It was very presumptuous of me to post a blog halfway through a day, it was completely unreasonable of me to think the rest of our day would be uneventful when we had 7 more hours to wreak havoc on our quiet, unsuspecting town. So, I planned a little excursion into town, no big deal, I have been parenting 4 children for over 14 years now, I can handle this, right? Wrong! Here is how it went down ~ It was just the 5 younger kids and me (Will was at work, lucky dog, and Tay was at school, lucky dog!) and I decided to take them swimming at the Y, the poor Y, it is just there to increase community well-being, it was not designed to handle the Ruppel clan. But, I have to give some background in my defense in regards to my decision making because I understand that it may not seem like a good idea to take 5 children to a pool, 2 of whom are completely non-swimmers. But, I taught swim lessons and lifeguarded for years, I have spent countless hours in the water, we spend our entire summers in the water, all 4 of my oldies (my original children) swim like fish, they swim in pools, oceans, lakes, and rivers, for goodness sakes, my 4 oldies would swim in a muddy puddle if I let them. In theory we should have been able to this, but theory does not mean squat with adoptive families!! So, we had been there for literally 2 1/2 minutes when Rue decides to try and drown, the lifeguard moves incredibly quickly, hurdles himself into the pool and snatches her out. And I am standing beside the pool, in my bathing suit, speechless because I have no idea how that just happened. First of all, she was about 2 feet from the stairs and secondly she was in about 3 feet of water, and last of all, 3 of my fish were about a foot away from her! I determined later that she had sat back in the water and gone under and rather then stand back up, she panicked. I asked Trae later why he did not grab her and he said, "I did not understand what she was doing Mom, sorry, she could stand so I thought she was playing." Honestly, I was slightly confused too and I realized that my version of a non-swimmer and an Ethiopian version of non-swimmer were completely different. So, a few minutes later I am sitting there filling out an incident report laughing to myself, wondering how I got here. I mean I have run 1/2 Ironmans for goodness sakes and yet here I am sitting next to my daughter at the local Y filling out an incident report. I think God may have had a few laughs at my expense that day. And Will's first question was (as he is laughing hysterically at us) is, did you film it?! Yes, Will I was that adoptive mother standing beside the pool filming my daughter at her first attempted drowning!! We all know that we need all the firsts on film right? First step on US soil, first time meeting your new siblings, first time seeing your new home and your first time drowning at the YMCA! That one should definitely go in the baby book! Like I have not already earned the worst adoptive mother award for our "incident" at the pool, no need to have it on video too.
Oh, and I can neither confirm nor deny whether or not one of my new daughters managed to get out of the house with her undies still on under her suit. I can say nothing, except to say that Trae leaned over to me a few minutes after the "incident" and said, "Mom I think ______________ still has her underwear on!" And we may or may not have laughed a little together in the Beaufort Y over the alleged "undie incident."
The rest of our time at the Y went beautifully though I must say, which I am quite proud of. Rue got back in the water and Tsinat death gripped me and laughed and squealed and played in the water and we did not have another incident, Yea!! I did notice though that the poor lifeguard never took his eyes off of us.
Everything else has run pretty smoothly though. I think we have finally run out of gum to hide and there have not been any apple cores hidden in the closet. We are learning to scramble our own eggs and some how we keep managing to crack the eggs on the floor, not the bowl, not sure how that keeps happening. We also dumped the sugar bag all over the pantry floor, again unsure of how we managed that. Rue is very playful and she and Grace are at this very moment racing around the house wrestling with each other. Tsinat is still quiet, even though we see improvements in her English every day. Tsinat continues to eat like a full grown man and I do not expect to see a change in that anytime soon. Rue has met with her deaf education teacher who will work with her once a week and she is very pleased with Rue's signing and her academic abilities. Our teacher, Julie, actually spends far more time trying to teach me how to teach Rue I think, I am quite sure she finds Rue a better student than me. It is tough to teach an old dog new tricks but we get through each day and we continue to look more and more like a family (and sound like family) all the time.
On a completely different note ~
Psalm 42:1-2 ~
"As the deer pants for the water, So pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God"
42:5-6
"Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, For the help of His countenance. O my God, my soul is cast down within me; Therefore I will remember You from the land of Jordan..."
42:7
"deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me. The Lord will command His loving kindness in the daytime, And in the night His song shall be with me - A prayer to God of my life."
42:11
"Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God."
This Psalm was written by the descendants of Korah and was very likely written during the Israelites exile. Also, Korah had rebelled against Moses and was swallowed by the earth, wrong decision on Korah's part, but his descendants chose a different path and remained faithful to God. It is wonderful to know that God is a God of new beginnings and regardless of your past or your family's path, He is a God of redemption and reconciliation.
God is a God of infinite depth and He calls to us in the depth of our innermost being, deep calls unto deep, and there deep in our souls and spirits and deep in our pain and our joy, deep in our loss and our gain, deep within who we are we meet our Creator. And this is difficult for us in our society that is geared towards superfluous existences, a society that drives people to endless noise and constant busyness of nothingness and in this relentless pace and space of useless activity we miss the deep call of the Spirit. And we continue to spin our wheels in the mud and we dirty ourselves and those around us with the muck and the mire that comes from all this incessant chatter and useless busyness. Here, let's talk about this in 2012 terms ~ God is not going to text us, email us, tweet or twitter us, and I am quite sure He is not going to catch up with us on our Facebook pages. He is depth and He resides in the depth of His people and He meets with His people in the inner places if they are able to slow and be still and abide in Him. But, our enemy, our adversary, desperately wants to keep us bound up in his noise and fills our lives and our days with his useless chatter and he drowns out the voice of God with this loud and noisy nothingness. There is nothing superficial or skin-deep about our God and He does not want to coexist with this superficiality.
We are driven and taught to avoid every instance that may cause any pain or discomfort, Satan pushes us to run from this pain into the addictive arms of luxury and comfort because he knows that deep calls unto deep and God is calling to us in the depth of our pain and that deep pain gives birth to a new kind of joy, a real and heavenly joy. The Psalmist speaks of a sad soul right before verse 7 and right after. Our disquieted and cast down soul so often precedes the deep call of God and the Psalmist calls us to cry out to God in praise and worship even in our despair because the deep is calling us and it is a far sweeter voice then anything this world can produce.
And we know that God promises to be near us in the depths of our pain ~
Psalm 34:18 ~ "The Lord is near to those who are broken hearted, and saves such as have a contrite heart."
And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. That is not me, that is Paul (Romans 5:3-5). Why does Paul glory in tribulations? because he knows and lives Ps. 42:7 and he knows God calls to him in the deep; the deep pain and the deep joy, but deep all the same. And when our inner man throws off the distractions and chatter of this world and hears the Voice that has always been and will always be, then nothing else will do, no, not even Facebook.
So, if God is asking you to do something that you are quiet sure will break your heart, then do it joyfully knowing that the deep is calling and He is calling you, what could be more life changing and profound then that?
Oh, and I can neither confirm nor deny whether or not one of my new daughters managed to get out of the house with her undies still on under her suit. I can say nothing, except to say that Trae leaned over to me a few minutes after the "incident" and said, "Mom I think ______________ still has her underwear on!" And we may or may not have laughed a little together in the Beaufort Y over the alleged "undie incident."
The rest of our time at the Y went beautifully though I must say, which I am quite proud of. Rue got back in the water and Tsinat death gripped me and laughed and squealed and played in the water and we did not have another incident, Yea!! I did notice though that the poor lifeguard never took his eyes off of us.
Everything else has run pretty smoothly though. I think we have finally run out of gum to hide and there have not been any apple cores hidden in the closet. We are learning to scramble our own eggs and some how we keep managing to crack the eggs on the floor, not the bowl, not sure how that keeps happening. We also dumped the sugar bag all over the pantry floor, again unsure of how we managed that. Rue is very playful and she and Grace are at this very moment racing around the house wrestling with each other. Tsinat is still quiet, even though we see improvements in her English every day. Tsinat continues to eat like a full grown man and I do not expect to see a change in that anytime soon. Rue has met with her deaf education teacher who will work with her once a week and she is very pleased with Rue's signing and her academic abilities. Our teacher, Julie, actually spends far more time trying to teach me how to teach Rue I think, I am quite sure she finds Rue a better student than me. It is tough to teach an old dog new tricks but we get through each day and we continue to look more and more like a family (and sound like family) all the time.
On a completely different note ~
Psalm 42:1-2 ~
"As the deer pants for the water, So pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God"
42:5-6
"Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, For the help of His countenance. O my God, my soul is cast down within me; Therefore I will remember You from the land of Jordan..."
42:7
"deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me. The Lord will command His loving kindness in the daytime, And in the night His song shall be with me - A prayer to God of my life."
42:11
"Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God."
This Psalm was written by the descendants of Korah and was very likely written during the Israelites exile. Also, Korah had rebelled against Moses and was swallowed by the earth, wrong decision on Korah's part, but his descendants chose a different path and remained faithful to God. It is wonderful to know that God is a God of new beginnings and regardless of your past or your family's path, He is a God of redemption and reconciliation.
God is a God of infinite depth and He calls to us in the depth of our innermost being, deep calls unto deep, and there deep in our souls and spirits and deep in our pain and our joy, deep in our loss and our gain, deep within who we are we meet our Creator. And this is difficult for us in our society that is geared towards superfluous existences, a society that drives people to endless noise and constant busyness of nothingness and in this relentless pace and space of useless activity we miss the deep call of the Spirit. And we continue to spin our wheels in the mud and we dirty ourselves and those around us with the muck and the mire that comes from all this incessant chatter and useless busyness. Here, let's talk about this in 2012 terms ~ God is not going to text us, email us, tweet or twitter us, and I am quite sure He is not going to catch up with us on our Facebook pages. He is depth and He resides in the depth of His people and He meets with His people in the inner places if they are able to slow and be still and abide in Him. But, our enemy, our adversary, desperately wants to keep us bound up in his noise and fills our lives and our days with his useless chatter and he drowns out the voice of God with this loud and noisy nothingness. There is nothing superficial or skin-deep about our God and He does not want to coexist with this superficiality.
We are driven and taught to avoid every instance that may cause any pain or discomfort, Satan pushes us to run from this pain into the addictive arms of luxury and comfort because he knows that deep calls unto deep and God is calling to us in the depth of our pain and that deep pain gives birth to a new kind of joy, a real and heavenly joy. The Psalmist speaks of a sad soul right before verse 7 and right after. Our disquieted and cast down soul so often precedes the deep call of God and the Psalmist calls us to cry out to God in praise and worship even in our despair because the deep is calling us and it is a far sweeter voice then anything this world can produce.
And we know that God promises to be near us in the depths of our pain ~
Psalm 34:18 ~ "The Lord is near to those who are broken hearted, and saves such as have a contrite heart."
And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. That is not me, that is Paul (Romans 5:3-5). Why does Paul glory in tribulations? because he knows and lives Ps. 42:7 and he knows God calls to him in the deep; the deep pain and the deep joy, but deep all the same. And when our inner man throws off the distractions and chatter of this world and hears the Voice that has always been and will always be, then nothing else will do, no, not even Facebook.
So, if God is asking you to do something that you are quiet sure will break your heart, then do it joyfully knowing that the deep is calling and He is calling you, what could be more life changing and profound then that?
I think the near-drowning incident is a rite of passage for us mommas of our little Ethiopians ... Sam's attempted drowning was just about 30 hours after setting foot on American soil. He seriously had no instinct in the water. None.
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