It’s been six years, three months and one week since I
started the long drives to take Lifa to visit his biological father.
Along the way, the oh-so-handsome Chris Ladd stepped in like
a super hero to take the steering wheel, take my hand, and take the lead for
our family. Together, we re-committed to God to preserve Lifa’s relationship
with his father and his culture.
Making a commitment
is great… it’s putting in the miles that is the true test of faith.
The long drives and the drop-offs with dad never got easier.
As Lifa got older, he could see the discrepancies in the different types of
homes, families and protection. In order to honor our commitment to God and
protect Lifa, we helped his dad move into a new, safer community near some
pastors we have a long-term relationship with. We make sure his father’s needs
are met monthly and furnished his home so Lifa could have his own bed and a
stable environment to visit when we dropped him off for a visit.
We did our best to provide a stable environment and add
value to the household, but we could not create the sense of security and
stability kids were made to live in. Lifa had a really hard experience over the
3-week Christmas break with his dad. It was difficult for us all to recover,
and even more difficult to think of doing it again for the July holiday.
This year, Lifa has struggled more with finding his identity
and place in the world than ever before. Our
family is trusted to wrestle with identity development hard and strong until
Lifa can stand solid like a rock on his identity in Christ.
Lifa is visiting his dad right now. I still cried my heart out
the night before we dropped him off, but we did it. This time, Lifa only stayed
at his dad’s house for one week, and they had a great set up.
I got Lifa his own neon green shaker bottle and a box of
FutureLife for the trip to his dad’s house. FutureLife is a South African
novelty, developed originally to help fight malnutrition and starvation in
impoverished communities. Now it is a staple in any type of household. You just
add water or milk to make a porridge or drink – hot or cold. It comes in many
flavors and has a complete daily dose of nutrition. It would give him the
ability to eat whenever he felt hungry and not have to worry about recovering
weight and nutrition upon his return.
Lifa’s was chocolate with extra protein, and he loved the idea of making his own
smoothies like Mom and Dad do. He sees us drink protein smoothies after I lift
weights or Chris runs, and so we sent him off armed and ready with a shaker
bottle, FutureLife, and a training plan!
I talked to Lifa on the phone last night from his dad’s
house, and he had a lot to say! “Mom, I basically ran all day. Every day.” (Mom and Dad know that means he put in a solid
10 minutes… classic running time warp.) “And then I did 15 push ups and jump
squats. I exercise so much. I’m actually sore right now. I’ve been
drinking my FutureLife everyday after I exercise so my muscles get really
strong.”
I mom-cheered the heck out of that.
It’s silly. Chocolate FutureLife and a neon green shaker
bottle. But I felt God’s love for Lifa so deeply through this excited story
telling.
The story of the shaker bottle means so much to me because
it was a tiny little piece of family identity that Lifa took with him into the
rest of the world. He left the safety, protection, and pursuing love of our
household and went into a very different reality. But he had a tangible value
and lifestyle of our household to hold onto. Something simple like health and
fitness provided a strong tower for him to run into and remember who he is,
even when no one around him understands. (“Mom, no one likes my FutureLife.”
“That’s because it has vitamins, Lifa.”)
The world-changer we’ve been entrusted to raise lives in two
worlds, has two very different dads, and everything seems to have flipped
upside down on him in the last six months. We’ve cried out to God as we’ve
watched him struggle to find something to hold onto, something to stand on to
know who he is. To know where he belongs.
It’s hard to watch Lifa wrestle with this reality at 9-years
old, but we were all made to wrestle in this. We have been trusted to be
citizens of heaven that live on this earth. To be fathered and to know the
Father. We’re promised that everything is going to turn upside down at some
point, but the Father we turn to will still be standing strong and firm.
The best thing we can
do is know our identites in Christ, establish our household according to those
values, and then give our families ways to hold on to that wherever they go.
Sometimes putting on the armor of Christ is filling your
mind with Scripture, and sometimes it’s giving a hug goodbye while you hand a
kid a shaker bottle.
We are made to make
Christ-followers and then send them out into the world. Armed and ready.
