A Little Like Falling in Love

This blog entry is lovingly dedicated to our little Peanut.

It's been one year, exactly.

Twelve months. Fifty-two weeks. Three hundred sixty-five days. Eight thousand seven hundred sixty hours. Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes. And thirty-one million five hundred thirty-six thousand seconds.

Not that I'm counting.

Okay, so I'm counting. But it's only because that since we've been given the gift of you, Lilia, the time seems so much more precious somehow.

The first time I held you was not when a nurse placed you in my arms, as is usually the case for mommies. The first time I held you was when a courageous young girl placed you in my arms -- when she let go of you forever. To your Daddy and I, little Peanut, that somehow makes the gift of you all the more precious. Truly, you were given to us. And truly, Peanut, we wouldn't have it any other way.

I remember being a little freaked out because, when I first saw you, I wasn't stricken with love-sickness immediately, and that is how I imagined it would be. Somehow I thought that when I saw the child who would be ours, my heart would flitter and flutter uncontrollably, that I would be helplessly captivated by every giggle and coo. But it wasn't like that, and I remember how that scared me.

The fear didn't last long. You won my heart on the drive home. You won it again the next day when you tried to lift that big head of yours off the floor. And the next day when I watched your Daddy dance with you around the living room. Since that day, one year ago exactly, you've just kept winning our hearts.

There have been days in this year when I've forgotten that I was never pregnant with you. There are these nebulous thoughts about what maternity clothes I wore, what food I craved, and even the day you were born. Then, like waking up from a shallow sleep and the first shadowy images of dreams, I remember that you were adopted. It's so strange to me, these times when I forget, but also very real and very endearing. The reason I forget is because having you is a little like falling in love -- the heart gets lost in the mystery of it all until the heart is simply owned. You belong to us. That's all there is to it.

I once heard a big, burly, godly man once tearfully confess, "If anything terrible ever happened to my kids, I can't think of any greater way to break my heart."

I didn't know then what he meant, but I know now. Oh how we love you, little Peanut, so fiercely and so fully, not born of our bodies, but born of our love and in our hearts.

The Giving and the Taking

"And Job said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD.' "

I wasn't expecting the cell phone to ring. And if it did ring, I wasn't expecting my husband's voice on the other end of the line. It wasn't my cell phone, see, it was my mother's. My own phone was on the fritz, so I had kept hers in the hospital room with me while she left for an hour, just in case Jerry needed to call me from Oklahoma.  He knew to use that phone to reach me, see.  And it was the first ten minutes after she had left the room, the first time I was alone with my Daddy that week while he was lucid, the evening before Jerry was to leave on a week-long work trip... and that phone rang for me.  Ring, ring.

It's a little thing called the sovereignty of God.

"Hey, are you sitting down?" Jerry asked.

Am I sitting down?! This is what is said before either very bad or very good news. A few thoughts flitted quickly through my mind, mostly involving my husband's possible condition 2,000 miles away: Cancer diagnosis? Lost job? Acute gum disease?

"Yes, I'm sitting down. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. I just got a call from Tulsa."

I could hear the smile in his voice, and I knew what "Tulsa" meant:  Adoption agency. Babies. Fighting hard to start a family.

"They have a baby for us," he continued. "A little girl."

I don't remember exactly what I said after that, and it wasn't comprehensible anyway due to my bizarre combination of disbelieving laughter, profuse tears of joy, and stunned paralysis -- especially after he told me that we would get said baby girl in three days! At some point, though, the word "baby" must have escaped my lips, and that's all my Daddy, lying in the hospital bed next to me, needed to hear.

"Congratulations," he said, smiling and nodding.

And then he watched his own baby girl jump ecstatically around the sterile hospital room, an image of vibrant joy in a dreary place. This was God's gift to him.

It had been a tough couple of years for me, and I won't go into details, but the phrase "when it rains, it pours" can adequately summarize the months preceding the day I got the phone call. I remember one day in particular, just a month or so before that day in the hospital. I was home alone, it was hot outside -- it is Oklahoma, after all -- and I stepped onto our backyard deck to sit down and have a good cry. I was so tired and weary.  And then the words of a worship song came to my heart:

Every blessing you pour out I'll turn back to praise. And when the Darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say, 'Blessed be the Name of the Lord. Blessed be Your Name. Blessed be the Name of the Lord. Blessed be Your glorious Name.'

And although I don't fancy myself a particularly fine vocalist, and although I don't make it a habit of belting out tunes when it's a possibility that anyone and their dog will hear me, I started to sing the song, aloud, without reservation:

'You give and take away. You give and take away. My heart will choose to say, "Lord, blessed be Your Name."'

I just kept singing, aloud, claiming the words of that song for my life, whatever lay ahead. There's a good chance a neighbor or two pondered my sanity (or at least my vocal skills), and there's a good chance I frightened some birds from their nearby perches. But I didn't care, and I didn't notice. All that mattered at that moment was that I sing that song to the Lord. I trust You, Lord, the song confessed. I trust You, even though I'm weary and terrified. I trust You even though I don't know what tomorrow will bring. And as I sang, a peace settled on my heart, even though I was still weary and scared.

After that day, things continued to be hard. My Daddy's health started declining rapidly. We still weren't pregnant, and we didn't know how long we'd be waiting for a baby. I was watching people I love bicker about petty and trivial things. I watched other people I love begin to sacrifice their own children on the altar of their selfishness.

Earlier in the day of the morning I got the phone call, I finally broke down. I was in my childhood bedroom and the heartache was just too great. I began weeping almost uncontrollably. My Daddy was dying. We might not have a child. Why do people throw away their blessings for the sake of their pride? I called my husband just so that I could weep without being alone.

He listened to me weep.

Later that morning, I remembered a passage of Scripture that a friend had recently shared:

"Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; You are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, Your Savior."

Then I knelt on the floor of my room, and through tears and very nearly clenched teeth I confessed:  "I don't understand why all of this is happening, and I don't know what You are doing, Lord. I just don't understand. But I know that You're a good God, and I trust You."

After that, I rose up, wiped away the tears and went to visit my Daddy in the hospital.  It was four hours later when my mother's cell phone rang.  You know the conversation that followed.

When I look back, one year minus a day later, I think that God wanted me to tell Him, at the point of utter brokenness, that I loved Him and I trusted Him. He knew that in a matter of hours my husband would call from Oklahoma.  He knew that in three days a courageous young woman would place her very child into my arms for a lifetime. How much more precious was the news to me when just hours before I had poured out my heart in anguish to God.

Sometimes there just aren't words.

The next month was the most bittersweet of my life. I watched life ebb away from my Daddy even as I watched life anew in my precious baby girl. I experienced overwhelming joy and heart-wrenching sadness. The gift of my baby girl was a balm to my heart as I lost my Daddy. But each life God creates is radically precious, and never can one life replace another. Losing him still ached, though perhaps not as bitterly as it may have without Lilia.

In the last days with my Daddy, as we held vigil for him while he died at home, there was a moment when I realized the stark similarities in caring for those on the two extremes of life. There is a helplessness, a dependence, that is present in both cases. We bathed Lilia and we bathed my Daddy. We fed her and we fed him. We changed her clothes, and we changed his.

And then there was a moment when I watched the shadow of death pass over my Daddy and he left this world.  Lilia awakened to the day five hours later. Two lives, you see:  One old, one new. Both as dear to my heart as any lives could be.

One year ago exactly, God gave me a daughter. One month later, He took my Daddy.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord.

Geekiness Abounding

I think it's safe to conclude that my husband and I are geeks.

I've suspected it for some time now, but the evidence is just too hard to ignore any longer.

We don't have an iPhone, a Wii, or even an iPod. We don't even LIKE our cell phones. We are not linked onto Facebook, we don't text, and we are still naive enough to believe that a tweet is a sound that birds make. We haven't been to the cinema in over two years, we don't have a DVR, and our favorite TV show -- the only show we actually watch -- is "The Iron Chef" on the Food Network.

Let's see, what else? Our favorite films are typically monochromes from the 1930s through 1950s starring people who have been deceased for 30 or more years now. When we play music for our daughter, we choose tunes by Glen Campbell, the BeeGees, and Louis Armstrong. And oh yes, how can I forget? We would love -- I mean absolute LOVE -- for Neil Diamond to tour again so that we can see him in concert. We want to see him in concert even more than Gordon Lightfoot, whom we saw last year amidst a sea of gray-haired retirees.

Sometimes, in moments of raw candor, we admit to being happy that we are geeks. The world needs more geeks, after all, and geeks of history have often made grand contributions to humanity. Like most geeks, we love to read and we love to ponder the deeper things of life. Like most geeks, we try to stay on top of what is going on in the world. And like most geeks, we have that subtle, odd quirkiness that would guarantee our exclusion (much to our delight) from a fraternity or sorority.

And we're not TRYING to be geeks. We're not trying to stay away from the latest technology or the latest films, for example. We love using email, we love our digital camera (even though it's not on our phone), and we love browsing the internet (oftentimes to appease our spontaneous, geeky curiosities -- like the time we looked up the history of Curling). We're just being ourselves, I guess. And what can we say? We're geeks.

Sometimes we wonder how our geeky personalities will affect our daughter. Is she doomed to a life of overwhelming geekiness because of who her parents happen to be? Is it okay if she's a geek? Is it okay if she's NOT a geek?! We actually kind of struggle with these questions because, like most parents, we adore our child and will do whatever we can to shield her from harm. We don't want to make her a geek if it will mean emotional torment for her. But we don't want her to conform to an ever-increasingly impersonal, overly busy, digitally drunk society either, because we are certain that that will cost her dearly.

I don't dislike technology. I like it. Technology has done great things for humanity, and oftentimes it is the geeks of the world who give it to us (Bill Gates, anyone?). But like everything else in this fallen world, it can be abused or -- far worse -- used for evil. Or it can just separate us, ever so slightly and deceitfully, from the things that really matter. Like, for instance, the 1950s family who sat down for dinner in front of "The Jackie Gleason Show," slowly losing conversation. Or the modern-day family who sits down at the table for dinner, each with a cell phone next to his or her fork, constantly checking the latest Tweet or Facebook entry. I have to honestly ask myself sometimes, when I am tempted to indulge in the latest technological trends, "Is it really worth it?" Some people would call me a geek for thinking about it too much. But I've already admitted to being a geek, so that doesn't phase me. Inevitably, that geeky side of me has to ask: Is it really worth it?

I had a nightmare last night that I finally succumbed to pressure and joined the multitudes on Facebook. I have to confess that the scariest thing about my dream was that I actually LIKED Facebook. Yikes! What's happening to me? *smile*

I hope I'm not making it sound like I think my husband and I are better than people who use lots of technology. I really don't feel that way. But I'll be honest: I do think we're getting more out of our day to day than people who spend lots of time checking Facebook messages and watching inane reality TV shows just because it's THERE. And it's not that I think everyone should quick cold turkey. I just wish we'd all make it less of a priority. (And that means that Jerry and I should fore-go "The Iron Chef" every now and then, too).

What I want for my daughter is this: To see the world in color. I want her to play in the dirt instead of pushing buttons on her Wii control pad. I want her to count the shades of blue in the sky and then paint them instead of using her cell phone to capture every image passing by in the car. I want her to laugh out loud with a flesh and blood friend while licking a popsicle instead of tweeting. I want her to prefer the musty smell of well-worn books to the glaring image of a computer screen. I guess, in my way, I want her to be a geek. Because I love her.

You can post that now.

When Daylight Breaks Through

Ignorance is bliss, it is said. Burying one's head in the sand may conveniently offer an illusory barrier from undesired or unappealing facts. It offers us, in times of desperation, a semblance of escape. In the end, however, the sand washes away and the daylight breaks through: Ignorance, though blissful for a time perhaps, is still ignorance.

I read an article today about the mounting ire against Tim Tebow's upcoming pro-life Super Bowl advertisement. It was interesting reading. Nauseating, but interesting. The most intriguing aspect of the article was the description of responses from those who oppose Tebow and his mother for running the ad. Here are some examples:

The National Organization for Women (NOW) has called the ad "revolting and demeaning," petitioning CBS to refuse to carry the ad.

Feminist lawyer Gloria Allred has publicly questioned the veracity of the Tebows' story: It seems Tebow's mother was advised by a doctor to have an abortion when she was pregnant with Tim. Allred seems to believe that since abortion was illegal in the Philippines at that time (where the Tebows lived) it is inconceivable that a physician should have counseled her to abort.

Planned Parenthood is running an ad on their website featuring two renowned athletes, Al Joyner and Sean James. In it the men offer their respect for "women's decisions about their health."

Without wishing or intending to sound cruel, two words come to mind: Ignorant and desperate.

Let's start with Allred's assertion. A woman of her standing should know better, I dare say. Is it really that inconceivable that a woman would be counseled by her physician to have an abortion, even in a country where it is illegal? For an answer to this question, let's look at the pertinent history in our own country: The United States.

As most people are aware, abortion became legalized nationwide in the 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. Prior to this time, however, thousands of abortions were being performed annually, although illegally. Contrary to popular belief, the vast numbers of these abortions were not performed by back-alley butchers. In 1960 (before abortion was legalized), Planned Parenthood estimated that 90% of all abortions were performed by physicians.

If licensed physicians were far and away the majority of those performing abortions in America prior to its legalization, then why should not a pro-abortion physician in another country recommend it prior to legalization? For purely professional reasons it is arguably not a very wise nor advisable course of action. But people are people everywhere. Is it really so inconceivable?

I can't speak, of course, for the Tebows or the veracity of their claim. At this point, I have no reason to believe they are fabricating the story. But Gloria Allred's assertion that it is inconceivable is, forgive me, a desperate reach at an imaginary straw.

Let's move on to NOW's response. I can't help but giggle to myself when I think of these proponents for women's rights about to lose their breakfast over an ad which, contrary to their understanding, is actually highly supportive of the value and dignity of women.

Since I'm responding to feminists, I'll start with Feminism 101 -- the basics. The basics in this case are the initial visionaries of the feminist movement, two of whom are Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. I dare say that each of these women would not be using the terms "demeaning and revolting" to describe the Tebows' ad or pro-life stance. Listen to what each one had to say about abortion:

"I deplore the horrible crime of child murder," said Anthony. "No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. But oh! thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime."

Elizabeth Cady Stanton says, "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we wish."

There are other, more contemporary, examples of advocates for women's rights adamantly opposed to abortion. Alice Paul drafted the original version of the Equal Rights Amendment, and she referred to abortion as "the ultimate exploitation of women." And listen to what Rosemary Bottcher, an analytical chemist and environmentalist has to say: "The woman, according to feminists, is so selfish, immature, irrational and hysterical that she cannot stand the fact of nine months of inconvenience in order to bring life to another person or to bring happiness, perhaps, to some other family who might adopt that child."

I'm rather astounded, I confess, that NOW so inextricably links women's welfare to abortion. It is so grossly demeaning to women, on so many levels, that I am beside myself trying to understand their vitriolic opposition to pro-life causes, which at once affirm both the dignity of the child and of the woman. My guess is that most NOW members are blissfully unaware of the history of abortion and infanticide in the world. Let's look at that next:

In ancient societies, it was dangerous to be a baby. "Unwanted" babies and children of both sexes were frequently starved to death, thrown over cliffs, exposed to wild beasts and the elements, and many other reprehensible atrocities. But baby girls had it worse, by far. In pre-Christian, ancient Rome, for example, little girls were abandaned in far greater numbers than little boys (if they weren't killed at birth because they were female). Even in the last few centuries, the fate of female infants in countries not yet penetrated by the gospel of Christ was dismal: Infanticide was still common, with baby girls abandoned in the streets or thrown down wells, among other practices. And even today, countries like China find themselves with highly skewed ratios among adult men and women. Why? Baby boys are more highly valued; many parents, under a "one-child policy," abort their female babies in favor of a potential male child.

And yet NOW calls the Tebows' ad "revolting and demeaning." Hmmm. Interesting.

Lastly, let's take a look at Planned Parenthood's website advertisement featuring Al Joyner and Sean James asserting their respect for "women's decisions about their health." I fully believe that men have a right to voice their views on abortion, whatever side of the issue on which they may stand. The key word here, which both men use, is "health."

Is abortion healthy? Let's see.

First of all, it's a highly invasive procedure for all women. The uterus is unnaturally forced open; the lining of the uterus is suctioned and scraped repeatedly; there is risk of infection in the event that fetal body parts remain; frequent post-abortive bleeding is common. Those are just a few of the facts. Here are some more:

The risk of ectopic pregnancy (when the embryo implants outside of the uterus) is twice as high for women who have had a previous abortion. It's four times as high for women who have had two or more abortions.

Women with first trimester abortions have twice the risk of developing breast cancer at some point in life. This is because of the unnatural cessation of pregnancy and its adverse effects on the rapid development of breast tissue in early pregnancy.

The chance of future miscarriages is increased dramatically for women who have had abortions. Some scientific studies suggest that this rate is as great as tenfold.

Perhaps the most obvious and grievous health risk associated with women and abortion is this: Half of abortions kill baby women, depriving the world of their presence and influence.

Those are just some of the health risks of abortion, and just the physical ones at that. The emotional health risks to women are just as grievous, if not more so. Much higher rates of suicide and severe depression are linked with post-abortive women. Perhaps Mr. Joyner and Mr. James are blissfully ignorant of the true implications that abortion poses for "women's health," world-renowned athletes though they may be.

It's convenient, and sometimes pleasant, to turn deaf ears and blind eyes to reality. Reality demands responsibility. It demands wisdom and truth and sacrifice. Tragically, we are often completely unwilling to rise to the occasion.

So while accredited physicians continue to take inventory of fetal body parts on abortion room examining tables... while the beating hearts of pre-born infants are suddenly silenced by the whir of suction tubes tearing apart their bodies, piece by piece... while weeping women walk from the rear exits of abortion clinics, lonely and afraid... people like Tim and Pam Tebow will courageously and gently stand on the front lines. They will be hated, demeaned, scorned, and threatened by the blissfully ignorant and desperate.

But they will stand, and thank God for it. They will stand in the gap for those precious, precious babies lost every day to the primeval brutality of abortion. And they will stand for their precious, precious mothers, whom God loves just as dearly.