rub between expectations and reality. For most of us, the holiday season is filled with expectations. When reality doesn't align with expectations then we can feel disappointed.

Once again, I'm reminded how we're all bumping around this world together. My Christmas memories are warm and magical. This isn't true for everyone.

Each December, we pull out the decorations and begin to set in motion a season of traditions. At this point, I have little expectation that anything will be smooth. December is a month of meltdowns, lies and angry fits. 

I still have an expectation that it can be something different. Finally, eleven years into this forever family, things are starting to shift. I'm pretty sure it's all because of traditions. We've set in motion different expectations for the season.

1. Decorating Day. Everyone helps, and even though the oldest kids teased about watching Polar Express in the afternoon, they still piled in the living room and drank hot cocoa out of Christmas mugs. Sometimes they sang along with the songs.
2. They decorate Christmas cookies, without any prompting. They share the sprinkles, do their share of the cookies and talk about memories of overdecorated Christmas cookies when they were little.
3. Cracking the code to Christmas presents. Every few years I don't put names on the Christmas presents and they need to crack the code. This seems to bring both annoyance and delight. This year they are sure it's graduation years.

If this holiday season is a tough one, I invite you to consider a tradition. It doesn't need to be fancy, and don't overcomplicate it. Select something that helps you slow down and be present. Maybe a walk at night with a friend to see the lights in your neighborhood. Or something just for you -- a special brew you drink just on December Saturdays. It's okay if you don't have a tradition, start a new one. Don't wait. You are worth it. 

Traditions are a catalyst to healing. And the truth is, we've all been roughed up by the world and could use a bit of healing. I'd love to hear the traditions that are good for your soul.

hope is sensible {CELEBRATE This Week: 220}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

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One of my favorite things to do during the Christmas season is plug in the Christmas tree lights before any other lights are on. I use a flashlight to find the outlet and light the tree while sleepy wisps are still clearing from my mind.

The coffee starts to brew and I sit on the dark end of the couch soaking in the tiny white lights. Sometimes my resistant for only one set of lights in the wee hours of the morning crumbles and I light the banister too. The tree and the stockings make my heart warm.

Over the years of building a forever family I've been worn at the holiday season. Love is not easy for children from hard places and over-the-top love within a season of irregular schedules and unpredictable events can make even those of us who love Christmas the most wonder if we should wrap up the white lights.

Christmas joy is a result of met expectations. We must be careful with our expectations or we can become disenchanted. Sometimes we might consider giving up hope.

I did.

We have been a forever family for kids from hard places for more than a decade. This is the first Christmas that hasn't rolled in with turmoil and I wondered if maybe Christmas isn't worth getting all giddy about.

Plugging in a strand of lights is an act of hope. Like most acts of hope, it makes me feel ridiculous.

The world tells us to worry and demand results. 

Never will these responses heal broken people.

When we're in the thick of the hard, battling for what's right in a world that offers grotesque and malicious, it is easy to forget that hope is sensible. 

We've had eleven frightful Christmas seasons. Kids from dark corners work to destroy joy and peace. That's what happens when we let the world inside our homes and hearts. Hurting people hurt people.

I sit on the dark end of the couch with white light twinkling. It's different this year. I like to think it's because my precious kids from very hard places no longer need to confirm forever.

There's less need to sling vicious words or wield wild fists. They've discovered forever. 

Healing is not restoring perfection. Healing is scars. When hearts are broken and broken again and hurt slices souls, humans must discover if love is worth letting in. We test love in all kinds of ways, twisting and pushing on the hearts of those who want to be close to us, those who proclaim to be real.

It's not just children from hard places who test others.

Because if we're honest, we're all from hard places. We're all fighting weary battles. We're an orchestra that creates a cacophony of human emotions. 

It's easy to be scratched by hard hearts. 

The only sensible choice is hope.

For me hope is plugging in one more strand of white lights. For Andy it's watching a game with his buddies. Sam places a train track around the tree, and Jordan plays video games with his best friend. Hannah organizes her closet and Stephanie choses to believe that the world does offer good.

This week she was in the car with Andy and said, "Dad, I've figured out the secret to being happy."

"What's that?" Andy asked.

"You just do the right thing and then no matter what happens, it still feels good."

Hope is sensible. This season I celebrate seeing the fruits of hope.

hello december {CELEBRATE This Week: 219}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

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I'm writing surrounded by little white lights and fresh balsam. The house is merry and bright. It's my way of resisting the hustle and bustle of the spinning world. It's my protest of busy.

I take time to string the lights. We unpack ornaments and hang them one by one on the tree. We giggle and wish and brew tea in the Christmas tea pot. We sit by the light of the Christmas tree and hold hands. 

The longer I'm on this spinning rock called earth, the more compelled I am to be more and do less. This season, I'm choosing to celebrate taking the time to be.

1. Be Present. I'm challenging myself to be wholly present wherever I am.
2. Be of Good Cheer. I want others to feel good about themselves and the world when they are around me. It begins by bringing good cheer.
3. Be Mindful. I am aware of the work before me, as well as the need for fun and rest and relationships. I am being mindful in order to live a more intentional life.
4. Be Playful. I want to be more playful. Play brings peace. I want to be playful in order to make others smile and laugh and feel good.

Hello December, you are going to be a very merry month.

Thanks for taking the time to celebrate with me. Please share your links below.

Happy Holiday, USA! {CELEBRATE This Week: 199}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

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I hope you have a weekend of rest, watermelon and big belly laughs!

Easter. {CELEBRATE This Week: 188}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

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I'm celebrating courage.

 I'm celebrating dreams.

I'm celebrating faith.

I'm celebrating love.

Courage

Dreams

Faith

Love

I'm celebrating Easter.

Here's to celebrating this week!

it's all good {CELEBRATE This Week: 174}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

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I like it when things settle back to ordinary. The Christmas decorations are put away, the fridge holds more fruits and vegetables than it does cookies and candies, and the shopping is primarily at the grocery store.

I've spent a lifetime learning to love ordinary. There is holiness in routine. There is power in the familiar. The secret is to continue to see these things as sacred.

2016 was a year of friction. The Christmas season of 2016 was no different.  This was true for me and for those who are closest to me. The glow of Christmas lived side-by-side with heartache.

Learning to tailor a life well lived is about remaining steadfast through the trials. It's about loving when it's hard. It's about believing in a greater good.

My friend Kim always said, "It's all good." She would share a trial or a tiff or a situation that didn't quite go how she would have liked. She would tell me how she was mad and cried and said exactly what was on her mind. Kim had passion. And then she'd say, "But it's all good." The stories always ended with her smoothing things over with the other person. She didn't do it in a condescending way and she didn't sacrifice her core beliefs. She simply allowed her love for people to trump all disagreements. Everyone knew Kim loved them.

It's all good.

This phrase is all around my school communities. It's on business windows and school message boards. It's on restaurant signs and Facebook feeds.

It's all good.

Kim and her oldest son passed away in a car accident on Christmas evening. It is a devastating situation. At the Celebration of Life, I sat in a packed high school gymnasium. One of the speakers asked for audience participation. Four times during his speech he shared a common Kim scenario, and then  asked us to say the words that were commonplace when talking with Kim:

It's all good, rumbled throughout the gym.

I sat in the dark church sanctuary for the small funeral service. The pastor unpacked the reasons why Kim was able to say, with authority, "It's all good." Kim knew there was a good God at work. Kim knew things on this earth are temporary. Kim knew people mattered more than anything else. She assured everyone she met, "It's all good."

What an incredible legacy Kim has left on earth.

As things around me return to ordinary, I am not. The gnarled living of 2016 changed me. I have a new perspective, whether I like it or not.

My ordinary is evolving.

I celebrate that through the hard, we can find good on the other end. I celebrate, like Kim, that

It's all good.

Share your celebrations...

merry christmas! {CELEBRATE This Week: 172}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

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Christmas is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas.

--  Dale Evans

This is one of my favorite pictures. It was taken Christmas Day 2009, four years before Jay became part of our forever family.

The girls were home for less than two years. It was becoming evident that adoption isn't always a warm and fuzzy experience. It was a dark time for me. I'm glad I didn't know then that the road to healing was going to be years, maybe even decades. Unfortunately there are many untold stories of adoption. There are too many partial stories -- those that romanticize the healing process.

The truth is, healing from trauma is gnarled and ugly. Facing the hurt and harm, and then choosing to move on can be, in many ways, even more painful than the original trauma. Christmas, though, it always gives me hope. 

It is always, always the best day of the year for our family. We stay home all day long. Everyone maintains self-control. We've yet to have a meltdown, an argument, or a fit on Christmas Day. It is a modern Christmas miracle. 

I am not being dramatic. Every Christmas we are blessed with a miracle of an entire day of FUN. 

It is how Andy and I choose to live. We live FUN. It takes strong and rooted faith to live fun.

Fun is Andy's One Little Word for the third year running. For awhile I thought it was fluff, and he was mocking One Little Word. Now I realize that it takes true strength to keep living fun year after year.

On this holy weekend, I celebrate that Andy and I lead our family in living FUN. We are proof that even in this world where horrific things happen to little kids, we can believe (with a know-so hope) in complete healing. We celebrate the baby in the inn with no room, because He came to offer hope that it is possible to turn darkness into light. 

This is why Andy and I choose live FUN even on the not-so-fun days. On Christmas Day all of our kids choose to live it too. It gives me hope that one day they will learn to live FUN on every day of the year.

Add your celebration here:

Full of Thanks {CELEBRATE This Week: 168}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*****

I wrote these words on Thanksgiving:

It is Thanksgiving, and I am brave enough to celebrate.

Choosing celebration is a courageous act. The whispered-truth is part of me wonders if I have the energy or the courage to choose celebration.

Hope takes bravery. (Click to tweet.)

I breathed in deep and decided to live as one who is full of thanks.

The circumstances of the day were not what I would have chosen, if I ruled the world. Since it is my actions that I have control over, I made the tiny, but  mighty choice to be grateful.

It's easy to miss the mighty strength in a tiny act of gratitude. 

Because of this act of gratitude over disappointment, waves of blessings rolled in, crashing around our little family as powerful waves, abundant in their goodness. 

Thanksgiving 2016 was the best day of the year.

This isn't flippant and it isn't overdramatic. It is true.

A day set up for strife was flipped to one of goodness because of a brave choice to celebrate. This is the power of celebration.

I am grateful to know it.

Holiday {CELEBRATE This Week: 156}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*****

It is a holiday weekend. The origin of holiday means, "holy day." It's intended to be for rest and relaxation. The nature of holy is sacred.

I'm not always so good at making a holiday a holy day.

I celebrate that this holiday weekend is going to be filled with holy days. Andy and I are pulling our little family close and celebrating together. We are unscheduled. We are laughing. We are purposefully resting and relaxing.

It started Thursday night and already we can see our kids relaxing. We can feel burdens lifted from our shoulders. We remember that life is very good -- all the time.

Share your holiday celebrations...

Messy Christmas {CELEBRATE This Week: 113}

I debated whether to link celebrations during these holiday weekends, but I decided we must claim celebrations on the ordinary days and the holidays. I hope you carve out a few moments to document your celebrations. Merry Christmas & next week we'll celebrate Happy New Year!

It's pretty at Christmas time (even without the snow), and I think some of the prettiest decorations are nativity scenes. This season, I've been struck how our portrayal of the Christmas story is a prettied-up version of what happened that night. It was not a picture-perfect holiday card.

Mary was a teen mom who just gave birth in a dank barn. Joseph was clueless about how to be a dad. The cows, they stomped. The dirt, it stirred. Mary and Joseph tried to figure out what to do next. There was stress, little rest, and a big mess.

They didn't try to pretty things up. Rather, they leaned into the mess and chose to believe God to be who He said He would be. For it is written, "And blessed is she who believed in the fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."

Mary didn't need a camera filter to make the moment memorable. She didn't try to control this story line. Mary didn't manipulate, didn't run, didn't pretty things up. When everything was ugly she chose to believe God in the middle of the mess.

It's been a reminder for me this Christmas.

I post this family photo on social media and people like it and comment about our beautiful family. And I wonder if I'm a bit of a fraud. 

This picture was taken in the midst of hard. The parents -- Andy and me -- we were making some tough parenting decisions. And the kids -- they were battling grief and anger and selfishness. They were questioning if family is forever and if they really belong in this family. They were reaching out to birthmothers and grieving birthmothers and trying not to despise birthmothers...all while trying to accept unconditional love from a forever momma who doesn't look one bit like they thought their momma should look. Meanwhile the glue of love was tested with a push and pull that would make concrete crack.

Yet we are a beautiful family -- a beautiful mess of a family. We aren't so different from every family, even the holy family, who started in a dirty stable in the middle of a mess.  If you're looking for a reason to lean into the ugly this season, then let it be this. That baby, Jesus, He came to live next to the mess. He doesn't need things prettied up; He wants an act of radical trust.

In this favorite week leading up to Christmas, I could have given up on the hope that we are a beautiful family. Or I could have believed the lie that it's unfair to be a momma to kids who have experienced the ugliest this world has to offer. Or I could have allowed my joy to be stolen and my peace to perish.

Instead, I stood firmly in my belief that God is good and He works things for the good of those who love him and are working according to his purposes. It isn't always easy to believe in the goodness of God. The middle of the mess makes it easy to believe the ugly of things.

It's a battle I'm willing to fight, because ultimately I know, the messier my story, the more I can give God the glory.

This is my celebration -- I have a messy story that every now and then lives up to the pretty pictures. Today was one of those days. It was the best day ever for our little forever family. The. Best. Day. Ever. I can think of no better day, than the day we celebrate the Savior who saves us from the ugly, to claim as the best day ever.

Merry Christmas!

An InLinkz Link-up

CELEBRATE This Week LXXXIX (89)

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*****

I turned my Instagram account public. I've been using it to collect & document celebrations. I love it. Please follow me there: @ruth_ayres to find celebrations throughout the week.

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One.
My one goal for the summer is making all of the difference. It's made me slow down, reminding me of my One Little Word for the year -- unhurried. I've held their hands in the car and walking to the skate park. I've held their hands in the grocery store and on the couch. I've held their hands saying goodnight and good morning.

I've thought about what it means to hold their hands in the figurative sense. So I've taken an extra breath and listened more. I've ran upstairs for them to grab a forgotten item. I've taken them to the library two extra times.

The most remarkable thing has happened.

They've started holding my hand first.

And I'm reminded of the truth that allows me to believe that just maybe I can be the momma they need. Children need fans. They need people to invest in them. They need to know they're capable and loved and worthy of someone's time.

I hold their hands and somehow it turns into something so much bigger.

Two.

This is the perfect anniversary memory.

This conversation from earlier today.
Jay: Wait a minute! Aren't you guys going to go to do something for your anniversary?
Me: We're hanging out with you guys. Swimming in the rain, riding the boat, eating cake before dinner.
Jay: No, I mean aren't you going to do something just for you guys?
Andy: And miss tubing with you?
Me: And miss the jokes and the fun on the dock?
Jay: You don't wanna go do something grown-up fun?

Andy and I laughed. Nope. We don't wanna be anywhere but right here.

And it reminded me how I waited for this, how we used to imagine summer days with our kids. I expected a little girl with my curls and a son with his eyes. This is not our reality -- nor my dream anymore. Instead, we have so much more than we could have ever imagined.

A daughter who is becoming herself and another who has bold confidence. A son with an extra dose of creativity and another with an extra dose of all-things-boy. We don't know the endless diapers of having four kids within a year of one another, nor did we weather the stress of sleepless nights and rocking them to sleep.

Instead we know how to build forever and how to weave threads into the fabric of a family. We know the how to weather the ugliness of being scraped by the world. We know how to make a family safe.

We know we're in this together. Forever.

I can't imagine a better anniversary gift than this.

Share your celebrations below. Happy Independence Day!

CELEBRATE This Week: LXXVI

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*****

  

I posted this on my IG feed this week and the words stuck-fast to my heart. We walk the hard to get to to the celebration. This is a truth of human existence.

We walk the hard to make it to the celebration.

This week is holy week. On Thursday I sat around a table with an eclectic mix of people. We were there for a meal, but not an ordinary meal. Thick thorns served as the centerpiece, along with unleavened bread and small cups of deep red liquid. We remembered.

Not only did we remember the last supper of the Savior, but we remembered the way God is active and alive in our own lives. I was humbled to sit at this table. Looking around, we were quite a collection of God's people -- spiffy on the outside, ragged on the inside.

A man buried alive in a farming accident six months prior sat beside me. He is evidence of a good and healing God. A young mother, after a long rainy day of meeting need after need after need of her three small children sat on my other side. She is evidence of a strong and resilient God. A man widowed too soon in life sits across the table. He is evidence of a God who offers peace and love. Those eyes I fell in love with more years ago than I can count, caught mine when we broke the bread. He is evidence of a God who offers grace and mercy. His arm rested gently on the back of the chair of the woman next to him. A woman who buried both her son and grandson in the last eight weeks. She is evidence of a God who is big enough to shoulder the ugliest this world has to offer. At the end of the table sits a woman who is making hard choices in the name of her health. She is evidence of a God who cares. There is a man who works long hours this time of year, yet takes time to remember this night, this turning point in the life of Jesus. He is evidence of a God who provides.

I am surrounded by their stories. My heart feels a holy beat. We span generations. We span occupations. We span hobbies and interests and talents. We see different ways the world spews ugly into the lives of people. We each have a different journey. Yet, we are all on the same quest to love God and love people.

We came together around the table for a spiritual meal, to remember the sacrifice of Jesus. We ate dinner together, washed feet, broke bread, took the cup. We prayed, worshiped, and remembered.

We remembered we have a good and active God. We remembered the story ends in victory.

This is the celebration of Easter. The events leading to the celebration are hard, ugly, and violent. They break my heart and pierce my soul. Easter reminds me that when the story turns hard, it isn't the end. Easter reminds me when we walk through the hard, we find the celebration. This is why I celebrate -- ragged and tattered and scarred -- because celebration isn't lack of hard, it is the wherewithal to walk through the hard.