We live across the road from a fairytale house, a little gnome home. Unlike our austere, upright colonial which has scarcely changed its expression since 1796, this house grew up over centuries, with several discrete rooflines and an assortment of windows. The original brick house was built in 1792 by the owner of the mill powered by the waterfall in the sideyard. Once a straight white rectangle, the primary structure has settled comfortably into the ground; its shingled roof mimics the uneven foundation line where house meets earth. It is hard to imagine the windows were ever square; they sit at crazy angles now, their twenty-four small panes framed by mustard colored shutters, each hanging at its own tilt. A narrow, sheltered red door flanked by rusty lanterns is never opened. Instead, a deep, shaded alcove closer to the barn serves as the front door, its granite steps lined with rangey potted plants, statuary in various stages of deterioration. A weathered old fireplace mantle leans against a corner; a tufted old gray cat crouches on the top step, waiting to be admitted.

     This morning the squat chimney in the center of the oldest roof was puffing pale gray smoke into the pale grey morning sky. Frosty skeletons rose behind the house - white birches, tall firs, a weepy willow. A clapboard section of the cottage with a bulging bay window sits uncomfortably between between the original bricks and the attached barn. Its straight roof and flat-topped gable are awkwardly out of place between the undulating roof lines of the older house and white barn  whose rippling roof is half covered with creeping green moss, amplifying the impression that the house simply arose out of the ground. Its wide sliding door has a smaller, hinged door cut into it, curved at the top like a picture from Hansel and Gretel. Another iron- hinged door and two uneven windows punctuate the  clapboards. The barn leans slightly to the right as if falling into the yard which drops away toward the brook. A rickety fence follows the slope of the hillside in stairstep fashion, petering away into the hoary, white, leaf-naked woods.

This afternoon we went snowshoeing behind the fairy house, in the fairy woods.  We awakened to snow this morning, which immediately called to mind both Jack Frost and Robert Frost, poet of the northern New England landscape.  The snow fell softly all day until we ventured out at mid-afternoon.  The light was already purple, hinting at the early nightfall which would soon envelop the woods. We walked past the heavily laden, giant pines, tramped our way through leafless, fragile bushes, stepped awkwardly over fallen trees and slid gingerly down hills before we leapt over small brooks, still running  black and noisy in the midst of the snow.  We picked our way through the wreck of an old barn, its beams frosted with snow, and stopped to watch the spray of a waterfall rushing over a frozen bank.  We peered down into an abandoned empty well and scrambled past a rusty old swingset thrown away a child's lifetime ago. Even that cheap, rusty piece of detritus looked mysterious and evocative under its snowy drape.

Though we tramped about for an hour, we were never very far from home, and when we turned toward our neighbor's cottage we caught a glimpse of our own house across the road.The scene could have been a hundred years old or more - two ancient, white houses with candles visible in the windows.  If you ignored the cars in the drive, you could imagine yourself coming home for dinner in 1930, 1900, 1850, or even 1800.  The woods, the road, the houses, the waterfall would all be there. The snow is timeless, too.

I remember a  morning when I sent Lily and Rachel out to the car to look for Lily's bright pink parka. We had spent the whole day in the car the previous day - the eye doctor in the morning, the pizza restaurant for lunch, back to Rachel's school in the afternoon for a presentation about music lessons. Lily was carsick on the trip to the doctor so she got to ride in the front seat, an unusual treat for her. It was a long day and I was not surprised that all our belongings had not made it into the house when we got home.

So that morning we unearthed Rachel's schoolbus yellow jacket from the pile of coats in the breezeway, but Lily's fuschia coat was nowhere to be found.  I sent the girls out to check the car. I was pretty sure the jacket would be there. Grabbing my own coat, I scrabbled through the key basket looking for the right key ring, dropped my phone in my purse and headed out the door, careful to slam it hard so the dog could not push it open while we were away. Juggling purse, keys and coffee cup as I slipped behind the wheel,  I asked the girls chattering excitedly in the backseat if they had found the coat. No, they said, but they found Lily's leftover pizza from yesterday's lunch! They were both very interested in the pizza; the box was opened and the four leftover pieces were dangerously close to landing on the backseat in all their greasy glory. But, Rachel said, with real regret in her voice, "No, Mom, the coat is not here. I don't know where it is."

The glaringly pink coat, was, of course, right in front of her on the front passenger seat. The pizza box, however, had been on the dashboard, so they had had to climb directly over the coat to get to  it. How, I asked myself, and them, could they have missed it? It was in plain view. But of course, I know how they missed it. Because I have missed the obvious myself when I was distracted by something that caught my eye or my imagination, something that looked more interesting and fulfilling than the mundane task at hand. I can not only walk into a room and forget what I am looking for, I can walk through my life and forget why I am there. If I don't remind myself every day what is really important I lose my focus all over again.

I woke up this morning again trying to remember what was really important in my life, in anyone's life. I had fallen out of this habit for a while- a cancer diagnosis and then seven weeks of treatment had actually pushed that big question out of the way for awhile.  I knew what I needed to do every day when I woke up.  I did not need to evaluate my choices or compare my life to anyone else's.  Everything was crystal clear for awhile.  But now I am back to my everyday life, to the housework and shopping and childcare.  The crisis is over for now, at least, and I lie in bed as the room grows lighter and wonder if I have done anything in my entire life that is of lasting worth.  I wonder how to salvage the hours of the day ahead so that I will have something to show for the time I've spent when I climb back in bed tonight. I recall the orthodox formulas I have memorized over a lifetime - "The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever"  "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your strength and all your mind."  "He has showed thee, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you - to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."  But I still wonder every morning what it means to love God, how to do that in the next 12 hours, the next 12 years.  The older I get, the more mundane my life appears. I will probably never publish a book, never do some great humanitarian work, never run a marathon, never have that second career that will make up for the lack of a first career! Every morning I feel like I need to figure out again how to love God and walk humbly with Him in the midst of cleaning the house, doing the endless laundry, taking the dogs for walks and occasionally writing a paragraph or two.  I don't know why I have to grapple with the same questions over and over, why they never stay answered.  Maybe the answers are part of the daily bread that I must receive anew from God's hand every morning. Or maybe I just have a really bad memory for important details.

<b>Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Jeshanah, and named it Ebenezer; for he said, "Thus far the LORD has helped us." So the Philistines were subdued and did not again enter the territory of Israel; the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. The towns that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron to Gath; and Israel recovered their territory from the hand of the Philistines. There was peace also between Israel and the Amorites. (1 Samuel 7:12-14 NRSV) 

I grew up on the King James Version and the Fundamentalist tradition. In his pastoral prayers my father prayed weekly for shut-ins and backsliders.In Sunday school I learned the story of the importunate widow. I don't think I have ever used that adjective in my life except in this context, but I learned it at a young age. I knew the many-syllabic attributes of God as well as the fruits of the Spirit and the Armor of God which included such items as bucklers and girdles. I don't remember ever giggling about any of it, it was just a normal part of the vocabulary of my faith. I also knew scores of hymns by heart full of phrases such as "Awake my soul to joyful lays," When morning gilds the skies", and "Teach me some melodious sonnet."

One of my favorites was, "Here I raise mine Ebenezer, Hither by thy help I'm come." Though the Old Testament allusion might be lost on many modern hymnsingers, I can't remember a time when I did not know that it referred to an incident recorded in I Samuel 7in which Samuel set up a stone between Mispah and Jeshanah and named it Ebenezer, which literally means "stone of help." When he raised the stone he said, "Thus far the Lord has helped us." So, it shouldn't seem strange to anyone that I named the little black poodle puppy I received for a welcome home gift after I finished radiation treatments, Ebenezer. Thus far the Lord has helped me. We're calling him "Benny," since Ebenezer is kind of hard to yell out the front door, but his proper name will always remind me, at least, of what was happening when he joined our family.

My husband and I have often talked about erecting stones of remembrance around our house, but we have seldom done it. We love how the Old Testament and the Jewish tradition are full of physical reminders - on the doorposts, on the forehead, at the edge of the Red Sea - of what God has done, so that when children ask, "What does this mean?" the elders have an open door to recount the works of a faithful God. We have not made altars in our yard; the only markers we have left are gravestones for pets like the one that reads, "A good bunny who died of a sunny day." But this event - my cancer diagnosis and treatment - seemed big enough to warrant not one remembrance (the puppy's name), but two.

 The day I finished treatment Kevin and I walked down the narrow, old street across from the hospital and stopped for coffee at a small cafe. We had walked this street many times in the last two months, including on the first day we entered Massachusetts General Hospital to hear the recommendations for my treatment. That day we had walked in nervous silence before the appointment, and then baffled confusion afterwards when we were given two very different treatment options from which to choose. I have written about how we agonized over the decision, knowing whichever course we chose came with no guarantee of success. We prayed, asked counsel, and chose the course of radiation, which seemed a feeble weapon against a Stage IV cancer. Now that my treatment was over we revisited the cafe, and while we waited for our lattes, Kevin pulled out a small green ring box and handed it across the table. Inside was a beautiful, understated cigar-band ring. The band itself was brushed silver. Embedded in it were five small diamonds of varying size, scattered unevenly across the center of the ring. Kevin looked up the passage from I Samuel 17 that he had mediatated on the last three months which tells how David came against the giant with five smooth stones, and slew him by the power of God. We knew that 35 proton beam treatments seemed a small weapon to wield against a frightening disease, but we knew that their success depended not upon our doctor, but upon the power of our God. Kevin bought me the ring to remind us both where our true help lies. Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine. Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. He looked David over and saw that he was little more than a boy, glowing with health and handsome, and he despised him. He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!” David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.” As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground. So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.

I received a wonderful message from an old friend a while ago. He is someone who has walked ahead of us on the road of international adoption. His words spoke deeply to me, since I know his family has suffered mnay hardships through their obedience to God's calling in their lives. He has experienced many of the things I prayed against as we pursued what we believed to be God's call to adopt. Some of his words were, "My prayer is that you will abide in Him, for He is near! When you feel as though you have nowhere to turn, He is there. When you feel as though no one understands, be reminded that He has walked that same road. When it seems like you aren't sure you can continue past this very moment, invite Him into that single moment and allow Him to walk with you into the next. He will prove faithful...to you, to the girls, and to His purpose. The funny thing is, His purpose may not be about you or the girls, but it will always be about Him, and that is sobering, at least to me."

It was the last sentence that struck me most. That truth about the purposes of God.
Because I, like many well-meaning adoptive parents have wondered many times what our adopting A and G would mean. I have wondered, "Why do we have these particular two children? What great things will come of this huge change in their lives? What will they become? Perhaps," IVe thought, "one day A will be a doctor or G will be a teacher and they will return to Ethiopia and help to save their people." (Should we name one of them Esther???) Or, more humble, but still gratifying, "Maybe one of our children will be so moved by their experience that they will do this or that or the other great thing." Surely, I've thought, something wonderful will come of this.


But when I begin to presume on the purposes and plans of God I am reminded of my experience several years ago, when God rather precipitously moved our family to Southeast Asia for most of two years. I remember how much thought I gave to trying to figure out God's purpose in our being there. I remember actually saying to people, "I'm not really sure yet why God has us here," as if it were only a matter of time until either I figured it out, or it God revealed it to me. My questioning was honest, good-hearted, sincere, and ultimately unsuccessful. I don't think we, or at least I, ever got any insight into the big picture. I never gained any understanding of God's intentions for our family's life beyond what I already knew - that He meant for us to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with Him. (Micah6:8)

Maybe my notion of God' purpose was too narrow. When I was looking for one reason, mayber there were many. Maybe we were there so my children could develop compassion for the world, so we could meet a particular aid worker, for us to help a student finish his education, for us all to see our own culture with different eyes, for countless other reasons I've never thought of and never will. Maybe it was all those things and many more. Maybe it was not really about any of those things.

Maybe God' plans, like His character and being, are so beyond our comprehension that we are foolish and presumptuous to even try to name them. I wrote the first part of this entry months ago, before I encountered the next big fork in the road - my diagnosis of cancer.My friend's words are true in this situation, too. And perhaps I have learned something along the way after all, since I have spent much less time and energy this time trying to figure out what God is doing in my life. I have tried to remember that whatever is going on, it is not really about me. It's about God and His plans. What is required of me, as a steward, is only to be found faithful (I Corinthians 4:2). I don't have to know the plot, I don't have to figure out what God is up to. I only have to be faithful.

Swimming Outside the Gene Pool

I am a diffident person. I am the kind of person who will patiently let a confident novice instruct me about something I am expert in just to be polite. I will even ask a few questions for clarification. I never assume I know how to do anything, at least not as well as anyone else. In college I called my parents at the end of every semester apologizing for how poorly I had done that term, begging their forbearance and promising to do better the next term. And I was always shocked when my grade report arrived with nothing but A's. Roget suggests I might be called bashful, blenching, chary, constrained, dubious, flinching, rabbity or reserved. I am self-effacing, shrinking, shy, timorous, unassertive, unassuming.

I gave birth to seven children who bear at least some resemblance to me. They all learned to talk early, but learned to talk on the phone late. Some are still mastering the skill, and all are grateful for the faceless nature of facebook and texting, the shy person's friend. They are not all as retiring as I am, but none of them would ever be called bold or brash, cheeky, audacious or forward.
So I am a bit non-plussed by a daughter who told me which shoes she should wear to her first T-ball practice, when she had no idea what T-ball even was, a daughter whose favorite phrase when she hardly spoke any English was, "Mommy, no," often accompanied by a glare or a scowl. Now that she speaks the language almost perfectly her favorite phrase is, "I know." Almost any explanation I try to offer her is interrupted halfway through by, "I know," even though she doesn't. When her younger sister asks me a question about something she doesn't understand I have to be quick to get in the first word, or G will launch into her own, often incorrect, explanation. Had she been born into my family I am sure I would frequently be asking, "Where in the world did this child come from?"

But, of course, I know where she came from - Ethiopia. What I don't know is who she resembles, which strong-willed relative she takes after, or even what early experiences may have shaped her audacious personality. She is like a little bantam rooster in a house of retiring hens. She doesn't fit in very comfortably. Like most introverts, I value caution, self-effacement, thinking (long and hard) before you speak. Even as a child I secretly scoffed at classmates who waved their hands to be called on before the teacher had finished asking the question. As a parent I was always relieved that I never had one like that in my brood. I would rather never be recognized for what I do know rather than blurt out the wrong answer, and my genetic offspring either caught or were taught that same attitude.

Before we met our youngest daughters we had only pictures to study to try to imagine who they would be, what they were like. I knew this daughter was brave - she was always smiling broadly in the sad little orphanage pictures, and I knew she was fiercely protective of her little sister - she always had her arm around the sad little one's shoulders. But I did not know that part of what allowed her to survive her difficult childhood was a brash, dauntless, cheeky courage and the conviction that she could handle anything that came her way, that she already knew most everything she needed to know, that she didn't need any grownup to tell her what to do. So I find myself often piqued at her attitude, annoyed, rather than amazed by her confidence. Instead of praising her chutzpah, I find myself biting my tongue so I don't criticize her presumption. I recognize in myself the lack of grace and acceptance of her "otherness." I see how hard it is to affirm and value the qualities I don't naturally like. I am conscious of how easy it is to love people who are like me, and how hard it is to extend the same unconditional love to someone who is just so different from me. Of course, this is part of what God means to teach me through the experience of adoption. He has shown me how easy it has been to love the children born to me, whereas Christlike love embraces the unlovely (to me), rather than just those I feel comfortable with. He is showing me my pride, my judgmental attitudes, the shallowness of my "love" through this gutsy daughter who is nothing like me.

chapter one

I was thinking this morning as I pushed my empty grocery cart back to the curb that God is giving me what I have said I wanted - a chance to live out what I claim to believe.  I have written about that desire many times, and spoken it in my heart over and over. I have made choices which have involved a certain amount of renunciation, a willingness to take some risks and to allow God to change my life in some pretty big ways.  I have said "yes" to moving my family across the world, "yes" to adopting two Ethiopian orphans.  I have felt as if I were giving up my life for the gospel, to do those things that Jesus said His followers should do. I have felt willing.  But I realized this morning that I have been exercising faith as I chose those paths; now I need to exercise faith on a path I would never have chosen.  I cannot imagine choosing cancer if God gave me the chance.  I would have moved to Somalia, adopted ten more kids, given away all my money before I would have chosen cancer.  But I was not given the choice. God chose it for me.  This time when I give up my life as I know it, it is not of my own volition, and I don't like it.  I realize how different this is, and how much greater faith it requires. 

I have been reading James 1 and Hebrews 12 a lot lately,  Hebrews 12 exhorts us to "fix our eyes on Jesus, " a great corrective for me when I over and over fix my eyes on the mirror, to see if the swelling in my face is growing more noticeable, or fix my eyes on the computer screen reading chilling acounts in cold, clinical speech about the destruction various kinds of cancer can wreak. James 1 reminds me of the purpose of trials - that they are not tests to assess how much faith I already possess, but testings to produce patience and perseverance in me.  By definition both of those qualities require time, not haste, uncertainty and effort, not obvious happy endings.  If I knew this would all turn out the way I want it to, I could not learn patience or perseverance through it. 

So here I am in the place I never wanted to be, and the timing seems horrible.  My daughter is getting married in less than three months.  Will I be able to attend her wedding?  Will my face be swollen and disfigured from a recent surgery?  Will I still have both my eyes?  Will I be in the middle of radiation or chemotherapy treatment?  I don't know.  God knows.