Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace...it's truly all we have in this rollercoaster life. Up and down we seem to go between the beauty and the chaos. So much beauty! So much chaos! We long to be steadied. But there is only One who is truly steady, balanced, unchanging. Why do we seek so many ways to catch our balance in the never ending fluctuating circumstanes that present themselves each day? This mornings devotional read, "Make Me your focal point as you move through this day. Just as a spinning ballerina must keep returning her eyes to a given point to maintain her balance, so you must keep returning your focus to Me. Circumstances are in flux, and the world seems to be whirling around you. The only way to keep your balance is to fix your eyes on Me, the One who never changes. If you gaze too long at your circumstances you will become dizzy and confused. Look to Me, refreshing yourself in My Presence, and your steps will be steady and sure."-April 25, Jesus Calling 

I thought that was fitting for today. Circumstances definitely are in flux! Confessing right now that not focusing on the circumstances is easier said than done...at least for me. Then I am reminded...

"But circumstances tell tales that are prone to change in a moment.

And the truth of the matter is: God never changes. His power to give a future and hope never change. His Word never changes. So when life weaves stories of doubt and hopelessness in God's authority over circumstances, I reread accounts of His faithfulness and redemption. I refer back to the Truth...

All the while Job's family, home, crops and health demolished...God was preparing to give him double of what was killed, stolen, lost and damaged.

The time Joseph was a slave and prisoner...God was planning for him to be second in command over Egypt.

When Ruth was a homeless, barren widow...God was creating a home in Boaz's heart for her to be a wife, and mother, and great, great, great-grandmother to His Son.

As Lazarus was bound in grave clothes...God was forming the breath that'd give him new life.

The moment David laid down in adultery...God was laying the groundwork for him to rise up in repentance.

Every time Saul crucified Christians...God saw Paul preaching the crucified Christ.

With each strike that Sarai beat Hagar with...God saw Sarah beating her jealousy, pride and doubt with the birth of Isaac.

When Esther was an orphaned girl shaking in fear for her life...God made a way for His daughter to shake a kingdom and save His people.

As Rahab welcomed men into the shelter of her bed...God saw her sheltering the spies on her roof.

When Peter lost faith and denied Christ...God saw him bringing many to faith as he proclaimed Christ.

As Moses killed an Egyptian with his hands...God saw him chiseling the Ten Commandments with those same hands.

At the time Mary saw Jesus die...God saw Jesus resurrected and seated on His heavenly throne!

No matter what the dire, dreary circumstances, God turned each into a hopeful future.

None of His plans can be thwarted. Despite what is happening in life, these stories of redemption and hope speak the truth. God can and will reverse, restore, revive and renew. He sees beyond the present troubles and is sparking a fire to light up the future with hope." -Blog post by Samantha Reed

We cling to these truths. We are learning to be thankful for every circumstance. Moments of beauty envelop us in His love. Moments of chaos and even immense sorrow remind us of our utter dependence and His amazing grace. We learn to look for His beauty in the chaos. This is amazing grace. He reminds us daily and teaches us through circumstances, through others, through His Word. Oh but for His amazing grace that carries us even when we loose our balance, when we focus on our circumstances instead of His sovereign control. His grace that reminds us daily, gently that He is sufficient. He has a plan. His plans are good. He is never confused. 

We are confused by circumstances. But that is ok. It does NOT feel ok. But it really is ok. We truly believe that the God of the universe, our God, is good. We truly believe that His plans are good. We truly believe that the goal is His glory and that all circumstances are in submission to His honor and glory. So we can trust Him. We can hope far beyond our momentary troubles, our confusion, our feelings of sadness, and find rest in His amazing grace.

Dreary circumstances in the adoption realm and the weather outside seemed to be in competition today. We don't want to go into detail about those circumstances right now because we are currently confused by them and may get a different story tomorrow. We will say that in this chaos we see much beauty and we are learning many things. We know that all these circumstances are not for nothing. And we have not been left empty handed. Our lives are full. We do not take these blessings for granted. We acknowlege that the blessings of today could be gone tomorrow. But tomorrow is tomorrow. All we can do is today. And today was an amazing grace day. 

It takes a lot of grace to get through a day of homeschooling two formerly orphaned girls going through puberty who have had very little education and limited English. I am not complaining. This has been such a joy. Frustrating at times, but overall a great joy. And the girls are doing very well...considering. But today reading, writing, and arithmetic felt as dreary as the drizzle outside. It was one of those days when not focusing on the circumstances was easier said than done. I did not want the girls to feel the weight of that, so....I broke a rule (to their delight) and snuggled down under blankets in an unusually cool room, with the rain pattering on the rooftop, with my girls on either side, and watched a movie. 

This is the movie we watched which turned into our history, English, and writing lessons.

The honest truth is that this was probably more about meeting my need to not do math, the girls need of physical affection/snuggle time with mom, a welcomed escape from thinking too much about circumstances, and a way to pass the wet and dreary day away. But it became so much more than that because for me the message in this movie was yet another reminder (like the 15th one today) that even when there is pain and suffering all around us and we can't escape it or fix it, when we have done everything we can do, when we are completely worn out, when it seems all hope is lost, that is where God's amazing grace finds us. Just like it found John Newton who wrote...

Through many dangers, toils and snares

I have already come;

'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far

and Grace will lead me home.

Grace will lead me home. Our girls are home with us in Haiti. This is only by grace. All other circumstances are grace too. If we look hard enough we can see past our confusion to the potential beauty in the chaos. Grace has brought us safe thus far. Grace will see us through. One day grace will lead us to our home where there will be no more chaos and confusion ever again. Won't that be amazing? 

I'm pretty sure the girls didn't glean all any of this from the movie. I'm pretty sure their inability to get past all the men wearing wigs in the 18th century setting was just about the height of the history lesson for today. I began to really regret breaking our no movies on school days rule when I was asked if one of my all time history heroes William Wilberforce was "Michael Jackson"? Seriously?!!!!!!! I must have given them the crazy eye, cause Marguerite said, "What you look at me like that for? He have black pants, white shirt with that (pointing at the frilly collar) and hair just like Michael Jackson!" I said, "remember that I explained to you before we watched the movie that this was about 300 years ago? Do you really think Michael Jackson lived 300 years ago?" Does that count as logic class too? 

So this was a bust as far as the girls sharing my love of this movie. However they did love our snuggle time. They also loved hearing the story about how John Newton who wrote the song Amazing Grace was once a slave boat captain that brought slaves from Africa and how Jesus changed his heart. The movie ended with us singing this song. We sang the song into the kitchen where we began to prepare lunch. Navilla had just arrived and joined our singing with the Creole version of Amazing Grace. We all just stood in the kitchen and sang. Beauty in the chaos. Frantz came for the girls English lessons. Navilla was still humming in the kitchen. I heard Frantz singing a little bit too. Beauty. Chaos. The girls were not very cooperative after Frantz showed up. It appears they assumed my rule breaking was going to continue throughout the day. "Um, no. No more Michael Jackson today. Today you can discuss with Frantz what you saw and heard in the movie and then go over the song lyrics to Amazing Grace with Frantz in English and Creole so you can understand it better. Then you can write the words of the song for your writing lesson." More chaos commenced. Yet, in the background I could still hear Navilla humming Amazing Grace. Beauty. So thankful for amazing grace!

The Lord has promised good to me.

His word my hope secures.

He will my shield and portion be,

As long as life endures.

Hair

I used to think my hair was hard to manage. I still sort of think that. I used to think that taking nearly one full day to drive to the salon and pay to have my crazy curly hair permanently straightened once every 8 months was quite the hair extravaganza. By the way it's been 8 months and I am in desperate need of another drive to such a salon. This is why none of the following pictures have me in them. My mother, sisters, and husband used to refer to my once every 8-9 month hair day as "high maintenance". My husband should be rethinking that label about now considering his hair observations of the past 8 months...which did not occur in only one trip to the salon once but about every single Saturday...a Saturday like today. Today the fastest and best hair fairy showed up at our house on Saturday sleep in day and woke up girls at 8:30 am to commence hair day (certain such persons would sleep in until 10 every day). She left at 7:30 pm. Only ONE head was accomplished all that time and the entire time (other than very quick bathroom and food breaks) was spent doing nothing but HAIR. Thinking that is some kind of record. The poor child whose head was not accomplished has stated at least 5 times that she is not going to church tomorrow. I asked her if she didn't like going to our church and if she would like to visit a different church. The answer was "no...just no church". I know that she loves going to church. So later on I got down to the nitty gritty of the issue as I was putting her to bed. The truth came out that she simply did not want to go to church without her hair day being accomplished. I told her she could pick out one of my hats or one of my headbands and she said, "ok". 


I remember being a fairly particular little girl. I remember getting a bad haircut once...actually maybe more than once. Think I am just remembering the very worst one and nothing can compare to that! Never ever give an 80's layered and feathered cut style to a 9 year old girl with already uncontrolable kinky-curly-wavy hair! Thanks alot Mom. I looked like I had a mullet with wings. Sweet Esmée darling, I totally know how you feel (because surely a mullet with wings looks worse than an afro with a cute headband right?) 


I used to think I would adopt a black child "one day". Eric and I used to talk about this "one day" and I don't ever remember "black child" referring to "little girl" and certainly the plural of that did not enter into my mind. Oh. No. It. Most. Certainly. Did. Not. And why is that? I'm pretty sure it was the hair. Actually, it was the fear of the hair. Little black boys hair...no problem right? But little black girls hair? 

Now why did I ever fear that?

This smile was totally worth the hours and hours I spent doing this precious head!

As was this one!

And this time when Daddy told her she looked very beautiful and she wanted to take her pic with Dad. 

This is cute but not at all worth it...as far as time goes.
Bonding.
Yes.
Pic with Dad.
Yes.
Time.
Um, no.
Because the hours it took were completely undone after 2 minutes spent with swings outside. 

This is not the before shot.
It is the after shot of 3 hours undoing what was previously done.
And don't think I am getting her to go anywhere until at least another 3 hours are spent.

This doesn't take 3 hours.
Also doesn't stay put for more than 3 hours.

This is what we do when we don't have 3 hours or even 1 hour. 

 This is what we do when we are feeling like fun people.

Fun hair might last all day but won't hold after bedtime. 

As if two little black girls heads weren't enough....

Other heads are being done constantly! 
But not by me. 

Sometimes they are being done by my friend Audrey.

Audrey's the hair fairy for the non-black skinned scalps in our house. 

While this is a common sight you see after cutting hair...
Please BEWARE
 (and please excuse us and don't think we are just super gross)...
because it is also now a common sight at all times in all rooms of our house...
Thanks to our beautiful girls.

Getting used to that.  

Oh Audrey! What shall I do without you when you leave Haiti next month?

I would rather do little black girl hair all day than deal with this picky fellow! 
Not that he would let me. 

Sometimes glow in the dark beads are necessary when the power goes out at night. 

Sometimes I just don't have this many hours and have to call the hair fairy...

This is Elita Marguerite's natural hair...to be compared to strange phenomenon below when extensions are put in by same hair fairy and don't look much different than this. 

Last weeks style...

It took one full day to do both of their heads.
I cannot take credit.
I only participated in attaching one strand and that was enough for me.

Actually this was the last two weeks style except that after one week they kept telling me how very bad their roots looked and that they needed to get it done again!
What? I paid $20 for those extensions. They better last longer than a week! 

Here is what became of the last two weeks extensions today.
And no that is not all of them.
The others are strewn all over this house and we'll be picking them off the floor for weeks to come!

This was our first experiment with extensions.

We shall see if I can get used to the aftermath or not. 

This is the poor dear who took out her extensions prematurely.
The mean hair fairy had to leave after only 11 hours of doing sisters hair!

Glad she seems happy.
Cause I'm not super happy that these "extensions" look just like her real hair only shorter and with weird straight ends that look totally unnatural.
But I told her she looks beautiful. Cause she is.
But also asked why hair fairy spent 11 hours putting in hair extensions when her hair is already this long?
I said I didn't understand.
I got a shrug.
I asked again.
Another shrug with explanation that I needed to give more money for longer extensions.
I still don't understand.
The ones that were purchased for this hairdo were 3 ft. long in the package.
Once they were secured to head they came to her shoulders.
Not as long as I thought, but longer than shown picture.
Then hairfairy decided to give them a trim.
To my horror.
But, of course it's my fault that I didn't pay for the longer ones. 

11 hours and many, many movies later.

I have a long history with hair. Not just my own hair. My mother you see (as evidenced by my mullet with wings) has no idea how to do the hair thing. She is the most wonderful mother who is good at many things. But hair is just not one of them. Dear mom has had the same exact hairstyle for at least the past 34 years I have been alive. My late grandmother (her mother in law) would claim many more years which is probably the reason mom's hairstyle never changed. 

I am the oldest of five children (another explanation of why mom had no time for hair). Three of the other children are girls as well. I taught myself how to french braid on my cornsilk cabbage patch kid Genevieve's hair at the age of seven. My sisters would benefit from these lessons as well. I made sure they never had mullets with wings. I cried for days when Erin let a friend buzz her head like a boy at the age of four. I put a bow or bonnet in Erin's hair every day (she would let me) until it grew out. I burned Eleisha's forehead with the curling iron more times that she would care to remember. I also cried when mother decided to take Eleisha to the salon without my consult (when I was 10) and give her a poodle perm that was almost as bad as my winged mullet. This tragedy happened the day mom went into labor with my baby sister Emilee. Emilee was my prize and took much attention away from poodle perm. Nothing bad would ever happen to her hair. I would make sure of it! Emilee was born with the most beautiful hair I had longed for all my life. She was my real live doll. I brushed, and braided, and fluffed to my hearts content. It stayed beautiful...and sometimes she still lets me braid it. 

All that to say...some people ask me how I know how to do hair being previously a mom of only two boys?

Now you know how. 

But speaking of the boys...

How did they end up with fairly straight easy to manage hair when both Eric and I have curly unmanageable hair? I don't know other than that I prayed for that before they were in my belly. Perhaps God was having mercy on me since only He knew what was to come. However, the history of hair did not let me rest just because my boys have easy to do hair. Oh. No. It. Did. Not. 

Just ask anyone who knew us during this stage of life!

Do you see that "thing" in little Evan's hand?
Not the pacifier.
The other hand.

Here he has TWO of those "things".
This was a common sight in our house back in those days too.
But instead of pieces of hair, it was hairpieces all over the house!

A little background here. Evan had a hair fettish. He loved to hold my hair since he was one day old. He would not go to sleep unless my hair was hanging over his crib and he could fondle it. His crib was lowered with age and my hair simply was not long enough. This was an "issue" for our bonding. 


But it was actually Ethan that started with the hair business. 


More background. One day Ethan and I were shopping in one of the many Dallas, TX Walgreens stores and I ran into a friend. We struck up a conversation in the personal care isle. Baby Ethan was being oh so good while sitting in the shopping cart during our lengthy chat and I later found out why. I had parked shopping cart right next to the hair accessories where lo and behold there was a "hairpiece" that immediately caught my #1 hair loving baby's eye. He reached for it and was successful. By the time I realized that what was keeping him quiet was not a needed nap, the hairpiece was not returnable to the shelf. That was the first hairpiece. It cost $13 at Walgreens. It was the last of its kind for Ethan, but was a true gem of a find because its rememberance saved my head when it came to Evan. The Ebony Fashion black hair store run by the Chinese couple in Mexia, TX was also a gem of a find. The hairpieces as seen in pictures above and below only cost 99 cents at the Ebony Fashion. I stocked up weekly. And people thought I was crazy when I said I was moving to Haiti!
One day the Chinese man asked me why I needed so many of these hair pieces when he never saw me wearing any of them? Hahahahaha! I told him they were not for me. He looked confused. Then I said, "They are for my baby"! More confusion followed.
One day I took Evan in with me to pick out his own hairpiece after I told him they had run out of mommy's brown hair so he could see for himself and stop throwing a fit about it. Chinese man no longer confused after that. Well, maybe still confused. But he seemed more amused by crazy white people and what they let their kids play with. Surely I'm not the only one who allowed her babies oh so strange vices? Right? Please tell me I'm not the only one. 

So one day we were at toddler playgroup. I see postings on Facebook and hear my sister talk about such things these days and remember, "Oh yeah. I used to live in a cookie cutter neighborhood and do that too." But it seems like another lifetime ago. Babies grow up too fast. Maybe that's a good thing in Evan's case. Tangent. Back to toddler playgroup. A new family had moved to the neighborhood and mom had not yet been introduced to Evan's hairpiece. I rushed out when she informed me my son was playing with a dead squirrel. I arrived at the dreaded scene and said out loud, "Oh that? It's ok. It's just his hairpiece".

Fear of little black girls hair? So over. 

God is so good.
When I don't understand
the why?
the what the?
the will my child ever be normal?
I will remember the days of the hairpiece were indeed preparing me for today! 
And today is preparing us for tomorrow! 
When life gets hairy...we will remember!


--------------------

The sequel...

one week later. 

Hairfairy returns. 

Esmée is happy.

Last weeks purchased hair extensions are magically much longer this time around.

Mom is happy.

The End...(hopefully) for at least a month!