let's chew on this...

After about a week in Africa, I developed an intense craving for ice-cold milk.
The funny thing about this is that I hardly ever drink milk at home. I have the occasional glass with a piece of cake or spoonful of chocolate chip cookie dough (yum…talk about a craving), but it’s far from a daily staple of my diet.

I also found myself fantasizing about chomping through a nice big bag of peanut M&Ms. No surprise there - they’re my all-time favorite candy. And I was dumb enough not to bring any with me, thinking that junk food was the last thing deserving of space in our luggage (a decision I kicked myself for at the end of many a chocolate-worthy, frustration-filled day). As a consolation I tracked down a KitKat…and discovered that the familiar wrapper and logo can sometimes house a very foreign African product. Same goes with the Milky Way (it should have been packaged as a 3 Musketeers).

Unfortunately, my milk craving was never satisfied in Africa (in desperation I tried the boxed stuff and just about lost my lunch), but not so the peanut M&Ms. On one of our last nights in Rwanda our wonderful friends and fellow travelers, Dillon and Adrienne Stengel, spotted a tiny packet of the heavenly treats in a shop and bought them for me. When Dillon delivered them to our hotel room as a surprise, his big smile said he knew exactly how precious was the treasure he carried in that little brown bag.

Did you know that African peanut M&Ms have a matte rather than glossy finish, and the colors aren’t as bright, but (praise the Lord) they taste exactly like American M&Ms? There probably weren’t more than fifteen little nuggets of deliciousness in that package, but every one of them tasted like a long-anticipated luxury.

Fast forward one month. We’d been home from Africa for almost four weeks (during which I’d had enough peanut M&Ms to more than make up for missing them overseas), and I rushed into the grocery store to buy hot dogs for a Father’s Day get-together. I didn’t have time to spare, but I ended up standing in front of that meat cooler for at least five minutes before finally digging out my cell phone and calling for back-up. Which dogs should I buy? I needed someone to make the decision for me. Smoked? Original? Bun-length? All beef? Four to a package, or five? The ones on sale, or the expensive ones? What was the difference, anyway? There were too many options, and trying to sort through them to make the best decision was more than I could handle. It brought me to tears.

I had a similar experience at Walmart last week. All I wanted was a box of raisin bran for Avivah. I pushed my cart into the cereal aisle and spotted it right away. Raisin Bran (the brand) next to the generic raisin bran that was way cheaper. I grabbed the generic and started to roll, until my eyes caught another box of raisin bran a little farther down the aisle. It looked like the exact same box, but it was about $.80 cheaper. I picked it up, compared the boxes. What was I missing?

And then I saw the others. A whole shelf of raisin brans. Original. Extra raisins. Crunchy. Generic. Organic. Big boxes. Small boxes. The selection was a Dr. Seuss book waiting to happen.

These two odd, post-Africa shopping experiences have made me ask myself how much of my time and energy is spent making decisions about things that DO NOT MATTER. Every time I go shopping, I have to sort through the options for almost every product on my list (brand, size, price, variation, quality, etc.). If I want to be frugal, I can’t just grab the first thing I see and go with it. I wonder how many cumulative hours I’ve spent in the aisles doing price comparisons alone.

I know from my experience with the peanut M&Ms that limited options can lead to deeper appreciation and decreased pickiness. And I know from my unsatisfied craving for cold, unboxed cow’s milk that options can also be beautiful things. So I’m not saying I’m ready to live without them, or even that I think we should.

What I’m asking myself is this: how do I live an eternally focused life in a culture that is constantly trying to distract me with non-essential issues?

For example, on Hulu the other day (yeah, yeah...I know) I saw an ad for a new prescription medication that makes your eyelashes grow. Really? I’m the first person to admit my eyelashes could use some help, but up to this point I haven’t lost any sleep over them. Am I going to look back on my life when I’m eighty and say, “Gee whiz, I sure am glad I marched myself to the doc and spent that time and money on the eyelash cream. It changed my whole life.”

Will I say that about my Netflix subscription? My affinity for Starbucks’ peppermint mochas? My perfectly coordinated summer wardrobe? My peanut M&Ms? (gulp)

Now, here’s the next question: If the most Christ-centered, eternally significant life does not call for those things, does that mean it’s wrong to indulge in them?

I’m not preaching here, I’m asking. I don’t know what to do with this question or the potential answers I’ve wrestled with over the past two years since I started thinking about it.

All I know for certain is that life felt simpler for those three weeks in Africa when my options were limited. Want to watch TV? The only English-speaking channel on Rwandan television is airing an advanced chemistry class, so have at it! I did. I also grew to be satisfied with surviving all day on a single CLIF bar while waiting for paperwork at government offices, and wearing my clothes more than once between washings. I didn’t stress out about having a bad hair day or smelling a little funky after a day spent in buildings without AC. Part of it was that I had few choices. The other part was that I was too focused on my mission to waste brain power and emotional energy on the insignificant stuff of life.

And that brings me to another question. What is my life focus? Does this dilemma of mine stem from lack of vision rather than exposure to too many options that satiate my wordly wants?

I don’t expect to answer these questions in a single blog post. I’m just putting them out there and asking you to ponder them with me. Adoption got me started wrestling with these things, and I have to wonder if God is going to use it as a catalyst to something even more life-changing than I first imagined.

Wherever He leads me, I will follow.

I just hope it’s someplace with peanut M&Ms.

decompressing

I’ve been pondering my next blog post for far too long, and since I haven’t come up with the brilliant new addition I’ve been hoping for, I decided it was time to just sit down and tell you all what’s been on my mind.

Today we’ve officially been home with Avivah for one month. Life with our little girl is at times full of fun and fulfillment, other times frustration and confusion. I am in awe of all God did to bring our precious child home, and I am in awe of how desperately I need Him every day to help me decipher the complexities of my new daughter and train my heart to respond in the way she needs.

Okay, now that the homefront update is out of the way, I want to talk about our time in Africa. Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out how to do that yet (hence my hours of pondering and lack of posts). So much of what happened there involves procedural details and specific officials, and I know that a public forum is not the appropriate place to share those experiences.

I’ll say this: it was painful and exhausting, beautiful and life-changing. I found myself battling emotions I didn’t expect (still dealing with that) and looking at myself and my life through new lenses that made me ever more aware of my need for the truth proclaimed in the title of this blog.

I still haven’t processed all I saw and did in Africa, but I have a sense that my time there was not the end of our adoption process, but rather the beginning of something much bigger. Something that goes far beyond adoption, and far beyond me.

I remember with such clarity the moment I climbed the stairs to board our flight out of Kigali. It was 1:30 a.m. and the air was cool and damp. I paused at the top of the steps, just before ducking into the plane, and drew a deep breath, thinking, This might be the last time I breathe the air of Rwanda. Avivah was strapped into the Ergo, her warm body limp against my chest as she slept, but I had the urge to wake her and make her take notice. “We’re leaving your birthplace, child. You might never see this place again.” I looked out at the city lights blanketing the hills and tried to stuff down the pain of that thought. This isn’t right, my heart lamented. We can’t leave like this. Not in darkness. Not without more time to say goodbye.

The irony wasn’t lost to me even in that moment. We had prayed for miracles for two weeks, and on that last day we had seen God move more than one mountain to get us on our flight as scheduled. But my heart still ached to stay, not only for myself but for my poor daughter, who had only met us three separate times during visiting hours at the orphanage. The day we left Kigali was the first day she left the orphanage. Her first night with us would be spent in the Ergo on a crowded flight to Addis. We had every legal document in hand, but leaving that way, under the cover of darkness while she slept unaware on my (a stranger’s) chest…it felt like we were stealing her. Or stealing something from her.

The remorse over our departure never went away. In fact, it’s intensified. I want to go back. I feel like I left something there, or missed something, and I have to return to find it. I don’t know what to do with that sensation, so I’m trying to find the balance between holding it at a distance so it doesn’t drive me crazy, and keeping my eyes on it just in case God has a related plan brewing sooner rather than later.

I also have a feeling that as I continue to decompress from our travels and adjust to life with Avivah, I’m going to need to do more writing to stay sane. Hence the new banner and subtitle to the blog, and the new look. It’s time for the next chapter. I hope you’ll all turn the page with me.