On January 1, 2014, we made a decision that undoubtedly had some of our friends and family questioning our sanity. Maybe we even questioned our own sanity. On that day, we invited a teenage girl-- a complete stranger-- to come and live with us and our 3 young children.
We were heading back from our annual Christmas road trip. It was late at night and I was surfing Facebook, killing time on the 15 hour car ride, when I noticed a post that was "shared" by a lady I had met at a neighborhood function that fall. The message was simple: Was there anyone out there who had a room to spare so a teenage girl could finish out high school that spring?
Normally, I don't even take the time to read shared posts, especially posts shared by people I hardly know. But this caught my eye. I read it. I read it again. I read it a third time. And God dropped in my heart: You are the one.
What?! You must be crazy, God. I have THREE young children. We homeschool! My husband travels all the time. I don't know anything about teenagers except I was one and I know I wasn't fun for my mom at that time. I could name a hundred other people that would be better suited for taking in a teenager- people closer to that season of life, with some experience. This wasn't even safe right? There were obviously circumstances surrounding this-- complicated ones.
You are the one.
As I read and reread that message and God continued to lay on my heart the complete certainty that this was His plan for us, I couldn't help but think, "Okay, sure...But I'm going to have to run it by my husband and there is no way he's going to go for this. It's CRAZY!" Who really asks their husband, "Hey honey, how about a stranger coming to live with us for 6 months? What do you think??"
I should have known that would not get me out of this. He just nodded his head slowly and said, "Yes. Sure. We have a room. If this is what God's calling us to do, then we're going to be obedient. We're going to make calls, learn more about the situation, meet her, and keep seeing if we have God's peace about it."
And before you start saying, "Oh, you guys are such good people!" Let me stop you right there. We are not. We are broken sinners, saved only by God's infinite grace and mercy. I am selfish. I like my alone time. I like my clean house. I like things I can control. I would really like to say that I would have done this because I have a good heart, but I cannot. God spoke to me-- a very imperfect person-- to do this crazy thing. The only thing I did "right" was obey, but even then, it was kicking and screaming and doubting and with a bad attitude at times.
I went to bed that night and lay awake thinking-- where was this girl now? What was the situation? I resigned myself to this: God, if you REALLY want me to do this, continue to open doors and we will be obedient.
The next day, I made a phone call and spoke at length with the wonderful lady who was involved and had known her for a while. She was open and honest. We continued to pray. We agreed to meet her for an "interview" at a local coffee shop. After all, if she wasn't willing to abide by the rules we laid down, this wasn't going to work anyway. I consulted our pastors. We came up with our rules. We didn't even know what were appropriate rules for teenagers, but we came up with what we could.
My heart was pounding out of my chest when we pulled up at the coffee shop. Glancing around, I saw her sitting at the table. She greeted us politely and formally. She smiled at our daughter, who was 9 months old at the time. We began to talk. I'm sure part of her had to be wondering who these crazy people were that didn't even know her, but were inviting her to come live with them. She asked questions. We asked questions. And in a few hours, it was done. She would come to finish out her high school year with our family.
She moved in the very next day. Our kids were wild. To them, this sounded like a never-ending slumber party and that would be great fun! I'm sure the second she walked in and was surrounded by toys and noise and little kids running around, part of her wanted to run. But she didn't. And our journey began.
We started getting to know each other and our conversations often lasted until late into the night. She began to open up and we shared openly and honestly. She asked questions about faith. We answered as honestly as we could, knowing God would do the real work, but I still felt so terribly inadequate. After all, I was not quite a friend and not quite a parent. We navigated a muddled road somewhere in-between and among all those paths. The whole thing was a messy, complicated, emotional mess. But guess what? God's word says He can work through all things--even our messes.
And He did. Almost a month later, she let us know that she had made the decision to completely give her life over to God. She understood that God had sent his son, Jesus, to the earth to die for her sins. She understood and accepted His complete forgiveness, knowing that this meant her sins were forgiven and forgotten. She let go of all her deep hurt, shame, guilt, bitterness, regret. She had had to walk through things that were unimaginable to me, but she was ready to give it all over to God. She knew becoming a Christ-follower would mean radical life transformation. And it was.
We began to see real joy in her. Real peace. It wasn't always an easy road. God never promises us that. But He does promise that as we go through trials, He will not leave us. She was a new person.
She lived with us until the following July. 7 months in total. There's so much I could say about our journey, but the main thing is this: Our family was immeasurably blessed by this young lady. As her faith grew, our faith grew. We have been so privileged to walk with her through proms, graduation, financial aid and the college journey, relationships, work, school, and faith. Our home was full of crazy teenagers and slumber parties for a short season. We had a new norm and it was fun. Most of all, God receives all the glory because He did what only He can do.
Two weeks ago, we had to say a temporary goodbye to her as she moved to another state. A new physical beginning seems entirely appropriate in this new season of life:
"Do not call to mind the former things, Or ponder things of the past. 19"Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert.…" Isaiah 43:18-19
To this precious young lady, who I know will read this because I asked her permission before even writing it- You are treasured. You have taught us that we can love someone who is not our own biological child as deeply as our own. We are so proud of you for your continued journey as a Christ follower. We know God will continue to do a "new" thing in you. We are always praying for you and especially now as you forge a new path in a new place.
To everyone else reading this, thank you for allowing me to share with you an important part of our lives. God may not call you to take in a teenager, but if you are following Him, He will call you to do something "crazy." Something entirely out of your comfort zone. You see, God does not call us to lead ordinary lives. I don't believe His plan is for us to sit back, be comfortable, and live the "American dream." And that's what I was--comfortable and complacent--until God totally rocked my world one day.
I challenge myself continually with the same question I challenge you-- what will you do when God calls you to do the crazy, the uncomfortable, the unfamiliar?...
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Yankees Becomes Texans: Part II
Once we decided we were indeed moving to Houston, things moved quickly! One of our top priorities was finding a place to live in a city of 6 million people and finding a teaching position. I began submitting my resume online to districts across the Houston area. I gained a SINGLE phone interview from a couple months of work. I didn't get the job and I'm not quite sure why they even interviewed me because they were clear that they didn't hire new teachers with no experience. But something quite funny did happen in the interview.
They had given me an opportunity to ask questions about the campus. I asked about parental involvement and the principal began to speak about how heavily involved parents were and in fact, they had just sponsored a PTO carnival and she kept talking about the "booze" the parents were in charge of. Booze?! I couldn't be hearing correctly. She just kept saying it over and over! After asking her to repeat it again, I finally realized she was saying BOOTHS. Good grief- clearly, I did not speak "Texan" yet.
In May, we made our second trip to Houston to look for an apartment. We spent an entire day dropping off dozens of resumes. My heart was to teach in a high needs school. I spent most of my energy on Houston ISD and did not receive a single call from my resume.
Frustrated, I had almost given up hope when I stumbled upon a smaller city south of Houston. While dropping off a resume in the front office, the secretary asked what university I had attended in Kansas. When I told her KU, a lady behind her said she went to KSU. We got to chatting a little and when I finally got up the courage to ask if she'd let the principal know about me, she said, "Oh honey, I am the principal. Let's go have a chat."
She offered me a job on the spot, but it was upper elementary. Again, my heart was set on the lower grades. She started making some calls and got me in touch with the Director of Bilingual and ESL Education. This amazing woman dropped everything she was doing and took Ben and I on a campus tour of another school. It was on her good word that another principal ended up taking a chance on a girl from Kansas with no public school teaching experience and I'm forever thankful. I received more opportunities in this district than I could have ever dreamed and I had amazing colleagues.
Our move to Houston in July was eventful. You see, we had this dog... Neurotic is not strong enough of a word. On the day the U-Haul rolled out of the driveway, this dog (Maggie) knew something was awry and she was ticked. In fact, she held her nose in the air like the aloof princess she was and refused to eat or drink for almost the entire 13 hour trip.
Since we had a third story apartment and it was 110 degrees in July and Ben's dad's back was hurt, we hired professional movers. After they had moved in about 70% of our stuff, they looked like they were dying and asked to take a break. I knew they were going past our contracted time, so I offered to pay them more to finish the job. Well, they never came back from their break!! No amount of money was worth it to them, I guess! We ended up having to move in the rest ourselves. It. Was. Awful.
However, we moved into a brand new apartment. Light, clean carpets, huge windows, and a pool-side view. We had some new furniture and new bedding. We thought we were living large compared to our old place.
But remember-- we had a neurotic dog.
We hadn't been in our apartment very long when Ben's brother decided to come visit us. We ended up hanging out until after 11 pm one night. Now before moving to Texas, we never kept Maggie in a kennel. She just slept on the couch when we were gone. That night, we trucked up to our third story apartment, turned the key, flicked on the light, and... gasped.
The entire tile entryway was covered in blood. The second she heard the door, Maggie bounded to greet us, jumping all over my legs. Still perplexed, I looked down and saw my pants were suddenly covered in blood. As my eyes slowly panned across the apartment, I let out a half-shriek, half-sob, half-gasp.
It looked like a murder scene. Straight up C.S.I.
Maggie, the lovable but neurotic dog, had apparently jumped up on the door so many times that she had burst the pads of her paws open. Layer upon layer had been worn down and they were now completely raw and bloody. But, she didn't stop with the door. She had apparently proceeded to spend the next however many hours running a "track" across the light colored carpets of our brand new apartment. The track went through the kitchen, around the dining room table, jumped up onto our newer couch, back down again, into the bedroom, up onto our new duvet, down again and back around to the door. One perfect bloody pattern of utter destruction.
When I finally found a spot that wasn't blood-soaked to sit and commence sobbing, Maggie started attacking me with love as usual. When I finally came to the realization that this mess wasn't going to clean itself, Ben suggested I try to rent a carpet cleaner from the grocery store around the corner while he tended to Maggie's paws. Still half-sobbing, I got in the car. It was almost midnight. I think I called my mom and cried, but I can't remember. The next part I remember clearly.
The lights were still on at the grocery store and I ran up just in time to see the manager locking up the doors. He yelled, "Sorry, we just closed!"
"I just need to rent a carpet cleaner!" I yelled back, hoping he'd have some mercy on me. As his eyes scanned me up and down, I looked down to remember I was covered in blood. Yeah. So that probably didn't look very good in the middle of the night!
"It's my dog! She got hurt and destroyed my new apartment!" Sure. A likely story. Now I'm probably going to jail.
Well, this guy must have been crazy because I'm not sure I would have even believed me, and I certainly wouldn't have let me in, but he opened the doors and let me rent a giant carpet cleaner. We spent maybe 3 or 4 hours and went through 8 bottles of resolve and multiple runs of the carpet cleaner before we got to bed that night.
Amazingly, we got almost everything out of our couches and carpets. We later joked we would be amazing spokespeople for Resolve. Years later, we could still be spokespeople for Resolve! We wrote all our new neighbors apology letters the next morning as to why we were running heavy duty machines all night long. I'm sure it made us a lot of new friends.
That was the beginning of Maggie's trial "doggy psychotropic med" days, but even those didn't really do her any good. She was, after all, a lovable but thoroughly neurotic little dog.
They had given me an opportunity to ask questions about the campus. I asked about parental involvement and the principal began to speak about how heavily involved parents were and in fact, they had just sponsored a PTO carnival and she kept talking about the "booze" the parents were in charge of. Booze?! I couldn't be hearing correctly. She just kept saying it over and over! After asking her to repeat it again, I finally realized she was saying BOOTHS. Good grief- clearly, I did not speak "Texan" yet.
In May, we made our second trip to Houston to look for an apartment. We spent an entire day dropping off dozens of resumes. My heart was to teach in a high needs school. I spent most of my energy on Houston ISD and did not receive a single call from my resume.
Frustrated, I had almost given up hope when I stumbled upon a smaller city south of Houston. While dropping off a resume in the front office, the secretary asked what university I had attended in Kansas. When I told her KU, a lady behind her said she went to KSU. We got to chatting a little and when I finally got up the courage to ask if she'd let the principal know about me, she said, "Oh honey, I am the principal. Let's go have a chat."
She offered me a job on the spot, but it was upper elementary. Again, my heart was set on the lower grades. She started making some calls and got me in touch with the Director of Bilingual and ESL Education. This amazing woman dropped everything she was doing and took Ben and I on a campus tour of another school. It was on her good word that another principal ended up taking a chance on a girl from Kansas with no public school teaching experience and I'm forever thankful. I received more opportunities in this district than I could have ever dreamed and I had amazing colleagues.
Our move to Houston in July was eventful. You see, we had this dog... Neurotic is not strong enough of a word. On the day the U-Haul rolled out of the driveway, this dog (Maggie) knew something was awry and she was ticked. In fact, she held her nose in the air like the aloof princess she was and refused to eat or drink for almost the entire 13 hour trip.
Since we had a third story apartment and it was 110 degrees in July and Ben's dad's back was hurt, we hired professional movers. After they had moved in about 70% of our stuff, they looked like they were dying and asked to take a break. I knew they were going past our contracted time, so I offered to pay them more to finish the job. Well, they never came back from their break!! No amount of money was worth it to them, I guess! We ended up having to move in the rest ourselves. It. Was. Awful.
However, we moved into a brand new apartment. Light, clean carpets, huge windows, and a pool-side view. We had some new furniture and new bedding. We thought we were living large compared to our old place.
But remember-- we had a neurotic dog.
We hadn't been in our apartment very long when Ben's brother decided to come visit us. We ended up hanging out until after 11 pm one night. Now before moving to Texas, we never kept Maggie in a kennel. She just slept on the couch when we were gone. That night, we trucked up to our third story apartment, turned the key, flicked on the light, and... gasped.
The entire tile entryway was covered in blood. The second she heard the door, Maggie bounded to greet us, jumping all over my legs. Still perplexed, I looked down and saw my pants were suddenly covered in blood. As my eyes slowly panned across the apartment, I let out a half-shriek, half-sob, half-gasp.
It looked like a murder scene. Straight up C.S.I.
Maggie, the lovable but neurotic dog, had apparently jumped up on the door so many times that she had burst the pads of her paws open. Layer upon layer had been worn down and they were now completely raw and bloody. But, she didn't stop with the door. She had apparently proceeded to spend the next however many hours running a "track" across the light colored carpets of our brand new apartment. The track went through the kitchen, around the dining room table, jumped up onto our newer couch, back down again, into the bedroom, up onto our new duvet, down again and back around to the door. One perfect bloody pattern of utter destruction.
When I finally found a spot that wasn't blood-soaked to sit and commence sobbing, Maggie started attacking me with love as usual. When I finally came to the realization that this mess wasn't going to clean itself, Ben suggested I try to rent a carpet cleaner from the grocery store around the corner while he tended to Maggie's paws. Still half-sobbing, I got in the car. It was almost midnight. I think I called my mom and cried, but I can't remember. The next part I remember clearly.
The lights were still on at the grocery store and I ran up just in time to see the manager locking up the doors. He yelled, "Sorry, we just closed!"
"I just need to rent a carpet cleaner!" I yelled back, hoping he'd have some mercy on me. As his eyes scanned me up and down, I looked down to remember I was covered in blood. Yeah. So that probably didn't look very good in the middle of the night!
"It's my dog! She got hurt and destroyed my new apartment!" Sure. A likely story. Now I'm probably going to jail.
Well, this guy must have been crazy because I'm not sure I would have even believed me, and I certainly wouldn't have let me in, but he opened the doors and let me rent a giant carpet cleaner. We spent maybe 3 or 4 hours and went through 8 bottles of resolve and multiple runs of the carpet cleaner before we got to bed that night.
Amazingly, we got almost everything out of our couches and carpets. We later joked we would be amazing spokespeople for Resolve. Years later, we could still be spokespeople for Resolve! We wrote all our new neighbors apology letters the next morning as to why we were running heavy duty machines all night long. I'm sure it made us a lot of new friends.
That was the beginning of Maggie's trial "doggy psychotropic med" days, but even those didn't really do her any good. She was, after all, a lovable but thoroughly neurotic little dog.
Sunday, August 2, 2015
Yankees Become Texans: Part I
Growing up, I had never given much thought to where I would live as an adult. I never really assumed I would stay in Kansas, but I never anticipated moving either. So when we realized Ben had very few opportunities at Kansas universities in the field he really wanted to pursue, we were forced to start thinking about attending graduate school out of state.
At first, we looked into Johns Hopkins but we quickly decided that was just too far from our families. We made a list of options within a day's drive of Kansas and 3 of those options were in the great state of Texas. We set out on our first road trip to Texas in October 2006. Our plan was to visit Southwestern in Dallas, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, and UTMB in Galveston.
Two of the schools had set us up with tours, special meet and greets to connect with current PhD students, and meetings with professors and advisors. From the second we arrived in Dallas, all we could think was, "This is the PERFECT fit for us." Everyone was incredibly kind. The school seemed phenomenal. Ben really connected with some professors and their work. The chances of getting in were higher than BCM. Dallas was considerably closer to Kansas. I had checked into some teaching contacts with Dallas school districts already. Everything about it just made sense. We left Southwestern fairly "set," thinking the other two schools would really have to blow us away to change our minds.
In their hearts, humans plan their course,
but the Lord establishes their steps.
Proverbs 16:9
On the four hour drive from Dallas to Houston, I decided to take a little nap. While Ben was driving in the middle of nowhere, he said God spoke to him in a very real way and told him clearly that Houston was where we were supposed to be. Now some of you reading this may not know what to think about that, but we believe that God can and does still speak to individuals.
Our visit to Houston was not nearly as smooth. Nothing was perfectly planned out, we got lost frequently, and it was hot even in October! We met with a few professors, but none of their work excited Ben as much as the ones in Dallas. Finally, before we left, they set us up with the chair of the program. It became very obvious he was a busy man who didn't bother with small talk or pleasantries. He began grilling Ben with rapid-fire questions from the moment we stepped foot in the doorway (Most of it was well above my head, so I just sat in the corner and tried not to screw anything up for Ben!). When the surprise "interview" was over, we left feeling exhausted and that there was very little chance of even being accepted into BCM.
At the end of the week, we returned home completely puzzled. Why is God telling us to go to Houston when everything seemed to point to Dallas?
A few months later, it was time for the actual application and interview process. He got interviews at all 3 of the Texas schools as well as Washington University in St. Louis. This definitely didn't help us with any clarity! For anyone that knows me well, I'm a planner. I like to have things planned out and lined up, so any lengthy process that involves a lot of waiting and uncertainty has a tendency to have me teetering right on the edge of sanity.
After interviews, we had narrowed it down to Houston and Dallas anyway and cancelled the interview in St. Louis. After much prayer, we still felt this strange peace about Houston. It didn't make sense in a lot of ways-- it was farther, it was bigger, and most of all-- we didn't know a single soul there. But, it had been confirmed several times that God meant for us to be there.
We were about to leave all our family, all our friends, and the state we'd lived in all our lives to start a new journey.
(And by the way... That intense professor with no time for pleasantries or patience for "stupid people" (haha, his words, not mine!)... He became Ben's academic advisor and he did his entire PhD research in his lab. Now, they work together as colleagues even though Ben is involved in private industry, publishing papers together and collaborating on research.
At first, we looked into Johns Hopkins but we quickly decided that was just too far from our families. We made a list of options within a day's drive of Kansas and 3 of those options were in the great state of Texas. We set out on our first road trip to Texas in October 2006. Our plan was to visit Southwestern in Dallas, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, and UTMB in Galveston.
Two of the schools had set us up with tours, special meet and greets to connect with current PhD students, and meetings with professors and advisors. From the second we arrived in Dallas, all we could think was, "This is the PERFECT fit for us." Everyone was incredibly kind. The school seemed phenomenal. Ben really connected with some professors and their work. The chances of getting in were higher than BCM. Dallas was considerably closer to Kansas. I had checked into some teaching contacts with Dallas school districts already. Everything about it just made sense. We left Southwestern fairly "set," thinking the other two schools would really have to blow us away to change our minds.
In their hearts, humans plan their course,
but the Lord establishes their steps.
Proverbs 16:9
On the four hour drive from Dallas to Houston, I decided to take a little nap. While Ben was driving in the middle of nowhere, he said God spoke to him in a very real way and told him clearly that Houston was where we were supposed to be. Now some of you reading this may not know what to think about that, but we believe that God can and does still speak to individuals.
Our visit to Houston was not nearly as smooth. Nothing was perfectly planned out, we got lost frequently, and it was hot even in October! We met with a few professors, but none of their work excited Ben as much as the ones in Dallas. Finally, before we left, they set us up with the chair of the program. It became very obvious he was a busy man who didn't bother with small talk or pleasantries. He began grilling Ben with rapid-fire questions from the moment we stepped foot in the doorway (Most of it was well above my head, so I just sat in the corner and tried not to screw anything up for Ben!). When the surprise "interview" was over, we left feeling exhausted and that there was very little chance of even being accepted into BCM.
At the end of the week, we returned home completely puzzled. Why is God telling us to go to Houston when everything seemed to point to Dallas?
A few months later, it was time for the actual application and interview process. He got interviews at all 3 of the Texas schools as well as Washington University in St. Louis. This definitely didn't help us with any clarity! For anyone that knows me well, I'm a planner. I like to have things planned out and lined up, so any lengthy process that involves a lot of waiting and uncertainty has a tendency to have me teetering right on the edge of sanity.
After interviews, we had narrowed it down to Houston and Dallas anyway and cancelled the interview in St. Louis. After much prayer, we still felt this strange peace about Houston. It didn't make sense in a lot of ways-- it was farther, it was bigger, and most of all-- we didn't know a single soul there. But, it had been confirmed several times that God meant for us to be there.
We were about to leave all our family, all our friends, and the state we'd lived in all our lives to start a new journey.
(And by the way... That intense professor with no time for pleasantries or patience for "stupid people" (haha, his words, not mine!)... He became Ben's academic advisor and he did his entire PhD research in his lab. Now, they work together as colleagues even though Ben is involved in private industry, publishing papers together and collaborating on research.
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