Monthly Archives: January 2019

…and Winning

31 Thursday Jan 2019

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I left off yesterday with the love passage from I Corinthians 13:4-7.  I have to say that it’s an impossible list to always completely live out as people who can’t see the end from the beginning, like God can.  But I thought a lot about that chapter while we were going through the whirlwind few days getting ready to let go of sweet Baby A.

I had a lot of negative feelings about the whole process, the suddenness, having no say in what happens and when.  The day came and some of us went with my daughter and Baby A to the agency to literally turn her over to a case worker, who would turn her over to the new foster family.  There was no private place for this to happen.  It was in a busy lobby where everyone going anywhere in the building had to pass by or walk through us to get to elevators and offices and hallways.  And there was no provision for our daughter to even meet the new foster family.  I truly felt if we were dropping an animal at a shelter there would have been more care and concern taken.  I guess you can see that two years later I still need to work through the bitterness I feel about this whole process.  It really is hard to always live out love.

There was, however, a truly saving grace in this whole experience.  Outside the parameters of the agency rules, the new foster mom wanted to meet my daughter and let her know something of the family where Baby A would be placed!

What a gift!

My daughter was able to meet with the new family, see them interacting, and introduce them to our sweet girl.  They were able to talk about her routine, her habits, her challenges.  Things like how many ounces of formula she drank at a time, and how she got hiccups a lot, and any medical issues.

These were things that had worried me, because there was no procedure for relating the details of how a baby was being fed and cared for, what their preferences were, what soothed them, in the way the agency handled turning over a baby from one home to another.  The needs every mother learns to meet in her child that she would worry a new caregiver might not figure out were not their priority.

Maybe you noticed in yesterday’s post there was one thing I didn’t mention in the things I cannot speak to.    I can’t tell what my daughter felt and thought during this whole process.  Those things are hers to tell.

But I can speak to what it is like for a mother to lose a child.

Because even though she wasn’t referring to herself as Momma yet, that’s exactly what she was.  She had picked Baby A up from the hospital when she was ready to go home at three days old, and had cared for her ever since.  Her life revolved around this little one’s schedule.  Her time was no longer her own.  Or her sleep, or even showering and cooking and cleaning on any regular schedule.

And she chose to do this all by herself.  We were happy to be able to help her out, we knew how tiring it was when it was two of us caring for our first baby.  I used to call my husband Calgon, as in “Calgon, take me away!” from the bubble bath commercial, needing five minutes to take a shower and be all by myself when he got home from work.

But my daughter took on the never-ending job of caring for a newborn on her own.  And she was doing a fantastic job.  When there were issues, she addressed them.  She advocated for this baby’s needs, for her health, her nutrition.  She cautiously had begun to talk about how long having no contact with the birth mom could go on before they would consider placing Baby A for adoption.  She did all the things every mother does for her child.

And when the call came, this young mother had no choice but to agree to give up her baby to strangers.

So the offer to meet from the new foster mom was a huge balm to her mother’s heart.

The only person who seemed to be oblivious to what was going on was Baby A herself.  From the day she got the news, we spent as much time at our daughter’s and with Baby A as we could.  No more daycare.  No outside activities.  Just all the baby time we could get.  We took lots of pictures, put together her scrapbook, recorded our voices in a book, wrote letters to her.

And by the time the day was almost there we were wrecks.  Physically ill, sleep-deprived, swollen eyes and stuffy noses.  But always smiles and soft words for our girl.  At least my daughter had a glimpse of the family she would be turned over to, and she felt confident that her good care would continue.

And she would be with her brother!

Standing in the lobby of the agency, not knowing who any of these people were but needing to stay out of the mix and let the procedures play out, I tried not to cry while taking it all in.  I watched my daughter juggle the baby and some of her things in bags.  We had carried in boxes and more bags of her belongings and turned them over at the security counter.

Then Big Brother walked in with another foster mom who handed him over to the caseworker and left.  He was all eyes, taking in his baby sister.  I could tell he wanted to get closer, so I asked him if he wanted to meet her.  I introduced them, and encouraged him to gently put his finger in her hand so she could squeeze it.  His eyes lit up.  My husband charged him with protecting and caring for his sister, and he gravely nodded in agreement.

And much too quickly it was over.

Two months of loving this child, caring for her every need, physical and emotional and relational.  The loss was so real.  But through the miracle of grace we were not without hope.

Because outside the normal procedures, God had orchestrated a way for us to know this child would be cared for.  Not only was the new family interested in exchanging information to make a smooth transition for Baby A and Big Brother, they expressed a willingness to stay in touch with my daughter, send her updates occasionally.

Our loss truly became a win for these siblings who were enchanted with each other, who needed a home that could nourish and support them both.  And we needed to know this first foster child would not fall through any cracks and be in a loving home.  We went from only knowing a date my daughter had to turn over the baby, to knowing where she was going, knowing it was with people who were experienced and caring.

Knowing she would be with her brother, and that she would continue to be loved.  On her way to truly belonging.

Losing…

30 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by in Death of a child, Grandfostering

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It will soon be two years, and I still haven’t talked much about it.  The shock, the pain, the grief, the sadness, the rage.  Even amongst ourselves we don’t speak of the deep hurt that descended on us, and there is much I can’t speak of because it isn’t mine to tell.

In one phone call of decisions made completely apart from the fullness of hearts with great hopes and dreams, life changed.

Have you had those moments?  As time goes by they are pivotal in your memory.  There is the before… and the after…, and in your mind your whole world turns around those moments of grave events or choices or decisions.

Baby A was coming up on two months old, her little personality blossoming, her relationships with each of us unique and special.  I can’t say the whole family was as in love with her as I was, but all were being charmed by her eager smiles, and not one of us suspected we only had a few short days left with her.

Even when the turnover date was affirmed, I was numb at its suddenness.  From my point of view, there had been every reason to hope that eventually my daughter might be able to adopt this child.  There had been no contact with her birth mom, though the agencies involved were trying.  There were no problems with Baby A that indicated she wasn’t being cared for in a better than expected way.  The reason they were taking this infant out of my daughter’s home was because there was a need to place her in a different foster home.

Because they had discovered that she has a brother!

When I first heard about Big Brother I didn’t connect that they would want to put the children together in the same home, because I assumed he was being cared for by family.  I don’t know details, but they quickly found that he was in need of placement somewhere safe and loving.  And my daughter wasn’t able to take in a five-year-old boy as well as a baby.  So the alternative the agencies pursued was to find another foster home that could take them both.

We were still clueless, while they were seeking out the right home for these siblings who didn’t yet know about each other.  Searching through lists on computers, making phone calls, setting up meetings, deciding what day would work to pick up the children.

And then a call to my daughter.  And our world came to a screeching halt.

She was so new to fostering that even though she knew this could happen, there was no frame of reference for anything she should or could do to question or delay the inevitable.  And in the end, there wasn’t.  Because these children do not yet belong.

Try telling that to people who are all in, who are loving hysterically, who don’t have an “off” button.

I can’t speak to what other people felt, though I was in it with them and saw the tears and heard the anguish in their voices.  I can’t tell what my teenagers felt to have fallen in love with this child and now to have to somehow give her up and be ok with it.  We weren’t ok.

I can’t say how people can work in agencies that move children around like pieces on a game board, distancing themselves from the heartache the children must feel when the familiar feel and smell and sound of the people who have cared for them disappears in an instant.  From my point of view there is much about this system that is cold and uncaring and oblivious to what is truly best for the children and the people providing a home for them.

What I can tell is what went through my mind.  A punch to the gut.   Disbelief.  Denial, and a hope that they would reconsider.  Hurt for my daughter, for my kids, for my husband, for myself.

I was carried back 19 years before when I lost a baby through miscarriage.  There were similarities that I didn’t want to relive.  The initial pains, the disbelief that after waiting 7 long years we could possibly be losing this baby, continuing on with my plans for three days, denying that anything bad could happen to my baby.  Pleading with God to protect this child.  And then having to finally admit that I was helpless to stop what was going to happen.

And in both situations, my mind switched from groveling in what was happening to figuring out what I could do next.

Within minutes after I lost my baby I felt God give me some specific instructions of things to do, which gave us ways to grieve and eventually share our experience with other people going through the same situation.

With Baby A, I knew we needed to keep loving her as fully as we had been, and we needed to be able to send with her evidence of that love, of her place in our family, in our hearts, no matter what happened to her.  Foster parents keep a life book for each child, documenting all the things any parent likes to have records of, so that wherever they go there will be an ongoing record of milestones, illnesses, doctor visits, achievements, and the writing and thoughts of their caregivers.

So we worked together to make a scrapbook of Baby A’s first two months with my daughter, madly printing pictures and laying out pages to assemble, at least one of us working nonstop for the next couple of days.  There were clothes to be packed, blankets and wash rags and toys, books and bottles and formula.  Her things.  The scent of our familiar hands on them.

The day came after a fitful night of sleeping on the floor next to her bed.  The last bath.  The last pictures.  Heads turned for the tears before the next last time of holding her to see herself in the mirror, see her favorite pictures on the wall.

There is so much more I want to tell, but I see that this post is going long, and I want to respect the time you have taken to read this.  So I am going to stop here in the story, and pick up tomorrow with part 2.  I won’t make you wait a whole week, but this story deserves to be told more fully than I can do it in this short space.

I want to leave you with one of my very favorite passages to mull over until tomorrow, a passage that has touched my life in many different ways over the years.  As you read it, maybe you will think how it applies to your own life, to your own before… and after… pivot points.  And if you’ve never read it before, let it cover you like a warm blanket, soothing your own hurting places.  Because it’s written to you by God, who loves you no matter what you are going through, who loves you like this:

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 The Message (MSG)

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

 

 

 

The Most Curious Comment

24 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Childhood, Grandfostering

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I want to explain what I needed to do once my daughter for real got that first call to place a newborn in her home.  But before you can understand what I mean, I have to tell you a story about me.

My parents were from North Carolina and once a year we traveled down there to visit for about a week.  Dad stayed at his mom’s, Mamaw’s, and Mom stayed with her parents, Grandma and Grandpa C.  When us kids were little, we stayed mostly with our mom, so she could care for our needs.  So that meant we spent more time early on with those grandparents.

Grandma C was intimidating.  She could look very fierce, and demanded that everyone work as hard as she did.  She prided herself on having the tallest corn around, made quilts out of the smallest scraps of  material, cooked wonderful meals.  She wasn’t really scary, but when I was very young I gravitated more to Grandpa C.

The house they lived in had the front near the road, and the back hung out over the side of a hill.  There were stairs that went from the first floor down to the garden and farther down was a woods.  Inside there was a stairway that went up into the ceiling, and you had to open a trap door to get into the rooms in the attic space, where my older sister and I were put down to sleep in a big bed together.

We had times when we would go to Mamaw’s for the day, have dinner, play with the cousins on that side of the family, but most of my early memories were of times spent with Grandpa C and my dad.  I always felt they liked each other, that my dad thought more highly of Grandpa C than he did his own dad, for reasons I’ll talk about another day.

The main thing I remember doing was going fishing, on at least three different outings.  A couple of times we were in a rowboat on some small pond, another time standing along the shore of a bigger lake where the water lapped up over our feet.

I also thought it was funny that Dad loved to fish with Grandpa, but he never went fishing at home.  I guess it really was something Grandpa loved to do and wanted to share with us.  We would come back to the house and Grandma would have bowls of cornmeal and buttermilk ready to batter up the fish and fry them for supper.  I would sit in the dining room on Grandpa’s lap, looking out the back of the house and down the hill, smelling the fish frying.

If you asked me to recall Grandpa’s words I couldn’t do it.  He talked, I probably did as well, but I was a shy, quiet child.  It didn’t matter to me what was said, because we were communicating in a very nonverbal language.  There was a softness in Grandpa’s eyes when he looked at me, a gentleness in his calloused hands when he picked me up and held me in his arms or on his lap, when he took my hand and helped me into or out of a boat, a playfulness when he threw a dead fish at me that was lying along the shore of the lake.  He was patient, he didn’t expect me to be always busy, he didn’t expect it of himself.  He was happy to be with me.

I could not have said in words what this all meant to me as a little girl.  Not until years later did I understand that what I felt from Grandpa was unconditional love.

In the grand scheme of things this man that I loved deeply was only in my life a couple years.  He died the spring when I was three.  I was two the last time I saw him.

Just a couple short years later  I would be in some hurtful situations that would affect me for the rest of my life, and I’d think there wasn’t anyone I could tell, anyone I could turn to for help.  But in those experiences I held onto a feeling that I was loved by someone, somewhere, even though I couldn’t see him any more.

When my daughter decided to foster newborns, the curious comment I heard in a dozen variations boiled down to this:  “How can you help take care of this foster baby and keep from getting attached? I couldn’t do it, I’d fall in love with her and not be able to let her go.”

And the alternative would be…

Sometimes you know it does no good to try to explain.  But to the ones I felt would get it, I would answer like this.

When I was a little girl, I knew  my grandpa loved me.  He gave me his time, his attention, his affection.  He opened his heart and his arms to me.  He was patient and fun-loving and never too busy to sit with me and just be us.  Grandpa loved me unconditionally.  And it wasn’t just something I knew, it was something that shaped me more than he could ever have dreamed.

It helped me realize that  when God tells me he loves me no matter what, he means it.

So I really had no choice, even though this whole fostering adventure was my daughter’s dream, even though while she was learning the ins and outs of it, I was helping my mom as she moved from life here into life in heaven. And later yet when her fostering classes were ending, I was pulling myself out of a time of depression and grief, never suspecting what grandfostering was going to mean for me.

I could only do one thing.

Love this baby, love any babies placed in my daughter’s care, fully and freely.  I had to be all in.

Because this.   My grandpa loved me unconditionally, and because of that I always knew I was loved no matter what by someone.  I wanted this first baby, and those that followed, to know they were loved.  And even if they were only with my daughter for a short time, I wanted to pour so much love over them that someday, when they hear someone say that God loves them unconditionally, they will know in the deepest part of them what that feels like.

 

Five Weeks of Heaven

17 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Grandfostering, Parenting

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IMG_1651Five weeks old.  That’s when a foster baby can enter daycare.  So on top of no maternity leave, foster parents also have to find acceptable temporary caregivers for their newborn charges, which can be people they choose to be emergency backups.  In my daughter’s case, I was one.

An emergency caregiver goes through a simple background check and fingerprinting, but in order to pass that, there’s a lifetime of being a decent person that came first.  For what it’s worth.

The timing of those five weeks was great, from just before our Christmas break  into the first of the year.  Some days my younger daughter would come along, or Papa, as my husband wanted to be called, would stop by between jobs to get some cuddle time in.  My older daughter would pop in as she could, but for the most part it was just me and Baby A all day long.

Funny thing, when my kids were newborns, I had no desire, time or ability to plot out a schedule of any kind.  I’m a blowin’ in the wind kind of gal, so I liked the freedom to do what we wanted.  I didn’t work outside the home until  our youngest was a few years old, and I wasn’t worried about chores.  My husband and I loved our cozy home and our laughing kids.

With Baby A I was introduced to apps that keep track of how much a little one eats and sleeps and needs a clean diaper and probably lots more that I wasn’t aware of.  And surprise!  My daughter wanted the rundown when she got home to plot things out.  That was probably the hardest thing for me, getting used to keeping statistics like Baby A was a baseball player.

I would drive home thinking  I didn’t know how many ounces of breastmilk my babies drank, I just knew they had plenty of wet and soiled diapers.  Nor could I tell you how long they slept.  The chill-out hormones running wild in me knocked me out so I napped with them, and we all woke up rested and content and oblivious to how much time had passed.  But then, those were my own children, and I didn’t have to answer to anyone for their progress.

With this foster baby, I guess there needed to be some way of proving she was getting enough formula and her body was functioning as it should, but it all seemed tedious to me.  Time would tell if she thrived or had some struggles, and my eyes would glaze over when it came time to count.  I was more interested in how many smiles I saw in a day than how many diapers.

Even though I don’t like rigid schedules, I did develop a rhythm with Baby A.  I’d brew some coffee and try for a daily devotion and journaling time before she woke up, followed by breakfast.  Of course her needs always determined what happened when – that much was the same.  Then feeding and changing and dressing, playing and singing and talking until she was ready to sleep again.  And reheating abandoned coffee.

I often let her sleep on my lap or the couch right next to me as I knitted washrags for her baths.  We had lots of quiet times, no tv, or on very quietly.  There was a little song from an old movie that I would sing to her, “Baby Mine”, and it became our thing, singing while I changed her to hold her attention (I never made it past the second verse because she didn’t like being exposed).  Or as I held her close to calm her if she were fussy.

As had happened with my youngest, I got to watch her roll over on her own for the first time at only a couple of weeks old.  Of course it was a one-time thing that didn’t repeat for months, but it was thrilling, the shocked look at finding herself flipped over.

Almost everything brought a smile to her face.  Yes, a real smile.  Yes, almost right away.  Her resting face always held a hint of it, the corners of her mouth perpetually curved up.  I spent most of that five weeks enjoying those smiles.  And she wasn’t just smiling at nothing.  Baby A had great focus, especially looking into the many faces of people who held her, and she was alert whenever she was awake.

One thing that was just the same as with my own kids, was how fast that first five weeks flew by.  Before I knew it the day came when she could officially go to daycare, where others would feed and burp, change and cuddle, rock and put her down to sleep.  And I’m sure they would be efficient and conscientious.

But they wouldn’t be me.

There’s a passage in Luke 2 that’s telling all that happened around the birth of Jesus.  Mary and Joseph traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census, with Mary very pregnant because she gives birth shortly after they arrive.  Meanwhile, shepherds are out in the hills where first one angel appears and announces the birth of the Savior, Messiah, Master, and then a huge choir of angels joins them all, singing praises to God over the birth of this child who forever changed the world.  And all the details aren’t mapped out for us, but the shepherds went to find Jesus, and I’m sure they couldn’t help but share all the excitement they’d experienced with Mary and Joseph.

When a baby is born, each mother, each father tends to think of them as their own.  And for years many of us have that luxury of caring for our own children in our home.  If they are in daycare, we know that they will return to the security of our family in our home every day.

With a foster baby, there’s a very real sense that this baby doesn’t belong to the foster family, or the birth family, or the local children’s services agency.  At least nothing is for sure until a lot of steps are taken and all the options explored and eliminated one by one.

One thing that I have no doubt of, after spending five weeks in the heaven of being with Baby A almost every day, is that each baby is made by God with a plan and a purpose.  And for however long the relationship lasts, after those five weeks I was deeply sure that I was privileged and honored to love this child from the beginning of her days, no matter what course her life would take, no matter how many different people enter it or declare claims on her or make plans for her.

In those weeks I thought a lot about Mary, and the wonder and confusion all the attention given to her baby must have created in her, and this verse kept going through my mind:

Luke 2:19    Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself.
  My heart, too, holds many things dear.  Like how this child has changed my world.

Grandfostering

10 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Grandfostering, Parenting

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IMG_2953God, in his truly infinite wisdom, gives women a time to bear children for a season, and then we move on to another season.  One of emptying nests, which in our house has involved helping kids navigate licenses and cars, college and jobs, and gradually the nest is getting emptier.  We’re not going to be done with that whole season for years, thankfully, because we do enjoy having our children in our home.

Along with the independence of growing teens, at this stage of life I as a woman have gone through hormonal changes that have some interesting effects.  I have become more patient.  I am able to listen to and babble with kids for long periods of time, and not be frustrated by getting nothing done.  This is an actual thing.  It’s not just my personal laid back nature, but a way God designed us to be able to love unconditionally at a time when our children may be producing grandchildren for us to nurture.

I had read about this benefit of menopause before our daughter started fostering, and I was eager to see if I would actually have the patience to spend long periods of time with a newborn baby again.  I remember those days so well, as busy as they were, of unending next things to do.  Nursing, and cloth diapers, and spitting up, and changing outfits only to have another blowout diaper, and remembering that I needed to keep drinking water to make milk, and eat as well, and finding five minutes to fix food, and almost never getting a real dinner on the table.  We won’t even talk about how many days I could go without a shower because I fell soundly asleep while getting the baby down at night.

Now it was my turn to watch my daughter rush around and make sure she got all her stuff done before starting her work day,  while I was at her house holding the baby.  And then she would leave, and our time would begin.

I didn’t know what to consider myself in relation to Baby A.  Not only was this a whole new experience, but one with no known outcome.  Would this baby be wanted by her birth mother?  Would there be visits with mom, would she be able to work out whatever issues led to her child being placed in foster care and regain custody?  My daughter had hopes that Baby A could be reunified with her mom, but in those early days we had no way of knowing if and when that might happen.

And what if it wasn’t going to work out, if mom wasn’t able to care for this child?  What would happen to this baby?  Our daughter was certified to foster to adopt as well as fostering.  So when there was no contact with mom in those first few weeks, we held very high hopes that Baby A would someday be adopted by our daughter and be a permanent part of our family.

I don’t understand all the laws and rules and services that apply to fostering, but in our experience  we learned that the approved day care wouldn’t take a foster baby until they were five weeks old.  And after doing some research into short-term, in home care with a certified provider, my daughter was disappointed by the lack of choices and quality care out there.  So that left her with very real needs to find someone to care for her newborn foster baby, since most employers also do not allow any paid leave while the foster parent adjusts to their new circumstances.

I am honestly amazed at how hard it is to have a successful fostering relationship.  When I was expecting my children, I had nine months to anticipate, plan, rearrange my home and life to welcome a new member of the family.  And while a certified foster parent knows they can get a call at any time asking them to drop everything and take in a child who needs a home, that doesn’t account for the fact that this child will be a true unknown.  They have to learn everything, take the child where they are as far as age and health and life experiences, and accept them into their home and family with a couple of hours’ notice.

I couldn’t take in an overnight guest with that short a warning.

While my daughter had gathered all the equipment she needed on hand, put up gates and took safety measures to satisfy home inspections, she found the short-term care options available to her were not going to be adequate.  And thankfully my work schedule was light and our homeschooled teens were able to keep up their schoolwork so that I could be with the new baby, giving her the attention and care she needed.

So what did that make me in those first weeks?  If my daughter was the foster mom, was I the foster grandma?  I didn’t like the sound of that.  This grandfostering was going to be tougher than I thought.  Long before my daughter started calling herself mom, I decided I wanted to be Mamaw, like my grandma was to me.  I needed words to use as I cuddled and cooed with this tiny girl, a name for her to take in and know it meant safe and dry and fed and loved.  Mamaw Becky.   It sounded real.  It sounded permanent.  So be it.

So for the first five weeks I took advantage of all those hormone shifts and held that baby.  In my arms, on my lap, lying next to her on the floor, sometimes putting her down in a rock and play while she slept.  Talking to her, telling her story, telling her mine, singing and praying over her, pouring love all over her, sometimes with words.  And so did she.

Another Chance to Improve

03 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Christmas, Gratefulness journal

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Six hours.

Yes, that’s how long we spent on Christmas Day opening our gifts.

Before anyone starts fuming at how materialistic we must be, I will share that there were a lot of socks exchanged.  And underwear.  And candy.  We have simple tastes.

So why does it take so long to open our gifts?

Well, we did take breaks for brunch,  a nap for the grandbaby,  to work on food for dinner, and to occasionally try on a piece of clothing or play with Bee and her new toys.  And I suppose it would drive some people crazy to sit around in piles of ripped paper and tape, going around and around the room opening one present at a time, and everyone watching everyone else’s reactions.

But we all love doing it this way.

I’ve never tried to figure out why, but now seems like a good time, it being the beginning of a new year,  when people try to make changes they feel will improve their lives.  And perhaps I should consider this:  is the way we do this good, or is there a better way?

Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with our traditions.  In fact, it was very freeing to write the last post sharing with y’all my true feelings.  So I don’t think there’s anything bad or wrong about great heaping piles of gifts that we give each other.

But I do think I could do a better job of appreciating them.

In our family, I am famous for the fake smile that accompanies, “Oh, this is a nice…(color, material, idea, or whatever other positive spin I can put on it)”, when the look on my face says I will be returning it.  Yes, I don’t automatically love every gift.  But I do appreciate the thought and effort.  And I try to make sure the giver feels valued even when the gift isn’t my cup of tea.

This whole subject circles back around in my head to something I touched on at Thanksgiving, and that is gratefulness.   One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp, challenged me on the way I experience God, and how much closer I can be to him if I take time to see the gifts he has blessed me with all around me every day.  It convinced me that I should make my own list of 1,000 things  I see in my daily life that God has used to bless me.  Good and bad.

The thing is, I haven’t been very consistent at making my list.  Yet.  I found the perfect little memo book, portable, 5″ x 3″, and it has my dad’s writing in the front cover.  He died over 25 years ago.  So, nostalgic value as well as practical and functional.

Even though I started writing in it on September 12, 2018, I am only up to number twenty in my list of a thousand gifts.

As I was reading Ann’s book, I was charmed by the simple yet profound items she listed in her gratitude journal,  a sister with a kindred imagination.  I figured  once I got started I would be off and flying, but at this rate it’s going to take me the rest of my life to get to 1,000.

And that would be a shame, as I am surrounded with unacknowledged gifts from God, the way my family was surrounded with piles of presents last week.

I enjoy the blessings God has given me.  But it elevates them, or maybe I should say deepens them, when I consciously take note by naming them.  Why does that seem an unnatural thing to do?

Since Christmas I have tried some tea one of my sons gave me, lounged in some new comfy pants that a daughter picked out,  drank new coffee,  watched movies fresh out of the case.   And gave credit to the givers.

Why do I have trouble giving credit to the true giver of all good things at the drop of a hat, in the moment, or after, as I reflect on my day?  As a recovering control freak, to accept and be grateful for help is hard for me.

So as I start into this new year of 2019, I don’t have lofty resolutions.  I just want to get better at appreciating the life I have, the people God has blessed me with.  I want to fill my gratefulness journal with a thousand and more gifts all around me, not just at Christmas, not just as a declaration of a desire to improve my health or circumstances, but  as a way to increase my awareness of God with me.

So back to my original question:  is there a better way to give and get and appreciate gifts?  I can give without tying any of the pleasure to whether I have given something they absolutely love, or picked a dud they will return.  I can receive things that don’t thrill me with thankfulness for the giver wanting to give a good gift.   Sometimes none of us are in control of whether a gift will be as useful as we hoped it would be.

And when I get those kinds of gifts from God, those circumstances that don’t seem to fit me,  I want to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the perfect giver only gives me what he knows  can work out his purposes in me.

Because I think that God would enjoy sitting around with me for hours, seeing me unwrap his great heaping piles of gifts, hearing me name them back as I exclaim with joy or even look at him with a puzzled expression, wanting him to help me see the reason for what he has laid before me.

And not forget to count it as good.