Oster

It has been a year since we packed up our lives in Denton and prepared for a new adventure. It has been a year of unexpected change and growth. In August it will be a year since we took our city kids and moved them to a small mountain town. We left a life neatly packed in a storage unit that we hoped we could return for soon. It has been almost a year since we left almost everything and everyone we knew behind.

In all of this I have had conversations with God. Some "conversations" were more that of a 2 year old throwing a temper-tantrum as I stomped my feet, yelled and cried about just how unfair life is. I appreciate that so much about my God. He is much more of a patient parent than I am. I am pretty sure that He is tired of telling me the same thing, wondering when I will ever get it through my thick skull. Some days I am certain He just looks at me, shakes his head and chuckles, others He wants to give me a high five... to the face... with a chair. Then there are the days that He shows me simple reminders or proves to me once again, He knew about the obstacle before I did, and He made a way through or around them.

I became part of a step family as an adult. I have only met my Step-mother once, and I have not met any of her children, other than the 2 sisters that I grew up with. She seems like a very kind and loving woman and I am sad that my relationship with her is filtered through the nonexistent relationship with my dad. My step-father on the other hand seemed to step up when my dad made relationship difficult. My kids have spent summers with him and my mom on the farm. He has 3 sons, 2 that I have met, spent time with, I know their names. We did not grow up together and our relationship is limited. We are all adults, we do our own things, we have our own lives.

I now have step-children. It is a bizarre thing, knowing of, praying for and loving children, who are not "yours", that you know you may never meet, and if you do meet them, knowing that they may not want to have a relationship with you. It is hard to navigate how to choose interaction. That is complicated by what relationships they have or have not had with their dad. I reflect here on the relationship I have with my step-mother, and...

We are a blended family. That is new to 6 out of 8 of us. While I have step-families, and so does my husband, I would in no way say that I have I ever been part of a "blended" family.  In my home currently there are 6 children, whom I love with my whole heart. There is nothing that I wouldn't do for any of them if time and money were never an issue. Here they would all chime in, "you won't bail us out of jail." They are right, I won't. As I type this there are 6 children navigating a situation that they didn't choose, that as an adult I don't know how to navigate most days. We have had our moments. Some of our ups and downs have made me ponder how it would ever work. "I hate this, I don't want my own siblings let alone new ones!"  "Just remember he was my dad first!" The pain in their eyes and voices palpable. You see in order for this something beautiful to be, something else was broken. There are 6 children in my home who have lost bits or chunks of their childhood dealing with adult things. Now we ask of them this one more thing, make space and build relationships. Along with the hard hurtful moments there have been soft tender moments that I hope I never forget. Yesterday as they bickered among themselves, and worked it out, (and nearly drove me crazy) I couldn't help but think, this is it we have done it! We are a BLENDED Family. I don't know how many of you have ever sat and stared intently at a blender while it was running, but it is a really good word picture for how some of this has felt.

Then there is God with his gentle reminders. A good part of the spring the men/boys (the girls would protest "we helped too!" Ummm...) at our home have been clearing land and building fences. They used some of the logs that they cleared for fence posts.  These logs had been trees. In the way, they were cut down, stripped down and cut into usable sizes and moved. As my husband showed this "post" to our children they all said various things that struck me. The post had rooted and was becoming a tree again. There was concern about what would happen to the fence as the tree grew. Even as I type this and replay the conversations in my head I know that there is much to learn from this tree. God giving me yet another gentle reminder that we can see very hard things; everything we know can change; we can be stripped down to nothing, but in that God is still able to move. He is still able to help us grow. God is able give us new life. He is able to make us whole again. This tree will always have the scars left from being cut down, it won't be what it once was, but it will be something beautiful.

My family, we are everything I see in this tree.