My kids need your help.

As most of you know Diane and I adopted three kids 2 and half years ago.

(their story)

In the last six months Diane has aggressively sought the necessary therapy they need as a result of the abuse they suffered prior to getting to us. As you can imagine, therapy is CRAZY expensive, like many thousands of dollars!

Through a myriad of channels Di found "PASSS" funding. It is perfect for our situation! PASSS stands for "Post Adoption Special Services Subsidy" This funding brings my kids to therapy. This funding helps my kids deal with their abuse. This funding also helps Diane and I become better equipped to be parents of abused kids.

As of this date the government has eliminated PASSS funding.

We were to start therapy in August.

Now, Diane and I will not let government run our lives nor will we hinge our future on the decisions of men but an opportunity still exists to reverse the elimination of the PASSS funding should enough people step forward and express concern. Selfishly, for my kids I want this funding restored but also for the millions of families like ours who are raising abused kids who need professional help. Believe me when I say this... we all need the help!

Here's what you can do.

Go to this link and write the Governor of Ohio... Please ask him to help keep PASSS funding so families who adopt abused kids can get some help.



Di and I thank you for helping!

Writing about the kids got me thinking about the others in my life I neglect inside this venue. Today I wonder aloud about Lady Di, Hot Mommy, lips, the smart one... my wife Diane.

The collection of wonderment that is my wife keeps me coming back for more.

We met in the early 90's. We were both new to the TV business, thin and able to stay awake past 10pm. The first time I saw her she was wearing green army pants and a red sweater. Her jet black hair, wonderfully messy, hanging to her shoulders was just plain sexy, period. Skin soft and tan and her eyes, big and green captured my imagination. I stared at her for several minutes through a door window. She was gettin' coffee or tea, didn't really matter, I was transfixed... her body was consuming, suffice it to say I was warm for her form. I knew then as I wiped the wet cloudy breath from the door window she would be my wife.

It would be several days later I got the balls to say hello. When I did I was speechless as I stood in front of her. Her eyes caught mine and rendered me mute. There I was unable to speak for the first time in my life and when the noise did come out it sounded like early Joe Cocker or late Bob Dylan. By the time I was making sense I had lost her attention. She continued on with her work and I slipped out the door.

"Phew!" Heart out of my chest, sweat pouring down my head. Man was I in love. I didn't even know her last name.

Over time my fear subsided. I made several valiant attempts to let her know I was the man, ready and able to be anything she was looking for.

It worked. She agreed to a date and off we went getting to know each other. We couldn't have been more alike. Born the same year, exposed to the same cultural patterns of family and region, loved the same things, people, music and had about the same spiritual training... not much.

Unfortunately for Diane I held a secret that could break the bank in our budding relationship. I had been married before. I wasn't proud of it, in fact rarely mentioned it to anyone. I prayed she'd listen to my story.

She met my history without judgement and a kind heart. Diane has an amazing ability to extend grace and mercy to anyone. The day I rattled off my tale of marrying too young and a women who I had no idea was living two lives and sought many relationships outside the marriage... she simply listened.

My secret took the wind out of her sails. After all, what woman wants to marry a guy whose got one in the can already? Not your ideal prince charming, more trailer park romance than Shakespearean sonnet.

She stood on guard as she questioned my intentions going forward and the possibilities that I still held a torch for my ex. Her eyes fixed on mine as she asked, "Do you still have feelings for her, Do you still love her?" It must have been hard. I put Diane in a situation that demanded trust and blind faith, again not the definition of young budding love.

She grabbed my hand at the end of my story and said, "Whatever you do, whatever you decide, whatever this is," as she pointed to me and her. "I understand, I just want you happy, I am here for you... I love you." I was more than amazed, stunned by the absolute purity in motive and mercy in her heart. She literally took my breath away.

We put demands on people as a result of past behaviors or foolish actions. It's what it is as we make mistakes and fall flat on our faces. Sometimes those demands create too much burden for some while other times people surprise you and stay for the redemptive ride. Either way we never shut the door on our past, we keep the door cracked as a reminder God can and will show us grace and mercy through those around us. Love covers a multitude of sin.

Now I'm not stupid, just Irish. God blessed me with Diane. There's not a day, not one day that I don't drop in front of God and thank Him for Diane.

It's been 18 years since that conversation. Married almost 16 years with three wonderful adopted kids and a love for each other that's anchored in Christ. Yes we have problems, she's married to me after all. But we've overcome, over grown and out run most selfish desires that stifle marriage. We serve one another to the point of exhaustion. We would have it no other way.

It'd be too easy to let you know my love for Diane by writing poems or flowery prose. Instead the look at my heart has to be what she's given me... a second chance just like Christ has for all of us. Diane is the love of my life, my best friend, a tremendous wife and a very hot mommy.

Thank you Diane for a second chance.

I rarely write about my kids. It's not intentional, it's just living with the joys and horrors that come with foster-care adoption can be overwhelmingly stifling. Day to day survival usually trumps the ability to look back and wonder aloud.

Today I wonder aloud.

It's been 2 plus years since Diane and I blindly let three kids into our lives. Beyond the residual effects of multiple forms of abuse
and Di and I having no idea what we're gonna do with three little kids, it's going well.

Adoption in any form forces relationship. It will cause you to lose your sense of self in lieu of letting others live. You don't count on that... it's just what happens.

Mia, Angel and Z had the crap kicked out of 'em early and built a myriad of survival tactics that kept them relatively sane while protecting them from more abuse where ever possible. They had no shot at the small things we take for granted. Daily food, human touch, loving physical contact or even the ability to just cry when hurt without duct tape being a factor in how you stop the noise of a crying child. Think about it... let that image wash over you as it has with us. Don't let that make you mad, let it be the wind that pushes you to act on the behalf of children.

From food hoarding, kleptomania, attachment disorders, sensory processing disorder, telling us to screw and peeing in strange places, we are no longer virgins to the hurt child. We understand broken children so well at this point that mercy has become an action that resides in our house daily. Finally, after years of having faith in God I now get glimpses of what it must be like for God the Father to deal with me. It's humbling to say the least. My children hold the very power of God in their sometimes crazy behavior.

On arrival our kids didn't have the ability to love, play, imagine or even trick-or-treat. They could only be afraid. We had no idea. Di and I did the best we could early on. We just didn't know that fear drove every action every minute of every day. Imagine being 2, 3 or 7 years old and the only emotion your sure of is fear. It must be the most damning of cages created by the sin of man. That one thought sends me to tears almost every day.

Love never comes easy as you open doors for others. I'm convinced God blinded us to their reality. If they came with a break down on how hard it would be to love these beat and broken children we woulda run... I'm not kidding, we woulda run! The sheer onslaught of behavioral and emotional crazy would drive anyone the other way. It's no wonder there are a half million kids in the system, no one wants someone else's problems. We ain't rock stars, we were just open to being blinded by the power of God's love.

Di had the best quote about three months into our new found relationships, "When will we start liking them?" For biological parents that might seem like an impossible and cold hearted thought, but adoption ain't always rainbows and puppy dogs. In the end you adopt to save lives, you don't adopt to be the Cleavers. Hopefully Cleaverness comes, but for God's sake you can't count on it right away, you just love the fear away first.

Most think our situation is cute and happy and so freaking wonderful. It is...but there is a very present reality in our house. It fills our lives at times, it takes away breath and drives you to your knees like the best of hangovers. It's fear; so deep and thick that it's constantly saying, "You're never gonna be alright, ever." It consumes itself in selfishness and generates when we walk away from children at the earliest of development stages. It's evil at the core and contorts and destabilizes lives for the long haul.

What's the hope in our house? The hope is that you stop living for yourself and pick up one or two, or even three of these beautifully broken gems and love the fear out of 'em. And in the process realize God has adopted you through Christ in the same way. I wanted nothing to do with God as He called me, adopted me into His love, mercy and grace. My kids are me and I am them. We like them now, btw, in fact love them so much it hurts at times.

This morning my youngest Z came into my room, pressed his cheek up against my cheek as I lay half asleep and said, "I love you daddy." It may be an every day occurrence for some but in my house sentences like that are the very voice of God beating out the fear.

As a faith, our response to "sinners, unbeliever's, and the disenfranchised" usually takes the form of angry sidewalk rhetoric or polite social causes that stop just short of uttering the J word.

We love having something to say and nothing doing.

In many ways we have abandoned the actions of the fruits of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. The act of acting out the fruit of the spirit is too much work in the face of those in need. After all, if we truly live out the fruit of the spirit we'd have to serve, and serving others ain't American Christianity. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know you and your church are doing a good job.

Last night someone asked a simple question about our response to the world, "How do we engage those who are caught in sin or have no belief system?" We went through a myriad of thoughts from Christ, Paul and Timothy. It all lead back to the fruit we produce. Fruit that looks like Jesus and devoid of Christian subculture judgement.

It's our appetite for power, to be God and know what He knows that bends and contorts our response to those outside the club. Our leaders would rather wrangle the faithful than disciple the unbelieving. The fame power produces in this subculture makes me kinda wanna quit sometimes, but my faith always guide me.

The fruit of those bent on power, selfish vision and demagoguery driven ministries is very obvious... sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness and orgies and the like... sounds like a great L.A. night club don't it? The Bible calls these the acts of a sinful nature. It's funny, Christ came to reconcile us back to God the Father in one giant act of unselfish love and we honor that by building leader driven communities that rarely stray from the parking lot while accepting the lack of congregants as a puzzle to solve rather than a commission to be had. You don't need faith anymore to disciple people, just a sizable ego and good fund raiser.

The question of response has a simple yet self deflating answer for you and I, and perhaps this why the workers are few. Our response to those who are caught in sin, disenfranchised or simply have no belief system???? Love them. Be full of joy with them. Be patient with them. Be kind to them. Be good to them. Have faith for them. Be gentle with them and observe self control with them.

J.R. Mahon in Pizza Hut commerical from J.R. Mahon on Vimeo.