He is Greater.....John 3:30 says He must become greater, I must become less"

 It is the end of November.  I am reflecting on this month as Adoption and Foster care awareness month.  It was first meaningful for me back in the early 90s when Roger and I were dating.  We were traveling to Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with his family and decided to stop at the Iowa capital in Des Moines for a stretch break.  Wouldn't ya know they had all kinds of posters up declaring November to be Adoption/Foster Care awareness month!  What?!  The whole state?!  Yep.  I'm pretty sure I leaned over and gave my hunky boyfriend a hug and whispered in his ear....."you know this is a sign, right?"  (Pretty sure the color drained from his face as, in his mind's eye, he saw the next 25 years flash before him....but guess what.....he didn't dump me now did he?!)     Actually....the story backs up farther.  I have a vivid memory of a family gathering when I was a child.  There were not many children around and the adults...

 John 14:1-4 says...."Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God, trust also in me.  In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I am going there to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  You know the way to the place where I am going."   This is the scripture that my step-mom Mary had in mind when my dad died early Sunday morning....it was a verse that he had shared with her when she lost her own father....and she remembered.  Jesus is speaking to his disciples here....trying to help them understand that he is leaving because he needs to go.  He is saying that there is room....room in the Father's house, in Heaven, for all of them....for all of us.  He went ahead to prepare the place for us....and promised to come back for us.   We went to see Buzz Friday night.  When we...

 We crossed the bridge over the ravine yesterday.  We were heavily laden with luggage and backpacks filled with things that linked to memories and moments and time and significance....and also just lots and lots of stuff.  18 months worth of stuff.  We didn't even get it all packed up because fear showed up and we had to move, move, move to get across that bridge fast.       As we were preparing to cross the bridge, we also picked up some butterflies we didn't expect.  They fluttered in with some vivid wings of presence....memories of specific things, feelings that were fresh and raw like anger and truth....and I could feel myself picking up my shield and buckler as we identified some threats and fiery arrows and tried to catch the butterflies, deflect the arrows and figure out which things were dangerous....I was franticly trying to feed the other kids in the middle of it all because that's what moms do...and asked Roger to please just pray....

 If you were following along with the love story I wrote about in October, take the bookmark out of the page.  Read on. The love story progresses.  The journey to the happily ever after is frought with twists and turns and hills and valleys.  Two steps forward and three steps back as we navigate the trees and try to remember the forest they live in.  We keep moving forward even though at times it feels like we are simply jogging in place....this path to the happily ever after is full of pot holes and knarly roots that trip us up.  We are a bit scraped up and bruised and feeling tender in areas.....but we keep turning the pages.  The little boy is the hero of this story.  He has been acutely aware of every twist and turn and asked why and how and when and what if....and often why over and over and over....up the hills and down the valleys.  He sees the trees and has so many questions about them and why each one is placed in this forest....and ...

 Recently, I have used the phrase "leave and cleave" quite often.  When people ask what Claire and Jonah's plans are, I often say that they are moving wherever they find jobs and they will leave and cleave to oneanother. The idea of leaving and cleaving also pertains to our extra Kredit.  Cleave has 2 meanings.  One is to split or divide as by a cutting blow as one would cleave a log with an ax.  The second is to adhere closely; stick; to remain faithful (dictionary.com).  In a bible study book I am reading, she says "Cleaving is both a splitting apart and an attaching-paradoxical experiences poignantly represented by the journey of adoption."  The bible story referenece is from Ruth and Noami.  Ruth chose to leave her culture and embrace that of Naomi, and also to embrace living a life unto God.       XK is experiencing this cleaving.  Since he is just a little boy, its really hard because he understands that he is leavin...