[ with or without me ]

It’s been almost six months since that day I read the words I didn’t want to read and fell on the floor, subsequently falling into the deepest valley of grief I’ve ever walked through.  Losing Anahi & Yessenia from my life has hurt like hell.  There’s not a gentler way to say something that’s been so brutal.  Today I was talking to God, and I heard these words from myself, leaving my mouth & reaching to the heavens, breaking through my bitterness.

“Thank you for giving Anahi & Yessenia a family.”

I said those words through tears, and the tears came again when I typed them out.  But I said them, & I meant them.

Then I was flipping through my prayer journal, and I found something I wrote on February 3rd, just a few days before social services took the girls from the orphanage, but this time I could read it without wanting to throw my journal across the room.  The first time I re-read what I had written, months ago, I started crying & begging God to bring the girls back.. saying, “I take it back, I take it back, I don’t want you to raise them without me, I take it back.”  But today I read these words again and I don’t take it back, I still mean them.  So I’m going to share.

 

February 3rd 2014

You are the God  w h o   s e e s   m e .
You are for me.
You know the desires of my heart.
You will never leave me or forsake me.
You are holding my hand, & You will  n e v e r   l e t   g o .
You are good.
You are faithful.
& You LOVE me.
You even like me.
You are working all things together for my good, & for the good of my girls.
You who have begun a good work in me will be faithful to complete it.
You take  d e l i g h t   in me.
You made me, exactly who I am & as I am, fearfully & wonderfully, & I am enough.
You meet me where I am.
You can handle me.  I am not too much for You, even when I scream & swear at You.
You are holy.  And I can’t even begin to fathom what that truly means.  Holy Holy Holy God.
You are worthy.  Worthy of my gratitude.
You are enamorado conmigo.
You are mine & I am Yours, Beloved.
You are my first Love.
You call me Amada. ❤️
You have given me a  n e w   h e a r t , with new & right desires, & You have put a new Spirit in me.
You will do something beautiful with my life.
You ARE doing something beautiful with my life.
You are my Abba.
You have made me a Mother.
You love my daughters even more than I do.
You know what is best for them.
You have plans to give them a future & a hope. [ with OR without me ]
You will be with them  a l w a y s .
You knew them first, loved them first, parented them first.  You are their Papi.
You will heal their broken hearts.
You will show them they are Beloved, unique, precious,  b e a u t i f u l , resilient, strong, & Yours.
You will do  m i r a c l e s  in their lives.
You will bring them Mothers & Fathers to reflect to them your MotherFather heart.
You will comfort them when they cry.
You will pray over their sleeping selves.
You will  r e j o i c e  over them with singing.
You will teach them who You are & who they are in You.
You will never leave them or forsake them.
You will hide them in the shelter of Your wings.  Safe.  Comforted.  Held.
You will be there,  a l w a y s , to turn to.
You can be trusted with their precious lives.
You are to be trusted with their beautiful lives.
You will celebrate their birthdays.
You will teach them proper table manners.
You will set the lonely in  f a m i l i e s .
You are the God who SEES them.
You will lead them to Your heart.
You will paint their fingernails.
You will make them smile and appreciate their laughter & joy.
You will sing to them good morning.
You will pray with them before bed.
You will buy Yessenia braces.
You will send Anahi to college.
You will hug Mina todo el tiempo.
You will soften Chela’s heart.
You will listen to Angela sing.

And all of this, Jesus… all of this Spirit, all of this Father…
You will do
with or without me.

You are their first FatherMother, and You will not forget Your daughters.

So God.  I give them back to you.  I place my girls back into Your hands, again.

I trust You God.
I trust You to care for these  b e a u t i f u l   g i r l s .
Jesus I give You Mina.
Jesus I give You Angela.
Jesus I give You Rosa Isela.
Jesus I give You Anahi.
Jesus I give You Yessenia.

They are Yours.  They have always been Yours, & they will always be Yours.

And they will grow up to be beautiful, strong, capable, authentic, smart & lovely women, as You intend for them to be.

With or without me.

 

Bright Light Girl

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”

-Mother Teresa 

Sometimes I remember how in high school I got to see so many different people who I loved & cared about every single day, how I shared a locker with my marvelous cousin, how I used to ride around in all kinds of cars with all kinds of friends, and I think, “Dang, it would be nice to live that again.” But then I remember the homework and the drama and basically everything else about that time, and I think, “Naaaawww.” ahaha

There was a girl in my high school with bright blonde hair, bright blue eyes, bright light personality, bright brilliant mind… BRIGHT everything, basically. Like a sliver of the freaking sun itself.

It was her brightness that bothered me.

Obviously she was a constant fountain of joy & silliness because life had never been cruel to her. Obviously she didn’t understand that life had not been so gracious to all of us. Obviously I could never relate to her, someone so untouched by sorrow & shame & reality.

We had one thing in common though: a love of the Earth. Environmental Club was where I would see her each week.. glowing with her silliness, bubbling with her joy. Shining bright like that sliver of the sun that she was.

But all I could see in her was someone who didn’t understand what it was to be real.

One morning between classes I was in the girls’ bathroom, and I don’t remember what was going on with me but I know I was feeling horrible. I know this because of my reaction when I accidentally bumped my notebook off the sink and it landed on the floor. Nothing even fell out of my notebook, it had only fallen on the floor, no big deal. But because of how I was feeling it was a major deal, and I remember standing there, taking deep breaths, staring at my notebook on the floor, feeling absolutely defeated, like it was the straw that was going to break this camel’s back.

Then the voice came from beside me, amidst the hum of the hand dryers and the chatter of adolescent girls fixing their makeup in the mirrors. It was the voice of that Bright Light Girl, but that morning her voice didn’t sound naïve to me anymore, her voice only sounded gentle.

“Sometimes I have days like that too.”

Her voice landed on my hurting heart softly, like a balm, working it’s way into the cracking crevices inside me. Her bright blue eyes spoke to me of understanding, of wisdom, of someone who had suffered her share as well yet chosen joy over bitterness.

I didn’t say anything to her but I walked out of that bathroom and I started crying, and even now… all these years later, remembering that moment, remembering her simple, heartfelt words makes me cry still.

I had been so wrong about her.

Her brightness didn’t come from only living happy moments, only experiencing sunny days. Her brightness came from the Light within her, allowing her to sparkle like the sun no matter what she was living through.

Now when I think of Megan I think of Lucia from Max Lucado’s picture book about the Wimmicks. Lucia didn’t let anyone else’s opinions about who she was mark her, she simply trusted in the One who had carved her out of wood. Now when I think of Megan I’m reminded of the fact that we are always surrounded by others whose lives and presence can work like balm seeping into our dry broken places. But unless we look past what we assume separates us… we’ll never experience the beauty of learning how alike we really are. We’ll never hear that soft, gentle, beautiful voice saying, “Me too, Sister. Me too.”

 

“Everyday I’ve been hoping you’d come.” Eli explained. 
“I came because I met someone who had no marks.”
“I know.  She told me about you.”
“Why don’t the stickers stay on her?”
“The stickers only stay if they matter to you.  The more you trust my Love, the less you care about the stickers.”

Ladybug *

*I have “Cami’s” permission to share this piece of her & K’s story.

“Behold, I make all things new.”  Revelation 21:5

 

Kaiya was just a little Bun In The Oven when I met her, eight months old on the inside. I remember sitting next to her Momma at the dinner table, belly swollen big. Camila was fifteen, only fifteen, and I remember judging her for that. Not in a harsh way, if that’s even possible with judgment, but I judged her just the same… wondering who the boyfriend had been who’d helped her belly swell big.

The first time I saw Little Ladybug outside her Momma’s belly she was six months old, a chubby lil’ thang. I was only visiting for several days but most of my pictures from that visit are of her. Living in a house of thirty other girls, she was everybody’s Little Darling.

Kaiya was eight months old the next time I went back to Casa Hogar, but I was there to stay a little while that time. She was standing up by then, and swishing her squishy little body back and forth with any music we’d play. Dancing. = ) I watched her take her first steps, cheering her on, thrilled, before she plopped back down on her diapered bum. She was laughing then, bright bubbly laughter.

During those six weeks one of my jobs was to translate the children’s files into English. That was how I learned many of their stories, and here is something I wrote about that experience, of reading those stories, on October 20th 2010:

“What kind of world have we become that when a woman’s husband is molesting her daughters, she takes them to live in an orphanage instead of calling the police? Where a two year old is witness as their Grandmother kills their baby sister. Where a man kidnaps his wife and murders her, and their sons are taken to an orphanage as their story is told on the news. Where a father ties his little girl to a chair and forces her to watch as he molests her sister. I’m getting SICK of learning these things about every child living here.”

None of the kids were there because they were orphaned, I was learning.  Most of them were there because of abuse, or neglect, or abandonment.

Reading those files is where I learned Camila’s story as well. She shared it with me later, in her own words, once we’d become close, but it was just as devastating to hear the second time. I read Babygirl’s file first:

“Kaiya was conceived as a result of rape, by Camila’s stepfather.”

What?? No. No no no no no. No.

There had never been a boyfriend help make her belly swell big. There was only a stepfather, who raped her over and over again for years. There was another baby before Kaiya, but Camila’s little body miscarried.

Cami is so strong, she is so resilient, and she is so beautiful.

Sometimes the obvious is worth stating.

Kaiya was a year and a few months old the next time I found myself Mexico Home, and although she was not my responsibility I often took care of her anyway while her Momma was at school. For five months long Little Ladybug soaked up my love, although she was plenty plenty loved by her Momma. A year later I was back for several weeks to visit, and a year after that I was back for another month. Watching Kaiya grow from that Baby Bump to a walking, talking, sassing little girl has been one of the great privileges of my life.

The last time I was Mexico Home Kaiya wasn’t there. She & Cami had moved out of the orphanage, and although I doubted Kaiya would even remember me I was still missing her. She was four years old then, and had only spent what? eight months of her life with me nearby. But one weekend she came to visit, I saw her from far away and stopped statue still in my tracks. I gasped deep, taking her in, and then she saw me. It had been an entire year, but she saw me and she came RUNNING. She flew into my arms and I remember spinning around, holding her tight, wanting to cry but not wanting her to mistake joyful tears for sad ones. Kaiya spent the entire weekend following me around, declaring things like: “I’m going to sleep with you in your bed, because you love me a lot.” I don’t remember what else she said, but I remember her explaining to me multiple times, “…because you love me a lot.”

She remembered.

Some people say that God orchestrates life so that, “Everything Happens for a Reason.”

I think that sounds kind of nice, but I don’t think it’s true at all.

What I do believe is that God creates beauty out of every kind of messy. Out of every kind of tragedy, every kind of sinful, every kind of awful. We’re the ones who create the mess, it’s our sin blemishing this world with hatred & selfishness & rape & murder. That’s us, people. That is so not God, causing “everything to happen for a reason.” Yet it is God, constantly consistently entering into the most broken places of our hearts and world, to bring healing, to bring beauty, to bring joy.

When I see Kaiya, first I see a beautiful little girl whom I love wild & fierce. I see a joyful heart, a sassy strong-willed character, a bright bubbly laugh, big brown eyes, a mischievous smile.

But sometimes I remember the way her life began, and when I remember that slight sliver of her story what I see is the most shattered, broken, destroyed circumstance… completely taken over, filled, redeemed, by God’s consuming Love.

Nothing is too broken, nothing is too messy, for God to transform, to make new, to reclaim as His own.

cookie love

“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”
-Mark Twain

Outside Kiwi House it is a beautiful day: rolling green hills, a tickling breeze, the warmth of the sun.

Inside there is chaos. Again. Our child “has a bad attitude.” Read: Our child is acting like he’s been raised by rabid wolves. He is acting nasty mean, throwing insults and anger around like confetti, and we’re all being covered in it. Bits & pieces of his broken heart, flying around to settle like thistles, daggers, poison, all over my body.

All afternoon it is the same old, same old. His wretched words make their way into my heart, spreading like a plague, filling me with bitterness. I’ve been told and told and told again that his behavior shouldn’t affect me, that I choose whether or not to allow his actions to dictate my emotions. I get it. But I don’t know how to do that. Is it even possible?! Hasn’t God created us to be inter-connected? Don’t my own actions always affect others… rippling outward from myself to touch those around me, and those around them, rippling out all the way to the ends of the earth?

I am baking cookies, speaking gently to him, correcting him with patience. I seem very calm, but I am so. not. calm. Inside I am boiling & seething with frustration, with anger. I am tired of this same old, same old. Every day, over & over again with this poison confetti. I’m sick of it.

He starts decorating cookies: slathering them with frosting, piling on the sprinkles. I want to send him far, far, faraway from me, but I stay quiet and he stays close.

Then he turns to me, smile wide, eyes bright. He hands me a cookie he’s decorated, just for me. He places it in my hand and squeezes his arms tight around me.

My boy runs off but the cookie stays on the counter. I am rolling out more dough and the longer I stare at that cookie the more the truth settles into me, deeper than those daggers, of what my child was saying to me when he placed it into my hand.

 

Want me.

 

Love me.

 

Forgive me.

 

 

& so I do.

on being your harbor

“Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a MOTHER ❤️.” -Danielle Nesbit Silva  *

Sweet Child of Mine, who is not really mine, yet absolutely is all at the same time,

It was not me who labored to bring you into this world, but I do labor each day in an attempt to make this world more beautiful for you, and you more beautiful for this world.

It is the greatest honor of my life, to be trusted by God to Mother you & the others He’s entrusted to me. I remember how that word used to scare me so, the weight of it, thrown onto me by the little girls who came before you. Mami. I told them not to call me that, but they wouldn’t stop, and so after awhile I settled into a different kind of life, a different way of being, under the beautiful weight of this tremendous honor.

You wouldn’t stop either, you wouldn’t stop chasing after me, inviting me to love you as my own. I will remember always the first time you grabbed my face between your tiny hands to exclaim to me, “Tú eres mi Mami!”

“You are my Mommy!”

Oh Sweet Child, there are those who think of you as the Lucky One, the Blessed One… to have been rescued from a more difficult kind of life, to be cared for now so lovingly, but I know the truth. I am the Lucky One. I know the truth. You bring more to my life than I bring to yours.

You’ve fallen again, crashed into something as you run wildly around in your Little Boy Joy. Your cry alights bright in my heart a fierce need to protect you, to comfort you, but before I reach you there you are reaching for me. We find the ice, or the band-aids, or a song to sing… and as your cry dissolves into my shoulder I always end up thinking the same thing:

“Oh Baby Boy, it is such an honor to be your safe place.”

Over & over again those are the words to run through my mind. When we’re out walking and stranger dogs approach, and you quickly run back to hide yourself behind me. When the other children have left you outside alone to play, and you run to the door, pounding & crying, rushing again into my arms where your fear dissipates. When once again you’ve fallen with your bicycle, your legs trapped beneath it, you cry & call for me because you know I’ll come running to rescue you. When another child has bullied you, your hand finds mine because you know you’ll find comfort there. Over & over again these are the words to run through my mind: I am your safe place.

My hope is that one day, one day you’ll be able to recognize your Abba Father as your true safe place. That it will be God you go running to first when the world has been cruel. But for now, it is my labor to show you what a safe place is, it is my labor to give you glimpses of that MotherFather heart of God, it is my labor to impress upon your heart the truth that God is with you, always always always.

I kiss your forehead and you say with your silly little smile, “Gracias Mami!” And the weight of that word scares me still, it is a tremendous & holy responsibility, to be your Mommy. To be your safe place, to be a woman God has given to you to share with you His very heart, Her very Love. It’s a scary word, but it’s a beautiful word… & it will forever be my greatest honor, my greatest joy, to have been for you & for the others God has given to me: Mami.

* I know this quote, said by a beautiful friend of mine, doesn’t apply to all women, I know not all of us desire to be Mothers. But it does apply to me, & that’s why I’ve included it.

to thank you

I was alive, bright like berries in the sunlight when I met you. Bursting with love, overflowing with joy. The beauty & peace of God splashing through me. A season of dancing with the Divine.

*   *    *

“Even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.”
Khalil Gibran

*   *   *

It’s two years later now and here we are again. I sink my hands into sudsy water, and there is comfort waiting for me there. Dirty glass dunks under to meet my sponge and break out new & clean. Over and over the rhythm of filthy to pure, the cleansing of these dishes is cleansing to me. I am quiet at the sink, hands immersed in those soapy waters when your voice interrupts this therapy of mine.

 

“I feel like the girl I knew in Pichilemu is so different than who you are now.”

 

I make my mouth smile but a sad smile is all I can summon & I speak the truth right back to you:

 

“A lot has happened.”

 

I don’t cry but I want to. My daughters are gone. My other daughters are so far away: I’m missing out on precious years of their childhood. My Daddy is sick. I am parenting a child who acts as though I am the worst thing to ever possibly enter his life. I am Mothering in a trinity of women marked by dissonance instead of unity. I feel trapped and forgotten and forsaken by God. I feel emptied & barren. I don’t dance with the Divine anymore. I don’t talk to the Divine anymore.

 

There is no joy splashing out of me anymore, just water splashing over dirty plates in the sink. Again & again, yellow sponge on mismatched silver, filthy to pure. Warm water and prism bubbles reminding me of the beauty I used to see in everything.

 

You stay there next to the dishes dripping dry and ask me if I remember a drawing I drew two years ago. Crayons, I used crayons. Bright green grass, yellow shining sun, blue birds flying and rainbow flowers blooming. It was me in that drawing, bright like berries in the sunlight.

 

“Don’t let yourself lose those colors…”

 

Your words are bold and brutal but they are true and now I am crying. I am crying because I feel those colors have drained out of me, gone with my girls and my Daddy and my joy. I am crying because I can’t remember what it felt like to be her, alive & bursting with love… but I know it felt better than this. Than dishes in the sink, than surviving, counting down the hours til bedtime from the moment the alarm startles me awake. I am crying because those colors are gone, that girl is gone, and all that’s left of her is a silhouette, a ghost of a girl who used to live her life in technicolor.

*   *   *

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.”
Khalil Gibran

 

*   *   *

 

Months go by and the pain feels duller now. I am moving through my grief, crying less & laughing more. I catch glimpses of that technicolor girl once in awhile, and I think maybe those colors are still inside of me somewhere after all.

 

One day a friend asks me for a favor, she asks so gently, so kindly, if maybe perhaps I could help teach a class to some children. She knows how fragile I feel and so she is careful not to push me. I plan to politely decline, I plan to say no because saying no is easier. It is safer to stay locked up tight within this grief I’ve grown accustomed to.

 

But you interrupt her, you speak boldly to me. You ask me to teach this lesson and you leave no space to answer you no.  You look past these bruises and the cocoon I’ve woven around myself. You look past my tired face and my saddened eyes and you somehow see that rainbow girl still. You know she is in there somewhere, so you speak boldly and I am taken aback. How dare you suggest I should do something I don’t feel ready for. But you still remember that girl who splashed the presence of God all over when she taught, and so you speak to her. I don’t want to and I don’t feel ready to, but I see you believing in me still and somehow I hear myself say yes.

 

The lesson is simple but I am scared. It’s been so long. But I am brave and I teach those tinies and I love doing it. I sit with them there, using drawings and clay and mirrors to explain to them the truths I want them to tuck into their hearts… and I feel like that technicolor girl again. I feel like myself again.

 

It was good for me, choosing to be brave, choosing to step out of that cocoon, and doing something I used to love to do. But I’m ready to step back inside now, where I’m hidden & where I’m safe. But then there you are again, asking me to help with something else. You know I don’t want to but you ask anyway because you see that technicolor girl in me still. I don’t want to but again I say yes, and because of it again I’m standing in front of others, feeling exposed but also feeling brave. And it is good. It is not so hard this time. I am really ready now though, to crawl back inside my cocoon. But then you call me over and ask me to pray over the people we’re with. I look at you, my eyes flashing frustrated to say, “Are you freaking kidding me?!? Leave. Me. Alone.” But I do it. I am brave and I open up my mouth to bless those people, it is hard for me but I think a little bit of God even splashes out.  And then the miracle happens:

 

I feel a burst of color escape to my surface from where that rainbow has been hidden all these months long.

 

And so I think this is what I need to do: I think I need to look at myself long & hard, until I too am able to look past this tired face and these saddened eyes, underneath to where that dancing girl still exists. I need to believe she still exists, because she does. Thank you for seeing her when I couldn’t. Thank you for pushing me to be brave. Thank you for helping me come back to life.

 

-Brian Andreas

theme song

As I come back to life.

 

 

^“My bitterness will turn into peace… You have loved back my life from the pit of corruption and nothingness, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back…”
Isaiah 38:17