The Time I Went B-A-N-A-N-A-S

Yesterday was a bad day. A really, really bad day. I basically failed at life yesterday.

My sister-in-law, Carlie, recently sent me a song that has become my anthem. I have this song on repeat for much of the day, and I'm telling you that if you watch this video, and watch it all the way to the end, you're gonna straight up pray that sinner's prayer. Okay, maybe you won't, but that is the impact that Miss Tasha Cobbs has on me when she's singing this song. This song, it is my anthem.

Plus, my voice sounds a lot like hers.

Official performance video for "Fill Me Up/Overlow" by Tasha Cobbs. Recorded Live at Redemption Church in Greenville, SC. Video Producer & Director: Chiquita Lockley, Associate Video Producer: Bohannon Nichols, Executive Producer: Tasha Cobbs, Editor: Terrence Crowley, Musical Director: Kenneth Leonard, Music Producer: VaShawn Mitchell, Music Co-Producer: Tasha Cobbs.

I can not overstate how this has become my battle cry. "I am empty before you, fill me up God." 

I don't know how it is possible to feel so empty, and also so full of my own self. I am empty, and yet, I am stuffed. I am stuffed with selfishness, with fear, with stress, with rage, with pride, with self-loathing, with a desire for control, and more than anything else, I am stuffed with a desire for relief. I am stuffed sick of my self, and at the very same time I feel completely empty. So, I listen to this song on repeat and I let Ol' Tasha usher Jesus into my empty places, and I let him sweetly pour me out, all of that junk that is in me, I beg him to let it spill out so that He alone can fill me up. 

I know that this sounds ridiculous if you have never encountered Jesus as a living leader and active forgiver. But, for me... this song is like being in a spiritual spin class. Where the instructor is leading me into an excercise that I lack the motivation and discipline and know-how to do on my own. Listening to this song has been a spiritual excercise, and the incredible voice on that woman is walking me through the process of opening up inside, and letting a holy fire burn out whatever is left in me, so that I can be an empty vessel that God, in his mercy, can fill to overflowing.

Yesterday was a bad day. Yesterday, I was empty. And I am realizing now that "empty" just means that I am actually full - of all the wrong things. So, yesterday I was stuffed. And I lost it. I absolutely lost my mind. I have a new respect for the phrase " go bananas" because I truly and completely went bananas. Ironically, about 14 bananas were actually involved in this particular incident. I won't go into the whole mess of the thing, but let's just say that lives were saved by the fact that bananas are a soft fruit. If we were talking pineapples, I'd be in jail right now.

It wasn't pretty y'all. My entire dining room was a battle scene, the evidence of our struggle was everywhere. The floor, the table, most of the chairs, the walls, all of it, was caked with smashed banana, and my heart was caked with shame. And while I was on my knees, face down, sobbing in the literal and figurative mess of my life, I heard Tasha Cobbs still playing on my phone. It was at 3:56 into the video and in the song she is begging God to fill her up. 

Fill me up, God

Fill me up, God

Fill me up, God

Thirty times in that section of the song, the phrase, my anthem, is repeated.  

"Somebody ask him," she sings, "I need a fresh annointing... Somebody ask him, fill me again. I need more of you. I've been running on empty. I need you to fill me again. We cry out for more. More of your spirit is what we need. More of your annointing, more of your glory, fill me up. That's what I really want, that's what I really need. I'm so tired of me, I need more of you. I gotta have more of you. "

A couple weeks ago, I was the key-note speaker for a weekend retreat. Next week I go to Michigan for two speaking events, and when I get back home, I have even more events lined up, or maybe not after I publish this post. Either way, I am not selling out arenas or anything, none of these events are necessaily huge or impressive. But, I stand before people and I tell them about my life, I tell them about the wisdom in the Bible, the truths of scripture, but ultimately... I only ever say one thing, that Jesus is the bringer of hope and redemption. That is my only message.

Sure, I write and speak about my life. I talk about parenting a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder. I talk about being a multi-racial, adoptive family. I talk about racism. I talk about the violent end to my brother's life, and my response to his death (#AdamsActs) with you all. I share my family's personal experiences - my daughter's current health struggles, my mistakes and my struggles, about throwing down with bananas, cross-country road trips, general shenanigans, and all the in-between stuff. But, all of that sharing is just a pouring out. It's just an attempt to overflow what God is doing, has ALWAYS done, in my life.

I have nothing to say, I have nothing to write, that isn't about redemption.

People often tell me that I should write a book. There are even times where it feels like it could actually be a dream realized. But the question remains - what would my book be about? 

The answer is redemption. The answer can only ever be redemption.

Because I am empty, and yet I am stuffed. And I am the worst. And I lost my head and I went crazy and I let myself lose sight of who God made me to be. And so much banana was involved. And still, somehow, God still lets me speak to rooms full of people. God still lets me tell you my story. He lets me tell you his story.

Please don't tell me how amazing I am in response to this. Please. If there is ANY good thing in me, anything at all that is inspiring, or encouraging, or worthy of admiring in me then you must know, that is not me at all. I am on the floor covered in fruit. I am dry, and empty, and still sickly full of my self, my shame and my sin. But, still, he uses me. I am not amazing, I am broken and he redeems me for his purpose. And that is the miraculous power of the living God that I serve and rely on. Because if, even for a second, I take my eyes and my hope off of Him... I instantly become part of the broken mess. 

And every time I go to write, or speak to other people there is nothing I am more aware of than my own lack. My shortcomings, my limitations, my total and complete depravity are never far from my mind. The day I lose the awareness of my own need for redemption is the day I have no business writing or speaking to anyone again.

Yesterday was a bad day. A really, really bad day. All of us can relate to that. Anyone parenting a difficult child, or does life with somone who has mental health issues, may be able to relate to some degree. Those of you parenting a child with disordered attachment... you have a banana battle story of your own, I'm certain. And as I kneeled down, filthy and sobbing and ashamed, I begged God - out loud and in front of my empty, hurting child - to fill me up.

"Fill me up God, Fill me up God, Fill me up God"

I do not deserve to write or speak to so many people. I am not worthy to speak a single word about a Bible that I can so easily disregard in a moment of anger or exhaustion or emptiness. But,

That. Is. Redemption.

That in the unlikliest places, that at the unlikliest times, in the unlikliest people, God chooses to fill, to forgive, to heal and to sort it out for good. And as long as he continues to redeem me and fill me and give me another go, I will simply never shut up about it.

Burnt Hair, the Hospital and a Rogue Set of Googlies

So much crazy has gone down in the past 72 hours. 

For starters, Windpocalypse 2017 came at us like a wrecking ball, and I mean that in the most literal sense possible. The greater Rochester area, but particularly our town of Irondequoit, just started vomiting trees all over the place. In the words of my four year old son, Jay, "it's insame."

The past few days feel like everything in my life was shoved into an enormous version of that game Barrel of Monkeys, shaken up and then spilled out all tangled and confusing and somehow dangling precariously from one flimsy limb. So, now you all get to experience the literary version of these things being spilled out, in a random, haphazard and somewhat tangled order. Here are the events that transpired over the course of the past 72 hours:

-One ancient tree exploded into the street and landed directly at the end of our driveway, crushing nobody, but if it had fallen in literally any other direction, one of our houses would have been decimated.

Our house is the white one. Jay is by the stump, for perspective.

View of wreckage from attic window.

I picked up these 7 crazies from school to discover the driveway completely blocked - this pic was taken because,for a brief moment, one of them was certain they could move the tree.😂

-A thousand other ancient trees were uprooted, landing on countless homes, cars, a mail truck, a school bus, etc.

Photo from Democrat & Chronicle

Photo from Democrat & Chronicle

Our friends' house is under there. :(

And our old church, impaled by its own steeple.  

-Many of these trees took powerlines down with them and we have been without power since 1:30pm on Wednesday.

Photo from Democrat & Chronicle

-I got called into the school because one of my children used magnet letters to write “nipples” on the magnet board. (Before you judge, I should note that he did not learn that word at home. I am not mature enough to use correct anatomical language with my children, so ‘nipples’ is not a word he learned at home. In my house, we say “googlies,” like normal people.)

-The first thing I did after the power went out was spill a canister of white sugar all over the floor. You really do need a vacuum for that sort of situation. This is the one single thing that is stopping me from becoming Amish. Mama needs a vacuum because no birch broom is gonna cut it when you have wall-to-wall sugar carpet. And my hair would never stay under those little bonnets. And also I love nail polish, it keeps me sane. Okay, whatevs, maybe being Amish wasn’t ever really in the cards for me.

-Tom found a secret hidey-door on our fireplace with a battery compartment for just such an emergency. Not the sugar emergency, but the power outage. So, we have a toasty fire in one room that has allowed us to stay in our house, despite the dropping temperatures.

-On a churchlady dare, I gave Tom such an epic kiss that he forgot to put the car in park and I closed the car door on my own knee while Tom just watched the car roll away with his eyes glazed over. #skillz

-We have moved all of our food from the luke-warm fridge, to the front porch, which feels super classy. Nothing says “I have no dignity left” like a huge ziploc bag of chili on the front stoop.

-London was in the hospital for a procedure to confirm Celiac Disease as well as further testing on her thyroid. Her thyroid levels have continued to elevate and each test proves a little more concerning than the last. The GI doc just called to inform us that while we are still waiting for all the lab results to come in, her TSH is, once again, higher than the last test.

-She was a champ at the hospital and in recovery, and groggily requested sushi on our way home. So, high thyroid levels aside, she’s pretty much acting like herself.

-They are calling the power outage a “multi-day event” as if it some sort of special occasion and, Lucky us! We made the guest list!

-The kids are actually having a blast living pretending to be Amish (there’s still a chance for them) and love living by candlelight while we remain one of 92,000 people who initially lost power in Rochester.

-In other news, that may or may not be related to the children enjoying the candlelight, Marlie set her hair on fire.

Guys… do you recall the title of my last post? Please Excuse My Mental Breakdown? Yeah, I think that post may have been a little premature because what in the actual heck is going on!? All of this has been so crazytown, I really have no choice but to laugh.

(Except about London’s poor precious baby thyroid, if you laugh about that I will cut you.)

In times like these – and in complete transparency, my life always seems to be “times like these” – I feel really elderly. I don’t feel like the 35 year old spring chick that I am. I feel a thousand. I feel like one of those skittish, old, maniacal women who laugh way too hard and for way too long, and then the laughing takes a fast curve into spontaneously crying, and all this while feeding so many birds for some reason. That’s me. I’m a thousand and I’m “insame” and I’m here cackling away in the candlelight with all the birds, but I am one sugar-granule-on-the-bare- foot away from snapping.

Poor Tom. Yesterday he had to calmly explain to me why he felt it was actually for my benefit that he talk to me “like a mental patient.” Say goodbye to your magical makeout sessions mister.

In all seriousness, as hectic as the past 72 hours have been (and the preceding 35 years) I haven’t actually lost my mind. That is how I know that Jesus is real. That is how I know that when life comes crashing down, sometimes all at once, he is steady and at the center of it all. And I honestly do not know how I would do each day without him, without the hope that this life isn’t all there is. I really believe that this life, and all its trouble, are temporary. That London will not suffer forever. Even if she suffers for her whole life, it won’t be forever. Even if every 72 hours looks as wild as these ones did, it won’t be forever. It is this awareness that keeps me going. Apart from my hope in a God that sustains us (sometimes with front-stoop chili) I would not make it through another day, let alone come through it laughing.  

We will eventually get our power back. Marlie’s hair will eventually grow back. We will eventually get to the bottom of London’s strange set of symptoms. Eventually, I will be mature enough to explain to my kids what these so-called “nipples” are. Until then, we are just going to say that where we are at right now – even if it is the center of windpocalypse 2017 – is the best place to be, because it is where He has put us. And I don’t want to be anywhere else.

Unless somewhere with less sugar is available.