Yes, Lent calls us to think great thoughts and to embrace great visions of faith, and we try to do that. But it’s a season for remembering small things too. A cup of cold water, a prisoner, someone sick visited, someone naked clothed, someone hungry fed, a word to the weary to rouse them. The law of God often comes down to small things, and the greatest in the kingdom of God are the best at that.
- Victor Hoagland

Enjoying the "Shtuff" Girls (Seminarians, Homeschoolers, Birds, Wookies...) Say meme?

Read my take on it, posted on the her.meneutics blog yesterday.

Dreading a(nother) long weekend with kids home from school and (if you live in the north) less than optimal weather? 

Get creative:

"When yet another three or four day weekend is looming, I get creative. Over the past several winters, I have thrown everything from elaborate Groundhog Day celebrations to birthday parties for J.R.R. Tolkien. I have commemorated Presidents’ Day with cherry pies (a nod to our first president) and old-fashioned games such as Dominos to show my children what games were played hundreds of years ago."

Read my article on Mom It Forward here.

_If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. 
- Toni Morrison

Thank you National Society of Newspaper Columnists (NSNC) for the shout out in this month's newsletter.  (I love the look of fellow NSNC members' new book My Funny Valentine, too.)

Excerpt from the February e-columnist:

"My Funny Valentine: America's Most Hilarious Writers Take on Love, Romance, and Other Complications is getting good reviews and should have good sales this month. It's a collection of stories, poems and other writings about Valentine's Day contributed by 40 authors. They include NSNC members Barb Best, John Boston, Eileen Mitchell, Jackie Papandrew, Sara Lee Perel, John Philipp, Dorothy Rosby, Lisa Tognola, Jim Shea, Dawn Weber and Ernie Witham.

Jennifer Grant's second book, MOMumental: Adventures in the Messy Art of Raising a Family, will be published in May by Worthy Publishing which describes it: "One mom's humorous and candid memoir shows would-be supermoms how to create a realistically balanced family life without losing their minds."

Find out more about the NSNC here.

(I'm proud to be a member.)

Highly recommend fellow Redbud Writer Karen Swallow Prior's engaging interview with L.L. Barkat, author of Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity and Writing.

Read the interview here.

Compelling and true. Yes, I've been changed by the two memoirs I've written. Love You More, among other things, helped me face my doubts, fears, and failings as a parent by adoption and connected me in very rich ways with others. MOMumental, though it's not yet out (release date is May 8, 2012), also liberated me by letting me tell my secrets - mistakes I've made as a mother and my deepest insecurities as a parent. And, you know, once you name and acknowledge such things, you're freed (at least a bit) from their clutches. 

Last night my son shared an essay on memoir with me; the quote, above, is taken from it. His English teacher gave it to the class to help her high school sophomores understand the genre and why Americans love it.

Read the whole essay on "The Age of Memoir" here.

_Artistic temperament sometimes seems
a battleground, a dark angel of destruction
and a bright angel of creativity wrestling.
- Madeleine L'Engle

It is well to lie fallow for a while.
- Martin Fraquhar 

This January, I'm trying to "lie fallow," as much as life allows. 

I'm taking the dog on long walks in the park, sometimes in biting snow and cold. I'm staring at the birds - red-headed woodpeckers mostly - on the swaying feeder in my back yard. I'm watching the sky move from gray to pink to black in the afternoons and evenings. 

I'm not hosting dinner parties or making lunch dates or taking apart the linen closet to re-organize its shelves. I did those sorts of things in the week between Christmas and New Year's Day and was left spent by my own energy, industriousness, and anxiety.

Instead, I'm making fires, reading books that please me, rather than ones I am contracted to review, and thinking about poetry, about friendship, about loss. The year started with news of the death of a friend and ushered me into this melancholy place, a place that can feel - all in one day -  bleak, serene, true, satisfying, and lonely. 

It's been a long while since I've had this kind of fallow time. 

I trust, when I can, that under this cold ground, some life sleeps and will wake in its own time, in its own spring. 

Honored to be included on this list of top ten posts (chosen on basis of page views on Christianity Today's her.meneutics blog) for my post titled "Another Assault on Little Girls" on Vogue Paris's "Gifts" photo spread.

Read entire post here.

Today: the day starts with a scramble, after staying up too late watching "A Series of Unfortunate Events" with the kids, to get the six of us ready for a funeral. This morning, two of my children will serve as acolytes and my husband will sing in the choir. Over breakfast, we talk about the gravity of the day; it's three days before Christmas and we are off to stand in solidarity with a family at our church who just lost their beloved husband and father. 

The service is packed - every pew filled to bursting, people sitting in the library, standing in the back of the church, and some of us in Our Lady's chapel, facing the wrong direction, our eyes on the terrible, mysterious wood sculpture of Jesus' on the cross, but very much present with all of those in pews behind us, standing, and sitting on steps and in chairs in rooms near to the nave. 

The service includes two recollections given by the deceased man's friend and from a colleague. They are beautifully crafted, saturated in deep love and respect for the one who has died. There is a refrain in their words: The man whose death we mourn was ever grateful, joyful, and fair. He was a bright light. Our priest reminds us that someday the Scriptures we've read will make more sense to us, but for now many of us are simply numb. 

"We're lucky men," his close friend was reminded over and over by the friend whom he lost. Lucky men. 

After the internment of the remains in our columbarium, there is a reception in the parish hall.  We watch slides from this man's life. We pick at cheese cubes, sandwich triangles, and neat little clusters of grapes. We drink coffee. We sign the guest book. We embrace the widow and say what comes to mind (Me: "We're with you" - I couldn't think of anything else to say; her grief is unimaginable to me). We hug our friends, and we cry. These are the things we do to keep our minds and hands busy. We know nothing we can offer the family could begin to mitigate their grief.

On our way out of the church, my daughters and I return to the chapel and light candles in remembrance of the man who is now absent from our church community, from his friends, from his home. 

After the service, my family and I go out to lunch where my husband gives a little speech to the family. It's a rare occurrence for him to do so. He reminds us that he, too, knows himself to be a lucky man as husband and father to us. The waitress at the restaurant, after I explain my tears and the kids' distraction by saying that we were just at a funeral, gives us a box of cupcakes.  

"These are on us," she says. "You've had a hard day."

It's three days before Christmas and we are in the season of waiting, Advent. 

I long for those who grieve to be comforted.

I long for that family again, someday, to have joy.

I long for Advent to be over and for Christmas to be here.

But for now, I feel a part of a weary world. 

O holy night!

The stars are brightly shining
It is the night
Of the dear Savior's birth!
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till he appear'd and the soul felt His worth
A thrill of hope
The weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks
A new and glorious morn!
Fall on your knees
Oh hear the angel voices
Oh night divine
Oh night when Christ was born
Oh night divine, oh night, oh night divine

Chains shall He break
For the slave is our brother
And in His name all oppression shall cease
Sweet hymns of joy
In grateful chorus raise we
Let all within us praise His holy name
Christ is the Lord, let ever ever praise Thee
Noël, Noël
Oh night, Oh night divine
Noël, Noël
Oh night, Oh night divine
Noël, Noël
Oh, oh night, oh night divine.

During this Advent season as we celebrate the new relationship between God and his people, may that be mirrored in our renewed relationships with spouses, children, family and those near and dear to us. May we speak tenderly to each other amidst all the rush of the season and transform the shopping days till Christmas into the true Advent of Christ.
- Casely Essamuah, Park Street Church



Read the December issue of my newsletter, 
for Love You More and MOMumental news - 
and much more, here.

Get News! 

To keep informed of author events (Shh...I'll be at Calvin College's Festival of Faith and Writing in April 2012, as part of a panel on writing memoir), book news, and give-aways and blogging opportunities, sign up for my newsletter here. 

(Want to see what you've been missing? See earlier issues here.)  

Fine Print: Of course, I won't share, sell, or spam your email address.(I wouldn't do that!) Newsletters arrive monthly, except in the summer when I write a combined July/August issue whilst frolicking with my family, usually in the great state of Michigan. Apologies for the lack of a November 2011 issue - I failed even to try to write a newsletter last  month, but instead made my book deadline for MOMumental. (Hooray!) 

So, sign up already!        

Great piece on raising children (by Bryan Caplan, the "less fuss, more fun" parenting writer):

Focus on enjoying your journey with your child, instead of trying to control his destination. Accept that your child’s future depends mostly on him, not your sacrifices. Realize that the point of discipline is to make your kid treat the people around him decently—not to mold him into a better adult. (Read entire article here.)

I would maintain that thanks 
are the highest form of thought; and that 
gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.  
- G.K. Chesterton

So excited to see the final cover for my new book - MOMumental: Adventures in the Messy Art of Raising a Family.  

Given our purchasing history over the past 15 years - the cereal on the cover is quite apt.

MOMumental will be published in August 2012 by Worthy Publishing. 

Crushing poverty has shaped the perspectives and circumstances of their lives. Addressing the causes of poverty, Walker acknowledges, is a vital piece of ending sexual slavery. Investing in long-term development work is critical, as is the need to end the sex trade and rescue the children and young people who are abused and imprisoned today.
(Read full response to God in a Brothel on Sojourners' God's Politics blog here.)

I loved talking with Anita Lustrea and Melinda Schmidt on Midday Connection about adoption, the global orphan crisis and Love You More. 
(Listen to the interview here.)

Our lives, the women who have been Mia's other mothers and me, are tied to each other. We three have been braided together to create something new and stronger than we would have been on our own. We have been forever connected in love for one little girl.
(Read full article at Chicago Parent here.)

Blame it on whatever you’d like, but my family isn’t able to sit down and eat dinner together every night of the week. But, most nights, we manage to make it happen. The kids are given heaping bowls of Cheerios or Life cereal before they run off to sports or music lessons, but when we all return home, sweaty, tired, sometimes jangly and out of sorts after too long a day, we sit down to dinner together.
(Read full blog post here.)

These days, pediatricians provide more than medical knowledge. Along with discussing topics such as immunizations, nutrition and allergies, pediatricians could be called on to guide children and their parents on subjects ranging from bike helmets to bullies. As trusted, knowledgeable and neutral adults in children's lives, pediatricians are in a unique position to render advice on those and other matters.
(Read the entire Chicago Tribune article here.)

Jennifer: I don’t know that it’s the book I was born to write, but it certainly is the kind of book I longed to read when I started the adoption process. I wanted to hear about other families’ stories, about their doubts, missteps, successes as they welcomed children into the family by adoption.
I like that Toni Morrison quote – “It there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”
(Read entire interview here.)

I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, 
what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear. 
-Joan Didion

Look at the word unbroken. 
An uncommon word that begins with a common prefix. Un- is so familiar that its meaning is rarely considered. Those two little letters just mean “not,” don’t they? (Read entire post here.)

Creativity is not the finding of a thing, 
but the making something out of it after it is found. 
- James Russell Lowell 

"As the manuscript moved toward that magic number of 65,000 words in the protective womb of my hard drive, I was preoccupied with its healthy development. Like a pregnant woman reading What to Expect books and making sure to swallow down her daily prenatal vitamins, I scoured whatever information I could on topics such as toddler adoption, the current state of adoption in Guatemala, and the plight of women like my daughter’s birthmother who choose to place their infants for adoption. I re-read old journal entries and emails I’d written during the adoption process. I talked to mothers who had adopted children with special needs." (Read entire post here.)

In the creative state a man is taken out of himself. 
He lets down as it were a bucket into his subconscious, and draws up something which is normally beyond his reach. He mixes this thing with his normal experiences and out of the mixture he makes a work of art.
- E.M. Forster

Some of my friends call them "writer crushes."  You know when you read a novel and you're filled with what can only be described as infatuation for the author? You fantasize about becoming her friend. You daydream about running into her at a bakery and sitting with her all day, drinking coffee, eating Madeleines, and discovering that you two were destined to be best friends. 

I developed a new writer crush this week on the blogger "Gluten Free Girl." Full disclosure: my family and I are anything but gluten free. (I hope that wouldn't stand in the way of our friendship.) In fact, this past week, I think we had (wheat flour) pasta in some form every single day. Tortellini soup on Monday. Pasta with pesto on Tuesday. Salmon marinara - made by a genius chef friend - over cavatappi on Wednesday. And so on.  And these were served with salads ("Croutons, please!") and loaves of crusty bread. So, all to say, we're hardly living the gluten free life around here. 

But when I began to read this blog post, I fell in love with the charming prose, the descriptions of New Orleans, and was even convinced that those grits with Velveeta (Velveeta!) would be delicious. But when I read the second part of the post in which she - in a beautiful, healthy, honest way - talks about the hurtful comments she has received on her blog, I was smitten.

I've written about my own set of "haters" elsewhere and in recent weeks, several of my friends who are professional writers have been badly bruised and battered by cruel words posted online in response to their work. 

One writer learned that her haters were organizing themselves and flooding her posts with negative, mean-spirited comments. She learned that after they posted, they "met" on one of the women's Facebook pages for virtual high fives. (The mean girls from junior high? Some of them are still with us, I'm sad to say.)

I'm making it a practice not to scour blogs or carefully read the reviews of Love You More. There are people, paid by the publisher, to do that. My babysitter-children's tutor-and sometime social media assistant chooses reviews to put up on this site.  I try to stay out of it as much as I can.

Still, some email messages and comments have made their ways to me. A few people have accused me of choosing the title Love You More to indicate that I love my daughter more than her birthmother does. (That would be simply awful and is an interpretation that never occurred to me.) 

Others say it was chosen to make clear that I love my adopted child more than my older three children, who came into the family the traditional way. (I read that one to all four of them; they laughed in such a delighted way that I realized I didn't need to give that another thought.)

Some Christians say the book is not Christian enough - or not at all Christian. Others say it's too religious. As a person who normally keeps details about her spiritual life private, receiving derisive comments about the way I articulated my faith in the book initially jarred me. 

And then there are the readers who are convinced that the book is a thinly-veiled "pro-abortion" manifesto. (Huh?)

One woman emailed me to say that she can't wait until my children - in whom, she pointed out, I obviously take so much pride and pleasure - grow older, become bitter teenagers, and hurt me emotionally. (Two are actually teenagers now, and I must admit, I continue to love them, more and more.)

Another suggests that readers keep a bucket nearby when they read my memoir, just in case they need to vomit. This writer admitted that she hadn't read the book, but still she just knew it was terrible.

I let these negative comments go. I know, as a friend said to me recently, that these comments rise from the fears, wounds, and limitations these people suffer. I can try to look with compassion on them, remind myself how fortunate I am to have published my book, and move on. And next time I get another "hater" email, I'll revisit my new friend Gluten Free Girl's blog and read that post.  I'll remind myself of what she learned from Brené Brown (What? You love her too?  Gluten Free Girl, we are meant to be friends!). 

Brown said, "“I know exactly why some people must hate your guts.”

“Why?”

“Because you are joyful,” she said immediately.

Let's be joyful. Let's tell the truth. Let's be respectful to each other. 

What a world that would be, no?

I'm (so very) happy to announce that I'm at work on my second book, to be published in summer 2012 by Worthy Publishing in Nashville. 

From the start, I've been head over heels in love with the team I've worked with at Thomas Nelson on Love You More so it's kind of like starting a new English class at the semester and hoping you like the teacher half as much as you liked the one who taught you Beowulf and Chaucer last term. 

The book will be another memoir, also on family, and will again plumb the anxiety, joy, and exhaustion faced by those of us who are involved in the vocation of parenthood. A friend emailed me today, expressing his thoughts on what it has felt like, so far, to be a father. He talked about the lack of role models he has - that he doesn't want to replicate the kind of family that was his as a child. He wants to do it right. 

When, like my friend and me, you grew up in a home that was disrupted by divorce, it can take a lot of courage and intention to believe that you can create a lasting, healthy marriage and raise kids well enough. 
You know you can't do either perfectly, but you take a deep breath every day and give it your best (except those times when you don't), batting away feelings of self-doubt. 

I love that quote "write the book you wish had been there for you." Love You More is that kind of book as it gives a peek behind the curtain and tells other parents by adoption what the process was like for me. My hope is that the new book will be similar: I'll take a deep breath and acknowledge loss, failure, and uncertainty while telling a story of one family - my own - and what it feels like to make it, enjoy it, and believe in it.

Love this (scrumptous) article by Lila Byock, from Salon.com. 

"Read between the lines of an old family recipe and you're liable to read the story of the family itself. The scrawled marginalia and cooking stains, the collective memory of shared feasts -- they might as well be alleles in the genome."


(Read entire article here.)

It is better to bind your children to you by a feeling of respect and by gentleness than by fear.
- Terence

Thank you Andrea Poe at the Washington Times for another excellent column on international adoption.

“The current system is damaging children.  A family is every child’s most basic human right. Our current system of adoption stands between kids joining families. At this march, we are coming together to make a statement that we must do a better job for millions of orphans around the world,” said Kelly Ensslin, a lawyer for several of the families.

(Read entire column here.)

I don’t wait for moods.
You accomplish nothing if you do that. 
Your mind must know it has got to
 get down to work. 
- Pearl S. Buck

Thank you ConceiveOnline for your coverage of Love You More.

"I like the poet Rilke’s advice: “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves.” Adopting Mia was a time when I had to live in more uncertainty, with less control, and “in the questions” for long periods of time. And I had to choose to trust that God was in control of the situation."

(Read entire interview here.)

My most recent post on adoption.com.

Anything can be a name,” her friend says. I’m glad Molly hasn’t backed down.“That’s right,” I say. “Anything.”

The names of several celeb-u-tots pop into my head. Jermajesty. Audio Science. Tu Morrow. Pilot Inspektor. Um, yes, those are all real given names. I must admit, though, I’ve always been fond of Moxie Crimefighter,the name Penn Jillette and his wife gave their daughter. I find it appealing, and empowering somehow. I make a mental note to remind my daughter to be more diplomatic in the future. This will be especially important if she ever moves to Beverly Hills.

(Read entire post here.)

In my inbox this morning, a number of forwarded messages from friends reading: 

Jennifer Grant's Love You More: The Divine Surprise of Adopting My Daughter:

• Previous estimated arrival date: August 15 2011 - August 19 2011
• New estimated arrival date: July 25 2011 - July 26 2011

It's almost here! I can't wait to see a finished book. (To order a copy, click here.)

Love Trina Pockett's "Brown Eyed Girl" post. 

"I used to be just like her. I saw life as an adventure, full of opportunities. I didn’t even stop the to think about how I didn’t measure up. I didn’t have the time. I was a bit of a tomboy when I was a kid. I loved to explore, to push the envelope. This was before the days of video games and cable television. I spent my afternoons playing baseball in the cul-de-sac, or following the boys on my banana seat bike. I ran for no reason and chased the wind at every opportunity. Life was beautiful."

(Read entire post here.)

Everything in life is writable
if you have the outgoing guts to do it, 
and the imagination to improvise.
 The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. 
- Sylvia Plath

I like this post by David B. Coe on writing (and not writing) and "keeping it fresh":

"...sometimes you do need a change of pace.  Sometimes the best thing you can do for your novel is to NOT write it for a day, or a week, or even a couple of weeks.  Change things up a little.  Write a short story.  Outline the next thing you want to write.  Or don’t write at all.  Instead, do something nice for yourself or spend the day with a friend, your kid, your spouse."

(Read entire post here.)

Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear 
from you; figure out what you have to say. 
It's the one and only thing you have to offer.
- Barbara Kingsolver

What you never knew about Obama's Mama - until Janny Scott discovered her - my latest post on Her.meneutics.

In Scott’s book, striking descriptions of Honolulu where “jagged volcanic ridges parade against the sky like dinosaurs’ backbones” or of Indonesian snacks of “sticky black rice sprinkled with coconut” might fill you with the kind of wanderlust that contributed to Dunham’s life as an expatriate. But that travel came at a price both for Dunham and her children. 

(Read entire post here.)

My latest post on adoption.com on transracial parenting:

“Teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything,” Bloom writes. In her bookThink: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World, she links the way we speak to little girls with the fact that “American women are increasingly unhappy.”
...
When I read Bloom’s Huffington Post piece, I remembered that babysitter from long ago. She signified to my older daughter that she was likeable and worthy of affection because she was cute. And to my Mia, she made it plain that when she looked at her, all she saw was difference. I didn’t like either reaction so, before the week was up, I let her go.

(Read entire post here.)

Don Fry's presentations at the NSNC conference in Detroit last weekend were filled with some of the most helpful (and life-giving) information I've ever heard about writing. 

"Some of the methods writers assume they must use actually hurt them: make them slow, damage their confidence, and make them inaccurate. I once coached a star writer who believed she had to have a perfect, fabulous first paragraph (the lead) before she could write anything else. She would type a lead, weep, erase it, weep, type a new lead, weep, etc. for about a month before something appeared on her screen she could live with. I showed her that she needed a perfect lead at the end of the typing, not at the beginning."

(Read Fry's entire post here.)

Funky folk art street,
post-industrial Detroit --
farmer checks his crops.

- J.G., 6/27/11 

(To learn about The Heidelberg Project in Detroit, click here.)

Just read my colleague, friend, and fellow Redbud Founder Arloa Sutter's post, "Irving's Ice Cream," on our blog. (Read entire post here.)
 
"The next day Irving was banging on my door. “Here, take these,” he growled as he handed over the ice cream, “they make me want to have them all the time.”
...
What am I willing to sacrifice to advance my life’s calling? What’s your mission? Is ice cream getting in the way?"

Read more about Irving and about Arloa's vision of "laying down our lives for others" in her inspiring new book, "The Invisible." 

Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish. 
- John Jakes

My summer goal - slashing and burning through unnecessary clutter in my life, most of which resides on my laptop in the form of old messages, bookmarked articles to read, and so on. Love this post on "handling digital clutter" by Donald Miller. He deleted his Facebook account to free up more time to write and think. Hm...

(Read entire post here.) 

In honor of Father's Day, Ian Morgan Cron's "...the Promises We Make"

(Read entire post here.)

"I turned 50 this year and my thoughts about fatherhood have changed. Fatherhood isn’t about living up to the Atticus Finch Gold Standard anymore. Fatherhood is remembering the promise I whispered to God and myself in a delivery room as I watched each of my three children come into the world, the promise that I would love them and their mother with everything I had, and as Atticus said, 'see it through no matter what.'"

(BTW, Congratulations to Ian on the publication of his new memoir - "of sorts" - and that it has been chosen as a featured title in the Barnes and Noble "Discover Great New Writers" program!)

Adam S. McHugh's "The Phases of Writing" 

(Read entire post here.)

"I once heard a writer say that her writing process involves letting her ideas drip down from her mind through her arms and into her fingers. What a beautiful image, I thought to myself, and what a total load of crap. Writing a book is like giving birth to a snarling 8 headed monster. It’s a war, and your mind, arms, and fingers all hate each other."

(Well said A.S.M. and what a pitch-perfect ending: "...and I carry it trusting that God has put it there for a reason.)