Mandie Joy Turner, Author at The Sparrow Fund

April 21, 2014April 22, 2014

what makes us really free

The mail came just as we were walking out the door, in it a surprise package for the girls. Tearing into the paper, they found crayons and coloring books and one precious item that Emma immediately grabbed. “I snuggle with this in the car,” she announced.

The 45 minute drive to a friend’s house was quiet as she admired her treasure. To a child whose life has afforded very little to call her own, anything given directly to her holds deep value.

We walked into the house where she was meeting our new-to-her friends and within minutes, I saw her place the treasure in her new friend’s hand and say, “This for you.” Less than an hour of ownership and she was already generously giving this treasure away to a stranger.

I’m embarrassed to admit that part of me wanted to jump to her rescue and assure her that she did not have to give anything away, but who wants to adjust that level of generosity? I say that I want a culture of generosity in our home, but I can learn so much from these girls.

Not two hours later, the little girls reappeared from their games and loom band bracelet creations, Emma carrying a tiny gold necklace and glowing like she was carrying the moon. One of her new friends had returned her generosity 10-fold.

And I had to wonder, what security do these little girls know that allows such radical (in their economy) giving? They give without second guessing, without wondering how it will be received or whether they might regret it tomorrow. Could it be that they have watched the goodness and regular provision of their parents and realized that no matter how much they give away, there is a steady stream of both calculated and extravagant goodness that flows their way?

No, she’ll probably never get a replica of that little popsicle stick flower that she loved and her friend will probably never get another bumble bee necklace exactly like the one she gave, but they have a child-like trust that they are loved and that whatever happens, the people who love them are working for their good. Even for the former orphans living in my home, empty is becoming less about fear and more about getting to watch Mommy fill the bowl again…and again.

And their mama who wanted to stop all this giving and just let them keep what was theirs? That’s because lack is scary to me these days. I wonder how I’ll provide for them financially and still find time for their hearts. I second guess a family trip and a birthday gift, wondering if what was given should have been saved instead. Of course there’s wisdom in saving, but this little note isn’t for the extravagant spenders. It’s for the savers, like me, who hold back what could easily be given and make that into a habit of holding onto everything.

Would my level of generosity be dramatically changed if I truly believed that God would provide everything I need –especially if I give it away? What would I freely give away if I truly believed that He would not allow me to suffer any level of lack that was outside of His loving plan for my good and my heart’s health?

Seeing Emma hand over her little trinket stirred up so much love in me and all I wanted to do in that moment was take her to Target and buy her all.the.things. I’m so grateful God allowed me to watch and feel the delight of a parent when their child truly rests in provision, so much so that giving becomes a complete joy and not a threat of lack.

Because when you’re truly trusting, not only do you feel secure in what you have, but also in what you give away.

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,

how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

(Matthew 7:11)

free printable download available here

**Yes, I know that so many are generous without any assurance of future provision. I want to be like them, too, but for today, my take-away is that I DO have a Father who promises to provide – not always in my timing or my plan, but always just the same.

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Mandie Joy is a foster parent and mama of two beautiful little girls newly home from Africa. She blogs at www.seeingjoy.com.

March 6, 2014

True Words

A few months before leaving for Uganda, I heard something from Bethel Church about four phrases they teach to their youngest children’s classes to begin sealing truth
on their little minds and hearts early. The phrases are:

God is good, nothing is impossible, Jesus already won, and
everyone is important.

Immediately, I wrote them down, knowing that one day I would want to teach them to
my children. Little did I know at the time, however, that these words (and the ones
that followed them) would turn into a lifeline, not just for my children, but for
me.

The struggle to keep lies out of my head has been lifelong. I can remember lying in
bed as young as 4 and 5 years old and trying to shut out lies: you’re not safe,
people don’t like you, you’re a bad friend, tomorrow will be a bad day. Somehow,
over the years, I learned to repeat truth to myself over and over and prevent what I
assume could have turned into truly crippling fear.

Enter this adoption. As a single woman. In a country where fear has
captured generations. Of two children who knew fear intimately.

As much as the desire of my heart is to show my children that I am safe, my
own fears and the very reality that nothing about life is really safe led me to
realize that the only way to truly make my children feel safe was to introduce them
to Safety….Himself. Not necessarily a promise of physical safety,
but of an intimate relationship with a God who guards hearts and minds.

And so it came about that at night, before bed and long before their English allowed
them to understand the words, we recited those four little phrases above. As new
fears surfaced in them and in me, we added new phrases, eventually landing on nine
phrases that seemed to answer every lie that surfaced during the day. It is amazing
how quickly the girls took ownership of “our true words“, as they call them
now. Just yesterday, one of them was struggling under lies and said, “Mama, can
you please help me say some true words?”

Then last week, in the car, I made an error in judgement that resulted in something
breaking. The value was small, but it shaded my attitude about the day. Wondering
how much our true words were really taking practical effect in the girls hearts, I
said, “Girls, I made a mistake just now, and I’m really feeling bad about it. It
feels like the whole day is ruined because of the thing I broke. What true things
can you tell me to help me get my heart back on track?” Immediately from the
back seat came,

“Mama, don’t worry. Even grown-ups make mistakes sometimes. That thing was not
so important. You can get a new one.”

I read (in this amazing book) that the most valuable gift a parent can
give their child is the ability to return to joy from any negative emotion. If
nothing else, these true words are giving them that gift. They are learning to
recognize lies and speak truth to themselves and the people around them at such an
early age and I am reaping the benefits. My 6 year old can look me in the eyes and
say, “Mommy, I was wrong. I know that everyone is important,
but I did not treat you like you were important. Will you forgive me?”

So many friends have asked me to put the true words up here so they can begin using
them with their own kids, so here they are….finally. Click on the picture below to
access the PDF download.

And in case you’re wondering where these words come from:

God is good (Psalm 100:5)
Nothing is imposible (Luke 1:37)
Jesus Already Won (Philippians 3:12)
Everyone is important (Psalm 139:14)
My mommy and daddy love me (Isaiah 49:15)
Tomorrow will be a good day (Lamentations 3:23)
I am God’s treasure (Malachi 3:17)
I am the one Jesus loves (1
John 4:19, John 3:16)
Our family is the best (well, that one isn’t Biblical, but we say it anyway)

________________________________

Mandie Joy is a foster parent and mama of two beautiful little girls newly home from Africa. She blogs at www.seeingjoy.com.

January 22, 2014January 22, 2014

Beauty Unfolding

When I was 21 years old, my prayers for my future children began to take shape. It was as if I knew they were already alive, not necessarily waiting for me yet, but growing up in their own places and living their lives apart from mine for a season. That year, I began to pray for the children who would join my family in the future, realizing that they could be currently living through the circumstances that would create a need for adoption in the future. That’s a scary thought, knowing that your future child could be living through trauma and not being able to prevent or alleviate the circumstances.

The surprise of my life this whirlwind fall has been meeting the child who was born that year – the year I began praying for her without ever dreaming she was growing up in Africa. A few years later, her sister was born. My prayers had always been for them, so I should not have been surprised when even our first hours together showed evidence of God’s work in their hearts and mine long before we knew about each other.

But as this adoption took shape, so did my fears. I was afraid that they wouldn’t trust me, afraid that we wouldn’t be able to communicate, afraid that our attachment would take years. Normally, fear cripples me, but during that season I drove a friend’s car and listened to her CD about how God is a builder. It seemed weird to think He could build intangible things like positive emotions, trust, and attachments, but surely those things are easier to build than an atom or an ecosystem? So my fears began to shape my prayers as I asked Him to build a structure for safety and attachment in my girls before we even met. I asked Him to redirect their neural pathways, allowing them to bypass the things that had once caused fear and insecurity and immediately build trust with me. Obviously, we’re only a few months into this adventure, but almost daily I see evidence that my prayers were answered in amazing ways.

The child who was supposedly terrified of light-colored skin walked across a busy parking lot to put her hand in mine, long before she knew I was her mama. She found safety in me, a stranger who did not speak her language. The one who hung back, timid, and described herself as the one who “always kept quiet” when others took her things and made fun of her suddenly can describe her feelings with beautiful language that brings tears to my eyes.

As this beauty has unfolded, I’ve had to wonder if Jesus has been praying for me, His daughter – praying that my attachment to Him would be secure, that I would not respond to Him out of old wounds and habits, that God would build in me everything necessary to enjoy life as His daughter. I don’t know what God did to prepare my daughters’ hearts for me, but I wonder if this adoption (this uncertainty, this absence of home for Christmas, distance from friends and family, fear of inadequacy) have all been deliberate and gracious actions of a God who is building something new in me just as He is doing in my daughters.

What impossible are you asking Him to build this year?

________________________________

Mandie Joy is a foster parent and in-process adoptive mama of two beautiful little girls in Africa. She blogs at www.seeingjoy.com.

January 2, 2014

waiting

He started making eye contact a few days ago and when that happens, it’s impossible to not fall in love with the little boy whose big eyes stare at me over the bottle day after night after day. I tell him that he’s perfect, that someone is praying for him right now, begging that the next phone call will bring the news that their baby is ready. He grabs my finger and I tell him he’s so strong and that one day, maybe he’ll use that strength to fight for the ones who are waiting for families.

Waiting.

It’s impossible to hold one of these waiting ones or to look into the eyes of the ones I love across the ocean and not think, “Are there children out there waiting – right now – for me?” My friends walk off those airplanes with sons and daughters, beautiful and tall, whose eyes tell a story of long years spent waiting. And I’ve been there – lived there – long enough to witness their waiting. I know the ones who have watched friend after friend walk away with their new family and one of them scoots up next to me and says, “Will my family come next?”

So to keep my heart from breaking and theirs from growing hard, I take their faces in my hands and say it over and over and over. You’re beautiful. You’re loved. You were created on purpose. I tell her that she is loved – that this God she reads stories about is real and He’s a Father to us all, but especially to the ones who wait. I tell him that there are things in life that hurt us and if they hurt us they hurt Him, too. They can talk to Him like a Father.

On Mother’s Day this year, I tiptoed into the hospital nursery and scooped up one of the tiniest ones who was waiting. Just a few weeks later, I got to tell her forever mommy and daddy that I held her that day, told her they were coming, and prayed she would feel safe.

And I pray almost daily that there is someone doing the same for my children who might be waiting out there. I pray that someone is tucking them into a bed at night and kissing their foreheads and treating them with respect. I pray that when they look into the eyes of their caregivers, they see delight and safety reflected there. I pray that if they are alone, He would fill them with an unexplainable confidence that this is not their forever – that someone will come for them.

Isn’t that what our Father did for us? While we were waiting, He made a way for us to know that this is not out forever.

So while they wait for me and I wait for them and this little boy in my arms is waiting for someone else and I’m sure you’re waiting for something, too, let’s cling to the truth that this waiting is not forever and that the Father who planned our lives is good even when the minutes and hours aren’t. He promised.

Maybe your waiting looks different. Maybe you’re waiting for a new job or for a spouse to come home from deployment or for school to start or for your child to attach to you fully or maybe just for the baby to finally fall asleep. If, like me, you just need to be reminded over and over that He is good, pop on over to this littleInstagram space where my friend posts daily lifelines to the Father who keeps His promises.

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Mandie Joy is a foster parent and in-process adoptive mama of two beautiful little girls in Africa. She blogs at www.seeingjoy.com.

November 11, 2013November 10, 2013

how to love in uncertainty

When you decide to say yes to a child who might only be in your life for a few days, there’s a choice to be made.

How much will I love? Where will I draw the line of investing in this child’s emotional, spiritual, and physical wellbeing? How much of myself will I allow to be vulnerable so that this vulnerable child can feel safe?

When that baby is placed in your arms – when that child slips her hand into yours – you hope they will feel safe. But how much safety can I expect to exude if my own heart is guarded by so-called wisdom and held back by fear of letting go one day? It’s well known that I advocate a deep heart-giving in these kinds of situations. There are too many days when a particular child is hard to love, nights when someone wakes up just.too.many.times. On those occasions, I need to be fully invested. I need the attachment even more than they do on those days.

[photo by Morgan Perry]

Of course, this kind of commitment – this emotional and spiritual connection – leaves room for a deep sense of something missing when the child moves on. In fact, Rachel and I have found that when we’re honest about missing our Ugandan kiddos, it makes people uncomfortable. It’s as if the intensity or prolonged existence of the pain somehow calls into question the legitimacy of our grief. A few people have said that we should, “get over it already.” But somehow I don’t think it’s inconsistent to say that you miss someone while still rejoicing and profoundly approving of God’s plan for them to move on. Of course, choosing a heart posture that honors God in that grief is necessary. Maybe the rejoicing brings all the more glory to God because of the place of pain from which it comes.

But this post is not a discussion of how much to attach or how much to grieve. It’s about what to do when you attach all the way and then need to let go. I’m learning that there’s a healthy tension of loving fully, guarding my heart, and allowing myself to miss and it can only be maintained if I remember two things: who I am and who God is.

Let me tell you what I mean:

Everyone has their own style of attachment. Mine is to jump in no holds barred and love each child right nowbelieving, at the same time, that they might be in my life forever and they might be gone tomorrow. Those two very real possibilities call out the same level of commitment, intensity, steadfastness, and purpose in me. If this baby in my arms is my daughter, would I want to remember that I held back from her in our first months together? If she’s someone else’s daughter, loving her someone else means I lay down my life for them by caring for this child as if she were my own, ready to humbly return her to Jesus and allow him to place her in that someone else’s arms when the time comes.

There’s no profound revelation behind this heart stance. It’s simply what I’ve learned from the way Jesus loves me.He chose me before I loved him and he loves me whether or not I choose him. He loves me today with the same passion as tomorrow and yesterday, whether I’m walking close to him or turning by back to him in fear. His love is constant, consistent, sure. It’s this love I’m drawing on most days. There are days when I’m drawing from my own leaky bucket and on those days, he scoots in closer than ever and whispers, “Remember where you started this day? Come back.” It’s his consistent love that compels me to joy even when my circumstances (or those of the children I’ve loved) are not what I think they should be.

Trusting God’s goodness for the children I cared for in Uganda is not difficult at all. They are each living in homes where they are adored, where they are learning love, where they will grow up knowing God’s goodness on every level. But I still miss them, because when you dive in wholeheartedly in love towards a child who suddenly moves on, that place in your heart is left empty. The great thing about having empty places that no one understands and no one else can fill is that Jesus moves into them – if we ask him to.

In the case of several of my foster children (from long ago), the someone else who I was standing-in for turned out to be someone I didn’t trust. When it came time for them to go, I didn’t agree. Seven years later, I still don’t know where they are. This is not ideal, obviously, but sometimes it’s reality and my only salvation in a situation like that is to remember that the God who committed them to me for a season has committed Himself to them for a lifetime. That’s the promise.

My perspective of God’s goodness is too limited for me to attempt to tell him what that everlasting covenant should look like today – for me, for my family, for anyone I love. The fact that I don’t understand his timing is not a reflection on God’s goodness. It is a reflection of my struggle to trust his goodness. I can as soon fully understand the goodness of God as a baby can understand why her loving parents allow the doctor to give her a life saving, but painful, surgery. But whether or not I can fully understand him, I have him. And he is good.

____

The moments of missing are few and far between these days. They’re limited to anniversaries and the times when Rachel and I let ourselves reminisce about the improbabilities and chaos of that year in Uganda. But, when they do surface, my go-to phrase for Jesus is, “OK, I feel lonely here and I miss so-and-so today. What do you want to show me about yourself in this? Where are you for me right now?”

And let me just say, that little series of questions is like a key that unlocks things I didn’t know about Jesus and me. It turns the areas of my life that I don’t understand into spaces where I can go deep with Jesus. It turns fear into the most trusting friendship. It turns shame into the deepest acceptance. It turns loneliness into the sweetest communion with my truest Friend. And I’ll take that over avoiding pain any day.

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Mandie Joy is a foster parent and soon-to-be adoptive mama of two beautiful little girls who are waiting in Africa. She blogs at www.seeingjoy.com.

September 30, 2013

Praying For Our Children {While We Wait}

Perhaps the most awkward season of parenting is this one where an adoption is imminent, but miles of ocean and red tape still separate the waiting ones from the arms so ready to embrace them forever. As I go about my normal routine, they are always on my mind. Are they carrying water right now? Is someone coaching them to memorize the alphabet yet? What sounds fill their ears as they fall asleep? Crickets? Music? The words, beautiful or not, of the adults around them? Do they feel safe? Will they be terrified of me?

This kind of wondering and speculating can drive a mama’s heart to frantic anxiety because these children feel so real, so ours, and yet so out of reach.

Or are they?

When I was little, my mom used to tell me that when I wanted to talk to Jesus, I could ask Him to pull me onto his lap. That image has never left me and now, as I long to pull the girls onto my lap and meet their every need, it seems so obvious to just ask Jesus to do that for all three of us while we wait.

Throughout the day, my eyes close and He whispers “I’ve got you. What do you need?” The God who is not constrained by distance or time can gather us in the same space and doesn’t He love to build and restore? He’s the God who loves to make something out of nothing, to take what is not and make it real.

And so I ask Him to – even now when they don’t know I’m coming and my imagination of their days could be drastically inaccurate. Even now as I wonder what their personalities are like and if I’ll get to teach them to read, pull their first tooth, be the first one to say “I love you”. As paralyzing as the 10,000 miles separating me from the girls may seem now, life has taught me that even after those miles are crossed, fear and lost time and language barriers and trauma surface to remind that physical nearness is not the cure-all answer to our hearts’ ache. The kinds of wounds we’re dealing with here cannot be healed by cuddles and bedtime stories and back logged vaccinations alone. These are wounds, mine and theirs, that need the touch of a perfect Father – and we happen to have One who knows no limitations of time, space, and distance.

So when that Father sits beside their African beds while I eat my American lunch, why wouldn’t I ask Him to begin His work in them (and in me as their mother)…even now. I ask Him to begin building up their little hearts to know me, trust me, want me. I ask Him to gather their broken places in such a way that they will feel safe with me.

And you? Maybe the distance you feel is not miles, but invisible walls around a child’s heart. Maybe you’re a teacher whose little students walk home to empty refrigerators and absent parents and the few hours you have with them seem so insignificant to heal. This is for you, too.

Below is a PDF download of the verses I am praying over the girls (and have been praying over my yet-undiscovered waiting children for years). Many of them are from the Old Testament and I know that can be a hang up. They were specific to people and places and battles then, yes, but Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever. Those stories, words, and promises are recorded so that we know what we can ask. The history of those men and woman long ago is a promise for us to cling to here and now – to remember that just because our problems might be smaller than those of Gideon and David and Noah, our God is not.

He is waiting for us to ask Him to be bigger.

To access the full size pdf, click here.

PrayingForOurChildren

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Mandie Joy is a foster parent and soon-to-be adoptive mama of two beautiful little girls who are waiting in Africa. She blogs at www.seeingjoy.com.

February 10, 2012February 10, 2012

No Fear

When you decide to love and care for children who you know will never belong to you, you assume it will come with a significant amount of pain. During the months leading up to Eli & Ellie

Blog

Author: Mandie Joy Turner

what makes us really free

True Words

Beauty Unfolding

waiting

how to love in uncertainty

Praying For Our Children {While We Wait}

No Fear