Our "Happy Thanksgiving" Christmas Letter

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours! 

No, that is not a typo.  Due to some poignant reminders of all we have to be grateful for, we have decided to extend the November holiday into the Christmas season, and Lord willing, we will drag it through the entire coming year and beyond.

On November 13th, our 19-year-old daughter, Christina, was driving home from youth symphony rehearsal when a woman in a minivan ran a red light right in front of her. Unable to stop or even brake the car, Christina hit the side of the van straight on at 55 miles per hour.  The front of her car was crushed and caught fire.  Christina, dazed and confused from the impact, fell out of her door and into the intersection, and there she was mercifully rescued and brought to safety by an eyewitness—a sweet grandma--who stayed with her until Jamey arrived at the scene.
  
Miraculously, she walked away with only bruising and a lingering concussion.

This has left me with a persistent sense of the preciousness of the lives around me, and a deep gratitude for a second chance to show Christina and my other loved ones how glad we are that they are here!

In that spirit, I have asked my kiddos to share in their own words what has made them grateful this year.
  
Rebekah: In some ways, I feel like this past year has been very similar to previous years; I am finishing my last year of coursework at Western Michigan (hooray!) and will *hopefully* begin my internship sometime next summer. But in other ways, this past year has held some very special moments. I was so blessed to have our cousins living next door for the summer while they looked for a house; we made so many special memories. I also worked with clients for the first time this summer, one semester with preschoolers and another with adults with developmental disabilities. It was an incredible experience and it really encouraged me as I move forward in the music therapy program.
  
God has taught me a lot this year but one of the things I am most grateful for is His presence and peace in the times of uncertainty. This year God essentially gave me a game plan to live by in response to fear or anxiety.

In 2 Chronicles 20:3-23, the Israelites were going to be attacked by a great multitude of enemy and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, was greatly afraid. He immediately sought the Lord and gathered the people together to recount all the times God had demonstrated His faithfulness to His people in the past. The king prayed to the Lord, saying, “We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

Jehoshaphat then encouraged the people to stand firm because the same God that saved them from the Egyptians was with them still. And when the people had begun to sing and praise the Lord, He set an ambush against their enemies and routed them, making the enemy armies destroy each other.

All that to say, I’ve been encouraged this year by family, by friends, and through Scripture to fix my eyes upon Christ by remembering what God has done for me in the past, and to stand firm in His grace and move forward in a spirit of peace and gratitude for what He has done and will do in my life. The battles that I face are not mine to win - they never were. Praise the Lord for His perfect deliverance, even when it looks different than what I expected! 

Christina: 2017 has been a year I will never forget. New friendships, new travels and many new opportunities. I have been so incredibly amazed at what God has brought into my life. I was able to go to Uganda to visit and help a friend living there. I’m so grateful to have had that opportunity, and am hoping to go back very soon. 

I started college this fall and honestly have not really enjoyed it much. The atmosphere is crude and unpleasant, and I was taken very aback by it at first. It has been very difficult to adjust, but I can see God growing me in new ways. 

Mostly this year I have been so grateful for God’s protection—as I traveled overseas and especially, in the car accident I was in a few weeks ago.  I am so very thankful to still be here and that nobody was seriously hurt in either of the vehicles. The verse I had written on my wrist that day was Romans 12:12 “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”  All of those things mean more to me now.

Elijah (age 15): This year has brought many difficult things our way, but the main one was when Christina got into a car accident last month.  It was a very scary experience which reminded me that God is in control no matter what happens, and that we are not promised tomorrow.  

On the other hand, I have also experienced the blessing of playing on an amazing varsity basketball team.  It has taught me the value of hard work and perseverance and although it is a big commitment it has allowed me to make new friendships and learn from my mistakes and identify new role models. 

Isaiah (age 12):  This year has been exciting in many ways.  I’m very thankful for the ability to play basketball.  I am learning how to be a good teammate, how to be encouraging, and how to help people who are younger than me since I am one of the older ones on the team.  I am also thankful for my family.  My parents and older siblings are very encouraging, and this makes me feel better when I make mistakes. Romans 1:16 says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes…”  This is my life verse.

Jude (age 10):  This year, I am thankful for Camp Roger.  I get to go there once a month for a whole day.  We go on nature adventures to learn about God’s creation.  The first time I went, I caught a frog that was a foot long extended.  I have also caught freshwater jellyfish.
  
I am also thankful to play basketball with Isaiah and Kaiden.  Our team is good this year.  We are 4-1.  Basketball has given me new friends.  I am also thankful for baseball.  It teaches me sportsmanship and gives me good exercise.  Our team won the Lowell Little League championship two years in a row, which was fun!

Kaiden (age 10): I am thankful for sports because they are fun, and for Camp Roger.  I like to learn about nature and I love archery, canoeing, and flying over a pond.  We got to take a rope and swing out over the “lake” (which is really sand) and there are pretend alligators and pythons and sinking sand.  If you figure out how to get over it, you win.  We all lost.  

I am also thankful for Brutus, Tabby, Mom, Dad, Rebekah, Christina, Elijah, Isaiah, Jude, and Keira.  I am thankful for my adoption day, for friends and grandparents, all kinds of animals, Epiphany, snow, Craig’s Cruisers, Christmas lights, a house, and a bed.  And kittens.

Keira (age 8):  This year I am thankful for my adoption day.  I am thankful that God has given us a good life.  I am thankful that my cousins lived next door to me for a whole summer.  I loved to pick raspberries with Cousin Sal and Lilias, and we spied on the boys playing cars and they didn’t see us.  

I am thankful for our creek because it is fun to float leaves down it like a race.  And for Smelly, my stuffed dog who sleeps with me.
  
Jamey and I are thankful for the 23 years of marriage God has given us.  We are thankful for good work—his in medicine, mine on the home front.  We are thankful He did not let us plan our own way, and thankful for the way that the beautiful and hard things in life have worked together to make our years so rich and meaningful.  Knowing God as our good and loving Father has helped us look for silver linings in all things.

Most of all we are thankful for reminders of God’s love for us.  Christmas reminds me that God is with us—in everything, every second, for always.  Easter reminds me that He is for us, as demonstrated by His willingness to die on our behalf so that we could love Him and live with Him as adopted sons and daughters.  Everything else is Thanksgiving!
  
For other Birmingham news and updates, visit us on Facebook, Instagram (syoopermom), or on our family’s blog, which can be found at jdbirmingham.blogspot.com. Or just come over and we’ll tell you more than you ever wanted to know in less time than you thought possible (we found we can cover the most ground if everyone talks at once😊) 

We really do love it when people come, and we promise that what we lack in social graces, we try to make up for in baked goods.  Rebekah’s homemade blueberry pie and Christina’s chocolate chip cookies will make it worth a visit, I promise! 

Much love from all of us—
The Birminghams

All I Really Need to Know I Learned At Goodwill

I love garage sales and thrift stores.

Give me an empty afternoon and the choice between an outlet mall and a flea market, and I'll pick the flea market every time.  

To me, it is worth digging through a mountain of clothing that is stained or ripped or the wrong size or from the wrong decade in order to find the the "Kate Spade in the haystack"--the item that, were it new, you could not have afforded or, were it not showcased against a pile of ugly or unsuitable items, you may not have even noticed. 

Once the piece has been rescued from the bone yard of discarded fashion relics, then comes the creative challenge of figuring out how to make that sweater or skirt or blazer play well with the rest of your existing wardrobe because, of course, it doesn't come as a matched set.

The thrifter routinely takes clothing from different stores and designers, with different characteristics, and fabrics and patterns, made for different seasons, and sometimes even for different eras, patches them up, matches them up, and makes them look beautiful and purposeful together.  

In so doing, she breathes new life into other peoples' discards.

I like to think of it as the redemption of rejection.

Not only is it a creative outlet, it is also intensely exciting.  In fact it bears remarkable similarities to hunting.  

Picture this:  A neighborhood garage sale or Goodwill is like a vast and trackless forest and I am the mighty huntress, stalking the elusive quarry with nothing but $12 cash and my raw instincts. Not only that, but all around me are keen-eyed competitors seeking the same prey.  

We are disguised as casually browsing soccer moms, but behind our nonchalance lurks an uncanny ability to find that Ann Taylor pea coat "accidentally" tucked at the back of the men's blazers, or the practically new pair of Merrill shoes in our kid's size that someone buried in the book bin with plans to come back for later.  

For me, schlepping into Old Navy is like bagging a quarry as it grazes from a pile of apples at a well-stocked game reserve.  It gets the job done, but it feels like cheating.

"Oooh, look.  There are six identical shirts artfully displayed next to six identical piles of jeans, against a backdrop of six racks of matching accessories.  By spending six seconds and $200.00 I can look identical to everyone else I know and become a part of flavorless, contrived artificiality of the mall culture.  How exciting."

No thank you.  Give me a funky shirt from 1983, a pair of vintage jeans, some interesting shoes, a classic cardigan, and one of my Grandmother's necklaces and I will step out as a quirky (but interesting) collage against a background of pre-packaged sameness.

I have found that second-hand fashion has a lot in common with first-hand life.  

By "first-hand life", I mean real life.  Not the kind you arrange so that you never have to mingle with the oddballs and misfits right in front of you.

Not the kind of life you escape to through your badly-named "smart phones", but the kind of life that unfolds around kitchen tables, or on long car rides, or on the front porch with your neighbor, or in the check-out lane at Walmart.   

Real life is the kind of life that happens in the close quarters of family life and within the confines of local community.  

By this, I don't mean that you can't really live unless you stay in the town where you were born.  I mean that at some point, you need to plant yourself somewhere and then commit to live in a selfless and interested way with the folks in that space.  Past when their novelty wears off and past when you "feel" like it. 

I believe that some of the greatest adventures on the planet can be found neither in arranging things into an easy, comfortable predictability nor in planning exotic escapes from the mundane, but rather in being willing to embrace and appreciate both the prosaic and the unexpected in the daily grind. 

People. 

Circumstances. 

Even inconveniences come with an invitation to enter a universe of vibrant surprises and unforeseen outcomes. 

What greater adventure could there be than to fully engage with the folks right in front of you for as long as they are there?

We so often try to surround ourselves with individuals just like us and experiences that feed our hunger for personal peace and prosperity.  

The message we send to others is, "Don't disrupt my equilibrium and don't jostle my plans.  I like my life to be calculable, convenient, comfortable."  

Controllable.

We want rack-ready relationships.

But what if the most exciting, creative, adventurous path lies in learning how to find beauty in the overlooked, the rejected, the out of fashion, the out of sync, the out-of-the-ordinary? 

What if instead of trying to avoid folks who don't immediately "fit" us, we take some time to learn them, look for their strong points and the beauty that others may not have noticed--and figure out how to enjoy them?

What if we could help them to shine again?

I was talking to another friend whose family is made of a number of biological and adopted children--more than they expected, more than is comfortable, more different than they expected, and more difficult than they anticipated, and she was saying that although their road is not the easiest one, it is always interesting!

I concur.  There are people in my home (and in my church and in my neighborhood, for that matter) whom I do not understand.  There are people who don't understand me.  

Just in my home I have nine mismatched hearts with different stories and needs, different interests and abilities, and it has become my life's work to take these diverse elements and make them fit--make them function together as a family.  

G.K. Chesterton once wrote, 

"In order that life should be a story or romance to us, it is necessary that a great part of it should be settled for us without our permission...The reason why the lives of the rich are at bottom so tame and uneventful is simply that they can choose the events.  They are dull because they are omnipotent.  They fail to feel adventures because they can make the adventures.

"The thing which keeps life romantic and full of fiery possibilities is the existence of these great plain limitations which force all of us to meet the things we do not like or do not expect...To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into romance. Of all these great limitations and frameworks which fashion and create the poetry and variety of life, the family is the most definite and important."

While our little tribe may not have the polish and sophistication of a "model family", in the process of making this work we are learning how to live creatively, flexibly, and unselfishly, stretching each other and ourselves, re-purposing our strengths and weaknesses to best allow the other members to flourish and shine.  

And as it turns out, that is the recipe for adventure!

We don't always do it well.  "As at Goodwill, so in life", as the old saying goes.  Or maybe I just made that up, but anyway, sometimes an outfit I have cobbled together from Grandma's closet and the bargain bin is a clanger.  

Sometimes it takes immense patience and creativity to make those vinyl go-go boots cooperate with ANYTHING else in the closet.

And sometimes it is the same for the family we've been given, the neighborhood where we are planted, the community of faith where we serve. 

It is so tempting to motor past the jumble and chaos of the flea market and slide into the smooth, aesthetically pleasing aisles at Urban Outfitters and let their suave cadre of millennials dress us in the latest and greatest ensembles from the storefront.  

Just as it is easier to tumble into the company of your handpicked cyber-posse and bypass the hurly burly of the oddballs and misfits under your own roof.

The choose-your-own-adventure smorgasbord of life options available to the world citizens of today makes it very easy to avoid the daily company of a humdrum circle of family members and locals who aren't really your type, and whose idiosyncrasies moved over the line from "quirky and endearing" to "kooky and annoying" weeks ago.

But isn't this the very thing that adds the spice to life and (Biblically speaking) paints love with the widest and richest array of colors?  

Luke 6:27-36 says,

“Listen, all of you. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Pray for the happiness of those who curse you; implore God’s blessing on those who hurt you.

“If someone slaps you on one cheek, let him slap the other too! If someone demands your coat, give him your shirt besides. Give what you have to anyone who asks you for it; and when things are taken away from you, don’t worry about getting them back. Treat others as you want them to treat you.

“Do you think you deserve credit for merely loving those who love you? Even the godless do that!  And if you do good only to those who do you good—is that so wonderful? Even sinners do that much! And if you lend money only to those who can repay you, what good is that? Even the most wicked will lend to their own kind for full return!

 “Love your enemies! Do good to them! Lend to them! And don’t be concerned about the fact that they won’t repay. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as sons of God: for he is kind to the unthankful and to those who are very wicked.

 “Try to show as much compassion as your Father does." (Luke 6:27-36 TLB)

I have come to believe that the ease of special-ordering our friends and relatives is one of the things that makes today's culture such a pale and anemic shadow of what community life can be.  If we can't figure out how to stick it out with disappointing people, what will that do to the health of our marriages and families? 

What depth and strength can a revolving door of relationships obtain?  

Have we completely forgotten that you have to take root in order to bloom?  

Time and tension creates strength both in muscles and in life.  When my shine wears off (and it will) I want you to lean in, not walk out.  

When I make choices that baffle you, or when I pull out habits that irk you, I want you to step closer and figure me out. 

I want you put in routine relationship maintenance, not trade me in.

Show me your weaknesses and I'll show you mine and maybe we can both find a safe place to rest.  Maybe we can stop pretending that we have it all together (yes, I'm talking to you, Instagram), gather up our pieces, and put together a mosaic that makes up in pizazz for what it lacks in polish.

And guess what, you growling, impatient culture of "NOW! NEW! MORE!"

That takes time.  

Hours, weeks, years, patience, testing, and refinement does its work and what stands the test is what is truly worth having after the flavor of the day has been thrown on the ash heap of history.  

Because there is no such thing as an instant classic.

*********

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

1 Peter 4:8