Belonging (or lack thereof)

Today I ate a feast of goat meat with my fingers, encouraged my children digging in the dirt and told them to stop bothering the goats, caught a chicken to show Gracie, and laughed about rats while sorting through dusty books...

I've been pondering "belonging."

I grew up to be a third culture kid - an American missionary kid who didn't belong in America. I looked American, but wasn't. My passport said I was American, but my heart didn't.

Over the years, through college, medical school, residency, I drifted into becoming more American. I started to belong to America.

Then I moved back to Africa. And I don't belong in Africa. I will never be Acholi, no matter how hard I try. But now, after two years of living in Africa again, I certainly don't belong in America.

So... where do I belong?

My children will (hopefully) struggle with this very question. Yes, I pray that my children feel that discomfort of belonging (or lack thereof). Because this struggle is essential to the Christian life, as we live as "aliens and strangers in this world" (I Peter 2:11), looking forward to an eternity of belonging to Christ (II Peter 3:3-18).

Within our own culture, within our own family, surrounded by friends who understand us, it can be too easy to slip into a false sense of belonging. We DON'T belong anywhere in this world. As Christians, we are NEW creations in Christ (II Corinthians 5:17).

Take comfort and find joy!

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Family of Three!

We are in Liberia - the electricity goes in and out because the generator is having trouble keeping up these days! So hopefully it will stay on long enough to post and the internet connection will allow me this luxury! We were united with precious Gracie on Thanksgiving day - I will write more about this later. But, oh! is Gracie a joy! She is so beautiful, so joyfilled, and a bit mischievious. Her physical limitations do not permit her to accomplish much mischief, but we can tell that she is trying to push some limits already. If we were not in love with her already, she is irresitable and such a treasure and blessing from God. In our two days together, she has not cried once. She spends most of her days smiling, she loves to snuggle (good match for us!), and has the most contagious laugh! Life takes more effort for her - her cerebral palsy is moderate and every activity is a challenge and is clearly tiring for her. Meal times (which she loves) take a long time and much patience and d...

New Stage of Life

Gracie has entered a new developmental stage. She now is active and has been rolling all over the floor. We cleared out a little living room so that she would have room to roll around - she's rolling front to back, both directions. She also has been much easier to get up on all fours - it used to take 3-4 adults to cram her into the crawling position due to her resistance. She now even spontaneously gets into a semi-crawling position on her own. In the crawling position she's been weight bearing even on her right arm (but always in combination with her left arm). She also has been rocking a little in the crawling position as if she gets it that this is a way that you can move! It's been so exciting. But it also makes her much more eager to be down with other kids and moving around. She's in a very active active stage, always moving, and wanting to move. She's also taken, not just a huge interest in other kids, but also interest in toys a bit more. She's so fun!

Check out this progress!

A year ago, my friend Rachel http://josiecomehome.blogspot.com/ emailed a photo of her beautiful son standing on his own... I've since dreamed of having a photo to post of Gracie doing the same thing. It was always one of those wild-don't-think-it'll-ever-happen kind of dreams, a romantic, fairy tale type of dream. But this week, Gracie made another leap in development and muscle tone. It started when I leaned her up against the wall and planted her feet a shoulder-width apart. For the first time, she didn't lunge for the safety of my arms or hands, but rather, she allowed herself to stand steadily on her own two feet and she kept her center of gravity centered over her feet instead of wildly in front of her or to one side or the other. She even quickly figured out that she couldn't lurch around in excitement while standing on her own two feet with no support but a wall behind her back, but rather had to express her excitement over this new development with a gentl...

Rattins living Coram Deo

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