Our Family Vocabulary: The Double Pour

Your words shape your world, your values, who you are, how you love.

Every relationship that truly reaches you develops it’s own lexicon that characterizes it, impacts your story, hems you into it, and sets it apart from all the others in the word.

Moment by moment and laugh by laugh, we are creating our own household vocabulary because we want the legacy we leave as a family to be definable and worth talking about.

Less than six months into being a family of three, our word game is strong.

Please let me introduce you to…  The Double Pour.  

(If you didn’t read that with heroic background music and a dangerous tone at least 3 octaves lower than your regular tone, please go back and try again. It’s important.)

Necessary background information:

Lifa is scared of water. I mean, SCARED SCARED.

When he was 2, he would scream the kind of scream that puts people on the 5 o’clock news. Sheer panic would shatter the hearts and eardrums of me and all the neighbors that came rushing over every time I would bathe him in 2 inches of water.

We’ve tried swim lessons.

Chris has surprised him with a few perfectly timed cannonballs.

We’ve made games with every kick, bubble, and strategy you could think of, but that deeply entrenched fear is like kryptonite on our super-kid.  

Then, we told him he could no longer use a washcloth to wash his hair and face. He is 8, and it’s time for actual, flowing water. (Side note: One time I took him to get a haircut and was totally embarrassed when piles of sand came out on the clippers.)

Hair and face-washing showers became breakdowns; bath times became long, painful, stressful events dreaded by everyone.

And the thing is, Lifa loves the idea of water.

He wants to love it; he wants to own it; he wants to be in it.

But when it comes near his face...  Stress City.

Cue: The Double Pour

My handsome super-husband is committed to helping Lifa become the courageous warrior God designed him to be… even when warrior training looks like both guys putting on swim trunks and Chris getting in the scream shower with Lifa.

One evening, during the bath time saga, Chris went in with a new strategy. I watched him head to the bathroom armed with a plastic cup, patience and a purpose. I was cooking dinner and realized it sounded different in there. Suddenly, both of my guys marched out looking like champions – Lifa was extra clean, and both of them were exuding manliness, chanting and grunting about, “THE DOUBLE POUR!”

"Yeah, Mom, that’s right: THE DOUBLE POUR."

RAWWWWWRRRRRR. Muslce flex. Man pose. Back to goofy kid smile.

THE DOUBLE POUR:

 proper noun. ultimate challenge. victory banner.

1. super innovative, super high-tech cleansing system that involves filling your plastic cup and dumping it over your head two times in a row without stopping to maximize shampoo removal and minimize panic.
2. The way to make you feel like you just won the entire world in a bathtub.

Overnight, Lifa went from dreading bath time to talking about it on the way to school every morning, asking us to time him, and then stick around to watch him hold his nose and go under the water for at least 5 seconds.

(Real time update: I just got called into the bathroom while writing this so he could defy the double pour by pouring TWELVE cups of water over his head in a row and chanting, “I LIKE IT,” as water ran down his face. If it wasn’t so weird, I would have videoed it.)

All it took was naming it.

It’s not that you can’t overcome your greatest fear, but you have to stop letting fear be your greatest fear. 

Without a name, it’s just a lurky, murky, knock-the-legs-out-from-under-you shadow.

You name the enemy. You look it in the eye. And then you take it on.

Lifa has yet to conquer the swimming pool, and then one day the ocean. But he's casting out his fears: pour by pour. 

Chris named Lifa’s greatest challenge, and suddenly that larger than life fear was an enticing, empowering invitation for victory from a loving father.

Your Father wants the very best for you. He has already poured Himself over every shadow and fear in your world – whether your world fits in a bathtub or an ocean.

He took the cup, and then He put it in your hand.

He is standing beside you cheering you on to your ultimate victory:

Today is the day for your Double Pour.

And we are a Double Pour kind of family. 

The Secret of the Shovel

I sat in the loudest, most chaotic “library” I’ve ever been in, and leaned in close to talk with a teacher who is not actually a teacher. He thought it would be nice to try teaching, and the need is great, so he was placed in a classroom of 63 third graders. The teacher doesn’t always make it to class, but when he does, he doesn’t know what to do. He’s not even sure about all the subjects. 

I sat in a coffee shop with a social worker in training and listened to her dream about making a difference. I took that hopeful social worker to-be to meet an experienced social worker, so we could learn together about the untapped resources and the potential buried within the nation. The experienced social worker was not lacking in knowledge or information; instead she had a full detailed report of all the social services that are supposed to be available, yet have dried out. Oh, and there’s no option for kids with no birth certificate. She doesn’t get it either.

I sat in an office with a community developer. He carries a heavy burden on his shoulder and in his eyes. He sat, sunken into the chair, and reached, grasped, begged for some beacon of hope - something that might work. He can’t figure out why no one wants to make sustainable change. His best strategy is trying to sprinkle in the hope of Christ over deeply entrenched ancestral belief, like adding a touch of salt to rancid meat, serving it and wondering why people aren’t getting healthy. 

There is a drought in this nation.

A literal, physical drought that is putting our farmers in a crisis, and a hope drought.

Eyes, hearts and dreams are drying up as needs increase and resources decrease. 

 

Chrisleeladd on instagram tells the best photo stories.

That overwhelmed teacher, that exasperated social worker, and that desperate developer have been weighing on me. Those conversations at been gnawing at my own hope, chewing away at some of my own dreams for this nation and for my own family. A drought leaves no one untouched, and makes us feel powerless.

There was a drought in another nation a long time ago.

The Lord spoke to the exhausted infantry that was tired, dehydrated and battle-weary. They needed water for themselves and their livestock. They had been marching for days. As their strength waned, they leaned in hard to hear Hope’s refreshing, alleviating voice. “He said, ’This is what the Lord said: Make this valley full of ditches.” (2 Kings3:16)

Hope Himself told them to pick up a shovel and get to work. 

Digging ditches doesn’t make water.

It makes a space to hold it when there’s excess.

There was not a drop, but they dug.

Every day here, we get to work and try to equip people to do their part - to use their gifts, to use their hands, to build the Kingdom in the practical, life-changing ways.

Cook a meal.

Read a book.

Read more about this education genius at http://www.bkonmission.com

Hug a child. 

Everyday, we also have to remind ourselves that we can spread a little light over someone’s shadows and shake a little salt over someone’s wounds, but we cannot make it rain. When the real resources you need are not yours to make, you either lay down and die, or you do something anyway. A shovel does not make rain, and neither does a plate of food, a hand to hold, or even a birth certificate. But the secret is not in any of those things, and the secret is not in the shovel. 

 

We are not in charge of the rain, the salvation of the people, or of promises being fulfilled. They will be. They have been. They are.

The story of the ditch-digging army continues like this: “You will not see wind or rain, but this valley will be filled with water. You, your cattle, and your other animals will drink. The Lord considers that an easy thing to do…” (2 Kings 3:17-18a)

We have been entrusted to the land. Entrusted to partake in something that matters.

We have been invited to pick up our shovels and work right beside, behind and before our Maker. It’s not because he can’t do it on is own, but because He wants us beside Him. He wants us to work up a good enough sweat to drink deeply of Him.

The shovel might seem irrelevant. Just like my meetings with teachers, social workers and community developers. But we make space with those shovels. We blister our hands and strain our backs to make promise-holders, landing places for the water that truly saves. We lean in and lean over until there are deep places to catch the life-water so it can be absorbed; it can wash; it can make clean. 

The ground gets hard in a drought. If the rain comes today, in a dried out heart or in a dried out land, would it create a mudslide of confusion with nowhere for the water to go, or would we have already gone before it and dug a ditch for it? Would our blisters and thirstiness be worth it while we watch the rain fill, refresh, restore and save?

We set tables. We share burdens. We dig space-makers, promise-holders. We dig for the end of the drought.

We don’t make the rain. 

We pick up the shovel. 

One year ago today...

It was February 3, 2015, and I had just returned from a week out of town. Chris, the nice and neutral Tennessee man, whom I had bonded with about life in South Africa and come to respect on a deep level, wanted “to talk”.

No, it did not play out like the romantic movie scene currently playing in your mind. And the only soundtrack was a 7-year old wild child, bouncing around in his underwear.

The only jitters or feelings came in the form of Chris feeling sick to his stomach as we sat on opposite couches, and he methodically reported everything he had come to say.

He said I was scary.

I was scary because I had all the qualities God had told him to choose in a wife, and I came with…. bonuses. You know, second grade, superhero-like bonuses, that he had never envisioned for his own life.

BONUS! Just in time for the awkward years!

That night, during what I like to call “The Business Meeting”, Chris Ladd told me everything God had spoken for his life, and I told him what God had spoken for mine. We laid it all out, matter-of-factly, on the proverbial truth table and decided we could do all of those things together. And it would be better together.

I looked at that Tennessee man sitting on the big couch, and I said, “I choose you.”

“If we’re going to do this, I’m going to choose you every single day. No deal breakers.”

And there it was. It all came down to a choice, followed by a few moments of mutual panic, an awkward side-hug, and a promise that, if I put anything on Facebook that night, he would definitely throw up on the way home.

One year ago tonight, I crawled into my bed and thought, “Oh crap. I love Chris Ladd.” Not because I liked him or felt whooshy when I was around him… because I didn’t yet.

Because I chose him. I chose to choose him every day.

And that is love - choosing every day.

Eight months after that business meeting, we had another meeting under a big tree, in front of our family and friends.

Today, we live together in South Africa, the epicenter of the world’s “Orphan Crisis.” We wake up every morning not knowing what South Africa has in store for us, yet already knowing  how we will choose to respond.

We will not cry about an orphan crisis. We will celebrate the Family of God.

My handsome husband captured this moment.
You can see his awesome photos on instagram: chrisleeladd

We will choose to speak and see things as they truly are. 
We just traveled for 3 days straight to get back to this home-spot on the map, yet we know the epicenter of the orphan crisis is not found on a map. It’s found in a heart. The real orphans are the ones who don’t know they have a Father, and the true crisis is an unclaimed inheritance, just waiting for the chosen to come and collect it.

Some of the kids here are orphans. 
And some don’t have parents.

It’s the same all over the world.

Some days we sit on tires under the tree and make sure the ones around us know about the Father that chose them with no deal-breakers and with all their bonuses.

We have all been chosen.

Some day, we will sit across from our Beloved, and He’ll lay it all out on the Truth table. He’ll remember the times you choices you made,  the times you looked someone square in the eye to tell them there was no deal breakers on love. He’ll call you by your name, and He’ll celebrate how you woke up each morning and decided to spend your eternal inheritance wildly, knowing there is enough for everyone.

On that day, your Beloved will say, “Well done, my good and faithful chosen one. Come in and share my happiness.” And a whole lot more people will be in there with you.

We are chosen. And then we choose each other.

It’s better together.