Breath In and Breath Out

Balance. This is not something I am good at.  When my 3 year old is waking 3-4 times a night, because she is needing reassured that she hasn't been replaced. When my 7 year old is crawling under the bed continually and saying he doesn't know why he is here.  When my 9 year old gets all sassy because he thinks he can. When I want to snap and yell and unleash the crazy sleep deprived mom on them (have we mentioned little pudding doesn't sleep, like at all?).  He whispers "balance" "grace" "mercy" "change". And I have to breath. Breath in and breath out, "mercy" "grace" "mercy" "grace". He is good, I am not. Thankful that He lets us borrow from him.  "come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest".

Rest came last night for us in the form of babysitting.  Two girls who are very busy themselves simply said, "we have a night free, can we come hang out with your kids." And they went above and beyond.  All three of the oldest woke up talking about how awesome their babysitters were, and talking over each other trying to be the first to tell us about the "chopped championship" that had happened in our kitchen.

The thing I have discovered most about fostering in the last year is that you have to be vulnerable.  You have to ask for help, call in the favors, be on the receiving end. This isn't an easy thing for me.  I would rather have all the kids at my house, take people the meals, offer the babysitting, fold someone else's laundry. These people around me didn't decide to foster, but without them, there is no way we could do it.  It just cannot be done alone.  So thank you friends and church family who have loved us so well.  Thanks for helping us find balance.





"Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly- not for what you get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God." 1 Peter 5:2

Two Families

Today was little puddin's first family visit, and while I feel like God started preparing my heart last week, I still wasn't ready.  Already her case is so different than our first, and yet so similar.  The first time around we were advised not to meet parents (we meet them both this week as well!). This time, I not only met the mom, but grandma, great grandma and grandpa, siblings, friends . . . All at the same time.  While I am a long way from the introverted shy girl I used to be, this was still a major stretch for me. Tim and I spent the day praying, asking for wisdom, and then feeling at peace with how things went.
For about 2 and a half weeks I had romanticized what we are doing.  I had imagined this wonderful scenerio where little puddin stayed forever, there were no visits, no case plans, no court dates, just cut and dried, black and white. About a week ago, God spoke to me, again in a dream.  I got a picture of Mom in my head (completely wrong but I knew who it was) and I realized, little puddin's story is anything but clear cut, black and white, already told. And I felt so sad for mom, but still had an idea in my head of the little one staying with us.
Wednesday of last week, my view had to change again. No only was there one person fighting to get little puddin' back, but a whole family. And Tim and I were faced with the harsh reality of what we had really and truly signed up for.  We had signed up to take the hard, so that someone else could have the easy. That is what we are doing this time around.  We help detox and get healthy and keep safe, until it all plays out and again, we say good bye. I know, if you are reading this, you might be saying, well that is foster care, and you would be right. But it is hard to tell that to my mama's heart, I have to lean in to Him and trust Him to carry us through when it gets hard.

"Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly- not for what you get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God." 1 Peter 5:2

Strength

This was my facebook post yesterday:
Three weeks ago almost this exact minute I got a call that changed my life. A call I didn't think I was strong enough to say yes to but a call my mama's heart couldn't say no to. I don't feel strong enough still. When people say "I couldn't do it" I want to cry because I can't either, not yet, not without God preparing my heart, just as He had to prepare our heart for the first yes and the second and all the yeses that got us to this. We aren't strong. We aren't amazing. We love this little being as much as if I had birthed her. So for now I pretend this is forever, because that is all I am strong enough for right now. 

Sometimes I think God has a funny sense of humor.  When you say, "I can pretend it is forever, and that is all I am strong enough for", He might say, "I am asking you to let go when it is time." And then you just want to curl up in a ball and cry. Or at least that was my reaction this morning when I heard a little more of "Little Puddin's" story from the social worker .  The thing with foster care is that NOTHING is set in stone, at least foster care in Kansas. Now we wait, but for how long we don't know.  Things could change next week, or 6 months from now, or it could all fall apart and she could still be with us long term. So my default has to adjust back to, "we will love her as long as she gets to stay and carry her with us the rest of our lives". But, it's not easy, and today, without Him, I am definitely not strong enough.



"Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly- not for what you get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God." 1 Peter 5:2

Chasing a Dream

All blogs have to start somewhere, and I supposed mine should start with a little back story. 

Job 33:14-15 "He [God] speaks in dreams, in visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they lie in their beds. He whispers in their ears..." From an early age, I had dreams: crazy dreams, memorable dreams, dreams that I can recall in detail today. That is just how my brain works. I would take a story I had heard during the day, and it would become so vividly clear in the night that it was as if I was living the story. I remember getting chased by Grover monster and falling over our banister and never landing, I remember being in the long line waiting death in the Holocaust, I remember being chased in crazy sequences through streets in Europe after watching some action movie. These dreams though were just dreams, just my brain seeing a picture and reliving it- there wasn't a message there (or maybe there was and I missed it). But there are other dreams, dreams that God speaks into my heart and my head, and for whatever reason, will not be shaken. My husband once asked me, what differentiates these dreams from the normal ones, but the truth is that I do not know. Before I completely lose you (I realize this has nothing to do with foster care, yet) hang in there, remember, this is just the back story. It doesn't happen often, maybe 5 or 6 times, but when it does it changes things.  It might be asking me to pray for a sister that didn't tell me how bad things had gotten, but He chose to show me how bad it could get. It might be offering a warning I was too afraid to share with a friend because, who tells a friend that. Or it might be a long line of negative pregnancy tests, followed by one single positive, with a name, whispered in my ear. Some are clear cut, and have quick confirmation that yes, God was speaking, like when a phone call confirmed that things were not just bad but horribly wrong, or like when a tragic dream played out in reality a few weeks later ending with a small grave. Others are harder to interpret, like a reoccuring dream I had about a crumbling house. That one took a few weeks for God to show me the meaning (in this case to protect the amazing gift of marriage/family that He had given to Tim and I, in the midst of a really busy time). And some take so long to fulfill that you begin to wonder if He was speaking at all, or if it was merely a nice dream- as when it took two full years after I heard the name "Alexandria Grace" whispered in my ear to even know another baby was coming. This blog is about a dream like that. A dream that helped catapult Tim and I towards foster care. I was originally going to call this blog Chasing Daniel- as Daniel was the name I heard this time around, but now, with a sweet little puddin in our home I realize that maybe Daniel was just one face to show me the need of many. I believe in dreams, sometimes they are the things that keep me going.

"Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly- not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God." 1 Peter 5:2

A New Beginning

So, apparently I started a blog in 2010 and never worked to develop it. I am stealing that blog, changing the title and using this page to make me sane again!
My reasons for starting this blog are simple:

1. Keeping my Mama up to date on the comings and goings of the Kansas kids
2. A place to write down and express the joys, frustrations and sorrows of being a foster parent.
3. Keeping all that emotion off of my friends Facebook feeds, because lets me honest, I have written a lot of long posts lately :)

Signing off for now