Dear Sister, Hello! Oh how I have missed the feel of my hands on a keyboard as words fall from my heart and mind, through my fingertips, and into existence. Although China feels like it could have been yesterday, it surely has been awhile. We have been home now for 20 months! I can not believe that this Christmas we will be celebrating two years home with our daughter. What is time? I had every intention of documenting our first months home. I wanted to share the journey, the struggles, and the achievements in the hopes that my words could help, support, or encourage the next Mama newly home with her baby. In reality, I visited this space only once before my world started to spin wildly out of control. In those early days, when the spin was just gaining speed, I longed to write. I desperately tried to gather my thoughts and emotions and organize them to make sense, but I failed over and over. Little did I know that the spin would go round and round, gaining speed and momentum for the next 18 months. I'm not so sure that the spinning has stopped, maybe it never will. I will say now that I am able to see through the dizziness and haze and I'm ready to try and make sense of what I can. Or at least share it. Because life is really darn H A R D. And I know I'm not the only one. Here is the highlight reel of the past 20 months: We got home from China at the end of December 2016. We spent the next few months cocooning, and adjusting to life with a Chinese toddler that spoke Mandarin and was very spoiled and bossy. All in all, our transition with Charlotte was smooth and love flowed. In May, after a sequence of familial events, we took primary custody of our 12 year old nephew. So we went from two, easy and obedient biological children, to four kids aged 13, 12, 11 and 3, in less than 6 months time. Our entire life was different. Parenting became so difficult. I was exhausted every. single. day. I cried more tears, yelled more times, and hid more often than ever before. It was a tough adjustment. In August we were starting the school thing with our four children at different schools. Ben who had been accepted into a Master's program, was also getting into the school vibe. Our schedules were packed. We were gearing up and preparing for the task. And then the other shoe dropped. Ben's mother was diagnosed with stage four cancer. It was sudden and it was bad. We then dove into the life of a family with a loved-one battling cancer. As so many know, it is taxing, emotional, and heavy. Our weeks were highlighted with results of the latest scans, x-rays, reports, and doctors visits. The news was devastating every time. Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went with tears and anguish. We knew these would be the last holidays we would have with her. In March we shared our last days with our beloved Sue Mama. She was the glue that held our family together, the maker, the fixer, and loved us all so well. Walking our children through death and ushering a loved one into eternity was a beautifully broken process. It took its chunk of flesh from all of us. In May we said goodbye to our nephew as he was reunified with his mother. He was moving out of our home and would be living three hours away. It was incredibly bitter-sweet. At the end of May my beautiful grandmother passed away suddenly. She was my rock, and the anchor of our family. We spent the summer in a whirlwind moving from our home of 9 years to an amazing property on 5 acres just outside our little town. A dream that suddenly became a reality. And only a few days ago Ben's grandmother passed away from a long battle with cancer. Each of these situations is flooded with hard, but oh how much beauty, growth, grace, and love. And full dependence on Jesus. Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to the message to be that my life has been one giant pity party for a year and half. That is not where I’m going with this. I could go into great detail about each event with its own ups and downs, joys and tears, triumphs and failures. There were many wonderful, priceless moments that I will value and remember all of my days. But there were so many of the hardest moments, hours, and days of my life. I want to convey … hard is hard is hard. And when hard follows hard after hard, it is only natural to get a little wonky. If your not wonky...your stuffing it too far down. Sister, if life has thrown things at you faster than you can process in a clear and healthy manner - I am speaking to you. If you have found yourself in the loneliness of the really hard things, in the messiest parts of life, in the dark, in the grief. You Are Not Alone. In this world of social media, and all its perfection, it is so easy to think that everyone else has a breezy life of flowers, cleanliness, and ease. But we live in a real world, with real struggles. Where children actually don’t have parents. Where people, of all ages, actually die. Where love is not a feeling that is warm and fuzzy, but it actually requires grueling work at great sacrifice, with nothing in return. Sometimes it all feels very lonely. And I have found that people don't like to talk about hard things. Especially things like orphans, grief, and death. Not long ago, death was only an abstract thought to me. But this year I have stared death in the face. To be honest, I struggle to say "Where is your sting?" Some days I feel suffocated in the tight grip of fear, crushed by the weight of grief. I definitely got a little wonky. Easy tasks became hard to accomplish, leaving the house caused anxiety, and tears would fall like rain for no identifiable reason at all. This went on for months...and the guilt of me not "living my best life." felt so big. During this time, that in reality is still lingering, I could rely on only a couple things. God is good & my family loves me. In the darkest days, in the thickness of grief, in the rooms of death. God became so BIG. It was amazing and refreshing and soothing. He is so good. He is definitely close to the brokenhearted. If I couldn't depend on anything, if I had a day where everything seemed lost and undone, I could open my bible and words would come alive and make sense in a way I never thought before. I could put on worship music and it would run into my veins and flow through me. I could depend on Him, always. And He remained steadfast and so so good. My family became my safe haven. We could cry together, laugh together, and do endless favors for one another. Grace became our language. And we needed all of it. Laura Kelley once quoted on her Instagram @pitterpatterart that she was "grace-guzzling" and I adopted that quote immediately. We could not have got through that time without endless grace flowing from all of us. I had days where I couldn't leave my room, days where tears wouldn't stop, and days upon days of not leaving our house. And Ben, and Hannah, and Logan, and Charlotte all had their days as well. This is grief. And this is what I learned... If you are in the midst of something similar... be so kind to yourself. Give so much grace to your soul and your body. We are spiritual beings that have deep, deep feelings. Feelings that run into our mortal bodies and wreck havoc. Be gentle, be loving, be good. Be aware of what you need and let others help you. Lean on those around you that have strength. We serve an unimaginably gracious and loving Father. And it is so comforting to think that He grieves too....He knows our pain, our struggle, and our human fragility. He is so close to us and so loving. I am so grateful that sunshine has begun to shine through these stormy skies. I feel the rays of the sun, and and summer on the horizon. And I am so grateful for this struggle. I now know what it is like to experience loss and pain. To be honest, I found it hard to relate in suffering before this. I want to be the one that leans in and sits with a grieving friend, and doesn't shy away. Because it so lonely to bare this weight alone. We are meant to love and encourage one another and this year has been a crash course in how to do so. I am so looking forward to a season of healing and rest. And if not, God is still good. Thank you for allowing me to share my heart with you all and getting back into the writing groove. In Love, Kelty
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Kelty. Archives
September 2018
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