Life update

2013 was a pretty hard year. I’ll spare you all the gritty details but can sum it up by saying that between Jeff’s Nan dying, Jeff’s dad moving to Vancouver, problems with our rental house in Florida, and our sweet baby girl being adopted (thus, leaving our home) at the end of November,  I was pretty emotionally done by December.

In fact, I tried to write my annual Christmas letter and when Jeff looked it over, he told me it was “depressing”. I told him that it would be the most honest Christmas letter floating around out there, but, good man that he is, he kabosh-ed it. I honestly couldn’t fix it, and so he ended up doing up a cool photo collage instead and that’s what we sent out.

(Also, you should know I plan to write a depressing letter EVERY YEAR from now on in order for Husband to continue doing the cool Christmas letter/collage. I know a good thing when I see it.)

Anyway, a week after our 19 month foster daughter got adopted to a truly amazing couple, we got a call from CAS for a little baby boy. “Here we go”, I thought. Then I only got to have that darling boy for a week, and he was moved on. I came to think of that little guy as God’s gift to me even for that week, someone to hold while my heart was literally wrenching out of my body.

And then he was gone, and our home was open. For a long time, in fact…7 weeks with no phone call from Children’s Aid. I am pretty sure this is practically unheard of. They are usually pretty desperate for baby homes.  I began to wonder if we had done something wrong and no one had told us. (Ok, not really, but the mind does start to wonder!)

When the calendar rolled over to 2014, I felt an almost tangible relief. If last year was a year of loss and release, surely this year would hold something else entirely. I felt hope, a sense that this new year would be drastically different than the one we had just journeyed through. I told God I would embrace the new season, whatever it would be. I meant it.

Then we got the call.

TWINS.

WOULD WE TAKE TWIN BOYS ABOUT TO BE BORN?

Ummmm.

God, REALLY?

After 4 days of discussions with Jeff, we were at an impasse. We were weighing out how our lives would change with 2 babies to care for. Did we want to change that much? Could we handle it? Did we WANT to handle it?

On the fifth day, Jeff told me he had a moment of clarity. Perhaps we were laboring over a decision that wasn’t really ours to make. Perhaps the fact that we know we are called to foster and the fact that our home was open and ready was enough? Perhaps these boys are supposed to be in our home?

He was scared. We both were. (ARE, actually…I think we are both still scared.)

And I loved him so much for saying what he did.

I called my worker the next morning and said, YES.  (And then, I WENT SHOPPING, because, TWINS!)

A week later, those precious angels were home with us.

Now they are four weeks old already, and I am so very glad we said Yes.

I already love them like crazy.

And after all….“Scared is the new brave” – Lisa-Jo Baker

What about you? Is there something you know God is asking you to do, that feels just a little beyond your capacity?

Trust

So here’s the truth of my life these days.

I have a wonderful husband of 14+ years, a growing-up-too-soon ten year old son and a mini-me six year old daughter.

I also have a bright-eyed giggling 18 month old daughter-for-now.

I haven’t talked much about our fostering journey here on the blog, mainly because, well, clearly I don’t blog much, and also because I am not always clear on how much I am allowed to share. There is certainly a mountain of confidentiality issues and I would NEVER want to violate the children in my care or their birth or adoptive families.

But this thing I am facing now is beyond anyone else’s rights/ privileges/confidentiality. This thing is personal.

This daughter I love, this baby I have raised since her birth is going to be adopted soon.

And not by us.

(insert actual heart-heaving here)

We have agonized over this.

God, please, please, please, PPPPLLLEEEEAAASSSEEEE, let us be the ones to adopt her. Give us a sign, any sign will do. Seriously, God, how about this? If I walk outside in the rain and get wet, we can keep her. Or how about if I go to church today and we sing that song about you making the orphans, sons and daughters again, we can keep her.

Ok, so I haven’t been quite THAT ridiculous, but if that is the “I’m-being-ridiculous-line”, then you should just assume I’ve been living in a place pretty darn close to there.

The short story of the past 18 months is this…

#1 We have fallen in love with this gift of a child in our home and

#2 We did not get the answer from God that we wanted. We have not had the necessary peace within to pursue adopting her. I don’t know why. I may never know why.

And my heart feels like it is literally ripping into tiny little pieces.

Oh, peace is tricky.

And grief is tricky.

And trust in God is tricky.

And she is still here, chewing on her favorite teddy bear and wearing her sunglassess and stealing our hearts.

For now.

“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is greater.”But I say unto you, they are inseparable.Together they come, and when  one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy,”

– Kahlil Gibran, as quoted in I Will Carry You by Angie Smith

 

Orphans

I’ve learned that there is a certain part of the day that works best for trying to engage my son in good conversation…bedtime.

Now, this may be because he would like to prolong bedtime as much as possible (which I’m pretty sure is a passed-down gene through my side of the equation, so I can’t complain much), but I will engage his heart whatever the reasons behind him offering it up.

And, sure, there are nights that I am exhausted and just want him to GO TO SLEEP ALREADY.

But those nights that he is willing to engage and I am willing to engage, oh, the conversations that happen.

We got into quite a conversation about children in orphanages two nights ago, after he asked me, quite randomly, how much it cost to adopt a child.

We talked about the difference between fostering and adoption.

We talked of Children’s Aid and International Adoptions.

Carter told me he thinks I get paid a lot of money to foster, and he wanted to know what I do with all that money, because that money would buy a lot of beyblades and video games.

Well, Yes, Carter, it would. However, it would also buy formula and supplies for the baby, and a little left over which goes into the household budget. (Budgeting will need to be another lengthy discussion we have soon!)

I ended up telling him that he actually knew 2 children from an orphanage in Romania. (A wonderful family from our church that is a beautiful example of Christ’s love.)

He was wide-eyed and oh so curious.

We talked for a long time about the choices that we as families and individuals get to make.

We talked of fostering and the ways our family has decided to impact the lives of children.

We talked of God’s priorities and how we get to choose how we spend our money and our resources and our time.

It was so very good.

And then he was crying….tears in his eyes .

And I asked him what was wrong.

And he said he just kept thinking of all those babies in the Romanian orphanage.

So he prayed for them that night, a sweet prayer to Jesus to help those babies find homes.

I left his room with tears in my eyes.

And I can’t help but think that he went to sleep believing that maybe one day, he will be part of the change, part of living pure religion.

James 1:27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”