I haven’t written a blog post in many, many moons. Five years, maybe? Six? I don’t know, but in internet years it is about 469 years that I’ve been absent, and yet here I am, dusting off Ye Olde Blog.
Why, you ask?
I’ll tell you!
My son needs a photo of himself playing soccer to be published somewhere on the internet in the hopes that we can find it in Google Images and paste it into an online program. He doesn’t really have a digital footprint, and I AM OKAY WITH THIS!
But, in the world of high school teens these days, we have relegated them to needing SOME kind of digital presence in order to accomplish certain goals. I’m not a fan of this. It bothers me for a lot of reasons, but alas, here we are.
I’m playing the game so that he can hopefully continue to play the game. I don’t know if this will work or if I’ll delete the post later. But I’m coming my way through this in an attempt to help the kid out. So, if you get this email in your inbox randomly and you’re confused by it, don’t worry, I am too! I’m not even sure I understand how to publish a post on this forum anymore, it’s been so long.
But while we’re all here, how the heck are you doing? What’s new with you? Share your good news, your hard news, all the news because I don’t know when I’ll be back again. Consider this a digital reunion of sorts only without the need to make awkward small talk.
The End.
(PS: This is the photo that needs to be published on the web so that Google will take notice. This is the life and world of Landon Stuart. Head down kicking a soccer ball day in and day out.)
I recently had the privilege to sit down for a podcast interview with my friend, Jordan Raynor, to discuss the the sometimes tense, but often beautiful, writer life from the perspective of faith and work.
Say that five times fast.
Jordan is the bestselling author of Called to Create, a book that “restores God’s position as the first entrepreneur, helping readers see the eternal value in the work they do today.”
Jordan’s upcoming release, Master of One, Jordan builds on that message, using his “story-driven, gospel-centric style to make the case that it is through excellent work that we glorify God, love our neighbors as ourselves, and earn the right to be heard by a world thirsty for truth.”
With this as his underlying message, Jordan’s podcast, The Call to Mastery, assembles a line up of speakers from all vocations who are intent upon working with excellence all to the glory of God and the good of others.
Jordan and I had a wonderful conversation about my work as a fiction author. We discussed the crazy dinner that Jordan and my husband had in London with Douglas Gresham, C. S. Lewis’s stepson and head of the C.S. Lewis Foundation, which resulted in a developing friendship between Doug and myself, ultimately culminating in a surprise endorsement from him for my newest novel,A Silver Willow by the Shore.
Over dinner and, cigars, Jordan and my husband and one other friend spent an entire evening talking with Doug about life, art, C.S. Lewis and theology. That night is now logged in my husband’s book as one of the most epic of his life. It may have even edged out the day we got married.
Jordan and I went on to discuss what it might look like to work as a Christian who is an author, but not necessarily define as a “Christian author”.
The discussion was rich and fun and multifaceted, covering everything from my daily habits as a writer to my most recommended books, to the unlikely person I consider a mentor.
Jordan’s podcast is rich, and I highly recommend adding it to your weekly playlist. Likewise, I cannot recommend his books enough! I’ve read them both and gleaned so much encouragement from them.
Click here to listen to Jordan and I discuss faith and work from a writer’s perspective.
The verdict is in, and readers are loving my newest novel,A Silver Willow by the Shore! I couldn’t be more thrilled with the messages I am getting from readers about the impact this story of mothers and daughters, and of the longing for home, is having on each of them.
A Silver Willow by the Shore weaves together the stories of three generations of women, from the gulags of 1930’s Siberia, to the quiet oppression of 1980’s Soviet Moscow, to present day Tennessee. It is an unforgettable narrative of the treachery of secrets, and of the light that unites the heart of a family.
Click here to purchase your copy of A Silver Willow by the Shore!
There really isn’t a non-awkward way to begin this post. It’s been nearly ten months since I last posted in this space. In internet years that’s practically a lifetime.
A lot can (and did) happen in ten months. For those of you who don’t follow me on Facebook or Instagram, here is the abridged version of events.
We adopted Sawyer in November, and while we thought we were prepared for the adoption journey, there was much about Sawyer’s health that wasn’t disclosed to us, so the learning curve has been straight uphill.
Sawyer Jin Stuart
Shortly after bringing Sawyer home, when we were still reeling from the whirlwind that was China, our oldest son got sick. After a solid month of running a fever, and an ultrasound that revealed a swollen spleen, he was diagnosed with mono. A month after that, he was diagnosed with pneumonia.
On the same day that he was diagnosed with pneumonia, I was diagnosed with mono. This happened to be the same day that Sawyer had major surgery to repair his cleft palate.
The months of January-April are a bit of a blur. We were just trying to survive. We have seen more doctors and specialists than I ever knew existed, and we’ve met our family medical deductible for the first time in our lives, an accomplishment that isn’t nearly as exciting as it sounds.
There’s so much more I could share about these last ten months. They have been some of the hardest, most exhausting, emotionally charged, physically taxing, spiritually formative months of my entire life.
But it’s more than a simple blog post can handle, so I’ll simply leave it at this:
God is good because He is God. Hope is slow, but it is never ending. Life is hard and unpredictable while simultaneously beautiful and miraculous.
In the midst of this hard season, I’ve found myself craving the process of writing like never before. It was my lifeline when the mono knocked me out. In the wee hours of the morning, when fear and despair seemed to constantly drive me from my bed, tapping away at the keys brought and unexpected solace.
And through the storm of life, a new story has evolved.
This fall, I will release my second novel, A Silver Willow by the Shore.
Releasing Fall, 2019!
A brief synopsis:
How do you face the future if you don’t know your own past?
When an unexpected pregnancy changes her dreams, seventeen-year-old Annie tries to keep it from her mother and her grandmother. But secrets have a way of coming out. In a household of strong women, the arrival of a new life sets off a spiral of truth that reveals a past full of whispers and lies—a past that existed in another world under the heavy hand of Soviet oppression. This history has dictated the circumstances of the present, but hope, redemption, and forgiveness will grow in the rocky places of these generational differences.
A Silver Willow by the Shore is the story of the unshakeable love between mothers and daughters and of the impact that past decisions can have on present day circumstances. This novel weaves together the stories of generations of women, from the gulags of 1930’s Siberia, to the quiet oppression of 1980’s Soviet Moscow, to present day Tennessee. It is an unforgettable narrative of the treachery of secrets, and of the light that unites the heart of a family.
In the weeks to come, I will be sharing more about the book and opportunities to help spread the word. In the meantime, if you aren’t following me on Instagram, hop on over as I’m posting updates there regularly about this newest novel, my crazy life, and the art of the written word.
It’s awkward to jump back in this way after so many months away. It’s like trying to reinsert yourself into a conversation that you walked away from.
But here we are. We’re alive and (mostly) well. We’re surviving, and perhaps even thriving. By God’s grace alone, we’re standing in this place, humbled, changed, and excited about what the future holds.
Now, fill me in on you! What has life thrown your way in the last ten months?
If I’m honest, (and I’m going to be), I have been waiting since day one for the bottom to drop out of this adoption thing. Every time an email showed up in my inbox from the adoption agency, I braced myself for the news that for whatever reason we would not be able to move forward.
But every step of the process was smooth. It was like floating out on the ocean on a calm morning, the water smooth as glass all around us, sun warming our faces. Each stroke of the oar pushed us further along without the glimmer of a wave to hold us back.
It was a bit unnerving.
I knew it couldn’t possibly remain so smooth. It’s not just the unpredictability of adoption that threatened to shake us. It goes much deeper than that.
Adoption is spiritual.
The battle for the life of a child begins at conception. Satan hates children. Their vulnerability makes them an easy target. Christ Himself esteemed children in a day and age when kids were not considered a commodity, but rather a property, good only for extra help around the home and the farm.
“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 19:14
Children are the least of these. They are blessings and gifts, and they will always be in the crosshairs of the spiritual war we battle in this fallen world.
And the fatherless? Well, what better way for the devil to wreak havoc on a desperate and deprived world than to make sure children never find the security of a family?
Walking in faith toward adoption is a step onto one of the greatest heavenly battlefields, and there are bound to be repercussions.
[Tweet “What better way for the devil to wreak havoc than to keep children from the security of a family?”]
The chaos in my dream was more than mere coincidence. It was more than the result of sleep deprivation and a movie. The chaos in my dream was a true representation of the battlefield we are traversing.
In the last few months, it has become more apparent to me than ever that we are under spiritual attack. From a hole in our roof that we can’t seem to get a roofer to replace, (we can’t even get anyone to call us back!) to a car accident, to tensions inside and outside our home, to a very bizarre glitch with the immigration code given to our adopted son that threatened to set us back months in going to pick him up.
I can easily wave all these off, pushing them aside as merely coincidental. We should have called a roofer months ago before the rainy season hit. I should have kept my eyes on the road instead of glancing at my daughter’s new ring. We just need to slow down and take a breath. That immigration coding issue could happen to anyone.
There is truth in all the above statements, and I’m certainly not one to look for the devil beneath every rock, but I also believe that satan wants to throw everything into chaos so that when we pick up our son, we are already worn down, beaten, stressed, and at odds.
We are on the bus, looking out both windows. Panic ensues. The world around us is in chaos, burning, tilting, crumbling.
And then someone hands us a child.
I think there are spiritual implications to my dream, and I’m not taking it lightly. I believe that the child represents our adopted son. Every time I held that baby in my arms, the panic and fear I felt abated. A calm washed over me, despite the fact that the world continued to rage.
Despite all the craziness that has been tossed at us these last six months, I don’t for a second doubt that Sawyer is meant to be our son. And so, despite the fact that water keeps dripping into my walls, my car is still in the shop, and the general feeling in life right now is we’re a half a step behind everything, I feel peace when I remember that this little boy is worth every battle.
Beyond that, it is apparent that the child in my dream is a representation of Christ Himself. The two are connected, our Chinese son and our God. Clinging to Christ is the only thing that makes the chaos less…chaotic.
We are in a battle, a war for the ages. Satan wants nothing more than to destroy this adoption, and why?
Because it is a picture of the gospel. It’s a picture of what Christ has done for us. It’s a picture of Christ Himself.
[Tweet “Adoption is a picture of Christ Himself. #adoption”]
There’s nothing special about our family. We aren’t better than anyone else because we chose to walk this path. We aren’t stronger. In fact, we feel anything but strong right now.
But though the world rages, though the battle grows fierce, though the waves rise, interrupting our smooth as glass ride, though the roof above our head lets in the rain, though the path feels unsteady, still we take tentative steps forward, obediently walking toward not just a call but a command.
“Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God is this: To visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” James 1:27
We believe Sawyer is worth the fight. We believe our four biological children are worth the fight. We believe that Christ is the sustainer, the protector. We believe that the world will keep raging, but our hearts don’t have to falter.
In roughly two months, we will pick up our son. This isn’t the end of our adoption story.
Hurricane Florence has stalled out over the Atlantic as the Carolinas hunker down and wait for her to make landfall. I’m watching it all unfold with a mild sense of PTSD after we rode out Irma last year (which hit us at a Category 2 when it was all said and done).
It’s an odd sensation, preparing for a hurricane. Your mind is a whir of details as you decide what valuables you need to try and secure, and which ones you need to be okay with losing. Suddenly, you find that you’re able to boil down the most important things in your life to only a handful of people and possessions.
You prepare for the worst, and you hope for the best. There’s an analogy here.
Back in late January, I got an email from Rainbow Kids, an adoption and child welfare advocacy group that sends out lists of children who are waiting for their forever families. These are usually the children who are most vulnerable, have special needs, or risk aging out of the orphanage and losing their right to be adopted.
I don’t remember ever having signed up for this list, nor had I ever seen an email from them before. It’s quite possible I’d been receiving these emails for years and simply hadn’t noticed, but for whatever reason, on January 28 I had an email in my inbox with the subject line “Waiting Child: Sawyer”.
Way back in 2005, when I was pregnant with our second child, my husband and I happened to be mildly obsessively addicted to the show LOST. We chose not to find out the sex of that second baby, and after much discussion and convincing, I got my husband to agree to name the baby Sawyer. It was partly in homage to our favorite show, and partly just a name I loved.
Then our daughter, Katya, surprised us all (shattering a long-running streak of Stuart males), and the name Sawyer was reluctantly retired. When our third child came along, Sawyer didn’t fit, and so I resigned myself to the idea that I’d never get to utilize that name I’d so come to love.
So on this day in January, I opened that email merely out of curiosity because of the name “Sawyer”, and when I did, the most beautiful little boy I’d ever seen stared back at me. He had a head full of thick, black hair, large curious eyes, round cheeks, and the sweetest little lips.
And he needed a home. The only problem?
He was in China, and this hadn’t been part of our family plan.
I called Lee that day and tentatively told him about the little boy nicknamed “Sawyer” who needed a home. I figured he’d shake his head and laugh at me. My sweet husband has endured many a phone call in our eighteen years of marriage about children who needed homes. This longing to adopt isn’t something that sprung up in my heart overnight.
It was planted in me many, many years ago. Why I’ve had to wait this long to see the Lord answer this desire in this particular way is a mystery to me. All I can say is Hope is Slow.
So as I explained the situation to Lee, he listened quietly and said, “Okay. Let’s get more information.”
Then…I LAUGHED! I thought he was kidding. But he wasn’t, and so I emailed to inquire about the little boy in my inbox. By the end of that week, we’d spoken with numerous specialists and medical professionals who helped us read his file and get an idea of what issues he faced. We’d called a couple of friends in the adoption community and asked their opinions.
And then we just…made a decision. There was no A-ha moment that made us jump up and say “Yes! This is our son!” It was more an understanding that this situation was in front of us, and we had no reason to say no.
We took tentative steps forward, and within two weeks we were meeting with a local agency to begin our home study. We had just submitted our Letter of Interest to China less than two days earlier, which requested permission to pursue the adoption of this specific child, and we’d been told to expect a reply in 10-14 days.
As I drove to the home study agency, I was seized with fear. It felt a little like the beginnings of a hurricane swarming in my mind. Thoughts swirled, and my stomach tied in knots. Fear gripped me as I thought of all the possible things that could go wrong.
What if we ended up walking through another terminated adoption? What if the adoption went through, but the child had issues we weren’t prepared to face? What if he couldn’t transition to a large family? What if this damaged our biological children?
Round and round, the fears buzzed and hummed, and by the time I arrived at the agency’s office, I was approaching a full blown panic. “Lord!” I called out, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. “If this is wrong, then stop it now. Don’t let us move forward. But if it’s right, please show me that it’s right.”
I sat in the quiet for a moment, gathering my thoughts, before reluctantly pushing open the door to head inside and meet with our social worker.
And then my phone pinged.
I looked at it and saw an email had come through. The email was from the adoption agency that held Sawyer’s file.
“Kelli,” it read. “You have been granted approval by China to pursue this adoption. This came through incredibly fast. We rarely see it happen this quickly. Congratulations!”
I recently had the privilege to sit down for a podcast interview with my friend, 
