Birthday Baby

March 28, 2025

Celebrating Life


Dear Nieces & Nephews


Last Saturday Uncle Kerry and I went to Mike Smith’s celebration of life. It was so good to see many of you there! Some of you we haven’t seen since you were teens, and there you were with your own little ones. It struck me, even as they ran around, how I could identify whose they were by their eyes. Such fun!


The service celebrated the gift of Mike, and his story as a prodigal son. Reesa did the speaking, and she did a beautiful job of telling about how his life impacted her and so many others.


Every morning since then, I’ve awoken to the words, “Celebrate life today .”


So I have. And with it has come a flood of memories of our children in all their stages of development … a timeless mix of babyhood, childhood, adolescence and beyond.


Here's a story I've been enjoying:


Our hands were very full when it came time to renew our foster care license in 2010, so we told our home consultant we would let things expire and decline any further placements. Then she went on vacation. She must have forgotten to put the note in our file. Her substitute called that week to tell us about Sanaa. This tiny 6-week-old needed care for just a few weeks until her grandma could take her in. Would we do it?


Okay.


Weeks turned into months. Grandma didn’t work out. Other relatives surfaced and then disappeared. Mom pulled herself together, worked toward reunification, then got into trouble. More time passed.


We were in love. When Amy, her first foster mom, brought her to us she had said, “You will have fun with this one!” She was right. Sanaa was so full of joy. Picking her up would bring a squeal of delight and legs kicking with enough sproing to send any heart to the moon and back.


But we held back a portion of our heart. How else would we let go when the time came?


One day as I was jotting down dates, it dawned on me that not only had Sanaa been born on Thaddeus’s birthday, she was placed in foster care on my birthday and she came to us on Kieran’s birthday.


She was our birthday baby. A gift from God. We decided it was time to receive her as our own and give her our full hearts. We did, and to our delight, she stayed.



In the noise and exhaustion of caring for six little ones, God knew our language in that season, and He spoke it. We had what we needed to hang on and press forward.


Upper adolescence has blown in with hurricane force and brought a different form of noise and exhaustion. God is once again speaking in a language we can understand. Just as we find ourselves wondering if we missed His direction somewhere along the way, we are noticing patterns in our names (at birth, at adoption, and among our biological parents): Two Melissa’s, three Nicoles, four Johns, three Kerrys, a couple Michelles, and a whole slew of stand-alone corkers like Emmanuel. For the fun of it, I put the meanings of these names into something like a mission statement for our family. It goes like this:


“Through the cross-pollination of people groups in our family, there will be great victory with an abundance of joy, peace, hope and love. Darkness will be supplanted by praise. God is with us and is gracious, and has given us courageous hearts like His as he fashions us into a beautiful work of art, a pure waterfall ... its power harnessed for the display of His glory.”


Now THAT is worth celebrating.


I’d love to hear your life celebrations, if you get a chance to send them my way. I’m cheering for you!


Love,


Aunt Michelle



Riddle: Which is cuter, above or below?


Answer: Both! There's a whole lot of cuteness to be seen in adolescence if we open our hearts enough to look.

Birthday Baby

Questions

By Michelle Hauge • June 15, 2025
Dear Nieces & Nephews, I haven’t written in a while. It’s not because I’ve thought of you less, but because the thoughts haven’t been clear enough to express. So maybe it’s a time for asking questions instead. How are you? Is your summer ready to hit full-swing? Do you have plans for deep soul-rest mixed into your bucket list? Does this list reflect your heart’s desires, or just the “summer shoulds” that swirl around our culture? Or the demands of your people? Are you giving extravagantly to them, while still letting them exercise their “NO" muscles? Are you exercising your “NO" muscle? Speaking of which, here’s a question about me: Do I teach too much about grace, and not enough about consequences? Probably. I hope that where I have, God will bring balance. He promises to be our Teacher. So maybe I can take the pressure off and realize I only carry a small piece of what He’s saying, and that’s OK. I’m not making or breaking anyone’s life. How about you? Are you putting too much pressure on yourself to be more than you are or to have more than is yours? If so, here are two wonderful terrible thoughts to remember: It’s not about me. ( Whew) I’m not God and am no one's savior. ( Double whew) Some of you have asked how you can help me through this season. I didn’t know until Shannon asked me at church this morning. Mid-answer, it became clear to me: Don't be afraid to look me in the eye. Tell me what’s happening in your life. Show me the world is bigger than the problem trying to block my view. Remind me that I’m still me, and tough things happening don’t change who I am. I'm still just plain ol' yours truly, Aunt Michelle

Happy Prayer

By Michelle Hauge • May 2, 2025
Let God Handle The Heavy Stuff

I Want To Be With You

By Michelle Hauge • April 19, 2025
Dear Nieces & Nephews, Images of you have been filling my mind this morning. You’re going through so much. I want to be with you in it. But lives have put physical distance between us, along with the invisible barriers that come with full homes and schedules ... only to be crossed at special events and chance encounters at Costco. I sure do want this to change. Being with each other really is a very big deal. It’s the substance of relationship. Jesus wanted his disciples with him when he was entering his darkest hour. He brought them to Gethsemane with him. When he told them he was overwhelmed with grief and sorrow to the point of death (pretty vulnerable), it’s remarkable that they fell asleep on him. It’s not like He had a victim mentality and talked that way all the time. “I want someone with me in my pain,” is central to the human heart, and I believe mirrors God’s. Yet how often do we sleep through our loved ones’ pain? Or defend ourselves in it? Or analyze it? Or devalue it by trying to rationalize it away? Yesterday was the portion of Resurrection Weekend that experiences Jesus’ pain with him, that watches and prays with him, that doesn’t try to explain anything away or fix anything, but just stays with Him. I'm going to give it another day. What does that MEAN for me today, Lord? What does it LOOK like? Watch and pray f or WHAT? There are no soldiers for me to watch for. Perhaps I am just to watch. ??? Why is this so hard? I want to know what to watch for. And I want to know what to do when I see it. But you haven’t told me that yet. And if I try to prepare for it, I’ll bring along a sword and cut off someone’s ear, or something equally rash. JUST WATCH. AND PRAY. AND BE WITH HIM. Be with Him in His pain. Be with my family members in their pain. Don’t try to fix anything. Don’t defend myself. Don’t analyze it or assign blame. JUST WATCH. AND PRAY. AND BE WITH THEM. And remember. I didn’t prepare for this at all, but I’m going to set up our kitchen island with the closest thing I have to bread and wine, and serve a day-long communion. I'm going to remember what my Savior did for me as I watch and pray, and invite Uncle Kerry and your cousins to do it with me. And I'll be remembering YOU, my nieces and nephews. Maybe I can’t be with you, but I remember you. I am praying for you. And I am watching for any points of reconnection. All my love, Aunt Michelle
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