By Jenny Lou Jones<\/p>\n
With the birth of our first child, Lance told me that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d help me rock our new baby to sleep if only I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d agree to buy a La-Z-Boy.\u00c2\u00a0 His argument was that all decent and caring fathers had one thing in common\u00e2\u20ac\u201da big, boxy wad of material that calls itself a chair.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of La-Z-Boy, it should be named as the 51st state.\u00c2\u00a0 And even though the chair had its own zip code, we bought it.<\/p>\n
I know that all the shows on HGTV would throw out any large chair made of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153suede-like\u00e2\u20ac\u009d fabric that resembled a small house with arms.\u00c2\u00a0 Vern or Candice or Genniveve would toss it in the HGTV dumpster with all ceiling fans and anything with barn animals on it.\u00c2\u00a0 But no one could argue its healing qualities when the boys rocked each other to sleep every night.<\/p>\n
Once a man puts his behind in the chair for the first time, he instantly adds whiskers, muscles and testosterone.\u00c2\u00a0 As he sits in it, the chair becomes human and wraps its arms around him and gives him a soft place to lay his head.\u00c2\u00a0 The chair is the embodiment of his mother, father, first crush, his wife, his childhood dog and all who love him.<\/p>\n
Whole stores are dedicated to this nesting chair.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve even seen little plastic tables that attach to the arm.\u00c2\u00a0 There are chair caddies to store all 52 remotes, a golf magazine, a used Kleenex, a Porsche and several small power tools. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like a throne where all things needed are within arms reach so there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no reason to get out of the chair at all.\u00c2\u00a0 Any well seasoned chair could feed a man for days just from the cereal and potato chip crumbs in between the cushions.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard that if someone invented a La-Z-Boy with a catheter, the inventor could top Bill Gates and Warren Buffet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wealth combined.<\/p>\n
One night I heard our 5 year old son screaming, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Help me, somebody, help me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 I ran downstairs and Landon had his head stuck in the part that is the foot rest.\u00c2\u00a0 When I say stuck, I mean, really stuck.\u00c2\u00a0 Lance was out of town at the time so I called my neighbor.\u00c2\u00a0 He had to take off the whole bottom half of the chair to free my little circus performer.\u00c2\u00a0 Landon looked at me when it was done and said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I just wanted to see if my head would fit.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Our now-grown son, Landon and his wife Laura, will have to start looking for a bulky chair soon because they are in the process of adopting a child from Russia.\u00c2\u00a0 So far, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve filled out three inches of paperwork and have sent it off to an agency.\u00c2\u00a0 After several months, they got the okay and high-tailed it to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the ends of the earth\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to meet their mystery child.\u00c2\u00a0 They are excited to begin their journey of becoming a family and eventually having 2.5 children, a dog, and a white picket fence.<\/p>\n
After their initial meet and greet, Landon and Laura brought home a video of meeting their 15 month old son.\u00c2\u00a0 At the beginning of the video, we saw a nurse walking in and placing a small, dark-haired boy in Laura\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arms.\u00c2\u00a0 In the movies, the child would instantly understand what was going on and grab his new parents and give them a wink and a high five.\u00c2\u00a0 But what really happened was Little Boy lay stiff backed in Laura\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arms.\u00c2\u00a0 He constantly tried to comfort himself by grasping his own hands.\u00c2\u00a0 He gazed over their heads and around them, but never really looked at them for any length of time.<\/p>\n
The next day showed a softening and Little Boy relaxed some and ate applesauce that Landon fed him.\u00c2\u00a0 As we watched the last day evolve, we saw a more comfortable Little Boy look directly into his soon-to-be parents\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 eyes.\u00c2\u00a0 He began to relax, to feel comfortable and to sprawl over Landon and Laura\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s laps.\u00c2\u00a0 I commented that he was sitting on them like they were his personal La-Z-Boy.<\/p>\n
Then right before the video ended, we watched as Little Boy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hand reached out to Landon and grabbed his finger.\u00c2\u00a0 Yep, it was like an ending to a Hollywood movie.\u00c2\u00a0 But the story isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over quite yet.\u00c2\u00a0 Laura and Landon are back home waiting until their Russian court date is set so they can bring back Little Boy. They can hardly wait until he can run around and make too much noise, knock over prized possessions, track mud on the carpet, and hear those dreaded words\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009dWait until your father gets home.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Little Boy doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ahead, but his parents can see the future with him in their family.<\/p>\n
When I think about how I am with my Heavenly Father, I wonder if I ever come to Him stiff-backed.\u00c2\u00a0 Even as God sees what would be good for me, I find myself uncomfortable with trusting His future plans.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 If I take the time and spend some days with God, I slowly relax into him, His will.\u00c2\u00a0 His desires become my desires.\u00c2\u00a0 I look around and see that he has brought me into his family.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I slowly relax with him and into him and sprawl in his lap because I can trust who He is.\u00c2\u00a0 As I reach for Him, I put out my hand and he wraps his hand of security, of certainty, of comfort around my finger.<\/p>\n
*You can follow the process of Landon and Laura\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Russian adoption on www.landonandlaura.com .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Jenny Lou Jones With the birth of our first child, Lance told me that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d help me rock our new baby to sleep if only I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d agree to buy a La-Z-Boy.\u00c2\u00a0 His argument was that all decent and caring fathers had one thing in common\u00e2\u20ac\u201da big, boxy wad of material that calls itself a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7],"tags":[786,789,790],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":410,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions\/410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}