I had such a busy weekend that, instead of dutifully uploading and editing pictures last night to show you how our Easter went, I chose to get in bed instead.  I’ll definitely tell you about it later this week (spoiler alert: this was the first time Miss Thirteen had ever decorated Easter eggs!) but, in the meantime, I thought you’d like to see how our little “fourteen days of birthdays” started out yesterday.

Oh yes, I really did do the smash cake to represent her “first” birthday.  And she loved it.

Up early, finishing Easter basket decorations

with my trusty can of silver spray paint.

(Posted late, but taken on day 114.)

Dying Easter eggs with the foster kidlets and my cousin, Marisa.

(Posted late, but taken on day 113.)

Happy Easter from me, when I was four or five years old.

And now I need to go find some white gloves

to wear to church tomorrow morning.

Mr. Three Year Old, reaching for plastic eggs

at the foster care egg hunt we attended.

(Posted late, but taken on day 112.)

Little signs of Easter are popping up all over my home.

A thirteen year old girl who is learning that she can trust that someone really will wash her clothes for her and feed her breakfast each morning.

A three year old boy who will be taken to hunt for little plastic eggs in a few hours, a childhood privilege he has never enjoyed before.

A seventeen year old girl who slipped up and called me “mom” the other night.

A twenty six year old girl who is learning to die to herself.  Over and over again.

A twenty six year old girl who is still hopeful that, even though it may be Friday, Sunday is coming.  Sunday is coming?  Oh, how I hope Sunday is coming.

A twenty six year old girl who is learning to live beyond herself, one little day at a time.

A whole house full of people who don’t necessarily fit together but, somehow, are starting to fit together after all.

“But he was pierced for our rebellion,

crushed for our sins.

He was beaten so we could be whole

He was whipped so we could be healed.”

Isaiah 53:5, NLT

I was having lunch at the campus dining hall,

when I saw this little advertisement on the napkin container.

Isn’t it funny how the things it takes us the longest to cultivate in our lives

often get consumed so very quickly?

(I’m not talking about oranges.)

(Posted late, but taken on day 111.)

When I took my seat at Tuesday evening’s middle school choir performance, I noticed a few crowd favorites on the program including Lean on Me and Seize the Day.  My personal favorite was watching Miss Thirteen sing the line “no one can make us give our rights away” which was kind of ironic given the fact that, just this past weekend, I took most of her rights away after a little incident I now fondly refer to as Earringgate.

When they began singing the opening line to Seasons of Love, I was actually really excited.  Laugh at me if you want, but who doesn’t love a song that starts out with “Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes, five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear.”  Call me crazy, but I actually really like that song and I’m not afraid to admit it even though that admission automatically puts me in the “uncool” category.

I’ve honestly only heard the opening lines to the song before and never quite made it to the chorus.  So when the little pre-teens started singing “How about love?  Measure in love, seasons of love” I was surprised to find my eyes suddenly filling with tears.

I measure my friend’s lives in seasons of good changes; our college years together, their wedding ceremonies, the first time I held their babies.  Because of my age and stage in life, most of my friends are in seasons that are exciting and lend themselves towards permanence.  Not every marriage will survive, naturally, but for the most part, my circle of friends are all in the season of life where they gain some sort of idea of what their future will look like.

I don’t have the pleasure of measuring my own life in bridal showers, my wedding day, the first birth of my child.  Instead, right now, I measure my life in seasons of love of a different kind.

There was college

and the ministry I directed.

Then Aviean came into my life…

…while MacKenzie continued to be a huge part of my life.

I began living with a pregnant roommate,

and went through a break-up that left me reeling.

I began the process of leaving vocational ministry,

and watched from the altar as a friend married.

I spent Saturday afternoons with Gosling

and ended up meeting three little girls who would change my life.

I clung to God by the side of Olivia’s hospital bed

and loved those little girls so hard it hurt.

I got two more opportunities to be a bridesmaid

and began laying in bed at night thinking about orphans.

I couldn’t believe I was blessed enough to have five little girls to love

and tried so hard to give them a childhood they would remember.

And now I’m in a new season, one that involves MacKenzie living several states away from me, three little girls that I can’t see right now in order to protect myself and a bedroom full of foster children.  It isn’t a bad season necessarily.   I just wish I could have one of those seasons that would have some sort of permanence attached to it.  I feel like I’ve been through a lot of seasons of love, just none that may be permanent in my life.

One of my male friends said it so well in an email to me –

“When I look at the big picture of what I know of you, your background, and your hopes and dreams for the future, I think this is the thematic line of them all.  You need people to share your experiences, and you need them to be strong, stable and predictable.”

Starlite (the ministry I used to direct) came in and out of my life.  Roomie came in and out of my life.  MacKenzie came in and out of my life.  Angelina, Juliana and Olivia came in and out of my life.  These foster children will likely come in and out of my life.  How odd is it that I want to have permanence in my life yet I seem called to love people who will come in and out of my life?  It’s confusing how life works sometimes.

Bridal shower invitations I made

for a shower I’m giving a friend from high school.

After a long day of work yesterday, I arrived at the middle school to pick up the darling angel that is Miss Thirteen only to be greeted by the information that she happened to have a choir concert that night and, oh by the way, she’s going to need a black polo shirt and, wait what is it that I’m forgetting, OH YES, WE HAVE TO BE BACK AT THE SCHOOL IN FIFTY MINUTES.

The next 47 minutes of my life included racing to the mall to get an shirt, nearly tackling an older woman who dared to cross my path in the Chick-Fil-A ordering line and, finally, a timeless speech about why it’s very important to tell one’s foster mother when one is expected to be at a choir concert wearing a particular type of shirt IN FIFTY MINUTES.  Looking back, I feel the worst about the whole Chick-Fil-A incident but, please, everyone knows not to come between a desperate woman and her Christian chicken.

When we arrived at the middle school, I told Miss Thirteen to race over to the cafeteria to meet up with her little choir friends and then I headed towards the gymnasium to try to get a seat before the “show” began.  Upon entering the gymnasium, I was greeted with a handmade poster board sign informing me that I would need to pay $2 for the pleasure of listening to a couple hundred pre-teens sing Lean On Me while swaying back and forth on a set of risers placed strategically in the middle of the gym floor.  I certainly have no problem with a little fundraising effort on the choir’s part but, unfortunately, I am a child of the 21st century and therefore had exactly zero dollars cash in my purse.  I walked up to the table, which was being manned by a couple of very serious choir mothers, and gave them my most winning smile before sweetly explaining that I didn’t know there was a fee to attend the concert and could I please bring $2 with me when I come back the next morning to drop my foster daughter off for school?

Apparently my smile isn’t as winning as I thought it was because I was not permitted into the concert until I had coughed up my $2.  I decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to ask if they accept debit cards and instead began fishing around for enough nickels and dimes to gain me admittance to what was sure to be the hottest performance in the East Tennessee region.  When I got to $1.70, I realized I was out of silver coins and it was time to hit the copper pennies.  Meanwhile, parents continued filing in past me likely feeling sorry for that young mother who was counting out her pennies to get into the choir performance, but really, isn’t that what she deserves for getting knocked up at the age of thirteen, I mean just look at how young she is!

(Yes, if I was Miss Thirteen’s birth mother, I would have had her at the age of thirteen.)

(Even scarier?  If I was Miss Seventeen’s mother, I would have had her at the age of nine.)

(We get a lot of stares when we walk through the mall, especially with a three year old boy tagging along.)

Once I had finally paid my way through the gates of middle school choirdom, I saw the school principal whom I’ve known for years mainly because of the ministry program we had at this particular middle school for six years.  I ended up sitting on the front row in between him and a grandmother who was very anxious to see her grandson perform in that night’s performance.  It was the perfect viewing position to watch the middle schoolers file into the gymnasium while trying to find Miss Thirteen in a sea of black polo shirts and khaki pants, my camera in hand.

I had a hard time finding Miss Thirteen in the crowd which begs the question, silly me, why didn’t I just look for the only girl walking in with her arms folded across her chest looking like she’d rather be eating cauliflower than having to participate in the choir performance?  Sure, your kid may be on the honor roll but my foster kid?  Well, my kid got sent to the principal’s office yesterday and managed to talk her way out of in school suspension.  HOW YOU LIKE THAT, SOCCER MOM?

While I waited for the performance to begin, I decided to text my mother to let her know I was thinking about her.

“I’m currently sitting in Miss Thirteen’s choir concert.  For all the times I didn’t tell you that I needed a black polo shirt and khaki pants until an hour before whatever performance I was in, I would like to apologize.  Can I make it up to you over a nice sausage biscuit from Hardee’s?”

For the record, I don’t think I ever pulled the whole “hour until a black polo shirt” thing on my mother but who am I to pass up the chance to offer a prime bonding opportunity with my mother, especially when it involves her favorite breakfast sandwich?