Category: fostering

A Review

Last week:

  • Celebrated Aunt Sarah’s 19th Birthday with the fam.
  • Big Guy, Rachael and I took the cats to the yearly vet appointment on Monday and got their shots updated in time to give the record to our caseworker on Wednesday.
  • Started only blogging when the kids are in bed/asleep.
  • Little Man started rolling from belly to back. (YAY!!!)
  • We focused on sleep training for Little Man and reintroduced sleeping in his bassinet after he had to sleep the past two weeks in a bouncer due to sickness drainage.
  • Almost broke Abi’s new bad habit of getting out of her bed when told to go to sleep. (We’re pretty well there.)
  • Moved Hannah out of Matt and my room (we’re no longer dueling bassinets on either side of the bed. YAY!) into “the girls’ room” where she did AWESOME in the transition and continued her middle-of-the-night feeding (around 4am) without disturbing her sisters.
  • Matt and I had our first date night in weeks (months?) – thanks Grandpa for staying with the masses. =D
  • Hannah had her follow-up Dr. appt for her double ear infection, thus ending antibiotics.
  • Big Guy had his physical done for preschool with shots (boo).
  • Hannah started solid food. (Yay peas!!!)
  • Big Guy toured the preschool that he started today. (YAY!!!!! He likes!!!!)
  • Our foster care caseworker visited and met our new kids. =)
  • The boys’ GAL (court attorney voice) visited and gave me much more info about the case.
  • We had a second outbreak of lice (BOO!!!!!!) and this time my 2 yr old got it. (SO not cool).
  • Began planning for and hunting for tickets for our trip to CA in April. (WOOT!!!)
  • Upward basketball practice for Daddy and a movie night for us.
  • Nit combing, nit combing, nit combing…. hair treating (non-toxic, but still annoying).
  • Matt went to his brother’s Bachelor’s party.
  • Matt’s brother William married his lovely fiance (and now bride), Koutrney, Saturday so we hauled the masses out there to attend and celebrate.
  • I tried to do homeschooling prep so we could start homeschooling this week (goodbye 3.5 week break!!)
  • I cleaned like a beast, rearranged our room a bit (since Hannah moved out), caught up on my Bible Study, got those “twins” back on a feasible post-sickness schedule, treated our cloth diapers and got “the twins” into cloth, got my laundry routine rolling.
  • And we OVERCAME LICE!!!!!!!!!

And I survived to tell it all.

(Deep breath) Feels good to be almost on track! =D

3

Beyond Our Understanding

Last night our oldest began to get teary-eyed when I announced bedtime was nearing. He’s still getting into the swing here, you know, since he was only placed here two days ago. Oh wait… did I forget to mention that?

Oh yeah, two days ago we got a phone call a little after 1p and added two new members to our family by 7p. Yep, 6 hours that I’ll never forget. The day had felt so normal. And when I was given the info over the phone I just knew “yes” was the only answer. It was our step of obedience that we’d been praying about for 1 year and seven months from that first heart-pricking. And in one afternoon we met them… the boys that have made us “never the same” and “never wanting to go back” all in one.

He’d cried himself to sleep the first two nights, missing his Mom. Rightfully so. I just agreed with him. It is not fair. I wish I could tell him when she’d come for him. I wish I knew if she’d ever come for him. I ran my fingers through his hair. Nits don’t hold water to love. He’s worth the risk.

Then last night came. And the story emerged. Too much seen. Violence. An emergency phone call. Fear.

I wish I could take it away from him. I wish I could blot out those images that haunt him… I wish I could replace them with trips to the park and Saturday morning cartoons.

Old words drew more tears to his eyes. His bottom lip quivered as he tried to regain self-control, failing. He confided the source of his nightmares… his anxiety about sleeping. His insecurity in what he should really believe.

I asked him if he felt safe here. He answered quickly with assurance. I wondered if that assurance would hold water right after a nightmare.

We prayed. And I stroked his hair more.

I just wish I could take it all away for him.

But I can’t.

But I know who has sheltered him. Who has guarded as much innocence as can be left after all he’s seen. I know who has stood in the gap, shielding him from so much so that he can lose himself in a bad joke, run in reckless abandonment through the house, and blast helicopters with laser beams right before they catapult to the living room carpet.

And all I can do is say thank you. Thank you, Lord, on his behalf.

And then I can just lead him to Your feet, in prayer.

…

Prayer for a peace beyond our understanding.

– Love that boy.

2

Waiting

This Christmas I am overwhelmed as usual by my gratefulness for our little family. I am so blessed to delight in our three little girls and this holiday season has given me extra time to say extra thank you’s to God for His gracious gift of our children.

And as I have said my thank you’s and continue to do likewise, there is a small flicker of yearning that draws me to tears as I write this. A flicker of desire… for the little one or little ones God will bring into our family in the future that are currently enduring the hardships that will bring them into the system. They could already be in the system, trying to reunite with a family that cannot keep them for whatever reason. Or worse yet, my precious little one(s) could be enduring the very thing that will bring them to our home. My babies… my babies…

It’s the heart that God has been stitching in us all. It’s the heart of God that presses Rachael to say with full confidence, “we have empty beds, so let’s have kids come stay with us. And if they have Mommies and Daddies to go home to then they can go home later, but if not, we’ll ‘dopt them and they can have us for their family.”

It’s the heart of God that brings tears to my eyes and breaks my heart in the beauty of adoption and the process that’s on the horizon.

It’s not with naivety… it’s going to be really hard. It’s going to have unknown challenges and hurts and loss. It’s going to have unimaginable frustrations with the system and if we see them go home, while we’ll be advocating for their best, it’ll break our hearts to say goodbye. And it’s going to be amazing, delighting in the little steps forward and wrapping a little one in the love of Jesus that they never thought imaginable. It’s going to be like nothing we’ve ever done. Thankless and rewarding all in one. And everything about it will be right for us… because it’ll push us to see this world through God’s eyes as we walk beside the American orphan, even if just for a season.

So, sweet little one(s) out there this Christmas, know that you are on my mind. And amidst the excitement, picture-taking and delight of centering our day around acknowledging the coming of our Savior to this earth, know that my heart yearns for you.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

We are waiting, sweet little one(s), and praying for you.

0

The Click of the Track

It’s like sitting at the top of the roller-coaster hill: the excitement, the unknown, the holding your breath before the rush… just waiting for the back of the train to push you over and the wildly wonderful ride to really begin.

Tomorrow when our county worker comes we will be notifying her that we’re ready to take a placement. Then we’ll be waiting (maybe for only a few days, only God knows) to see who God invites into our home through a foster placement phone-call. It could be before Christmas, or maybe afterward. But regardless, our hearts are and have been opened to sharing our lives because of the Greatest Gift of All coming down to visit us… in the depths of our very beings. Who knows what baggage they will carry, what hurt or what loss. But Jesus has and will continue to compel us to love deeper and walk this road with the American orphan.

We love you, precious child (or children) from a depth we did not create, but Christ created in us.  And we have so prayed over your coming.

Please… feel welcome, even if only for a short stay on your journey… come in and rest. You are safe here. You are so loved.

– God, please help us lean on You throughout this journey of loving the American orphan. And if it would be Your will, please bring a child home to stay, should they need a family. Lord, please give us the strength to bless and release and exercise forgiveness, should we get the opportunity to come alongside a broken family as they learn how to parent, love and protect. And please, Lord, I pray for our girls… God that You would open all of our hearts to Jesus along this path. Thank You for Your Hope and the opportunity to come alongside the American orphan, learning what it is to daily love a child (or children)…. from right where they are. Please help us to feel Your direction when the phone-call or phone-calls come in. May we say yes when You desire it and not only when we feel it’s the safest or most comfortable move. Please, Lord, I pray… speak and help us to obey with joy. I love You. In Jesus’ Name.

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