Peace, for me, usually lasts about twenty minutes. At this point, one might assume that I finally decided that it was time to leave it all well enough alone and focus on the blessings right in front of me. That’s really not my style.
When Sister was in Rwanda working with the International Justice Mission, she spent every Sunday at a Missionaries of Charity orphanage, holding babies. For hours upon hours, she held four children at a time as they climbed her legs and back and touched her face, desperate for touch, affection, connection. Sister told us that there were children there who desperately needed to be adopted.
Craig and I agreed that this must be the invitation for which we’d been waiting so long. We began again. We spent six months jumping through hoop after exhausting hoop trying to get approved to adopt a Rwandan baby. We were urged on by “sign” after “sign” that we were on the right track: a favorable home study, an FBI clearance (!), our final paperwork. One of the Sisters who ran the orphanage even told Sister that she knew which baby was ours—a five-month-old little boy. We named him Hills. Rwanda is called the Land of a Thousand Hills, and we thought Hills an appropriate name to describe the journey we took to find him. My name, Glennon, means valley, or resting place between the hills. I thought that our little man was going to have a wonderful life with us, but not one without challenges. I wanted to be his valley, his resting place between the Hills of Life.
We were waiting on one piece of paper. Just one, and we could send our entire “dossier” to Rwanda and take our place in line. But one morning I woke up to a 911 message from Sister. She said that Rwanda, without notice, was terminating adoptions. Any family whose completed paperwork was not in Rwanda by the end of the day was unqualified to adopt. I was stunned. I was furious. Our baby. Craig and I looked at each other and said, Oh . . . helllllllll NO.
We dropped the girls off at a friend’s house at six in the morning and drove to Washington, D.C. We found the Rwandan embassy. We walked in, introduced ourselves, and kindly explained that we were not leaving until our final paperwork was signed and we were grandfathered in to the adoption system.
Then we turned toward the tiny embassy lobby and saw three other anxious-looking couples already sitting there. They were there for the same reason we were. They had all flown in from Texas when they heard the news. They were staging a sit-in too. We started teary introductions and I turned to one gentleman, Mark, and said, Hello, I’m Glennon. This is my son, Chase. Chase reached out his little hand, and as Mark shook it, his eyes started watering. I felt concerned. Mark asked me if he could take a picture of Chase to send to his wife. I felt more concerned but consented. After Mark sent the picture, he explained that his family’s adoption journey began when his wife lost their baby boy, Chase, to a miscarriage. When he sent Chase’s picture to his wife, he included a message that said, Honey, it’s going to be okay. I just got to the embassy and Chase is here.
It was that kind of day.
The Rwandan embassy is the size of a large walk-in closet, and as time went on, it became increasingly awkward for everyone. The people in charge told us again and again, politely, that there was nothing that they could do, that this was a government order, that we were wasting our time and we should leave. We did leave, but came back with lunch for ourselves and all the embassy workers. We politely explained that we couldn’t go because leaving would mean leaving our babies. And so we all sat and laughed and cried together for twelve hours. The office was supposed to close at 5:00 p.m. At 4:45, I felt the tears coming. The end was near. At 5:15, a Rwandan woman walked down the stairs and handed a piece of paper to each of us. The paper signified that our four families had been grandfathered into the adoption system. We were going to get our babies. She said, You came. You came for the children, so we did this for you.
That was an important lesson: SHOW UP. You never know what might happen.
We were done. There was nothing left to do but wait for our travel orders and decorate the nursery and celebrate with friends. We did all of those things. Then two months later we got a letter declaring that Rwandan adoptions were closed indefinitely. It was over and done. Hills was not coming home. He was not ours, after all.
• • •
Tish wrote this poem recently:
Woood you still love the uuiniverse if the sky wernt blue?
I wood still love the uuniverse, woood you?
I had to think about that for a long while. But I decided, yes. Yes, I would. I would still love the stupid uuiniverse.
No, I didn’t get what I wanted. I didn’t get my baby, and with my deteriorating health, it’s not likely I ever will. It is official: I did not get the life I wanted. I did not become an adoptive mother, I did not get to travel and hold the one God meant for me, I did not get to send the Christmas card that would say, Happy Holidays, Love, The Melton Pot!
But when your miracle doesn’t happen the way you planned, it becomes important to look for peripheral miracles. Peripheral miracles are those that aren’t directly in front of you. They’re not the one on which you’ve been so damned focused. You have to turn your head to see peripheral miracles.
I was so focused on building my little teeny altar to God, my head down, sweating, cursing, stressing, furiously working with broken tools, that I missed the city of cathedrals he was busy building around me. When I was finally able to lift my head, I saw the community of people who had rallied around me and my family. My family—my three healthy children and strong husband. My baby, Amma, who may have never been if we’d adopted. And I saw that the very vehicle I had used to vent about my pain and confusion about the adoption and my health—my blog—had become a community of thousands and thousands of people who were learning from my journey.
So like an owl, I kept turning my head. And I saw Tara and Isaac, whom I met at the embassy that day, holding their son, Zane. They got their baby. And I saw Mark and Chelsea, the couple who lost their Chase, holding their Rwandan baby, Gabe. And I saw Sister’s son, Bobby, whom I’ll hold every day of my life but never have to send to college. And I looked down and saw a book deal in my hands, and request after request from people to have me come speak—to speak to them about hope and love. They didn’t care that my dream didn’t come true. They just cared that I was true to my dream. That I never gave up hope. That I shared it all. And that even though I didn’t get what I wanted, I could see—I could see—that I’d gotten what I needed. I’d tried to adopt one, to give hope to one little one, and instead, God gave me thousands to speak to about my senseless, relentless hope.
There are only two lives we might live: our dream or our destiny. Sometimes they are one in the same, and sometimes they’re not. Often our dreams are just a path to our destinies. My dream was to be an adoptive mother, but my destiny is to mother my three children, to be a wife, sister, friend, and daughter, and to speak hope boldly to you. My destiny is to remind you to look up from the castles you’re building in the sand long enough to notice the cathedrals that God’s building all around you—without you, without your sweat, without your tears, without your consent. While you dream your dreams, he’s busy building your destiny. And there is as much beauty in your destiny as there was in your dream. Let go and believe that whatever it is, it will be beautiful.I
* * *
I. You’ll be glad to know that we have, in fact, successfully adopted a highway. Our highway is going to shine like the damn yellow brick road.
By God, There Will Be Dancing
I am sitting in a quiet bedroom with God. We are alone—the two of us. I am perched on the edge of a four-poster bed and my legs are dangling off the side. God is in a rocking chair across the room and she’s knitting. God knits, it turns out. She also rides a Harley, but never while knitting.
I am pissed at God, so I’m glaring at her while she rocks and knits.
She won’t ask me what’s wrong. I’m waiting for her to ask. I’m dying for her to as
k. I sigh. I breathe as deeply and loudly and with as much angst as possible.
Nothing from her. Nothing disturbs her peace, nothing breaks her concentration. She is not curious.
So I just start.
I’m going to stay sick, aren’t I? You’re not going to heal me, are you? And I’ll never have another baby, will I? And my marriage. What about my marriage? Is that going to crumble too? You’re going to leave me sick and empty-armed and struggling, aren’t you? Aren’t you? I know you are.
Please fix it. If you don’t, that’s it for us. I’m not kidding. I’ll quit trying not to be a jerk. I’ll quit writing. I’ll quit talking to you and caring about other people and smiling so much. I’ll spend all my money on fancy makeup and couches and I’ll spend all my time watching Real Housewives of Orange County. No. Housewives of NEW JERSEY. Take that. I’m serious. Friendship with you is too exhausting. I’m going to have to quit you, based on principle and utter confusion. If you don’t pull through for me this time, it’s atheism for me. Atheism. I’m so serious.
God keeps knitting. Then she smiles and holds her stitch for a moment. She looks up at me with her soft crinkly eyes and she says:
Honey. You are so angry. I understand. I love you so much. Would you like me to stop knitting so that we can talk about all of this?
I think for a minute and look at the knitting in her lap. I gaze at the part that’s done. It’s breathtaking. All blue and green and hot pink and gold and silver. At first the colors seem to swirl wildly but then, suddenly, I recognize a pattern. The pattern is me. I am beautiful. Swirly, wild, and beautiful.
No, I say. Don’t stop. Keep knitting.
Because she is knitting my life, of course. I am what her hands are working on. And I want her to concentrate. I still trust her.
God? I say. I’m going to dance. While you knit, I’m just going to dance.
God looks up one last time and says:
That’s all I’ve ever wanted you to do, Sweetheart. You dance and I’ll keep knitting. It’s going to be beautiful, Honey. I promise.
Bonus Material
Love Warrior
As it turns out, while God was knitting my life, God was also knitting together a swirly, wild, beautiful community of women through my writing.
I became a writer in order to make connections with people without leaving my home. My dream was to write something that would resonate with others, but I didn’t want to have to get dressed. This is why so many introverts become writers, because we feel safer socializing in our pajamas without actual people around. But as it came time for Carry On, Warrior to make its way out in the world, it became clear that I would need to go on a book tour. On this book tour I would meet in real life the women I’d been meeting virtually at my blog, Momastery. I was terrified, but I promised myself it would all be okay if I followed three simple rules: Show Up, Be Brave, and Be Kind. No matter what the circumstances, those three things are all any of us have to do. So I named the tour The Kind and Brave Tour, and we packed. I say “we” because I brought Sister along, obviously. It’s easier to Show Up with your Lobster beside you.
The first book signing was in my hometown and to my shock, over four hundred people decided to Show Up, too. There were lines wrapped around the block of the bookstore, great music playing, a thousand hugs offered and received, and more friendships made than I could count. Bubba and Tisha were there, greeting every guest personally. Bubba appeared to be exploding with pride. He watched the women of his life—me at the signing table, Sister passing out homemade cookies, Tisha beaming at the people in line waiting to meet her daughter—and I swear you could hear him thinking: WOW. And we were worried she’d end up in prison. I was so happy for his happiness.
At first, the kind bookstore employees tried to scoot the line along, but they quickly gave up. We needed time with each other, and we took it. I got to hug every single person in line and ask about her life. Through tears and laughter, people told me their “brutiful” stories about loss and redemption and love. They said beautiful things about how much the community of truth tellers and hope spreaders and at Momastery meant to them. They told me that in the Monkees, they’d finally found their people. I listened closely and tried to soak every moment and every word in deep. I knew that folks were good before my book tour, but I’d never had a chance to look all that good in the eye before. That’s the thing about showing up, I guess. You get to look all the good in the eye and cry with the good and hug the good. And that changes you.
My favorite moment of that first evening came at about 1 a.m., when the line was finally winding down. A woman who explained that she was the grandmother of twelve looked me in the eye and solemnly said, “Glennon, I disagree with a lot of what you write. But I came here to say thank you, because you’ve taught me that I can love someone I disagree with. And that has been very freeing to me. I love you, Glennon.” I was able to choke out a shaky, “And I love you, sister.” Then we hugged and cried because we both knew it just doesn’t get any better or truer than that. We will never, ever all agree, but we can choose to love each other anyway. And that is what we celebrated at the Carry On, Warrior book signings.
I assumed that the size and passion of this first signing was just a holy fluke. I was wrong. Hundreds of women came out to meet me and each other in every city on the tour. Women came in big groups, and they came with their sisters, and they came all alone. I felt so proud of the ones who were brave enough to come alone, because I know how scary that is. Women came who’d followed my blog from the very beginning, and women came who had just heard of the book that day. After five hours of waiting in line, one woman approached my table, leaned over to me and said, “Listen, I don’t even know who you are. I just needed to get the hell out of my house.” I laughed and thought YES! PERFECT! The Kind and Brave Tour—Getting Tired Women the Hell Out of Their Homes One Warrior at a Time.
The book tour was a nationwide family reunion. The women in each city were different, but the warm feeling of each crowd was exactly the same. The details of the stories the women told me were different, but the themes were exactly the same. Getting out of my house and meeting our community taught me that all of us are struggling to overcome something big and hard and scary. All of us have experienced great loss and great joy. All of us want to feel peace and joy and to have a sense that we belong somewhere. And that’s why we showed up. Because we feel like we belong in and to this community of women.
These are our people. People who believe that Love Wins, We Belong to Each Other, and that together, We Can Do Hard Things. People who have decided to quit making marriage and parenting and friendship and life harder by pretending they aren’t hard. People who just show up, as they are—messy and beautiful—for themselves and for each other. We love each other—not because we are all the same, but because we are all so different. We don’t want to change each other—we just want to take a deep breath, stop acting, and enjoy each other. The real each other.
At that first signing, I realized I had found a slice of heaven. And every signing after that first one was just another slice. Heaven can be everywhere and anywhere.
And now that I’m off the road and I’ve reentered my own little life, I feel cozier and safer and braver on this earth. Each time I face a challenge in my daily life, I think about all of those women facing similar challenges all over the country and one moment at a time—overcoming, overcoming, overcoming. I know, now, that I am part of a sisterhood that stretches from one coast to the other, and that we are all the same in the most important ways. There is great peace in knowing that I am not alone.
You are not alone, either. Come join our messy, beautiful family at Momastery. Everybody’s In, Baby.
A Scribner Reading Group Guide
* * *
Carry On, Warrior
This reading group guide for Carry On, Warrior includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and
an author Q&A. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book and each other.
Introduction
Ten years ago, addicted and unwed, Glennon Doyle Melton discovered she was pregnant. Shocked and terrified, she did the only thing she knew to do: she collapsed on the bathroom floor and prayed. When she stood up, she decided to become a mother. She married the father of her child, a man with whom she had spent only ten sober nights, and vowed never to have another drink, cigarette, or drug again. In the decade since, Glennon has learned what it takes to be a loving mother, wife, sister, and friend. She wakes up every morning ready to do battle. Recovery is a battle; faith is a battle; living an honest life—one full of love, one where the truth of what’s inside is mirrored by the experience on the outside—is a battle. And like any good warrior, Glennon has realized that fighting these battles comes with incredible rewards. Carry On, Warrior is Glennon’s call to live out loud—to be as honest and open as she can be, no matter what obstacles she faces. Obstacles abound—as they always do, for everyone. From marriage struggles, to a thwarted dream to adopt a child, to helping her sister through heartbreak, to keeping the rug looking as if it was vacuumed. But Glennon’s journey has shown her that life lived honestly, openly, and in connection with others is one that is rich and full.
Topics & Questions for Discussion
1.In the opening of Carry On, Warrior Glennon is baffled: a woman says to her at church, “You are so pulled together. It makes me feel so apart” (page 1). Why did she decide to begin the book with this scene? How does she eventually reveal herself as not quite “pulled together”?
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