Halloween

I realize that Halloween and any celebration of its festivities is an extremely hot topic among Christians.  I know full well that Halloween has its roots in Paganism and is associated with all sorts of evil.  We avoid the scary, evil and grotesque aspects of the holiday; however, my family does choose to participate in what we deem to be harmless Halloween traditions, including dressing up, pumpkin carving, and trick-or-treating.  I'll tell you why at the end.  

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Seven years ago today, my sister and brother-in-law pulled out of our driveway after a tearful goodbye, leaving their two small brown-eyed foster children behind in our living room.  It was a moment that had been in the works for quite a while, ever since God had made it clear to all of us (Scott and me, my sister and her husband) that it was our house and not theirs that these two kids should call home.  (There was, of course, an entire agency, a lawyer, and a judge that were also on board, but that's a story for a different day.)

As the foster family they had called theirs for a solid year drove away, those two sets of big brown eyes looked unsure and apprehensive, clueless about what the future might hold for them.  The larger, supposedly more prepared two sets of blue eyes in the room mirrored those emotions perfectly...with perhaps just a touch of panic mixed in.  Our baby daughter, only eleven months old, had no idea how her life was about to change.

It was two days before Halloween.

Grasping for some way to make it through those first few days of weirdness; hoping to kindle some sort of a sense of belonging in the hearts of our hours-old "family", we started our very first family tradition.

We carved our pumpkin together. 
We ate donuts and drank hot apple cider. 
We watched the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown movie.
And we told our new children that we would do this every. single. year.

Because we were a family now...
         ...and having traditions was part of being a family.

Tonight will be our eighth "Gotcha-Day" Halloween harvest party as a family. 

Things have changed a little bit each year.  Sometimes we have jack-o-lantern pizzas and cake, sometimes pumpkin pie or pumpkin cookies and candy corn.  Sometimes we team-carve one gigantic pumpkin, each choosing the shape of a different facial feature, and other years every person has their own pumpkin to carve.  Long about the third year, we came up with the idea of choosing a costume theme and dressing up elaborately as a family, which became yet another tradition. 

We have a great time together.

There have been some really significant changes over the years, as well.  Three little brothers have been added to the mix since that first party, and our oldest son, one of the two brown-eyed children for whom we first brought the tradition into existence, is celebrating his second "Gotcha-Day" away from the embrace of our family. 

And yet, I believe with all my heart that our Halloween traditions have brought our family closer.  In the beginning, it was just the thought in a broken child's mind that there really might be a "next year" with this family, and as each "next year" turns over into the next, we simply have a blast brainstorming the possibilities and coordinating our costumes, at least a year in advance, for the following Halloween.  It's always been something we can talk about and look forward to, even when the pain and pressure of raising these two hurt kids has overshadowed everything else.  And for some unexplainable reason, walking around town looking like a giant bunch of weirdos each October has bonded us together in entirely new ways.

Our family is closer together because of Halloween.

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Okay, here it is.  First, I have nothing but respect for people who feel convicted to forgo the celebration of Halloween.  You can't go wrong when you are praying, fasting, and seeking God's will in every situation, and it's awesome that you've felt His hand leading you in that direction.  We, however, have seen God working through the celebration of Halloween at our house. 

Don't believe me?

We serve a God who specializes in making old things new and bad things good and ugly things beautiful.  I am living proof.  God is a God of redemption, and He can redeem even the most Pagan of holidays and use them for His good if He so chooses. 

Please, let's stop the Christian-against-Christian fighting and bashing and heated debating about the observation of traditions that were once associated with Pagan things.  There are many evil things in this world, many things labeled as clearly so in the Bible, but I don't believe that costumes and pumpkins and candy collection are inherently evil.
 
I'm convinced that Satan is filled with glee when He gets believers fighting amongst themselves, further separating the already-fragmented church of Jesus Christ.  Let's be peacemakers.

How do you feel about the subject?  I would love to hear your opinions.  Respectfully worded, of course.  ;)

 
 
 

       

One Year Ago Today

It's been a year. 
One year ago today was the last day our son set foot in this home, the last day he woke up under our roof, the last day he was so close that I could touch him...

...and yet my touch could do nothing to soothe the long-buried rage that erupted from deep within.

One year ago today was the last day these walls...and our little children's eyes...lay witness to the violence that had become almost commonplace in the months before. 

Violent rage had become the routine.

So sad, looking back.  Sad that our little ones knew what to do when he flew out of control.

Go to the school room.
Close the door.
Strap the baby into his booster seat.
Pick out a movie.
Turn it up loud.
Wait for Grandma to get here.

My parents, ten minutes away, had been "on-call" for much of the summer.  One year ago today, Grandma was here, in the room with the kids.  Papa was upstairs helping Scott with Mr. J. 

Angry and frightened and more traumatized than I realized at the time, I had been firmly instructed to get away, go downstairs.  I was pregnant, and he had already threatened to kick me in the stomach more than once.  It would be months before I would stop involuntarily jumping at the slightest sound.

Trauma goes both ways, you see. 
The traumatized child becomes the traumatizer. 
The victim becomes the aggressor.
And the family that refuses to give up on love will come out on the other side with the battle scars to show for it.

We will never be the same.

Some changes have been good, have taught us to be more like Christ...
...to rely more fully on Him. 
But other changes are just layer upon layer of hurt and fear and pain and uncertainty...

...making me long for Heaven. 

One year ago today, we called the police, and they came. 
When they left, they took our son with them.

A difficult day, to be sure, but also a day of relief.

It's been a year of peace and healing. 
Of letting our guard down and actually living again.
We've been able to reflect, reevaluate, and gain new perspective on the events of last summer.
We've been able to breathe.

Our son is not grown up yet.  He's not secure and healthy and happy. 
He still needs us.

May this time of refreshment prepare us for whatever lies ahead.

Fruit

This time last year, I had a really awesome vegetable garden.  It was so awesome, in fact, that my little kids had to exercise teamwork just to get a single cucumber across the yard and into the house.  (I kid you not. Those suckers were HUGE).  The tomatoes were so plentiful, I began experimenting with fresh salsa recipes, heading up to the garden to pick a basket brimming with 'matoes each time I felt the urge.  And still, their remaining kin were left to rot on the bushes or, better yet, to provide the local mammalian with delicious, juicy red snacks.  Apparently, our furry neighbors enjoy tomatoes a heap of a lot more than my mom-in-law, who can barely look one in the eye.

Anyway, I didn't mind sharing our garden with the animals last year, although I admit there were a few hard feelings toward the deer or whatever-it-may-have-been that chewed all the leaves off my acorn squash vines, resulting in an entirely acorn-squashless fall.  I'm still a bit bitter.  However, squash aside, there were plenty of fresh veggies to go around.  I would've been happy to have sent Mom home with her own brimming basket of tomatoes if I'd thought for a moment she'd have taken them.

Being our first garden, we kept the variety to a minimum last summer. Cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, corn, peas.  Every seed that we planted seemed to sprout forth from the earth with a sense of pride in its purpose.  Each plant bore its fruit with gusto; except those blasted deer-eaten acorn squashes (see? still bitter) and the peas, which withered and croaked under the scorching sun of the hottest summer I can remember in Michigan.  In spite of the horrible heat, the rest of our garden grew and thrived and yielded well into the fall.

And then there were the pumpkins.... 

Pumpkins!

Last fall's bountiful harvest

We had oodles and oodles of pumpkins; a whole jolly-orange pumpkin patch sprouting up from our field in which we had simply dropped and covered a few handfuls of seeds.  The pumpkins grew proudly in such aggressive numbers that we were able to have our entire Sunday school class over for a pumpkin picking party (a PPP?) in October.  Each child in every family went home with a pumpkin, and my kids were still able to make a handful of cash at their little roadside pumpkin stand. 

We made such great plans for the next summer's garden. 
Bigger. 
Better.
New and different varieties. 
More pumpkins,
more people over to pick them,
more money made at the little roadside stand.

Lots and lots and lots of plans.

And that's where my happy little tale ends.  With plans and good intentions.  If you only like stories with rainbows and unicorns and lovely fairy-tale endings, then stop reading.....NOW.

Because this summer,
I discovered that I'm a really crappy farmer.

True story.  Cocky and confident from our garden success last year, we just threw some seeds in the ground again this spring and expected great things.  Never mind that we planted everything about a month later than planned (this happened last year, too!).  Never mind that we really never researched what we were doing.  Never mind that LAST year, the actual farmer that "for-real" farms the acres around our property had mistakenly treated, plowed and fertilized our entire little piece of earth on which our inexperienced hands then threw their handfuls of seeds. 

Hmmmm. 
Could well-prepared soil have had something to do with the success of last year's garden?

Sometime this summer, I was standing forlornly in the overgrown weed-patch that had, a year ago, been our thriving garden.  I was sad and frustrated.  We had spent days planting this garden.  We'd worked hard.  We'd doubled our pumpkin patch space in anticipation of using it to bless more families in the fall.  I had been so excited to see everything begin to grow, and the kids had been looking forward to setting up their little produce stand.  I'd even planted several extra squash plants to share with the deer.

What really got me, though, was that I had prayed over this garden.  I'd asked God to bless the fruits of our labor so that we could share them with others.  We'd watered and weeded and watched, but the weeds grew in by the hundreds, faster than we could pick them.  The seedlings didn't grow as quickly as they had before; they couldn't keep up with the weeds and got choked out.  For the most part, our garden has been a disaster. 

All because we didn't first prepare the soil.

Why did I think I could skip such a crucial step?  Do I really think that farmers spend all that time and energy preparing their fields for nothing?!  Did I think I was above the dirty work and that God would bless my work and desire to serve Him when I wasn't even willing to put in the effort to prepare the soil?

I have a lot to learn about farming and gardening.  Over the winter, there will be some serious research going on in this house in preparation of spring.  What's funny, though, is that what I actually learned this summer has a lot more to do with myself than with gardening.

Last year's pumpkin patch.

You see, I'm not just a crappy farmer.
Sometimes, I'm a really crappy follower of Christ. 

So often, I've barreled into my life saying "Lord, today I am going to serve you!  These are my plans.  Please bless the fruits of my labor even though I refuse to or forget to or neglect to prepare the soil of my life by reading Your Word and by spending significant time with You today."

How can I possibly expect to yield a bountiful harvest in my life if I haven't first prepared the soil?

I'm committing to change.  To never again waste my seeds of faith and service in unprepared soil.  I want the fruit that my life produces to be God-honoring, God-blessed, and accomplished with my eyes firmly fixed on Him.  From now on, I begin each day with Him.  Only then can I give the fruit of my life...my marriage, kids, babies, homeschooling, friendships, music, writing, and anything else He puts in my path...only then can I give it the best chance to flourish.

And if this change in me and in the fruit that I bear is the result of the complete and utter failure of the garden I asked God to bless, then I guess He answered that prayer more beautifully and fully than I ever could have imagined.

Maybe next year?