Stay Weird (and support our adoption)

(If you'd like to practically support our adoption, see the link at the end of this post for a fun way to do that!) 

These words are framed in my house like they think they’re some profound family mantra: Stay Weird. But they are kind of a profound family mantra. I believe in weird, I have the most fun when I accept my weirdness, and I was so pumped when my kids ended up being weird, too. 

For example, Adelaide sleeps with 500 stuffed animals, and they are all named Lamb except for one, who is named Josephine. So we have to say, “Goodnight Lamb, Lamb, Lamb, Lamb, Lamb, Lamb, Lamb, Lamb, and Josephine.” I feel like Josephine is really self conscious about her name, like if you dressed up for Tacky Day in high school and then realized it wasn’t Tacky Day until next week. Adelaide isn’t interested in giving any of the lambs an actual name, and in fact, the mere suggestion elicits a condescending stare. This is just how Adelaide’s world is run, and perhaps Josephine will need to go to stuffed animal counseling one day. The lambs really are troubling because they are so very numerous, and sometimes Adelaide is upset because she doesn’t have enough space in her bed. “I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO SIT!” she cries, and I’m like “GIRL IF YOU’D LET JUST HALF OF THESE LAMBS SLEEP ON THE FLOOR, YOU’D HAVE A DECENT SIZE SLEEPING AREA,” but she can’t part with a single one, so we just squish those lambs up real good, and I give Josephine a look like, “You’re doing me a solid, girl.” Adelaide has created this whole microcosm of stuffed animals, and even though it is very complicated, it makes me like her so much. 

Greer is essentially Santa in a toddler body, and he falls down a lot and smells like maple. He’s the only “morning person” that lives in our house, and more than once I’ve brought him back into our bed in hopes that I can trick him into sleeping another hour, but that boy is so PUMPED ABOUT LIFE that he ends up giggling and standing up and flinging himself onto my head 4,000 times until I give up and make some coffee.

Getting to hang out with these kids makes me feel like I’m standing under one of those big bucket things at a water park, the ones that empty themselves out every minute or so, sending big bucketfuls of overwhelming delight crashing onto my unsuspecting head until I’m totally drenched. (Or they make me feel like I’m drowning. It sort of depends on the day, so the metaphor holds.) They’ve proved to me that God’s ideas are always, always the best. When I was pregnant with each one, I was totally bewildered how I could love someone so much without having seen his or her face. God planted that love deep down in my heart, a beautiful gift that taught me more than I ever knew before about the depth of His love and goodness. How incredible that God would think to have us love with wild abandon someone the world has never met. 

And then once I held each baby in my arms, I was still stunned. I would think with joy, “We’re going to hang out forever, and I don’t even know you!” Such wonder ahead! I didn’t have a clue about the deep and desperate love Adelaide would one day have for Jessie from Toy Story or that Greer would render me forever incapable of effective discipline with his naughty little smirk and penchant for kissing me at just the right moment. Knowing these things turns my eyes into giant pink cartoon hearts, but truthfully, it didn’t matter that I didn’t know that stuff at the onset. Adelaide was already loved. Greer was already loved. Every day, it’s the truest thing I know to say about my kids—they’re already loved. It’s a done deal, forever. 

And it’s true about all my kids, especially this precious one that we’ll adopt. The one whose story remains a mystery except to He who holds the pen (Psalm 139:16). This child is already loved by me, but even before that, he or she was already loved by God. Already loved, already planned for, already seen, already known, already cherished, already fearfully and wonderfully made right now, without having to do another thing, by a God who is too wonderful for us to comprehend.

A college student asked me once about parenting, and I said, “I think all kids are weird, and we need to give them the space to be weird.” It’s just about the only thing I feel comfortable saying about parenting, because in just about every arena, I have no idea what I’m doing, but I have already seen great return in celebrating a kid’s uniqueness.

I believe that weird has power, that it makes hard tasks easier, long days shorter, boring days more fun. I believe when we’re upfront about our weirdness, our relationships are more genuine, our conversations are full of more laughter, our memories are more vivid.

Too many times I have stifled my weirdness in favor of “cool,” an adjective I now believe to be dangerous, and I think the pursuit of it is toxic. Kids aren’t born “cool,” they’re born weird and quirky and unique, and “cool” is the world’s attempt to squash those things, to make them fit into a box marked “approved.”

But what I want my kids to know is that they don’t need the right shoes to be marked “approved,” because they already are. Psalm 139 teaches me that they were “fearfully and wonderfully made” in the hands of a God who is “too wonderful” for our minds to comprehend, a God whose creation proves that He thinks completely outside of the box, holds himself to no one’s standard, begs for no one’s approval. He made 100 pound rodents (the capybara, and every kid I’ve ever taught has had the misfortune of writing a research paper on them), gave giraffes black tongues, put a thousand colors in the sky, and told little springs of green to jut up from the earth so Luke could mow them. (I DO NOT WANT TO MOW.) 

We are adopting in large part because of the imago dei (Genesis 1:27)—the belief that each and every person is created in the image of God. Somehow I’ve gotten it in my head that our opportunity for image-bearing is best done when we shed our “coolness” and our propensity to change ourselves to suit the desires of others, and instead are our truest weird selves. Little kids do this naturally, and perhaps that purity is a reason why Jesus said the kingdom of heaven belongs to them (Luke 18:16). I wait in excited anticipation about the things I’ll learn about God through this little one, how I’ll see His unique fingerprint in all of his or her tiny weird tendencies. What will make him or her laugh? What Disney character will send him or her into hysterical excitement? What color eyes, what favorite flavor ice cream, what fears and pet peeves await discovery?

It doesn’t matter what they have up their tiny, mischievous sleeves—they’re already loved, just like this, without having to do another thing, and every bit of weirdness is a delicious treat, a reminder that God’s imagination knows no bounds, that if we are created in His image, He must be really, really fun.

How it must grieve our Father’s heart when we forget that He created us and did a good job at it, when we adapt our personalities and quirks for man’s approval. One thing I hope to teach Adelaide, Greer, and this dear precious one whose face I long to see: Stay Weird, babies! Be who God made you to be! It sends your mother’s heart shooting to the sky and exploding with joy, like the fireworks that made Adelaide lose her ever-loving mind on the Fourth of July.

Oh, the miracle of life, the beautiful uniqueness of each and every person! What we can learn about Him from one another if we’ll just be who we are! It’s not about being obsessed with our own specialness, as if we had anything to do with it—it’s about paying attention to the origin of it, the God of the Universe, who is too wonderful for our minds to comprehend. Praise be to God, who came up with laughter and music and color and children out of nowhere! I can’t wait to meet the precious, beautifully weird child You’ve planned for us, a child we know for certain was created in Your image.

If you’d like to support our adoption in a practical way, consider purchasing one of these shirts that were designed for us by our wonderful friends at Fund the Nations! Each purchase supports our placement fees, and we are also secretly hoping that it’ll be a reminder to you to be your weird little self, in awe of a God who creates funny, creative, unique people in His image. 

(Please note: This is a pre-order, so shirts will be printed and shipped once enough orders have been received! Also, if you're local to us and would like to pick up your shirt, put code LOCALPICKUP at checkout to save on shipping!)