The Year of Joy, in Review

"Here's to feeling good all the time."

~Kramer, "The Sniffing Accountant," Seinfeld 

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. ~Jesus, Matthew 5:4

In mid-December, on a day that fell in "that time of the month," I had breakfast with my friend Gina and I asked her an important question. 

"Gina, do I seem normal to you?"

Gina, God bless her, did not laugh at me, but, in her quiet way considered it, seeing in my eyes that I was serious. "Yes, you do," she answered.

"Do I seem like I'm doing okay? Like I love God and am happy about my life?"

"Yes, you do."  

"Okay, well let me ask you something else then. Do you feel happy for a couple of hours in the day and then for an hour feel bad? Like bored or discouraged or irritated?"

"Yes. That's life."

Oh. Yes. I believe I've heard that concept before. Why has it not sunk in? 

Well, part of why I didn't know this on that particular day was because of hormones, which make my brain whisper, "The reality is, you're nuts," about two days out of 30. (My cousin Kelley posted on facebook recently that she didn't know which was the real her: the PMS version or the non-PMS version. I wanted to send her a box of chocolates.) But really, deep down, even during hormonal stability, I would really rather not have emotional ups and downs and do my darnedest not to.When I experience "negative" emotions, I jump to bad conclusions about myself, the state of my life, and even the state of my standing with God.

In January of 2013 I heard God say: This will be your year of joy. I wrote a blog about it a year ago (http://www.scrapsofsoul.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-year-of-joy.html), and I wondered how that would shake out in reality. The Bible often says that joy will come through trials and suffering. I learned that lesson this year, but in a different way than I expected.

Here is the number one lesson I learned about myself in 2013: I want to feel happy all the time.

The number two thing I learned: I don't. And when I don't, I feel both guilty and afraid that I don't.

Number three: Being preoccupied with feeling good all the time makes the moments of good less satisfying and the moments of feeling bad much worse.Trying to feel good all the time also really hurts my relationship with my heavenly Father, who tells me that He wants me to be truthful, all the way down, even in my emotions: "Surely You desire integrity in the inner self, and You teach me wisdom deep within." Psalm 51:6.

I was raised by a dad who had great faith and always seemed to be happy. Having observed him and misinterpreted his example and teaching (as children of even the best parents are apt to do), I thought trusting God meant always feeling good and being grateful. Hence, the guilt when I don't feel good.

And having a history of anxiety and depression (which could be partially caused by the fact that I often felt guilty any time I felt bad growing up), I fear sadness. What I learned this year through study and experience is that sadness -- unlike clinical depression -- is productive. Sadness is an indicator that something is not right -- in a relationship for example -- and may lead to change and healing in the relationship.

Or sometimes, when sadness is caused by something unchangeable, like an incurable illness in a loved one, a loss, or a death, sadness is a necessary part of healing. Fearing that sadness in those instances is destructive. When I push sadness or mourning away from me, it crops up in other ways as anger or irritability or numbness. I can't feel compassion for others if I'm afraid to feel sad and so I cut myself off from others. But, when I allow myself to feel grief,  I've found it to be true what Jesus says, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."

One of the funniest scenes ever in the Seinfeld series is when Kramer goes "undercover" to try to find out if his accountant (who always seems to be sniffing)) is doing cocaine and squandering his money. Kramer sits next to him at the bar and assumes what he assumes to be the attitude of a drug user. With a cigarette hanging from his mouth, he looks at the sniffing accountant, holds up a pint of beer and says, "Here's to feeling good all the time." Then he chugs it down in one take.

As much as this scene makes me laugh, it also makes me think of some sad realities. Trying to feel good all the time is what drives us to addictions: drugs, alcohol, business, eating, excessive exercise, work-a-holism. We end up in those places running from sadness and loss. God can't comfort us when we have numbed out our pain.

As far as boredom, frustration, anger, apathy, jealousy, anxiousness, fear, insecurity, and all the other less-than-blissful emotions that I experience on a weekly basis go, the more I'm willing to name and recognize them, the less scary they become and the faster I get over them. And here's the most radical concept I've discovered in the Year of Joy. Sometimes a little wallowing doesn't hurt. A little sitting around feeling kind of crappy doesn't hurt you once a month.

When I was depressed, I had all kinds of tools to make myself get out of bed and keep moving, be productive, active and social in order to keep from sinking. I would sing to myself Dory from Finding Nemo's refrain "just keep swimming, swimming, swimming." That was right and necessary at that time.

But now, five years later, in a much healthier place, if I wake up with the blues -- hormonally induced or otherwise -- sometimes I haul my sad butt off to the gym and salsa dance, and then shower and blow dry my hair. The fake-it-till-you-make-it approach.

But sometimes I put on my yoga pants, don't do yoga, and watch three hours of "Downton Abbey" while eating cereal with my greasy hair in a ponytail.

Whichever approach from above, I also include simply telling God how I feel. "Lord, I'm so anxious right now. I think [insert name of friend] might be mad at me." Or, "God, I am cranky and sick of housekeeping." Or, "Lord, I have very hurt feelings. I feel angry and misunderstood."

Never, never, never is God's response, "Come on, Amanda, suck it up." Never is it condemnation. Instead, always it is comfort. Sometimes in the form of a brotherly pat on the head. Sometimes, on the level of strong arms wrapped around me. Sometimes, a surge of courage or well-being. And always, always, a sense of restored joy.

Negative emotions do not disqualify us from a life of faith. Adverse experiences don't separate us from God's love. But honesty in the inmost parts: this is my path to joy. This is the wisdom and freedom God gave me in 2013. The year of joy indeed. 

For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. 

Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. ~Psalm 30:5

The IPhone Has Not Changed My Life

The iPhone has not changed my life yet. Or perhaps I should say it has not changed my marriage. Or even, that no matter how smart the new phone, it has not made me any smarter. 

You be the judge. 

The most anticipated feature of my new phone was the GPS feature. I am hopeless at finding my way places. (For details on this, please see topical section "A Life of Losing" at right.) And not only am I often lost, I hate, hate, hate being lost and experience primal fear and hostility while lost. My beloved husband usually bears the brunt of this, as it is he I used to call to look up directions for me when lost, being GPS-less. Please, technology, rescue me!

Well, this week, I drove to the wilds of residential Orange to purchase a desk for my daughter, found on Craig's List. Jeff, being Jeff, had typed the directions into my phone for me the night before and set up the route, a feature I had not yet learned to use. I made it to the house only having to make one u-turn and this because my six year old daughter was repeating the directions to me from the back seat. Being six, she didn't do it very accurately. 

All was well until I knocked on the door of the rather questionable-looking house until no one opened the door. I texted "Wendy," Craig's List seller, and told her we were out front. The door opens. A man missing most of his teeth answers. "A desk?" he says, puzzled. "Let me go ask my wife." He returns a moment later. "No, I'm sorry, we don't have a desk for sale."

I return to my vehicle, where Wendy has texted to say that she is out front of her house and I am not there. I check my written directions. I check my iPhone. There is a two-digit discrepancy in the address. I text Wendy and tell her what happened. I call my husband and tell him I would like to strangle him with my bare hands. Lovingly. He says it's easy to search for the correct directions. 

I say really? How could it be? You can't even type in the right address. Children in the back seat look worried. I growl at my phone. I can find  directions to the place I am already, from the place I want to be (hardly helpful), but can't figure out how to flip it around. I growl at my phone again. I go back to old ways: I call my husband and have him give me step by step directions to navigate around a street in Old Orange that has been cut up, disjointed and put back together in mystifying ways. 

I arrive on the correct block. Small children, a large black lab and a smiling father approach my car, waving. Hurray! This must be Wendy's husband, come to greet me. I begin to apologize, to explain, to disparage iPhone's non-intuitive system after all, to ask to see the desk. 

"I'm sorry," says the smiling father. "I have no idea who you are." 

I look at his address. It is two numbers off. I get back in my car. I cry. I make a u-turn. I check the address again. I park in front of the correct house (two doors down from smiling father) and see that the family and their dog are still watching me. 

Wendy and her husband come out of their garage. They are so lovely and gracious and well groomed and sympathetic as to the ills of technological navigation, that I want to beg them to take me inside and make me a cup of tea. Or possibly adopt me. Instead, I pay them $35, and allow them to help me load the desk into my trunk, from which I clumsily extract three blankets, a beach umbrella and two dirty folding chairs (humiliation upon humiliation). Wendy's husband assures me the situation is actually funny. I tell him it will be in an hour. 

I drive away, apologizing to my children for losing it (both literally and emotionally) and thanking God that neither of the three strangers houses I just went to housed a serial killer or even a grouch. 

What is the moral of my story? I'm not really sure, friends. I think it's a long way of saying either "Wherever you go there you or" or "A good carpenter never blames her tools." Or her husband. 

In the meantime, the story has in fact become funny to me. And I think I have learned how to use my maps feature correctly. I also learned how to use my voice dial and voice texting function. Did you know your iPhone voice function can correctly spell supercalifragilisticexpialadotious and distinguish between the would and the wood in "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck" tongue twister? I checked. If I ever get lost again, what a comfort this will be. 

Stay tuned for more adventures in technology. You can be sure there'll be plenty.

I Flunked Kindergarten

I flunked Kindergarten, so they are making me repeat it.

There goes my perfectionist nature again. I didn't flunk. In fact, on every report card, I received a "Needs Improvement" mark, which is not actually failing. But here I am, four years later, trying to improve.

What moms may not realize before their kids go to school is that when your kids go to school, so do you.

And when my first daughter went to Kindergarten, I did not do very well. On all three of her report cards, she received "Outstanding" marks in all areas but one: turning her paperwork/homework in on time. And as I was the one who devised the system of keeping her homework in the pretty oilcloth folders I made myself and kept on the kitchen shelf, but often forgot to get it back in her backpack even though she completed it on the first day it came home, the "Needs Improvement" grade was really for me.

I misplace things all the time. My own things, and the kids'. If I told you how many times I've had to ask the pediatrician for a new immunization card (and I would if I could remember), you would feel a lot better about yourself. So I wonder how in the world I can teach organization to my precious babies.

Sophia seems to have come by it genetically, from her father's side. He was voted "Most Organized" by his senior class in high school. If it were up to my genes, the kids would be in trouble; my dad loses his keys on average once a year. Once AAA came out and found them in the ignition. The next time, they found them in the front door.

But against all odds and genetic predisposition, I'm doing my best to get a higher mark in Kindergarten this time around with Olivia.  Her reading log is in a secure place on the fridge and her homework folder had gone back and forth to school four times already.

Meanwhile, my "most organized" eight year old is harassing me about getting all her paperwork filled out and sent back in a timely manner. Last week she didn't just hand me the Thursday Folder, a weekly manilla missive filled with permission slips and PTA flyers and trust me to do what had to be done. She read all of them and tried to explain them to me. Perhaps she is still upset about those "Needs Improvements" on her record. And when she had a question about when the folder was supposed to be brought back to school, she wouldn't trust my answer, and called her third grade "homework buddy." She was thwarted by the buddy's answering machine and confused by our call waiting beep at the same time, so she never got through.

Ha, I win! I may lose paperwork, but I can operate the phone. And I was right about what day to return the Thursday Folder (it was Friday). "Outstanding" mark for Mommy!

My Last-Born Baby

I keep thinking about Livie when she was a baby. 

In part, I'm stuck in this loop because I've been reading a book about two mothers and their bleary, besotted first months of motherhood. (The Hand that First Held Mine is the title, and its definitely worth reading if heart-breaking novels are your thing.)

The other reason, I assume, is that my last-born baby is turning five and going to kindergarten in six weeks.

I told my best friend about a year ago that when the fateful week comes, she is either going to have to check me into a mental hospital or take me to a spa, such will be the catastrophic significance of these two milestones. And I was serious, but only in the way that a celebrity new mom in a television interview is serious when she talks about what it's like to be a mother. It was spin. It was the light, marketed version of my mother-emotion. 

In reality, as it's coming upon me, I am devastated. A whole part of my life is over, and a whole part of hers. Thank God Livie doesn't know that these are the last six weeks of her life when she won't have to be somewhere first thing in the morning unless she's on vacation. Or until she's the stay-at-home mother of pre-school-age children. Thank God we don't feel the milestones as we pass them as children. That joy and grief is given to Mothers. 

I remember and yet do not remember Livie as a baby. I remember the feeling that this time, I kind of knew what I was doing, and the having the realization that whatever I did for my second born would seem right to her. I was her mother, and she knew none other. I remember stroking her furry infant ears, and tracing the arch of her tiny foot with my finger. I remember that unlike her sister she didn't enjoy being sung to; her body would tense rather than relax if I sung a lullabye. So I remember Livie and I being silent a lot together. I remember nuzzling the top of her head, and I can almost remember what she smelled like. 

She's such a wonder to me, this second daughter. It amazes me that I've had two girls and they are not the same person, that somehow Jeff and I were able to create two whole human beings that are people in their own right. And she just keeps getting bigger, changing, surprising me. That mellow, quiet baby who murmured herself to sleep is now the little clown of our family, making funny faces and saying potty words at dinner -- which I should discipline her for but instead go giggle into a pile of unfolded clothes in the laundry room. 

She is swimming, going down waterslides, and still occassionally refusing to go in bounce houses. She is coloring voraciously (she holds a crayon in her fist, not the right way). She is putting on her own clothes and shoes and brushing her teeth. But she still sucks her thumb. She likes to be carried. In my bed in the morning, she's a fierce snuggler, and if I turn my back to her she wails, "I want to see your face!"

I'm looking forward to half days, five days a week, when I can go the gym, have coffee with friends, push a cart through the grocery store alone. And yet I dread it! What if I sob when I see the vulnerable little nape of her neck under her blond bob disappear into the classroom? What if I was wrong and she's not ready? What if her moving away from me is as traumatic a life change as when she arrived in the world? 

There's no pithy resolution coming to the end of this entry, friends and readers. I just needed to weep and put these feelings down in 12-point type. I won't tell Livie, or even let her see it in my eyes that I'm mourning the end of this era: 8 and a half years of having a child at home with me full-time. I'll just keep nuzzling her head, teaching her to hold the pencil the right way, and buy her first-day-of school clothes with a smile on my face. And when I tell her she's still my baby and she responds, "Mommy, I'm not a baby, I'm a big girl now," I'll just say, "I know you are, baby. I know you are."

A Life of Losing

Somewhere in my house is a half-drunk cup of coffee in a purple Fiesta mug. I have lost it for the second time in 15 minutes.

I had planned to go upstairs and get the book I'm reading (One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp...I'll let you know how it turns out), and then settle down in my red chair to read it with the last of my morning caffeine. But between the kitchen and my room, I picked up two toy fairies and a pair of black leggings and put them away. Then I replaced the roll of toilet paper in the bathroom (went in their to blow my nose), then decided to put the ironing board away so I could get to my bedroom window and open it.

Somewhere in there, I set down my coffee.

I blog a lot about losing things. It's a way of life for me, really. I live a life of losing. It's very frustrating, particularly because I am Mom. And Mom is supposed to find things for other people.

Other things currently lost: two Mother's Day cards that I bought for my two best friends (early!) and then put away in a special place. Also, a blue notebook that says "Blessings" on the cover, in which I would like to begin a list of things I am thankful for (thanks to Ann Voskamp, above, for the inspiration).

My husband says the reason I'm chronically losing things is that I'm always thinking of other things while I am cleaning up. Well, of course I am. For one thing, I am constantly cleaning up, and who wants to think about cleaning up? And for another, there are lots of things to think about.

What should I make for dinner tonight? 

Is Sophia's soccer uniform clean? 

I wonder if that comment I made in mom's group hurt any one's feelings? Should I ask someone? Do I need to apologize?

What was that great idea for a blog I had in the shower? 

I think I might make the 9:45 Zumba class today...

Must buy plants for my mom for Mother's Day...

And in the meantime, I'm writing a blog in my mind, a lesson for the Bible study I'm teaching in two weeks, and pondering the meaning of life in some way or another.

No wonder the coffee cup has gone missing.

I will say that even though I'm losing cards, notebooks, coupons and 50,000 ballpoint pens as I go about my business, I'm also finding sudden bursts of inspiration and things to be thankful for. On the other hand, pondering the meaning of life while vacuuming, I'm likely to remember for the thousandth time that the Bible as well as every other source of wisdom in this world says I should strive to be in the present.

As I've been writing this, the sun has come out in my backyard. I think I'll go look for that coffee cup one more time, and then go and enjoy it. Let's hope I don't lost on the way.

Changing Coffee Makers, Changing My Life

I am looking for a coffeemaker that will change my life.

I'd like to say that I start every day with a cup of coffee. But in fact, I start every day wrestling with the paraphernalia necessary to make a cup of coffee.

It goes something like this: grind the beans. Go to put fresh grounds in the pot but find that yesterday's are still in there. Clean filter basked. Rinse yesterday's burnt coffee from pot. Go to fill pot. Find that Britta is empty. Fill Britta. Wait for Britta to slooooowwwwwly filter water. Fill pot. Fill water reservoir. Push button. Wait for coffee. Wipe grounds off counter while waiting.

It's a discouraging start to the day, especially since I have to do it all pre-caffeination. So when my mom gave me a new auto-start programmable coffee maker for Christmas, I was thrilled. But not so thrilled that I didn't try to exchange it. I went and upgraded it for an auto-start plus auto grind version. One less step in the morning! Then I got it home and realized I would have to clean out the auto grinder every day. So I went back and exchanged it again.

But you know what I discovered? Now I just do all the coffee paraphernalia wrestling at night instead of in the morning. There are still old grounds to be cleaned and a pot to be scrubbed and water to filtered. To say nothing of the fact that the first two nights I set the timer wrong so it didn't even brew in the morning.

It's been a "wherever you go there you are" kind of revelatory experience for me. The problem is not the coffee maker. The problem is me. Listen to my husband laugh as I reveal to you this obvious fact: I hate dealing with mundane details. And because I hate it, I don't do it. And because I don't do it, chaos reigns -- in small ways -- throughout my life.

Hubby and I had an illuminating discussion about these things over the weekend. I've been laboring under the delusion that Jeff has a better memory than me and is also someone who just gets everything done right the first time. But in fact, he says he double and triple checks almost everything he does. He doesn't leave the house without going over a checklist two or three times to make sure he has everything he needs. He reads e-mails three times before he sends them.

All this time I've been thinking that my husband is incredibly smart but inefficient (it takes him much longer to do things than I).

Now I realize, he's just living by the old carpenter's axiom, "Measure twice and cut once." I'm too busy moving on to the next thing to measure twice, rinse out the coffee pot, or put the grocery list in my purse. And I pay for my haste by having to do lots of things twice, step over piles of dirty clothes, and scrubbing lots of old coffee stains out of things.

The reason I forget things is not because I don't have the right calendar or organizer. Another old carpenter's saying, "A good carpenter never blames his tools." In modern terms: A good housewife doesn't blame her coffee maker or her smart phone.

So, in order to have a wonderful 2012, I am going to become enormously attentive to details, or more importantly, slow down long enough to pay attention to details.

Here are all the things I am going to do from now on:

Rinse the coffee pot and basket when I drink my last cup.
Close the cereal bag and put the box away before I eat my cereal.
Hang up my wet towel right after I shower.
Put my clothes away right after I take them off.
Bring my coupon to Joann's.
Bring my grocery list to the grocery store (instead of leaving it on the kitchen table).
Actually buy everything that is on my grocery list.
Bring the things I need to return to Target to Target.
Write down people's addresses in the address book instead of on an envelope that I then mail, and then have to ask for their address again the next time I mail them something.
Bring my daughters' immunization cards to the doctor's office.

Sound doable? No, not really. But how wonderful would life be if I actually did do them?

I think I'll go slooowwwly double check my list, pick my top three new behaviors, and give that a try. Check in with me later, and I'll let you know how it's going.

Baby Jesus Down the Drain

On Monday, due to weather conditions, I suddenly became hostess to a party of 20 women on our MOPS leadership team, our planned location being semi-out-of-doors. I found this out around 9 a.m. on Monday morning, and of course this sent me into a house cleaning tizzy. My home is about 11oo square feet, and has enough Christmas decorations in it for a house twice that size, so it's beautiful, brightly lit, and very crowded. Therefore, all children clutter and dirt must be removed before party people arrive.

I turned the TV on for Livie and sprung into action. As I spun around the kitchen like the Tasmanian Devil, bangs pressed back in a sweatband, apron tied tight around my waist, I whisked a plastic kids' cup off the butcher block and dumped it down the sink without looking at the contents.

A peculiar rattle came from the sink (definitely not the sound milk makes), so I stuck my hand down the garbage disposal (not turned on) to see what it was.

It was baby Jesus.

Livie has an old, mismatched plastic nativity in her room that she's allowed to play with, and here in her breakfast cup was the infant Savior -- blond, naked, curled up in ball, with bits of dried hot glue and Spanish moss stuck to his bottom. And I had dumped him down the drain.

Do any of us really need to read (or write) another piece about how Jesus can get lost in the bustle of the Christmas season? Well, apparently I do, as I take the literal disposing of Jesus down the sink as a sign. Just a few thoughts on the subject:

* I can't even say "Baby Jesus" without hearing it in Will Ferrel's fake southern accent from Taladega Nights. "Dear eight-pound, five-ounce baby Jesus in his gold diaper..." "Baby Jesus" sounds in my head, bubbling out of a Nascar driver's mouth as he asks the non-intimidating baby God to keep the money coming. Baby Jesus becomes a caricature, even in my own head, and I am a follower of Christ!

*At Christmas its too easy to make Jesus a Precious Moment figurine, a plastic Little People toy. In all his accessability (Livie plays with him like he's a My Little Pony), I can forget that he is a sign of God's radical love and the world's need for salvation. The baby Jesus shows that God wants to be accessible to us; he came vulnerable, naked, cute. But he grew up to be a lot more than that. I don't want to worship just a cute Jesus at Christmas.

* I have sent out 100 Christmas cards, watched Elf twice (dude, what is it with me and Will Ferrel today?), wrapped lots of gifts, embroidered six tea towels, and spent a week decorating, but other than the Bible verse from Luke I read with the kids in our advent calendar each morning, I haven't read Scripture or sat down to pray for at least a week. And at the party for these women I serve with at church, I didn't even say a prayer over our dinner! I know His Spirit was still evoked as we gathered, but I wish I had made time show Him more reverence amidst our merry making.

Livie's little plastic Jesus is back in his manger where He belongs. And as for me, this blog is my way of putting Jesus where He belongs for me: in my heart. I'll work at keeping him there for the rest of the season.

Lost and Found

I haven't seen my four year old daughter for several days.

In her place (her room, her car seat, her chair at the breakfast table) however, I have had the pleasure of spending time with a lost bunny, a lost dog, a lost princess, R2-D2, C-3PO, Santa Clause, and a little boy named Garret (complete with backwards baseball cap, shown at left) who has just moved into the neighborhood.

Any time I have tried to call the little blond person who looks just like my daughter Livie, "Livie," I have been corrected.

"Mom, did you forget? I'm R2-D2, remember?"

With the exception of Santa Clause, all of these characters have been displaced persons of some kind. Each of them has been looking for room and board, and perhaps even adoption. All need lots of love and attention. All would like to hear stories about our family. And all enjoy being a person of novelty in our household. A big part of the role I'm playing is being very, very excited to have found this person/animal/droid.

What is it with children and being found? My friend Josie, a deep thinker and broad reader (can you guess why we're friends) told me the other day about a parenting book she read that said from very early days of play, children want to be sought and found. Even peak-a-boo is about this. Hide and seek, too, of course.

Children's literature is full of orphans and lost children. Anne of Green Gables, Annie, Oliver Twist, Simba, Mogley from the Jungle Book, Sarah Crew in The Little Princess, Cinderella. Need I go on? Our hearts break for their loss, their ache. And we cheer when someone finds them and decides to love them.

Why aren't there more stories of children just being loved by two parents from start to finish? Well, they just aren't as compelling; they lack drama. Which is why, I believe, that Livie is acting out being lost and found over and over again. From Mom and Dad love is automatic; it's our duty to love her. But if she's a lost rabbit, a stray dog, or an exiled princess and we choose to love her? Well, that's exciting. That really makes her special.

Josie and I think all this attraction to the lost and found is a primal, spiritual need of humans born into a broken world to be sought, found, chosen, adopted, and loved. It is the story of the Bible start to finish. The Old Testament is exile and redemption over and over again. Jesus' parables were often about the lost: a lost coin, a lost sheep, a lost (prodigal) son. The common denominator was always the persistent seeker who rejoices when he/she can finally shout, "Found!"

I'm so glad that God found me and adopted me. I'm grateful his love wasn't rote or automatic, but that He sought me out even though He didn't have to, even though it cost Him dearly, and then He rejoiced when I agreed to get found. And I like these games of Livie's, this opportunity to show her that I love her, not because I have to, but because I choose to. And I will seek, find, and adopt her -- whatever name she takes -- over and over again.