A Faithful God Hears
We planned our summer vacation for this moment. 2,623 miles. And I couldn't watch.
He took a job out west working as a wrangler on a ranch this summer. The town's July 4th rodeo gave all the wranglers the opportunity to be cowboys.
He told me early June he was entering two events: Wild Cow Milking and Wild Horse Racing.
Wild Cow Milking was first.
His job was to chase down a roped cow and hold her still so a team member could milk her.
He had run and caught her three times, been tossed over her head, pressed under her weight, and dragged.
And he got up and went after that cow again.
In the end, he was too exhausted to hold her. She fell on him, the two tangled in the rope. I walked out of the arena. My son lying still in the dirt.
I had been praying about this day for weeks. I didn't slept the night before. I confess as a woman, I don't understand the urge for adventure that young men feel. Rather, I fear. When the boys want to do something even slightly dangerous, I replay multiple scerenos over and over in my mind always with a tragic ending. When they sign up to do something really dangerous, I get physically sick.
The morning of the rodeo, when I had exhausted my own resources to force my son to pull out, I pleaded, "Lord, if he's not ready to do these events, somehow stop it."
He lived through the Wild Cow Milking. Rope burned hands, a bit winded, a sore ankle. Thirty minutes after the event, I saw him. He smiled big under his cowboy hat. He had accomplished his goal to be in a rodeo. He had given it all he had.
There are some parts of raising sons that I will never grasp. Smiling after a five minute encounter with a 2,000 lb wild cow is one of them. But I do understand the mom's heart.
The tug between seeing my sons as little boys to be protected and letting them become men is continual. And so is the wrestle with God. Does He love my sons? Will He protect them when the circumstances are beyond my control? When I have to turn my back and not watch? I heard a loud yes to those questions at the rodeo. Wild Horse Racing was cancelled.
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Want to take a stab at which of my blog posts is the most popular?
Most of my readers would probably guess it to be a post about Nathaniel. His airway emergency in May had over a thousand views within ten hours. Posts about his hospital stay later that same month were equally visited. The post introducing him on adoption day had seven hundred views the first week.
But the most frequented page on my blog is not about Nathaniel. It is... drum roll....
I have enjoyed watching Nathaniel adapt to having his right hand in a cast. He is very creative. Like in the way he decided to look at a book today. He carried his Daniel Tiger book around all day and refused to go outside unless I let him take it along. I am not sure about that cast pillow, but he seemed comfortable and happy in moment. Pretty happy playing with big brother in "bean dirt" earlier this week too.
There were three places I wanted to be on Saturday night: my sister-in-law's surprise fortieth birthday party in Wisconsin, our church's annual fundraiser to support outreach to the marginalized in St. Louis City, and an Eagle Scout ceremony for a young man Rich has encouraged for years.
Instead I spent Saturday evening standing outside a chicken coop with Nathaniel.
I write so much about Nathaniel's communication needs, that I have not put into writing the other areas of development that we are addressing in therapy. There are many. Nathaniel continues to have a global developmental delay and some significant sensory processing needs. He has consistently received Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy in addition to his twice weekly Speech Therapy. We had a long day of appointments at St. Louis Children's earlier this month and the collective decision was to start some new weekly therapy there to address some of the sensory needs. We go tomorrow for our first visit, which increases OT to twice a week now. We are putting PT on hold for a time to allow for the extra focus on OT.
I needed Nathaniel. It’s all sugar sweet and lovely to think about adoption simply as orphans needing families and loving families stepping in, but there is more to the story.
We met Nathaniel on July 3, 2013.
Nathaniel Steven Rankin
It seems we've always had to cope with our children being away from home on Christmas.
Rich spotted it first. An empty bird's nest nestled in the branches. We paused. Admired. Took a photo. Considered the tree. But moved on, leaving the nest for whoever claimed the tree.
I went to court for the first time in my life yesterday. And it about did me in.
We were lying side by side on the floor in the empty bedroom when Rich whispered, “I want to submit our home study for the baby.”
She couldn't concentrate on the work and smile for the camera at the same time. Sunday night pretzels. An Uncle Rich tradition for 20 years and tonight Ellie was assigned the responsibility of helping to make dinner for everyone attending the family reunion.
In route to Arkansas last weekend to visit our daughter and her husband, one particular turn along highway 67 south caught my attention. I saw the first sign at least a half mile from the curve: large yellow rectangles on both sides of the road warning a sharp left bend. CAUTION. Blinking lights. Danger Ahead.
At our house the "Oh-my-goodness-it's-summer" turns into boredom in about 48 hours. Without a schedule and some resemblance of a routine, my children quickly resort to game systems to fill their days.
The Facebook message from my friend, Beth, caught me off guard.
I had thirty minutes to waste at Barnes and Noble last weekend and walked out with John Eldredge's Fathered by God: Learning What Your Dad Could Never Teach You. I didn't intend to by a book on manhood, or even intend to buy a book at all. But when I thumbed through Elderidge's book, a chapter title caught my attention: Cowboy.
I have a box of Christmas things marked "OPEN BEFORE THANKSGIVING." It contains the items we need to celebrate Advent: our wreath and candles, booklets of Advent readings from previous years, our Christmas music CD's, homemade nativity scenes, and three of our favorite family read-alouds for the Advent season
We had the opportunity this fall to visit the Menominee Indian Reservation in Wisconsin with a group of volunteers. We spent a Saturday cutting firewood for the tribe's senior citizens. As our group processed what it meant to be invited onto the reservation, we were challenged to think of ourselves as bridge builders from one culture group to another, and then further challenged to think of tangible things we could do to build bridges.
I had a few extra minutes before making Grandpa's breakfast this morning, and picked up Vicki Spandel's The 9 Rights of Every Writer. I wanted to review some of Spandel's insights on teaching. She is good. She got me by the end of chapter one - student writers have the right to be reflective.
Three weeks from today we'll take our fifth child to college for his freshman year. We've done this before; all summer I've falsely believed that fact would make this new transition easier. But as I shared coffee with my son this morning and started making the packing list, I felt the familial tug on my heart. And an occasional lump in my throat. He's leaving. Very soon.
We spent last week with my extended family. My brothers and I are scattered around the United States now, but every year we meet in our home town, Lakeside, Ohio.
We planned our summer vacation for this moment. 2,623 miles. And I couldn't watch.
There are some activities, like house cleaning day, when having a large family is a real blessing. And then there are other activities, like swim day, when having a large family not only makes the task harder, but can sometimes even be dangerous.
Recently one of our older children text late at night and asked if I had time to answer five very specific questions. I did. He called, and I answered the questions quickly. And then I asked, “Are you doing some kind of writing?” Having been his home school teacher, I recognized research mode. He shared that he was writing about what the resurrection of Jesus Christ means to him. The questions were focused on Nathaniel, and I curiously asked if he would share his work with me. And then I asked permission to share it with the world.