Drawing Results

I've been overwhelmed by the showing of support we've received!  I only have a few necklaces left out of a large order, so the proceeds covered all our expenses to have our updated profile books reprinted and mailed out.

I did the drawing this morning using a random number generator and the winner is....

Kerry M!

I'll send you a message Kerry so that your prize can head your way!

The necklaces will go out in the mail tomorrow, so they should reach you sometime next week. 

Further Our Understanding

There isn't some place of enlightenment we reach in understanding issues of race.  While I tend toward being outspoken and opinionated, it comes from a place of passion, not being all-knowing.  Here are some articles from which I feel I gained a greater understanding of the current climate and issues.

Why White People Freak Out When They're Called Racist

I do atypical work for a white person, which is that I lead primarily white audiences in discussions on race every day, in workshops all over the country. That has allowed me to observe very predictable patterns. And one of those patterns is this inability to tolerate any kind of challenge to our racial reality. We shut down or lash out or in whatever way possible block any reflection from taking place.

Of course, it functions as means of resistance, but I think it’s also useful to think about it as fragility, as inability to handle the stress of conversations about race and racism

SAE and the Lynching Tree

The solution to racism is still, and always will be, the gospel of Jesus Christ. As I write these words, this country is still recovering from Ferguson and the Eric Garner case. There is another racial uproar in Wisconsin due to the recent police shooting of a young black man. Unfortunately, neither unbelievers nor some Christians know how to respond to America’s current racial tensions. Some unbelievers respond with anger and hate. Too many evangelical Christians continue to be either clueless about the race issue or respond with the sin of silence. Although understandable, anger that leads to hate is absolutely wrong. Furthermore, those evangelicals who continue to believe and say foolishly that racial reconciliation is not a gospel issue are as useless on the race issue as those evangelicals who never speak about gospel-centered racial reconciliation until it’s politically convenient for them to do so or until certain high profile white evangelicals or certain white celebrity pastors give them permission do so. Silent evangelicals and evangelicals who do not see racial reconciliation as a gospel imperative hinder the cause of gospel-centered racial reconciliation. 

The New Threat: Racism Without Racists

"The main problem nowadays is not the folks with the hoods, but the folks dressed in suits," says Bonilla-Silva.

"The more we assume that the problem of racism is limited to the Klan, the birthers, the tea party or to the Republican Party, the less we understand that racial domination is a collective process and we are all in this game."

As people talk about what the grand jury's decision in Ferguson means, Bonilla-Silva and others say it's time for Americans to update their language on racism to reflect what it has become and not what it used to be.

The conversation can start, they say, by reflecting on three phrases that often crop up when whites and racial minorities talk about race.

Spring Is Coming

I almost tattooed magnolia blossoms on myself one year.  But who am I kidding?  I'm not the kind of person that commits to a tattoo.  I know myself and my fleeting tastes too well to commit to something like that.

But winter is hard on me.  Not just this winter, which really, if problems could only come when it's beautiful out I would appreciate that.  Please and thank you.

So spring has always carried huge significance for me.  The cold hard ground of winter still exists.  But for some reason, even in the midst of that, spring plants fight against that and crawl out of the ground.  You watch them and fear that another freeze is going to do them in.  But they keep at it anyway.  Putting out buds, shooting up sprouts.

That's what spring feels like for me this year more than ever.  A fight against the freeze of this winter. Willing life to push through.  Knowing the sunshine is coming and it's worth working for.

And every spring I reconsider that tattoo idea.  This year it has shifted beyond just wanting a leafless branch covered in blossoms.  Now I want it to say the word "hope".  I probably won't be brave enough, but it's a nice thought.  Because with spring, comes hope.

Get Fancy for our Adoption

SOLD OUT!

Part of the joy of sharing your story with others is that they feel a part of it, mourn with you, rejoice with you, and support you however they can.

Right now there are a couple entrepreneurial women stepping up to help us cover some of the expenses of adopting.  There are lots of moving parts to make an adoption happen: social workers, office staff, agency directors, counselors, and attorneys.  They all like paychecks, and adoptive families foot the bills for those things.  It can be a daunting sum of money, particularly when you are generally out thousands if you have an adoption fall through (as we have).

Here's how you can help.  I have lots of necklaces to sell.  Lots of them!

They are lovely, but I can't wear all of them myself.  And if you are into essential oils, they are practical too.  They are ceramic, and the back is unfinished, so if you'd like to add a couple drops of oil to it you will be able to smell it all day!

You have 3 lovely options.  Each is beautifully handcrafted and hand painted.  For each donation of $15 you can pick out a necklace of your choice.  Please add $3 to your donation to cover shipping.

The first is this beauty.  I think this may be my new favorite color.

The second will look like this, but say "hope" instead of having a print.  Hope is the word we have been clinging to for months, so wearing it around seemed right.  I know we aren't alone in facing all kinds of trials and we all could use to cling to hope.

*Updated* Here's what they look like!

And finally, for the kids (or you if you prefer tiny pendants), there is this adorable little heart in red.  -

To sweeten the deal, Jami has offered to attach a giveaway for anyone who decides to give us a helping hand! After you decide to grace your neck with one of these lovelies, you will be entered into a drawing to win an essential oils premium starter kit that retails for $150!  You get one entry for every necklace you decide to call your own.  After you buy a necklace to get your first entry, you can get an additional entry into the drawing for each place you share about this sale (blog, facebook, instagram, or twitter).  Please share far and wide either way, because as much as I love these necklaces, I would rather see them gone to you and your friends and adopt a baby!

To enter the giveaway, comment below after you order a necklace.  In your comment you can include where all you shared it!

When you're ready to order, send paypal to embehrens626@gmail.com.  Include in your comments which necklaces you would like.

If you are local in KC and want to pick your necklace up to save yourself some shipping costs, mention that in your comments as well.  If you need a way to pay other than paypal, please email me and we will work something out.

Thank you for helping us bring a new baby home!

Why do you ask?

I asked R when we were chatting today (yes, we still talk, open adoption plans make failed adoptions...complicated) whether or not she felt like she really did make the best decision.  She said she did.  That the reasons she thought she was making that decision have changed, but that she thinks it was good nonetheless.

Then she asked me, "Why'd you ask that?"

And it took me a bit.

I tried to allude the question a bit and just tell her I was having a hard day, feeling sad, and that it helped to know that she was happy.  All things that are very true.

But she asked for follow-up.

Well.  The last 2 months have sucked so, so hard.  Because my parents split up and I'm currently mostly estranged from my dad.  And then I lost the chance to parent Mordecai.  Then my mom's skin cancer came back.  All with the underpinnings of how last year ended so hard with conflict surrounding racial tensions and ideologies with family, friends, and church.

There were other hard things said by both of us.

The reality is that a lot of days and a lot of moments I feel like I'm hanging on by my fingernails.  Where I sit there and think that this can't all possibly be happening right now.

God and I have had some talks about this.  I've been angry with him.  Clung to him then pushed him away.  Because grief and processing aren't linear.  It's not as though each day I get a chance to feel a little bit better.

Some days you just feel like you survive and that's good enough.

It's Her Due Date

It's her due date.

I've been counting down to this day for the last 143 days.

It seemed so fitting that I would most likely be spending a day to celebrate love with the newest little love in our lives.

Instead, he's not born yet, and I may never get a chance to hold him.  I'll still always love him, just not as my child, and not in a tangible way.

The stages of grief we have gone through in the last 2 weeks have been bitterly painful.  We've had denial, depression, anger, despair, and peace.  It generally shifts from one day to the next as well as throughout the day.  We will get a new piece of information that crushes us or gives us hope.  But in the end, the odds are not with us that we will ever get to parent this little boy and we have to come to accept that.

I hung a Bible verse on my bedroom wall when we were first matched that I clung to as we went through the 18 long weeks that we were matched.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.  And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

So we rest in hope right now.  Hope that doesn't disappoint the way circumstances in this world do.  Hope that doesn't disappoint the way that an empty nursery does.  Hope that doesn't disappoint us the way people do.

Hope right now feels like riding on top of ocean waves as they crash against the shore rather than trying to stand up to them letting them topple me over and pull me under.  Because the waves are going to happen right now no matter what, so I have to cling to hope.

It All Fell Apart

The adoption is off.  After 19 weeks of falling in love with a baby boy and his family, the mom has decided that she can't follow through on her adoption plan.

We are all the things you would expect from people who are going through a loss of any kind.  Devastated, sickened, overwhelmed.  Our children mourn the loss of the brother they thought they would have.  We mourn for the place in our hearts that was ready to be filled with another beautiful son.

There is a nursery all set up that will sit empty.  A car seat all ready to install.  Tiny baby clothes have been washed and folded.  Suitcases sit packed and ready to go at a moment's notice.

We are unsure how we will move forward right now.  We aren't ready to just jump back on the "waiting to be matched adoption wagon" right now emotionally, mentally, or financially.  This adoption has cost us in many, many ways.

Thank you all for the support we have been shown over the last 4 months and especially this last week.