Call

I've been writing this post in my head for several weeks. I want to write down how in the world we ended up as a foster family before the details fade. I have a feeling this story will become part of our family's testimony of God's faithfulness to us.

When we adopted our son, I prayed that our family would feel complete. I prayed for freedom from the desire to have more children. I knew we could not haves more biological children and the adoption process had been very difficult so I really wanted to be done building our family. The more I prayed about our family, the more I felt like at least one someone was still missing. In 2010 we started the process to try to adopt through private domestic adoption. We were open to a lot of circumstances, and hoped we would be chosen by a birth mother. From time to time, we would look at birth mother profiles that were a little more complicated to determine if we wanted to be in the group of families she would view as potential adoptive families. Lots of these situations involved abuse, drugs, abandonment, and crisis. After about a year into our attempt to adopt, God started really drawing us toward foster care.

It started with our daughter who was in first grade at the time. She had begged to ride the bus as a first grader, and we were willing to give it a try. It helped me out because her brother could finish his nap without having to go through car line everyday. One day, she came bouncing off the bus with a question. She had made some new neighborhood friends who were part of a foster family. She made friends with the biological son, and met one of his foster siblings on the bus. She wanted to know what exactly a foster family was, the first child I ever explained foster care to was my own daughter. God supplies our needs, even needs we don't know we have yet. After we talked about it, my girl blurts out, "we should be a foster family!". What!?!? I sent her daddy a text that our funny girl thinks we should be a foster family. He sent back something along the lines of, " great, I hope she's not prophetic".

Several months passed, we viewed more birthmother profiles, we were never chosen, and sweet girl brought up foster care several times. I was becoming discouraged with our adoption attempt. The feelings of failure that I dealt with years before during our struggle with infertility crept back in. I couldn't understand why we had such a desire to be parents again, but this just wasn't working out. I thought foster care was crazy.

One birthmom profile that we viewed was for a baby already born. He was born with drugs in his system, and his mom wanted to look at possible adoptive families. We prayed about being shown in this situation, and decided that we were willing to be shown. When we called the social worker back to tell her we would like to be in the pile, she let us know that mom had changed her mind about adoption and wanted to parent. However, because the baby was born with drugs in his system DHR would be called. Most likely he would go to a foster home, and mom would have to work in order to regain custody.

As I struggled to understand why the adoption wasn't working out, I started to consider foster care. I struggled with why was I willing to open my home to the baby for adoption, but not when he needed a safe nurturing environment as a foster situation. I knew God was softening my heart through the birthmom profiles I had read. In several of the situations we had been a part of the mother decided to parent. Our social worker had expressed to us that she was concerned about several of those situations being able to successfully parent. I began to hurt for the moms who wanted to parent, but didn't have the support or skills required.

Early in 2011, I was home one evening after the kids went to bed. I do not remember where my husband was that evening, but he was not at home. I was searching the Internet, and the tv was on in the background. The still small voice wasn't so quiet that evening. I started to pray about our family again, and very clearly I felt God open my heart to foster care. We had the space, I had recently changed my job situation to allow for more flexibility, and we wanted to continue parenting. He was showing me that He had been preparing us for this for a while, I was just resistant. What about MY kids? The answer, "they're mine love, not yours, and I love them vastly more than you ever could. I have a plan for them and it is not to hurt them".

When my husband came home, I could hardly say the words. I knew once I said it out loud he would confirm that he thought we should pursue getting trained as foster parents. I knew if I said it out loud, it was over, my resistance would be gone. Finally, through tears, I got it out, I think we should be foster parents. And yes he confirmed it just as I suspected.

My last attempt at resistance was to tell my mother. Surely she would think this was a bad idea. So a few days later while driving to pick our son up from preschool, I called mom. She thought it was a great idea for our family. She confirmed that even a year earlier she would have been concerned about our adopted son, but he had made so much progress that she wasn't worried about him anymore.

So I gave it to God. If you want us to do this you are going to have to open all the doors, wide. Within a week or so my husband called me at work. One of the local agencies had just started the training class. It was meeting across the street from our church on a night we were available. If we wanted to start we had to start by the next class, in three days. My answer: if I can get child care for our kids, let's go for it. By that evening I had child are for our kids for the next nine Thursday evenings. The door was wide open, time to walk through in obedience.

As I sat in class each week, I knew this was right where God wanted us. This was his plan all along. As I have watched my children as foster siblings, I know they were made for this. God knows them much better than I do because he created them.

What I can't make you understand

When a couple is about to become parents no one can prepare them for what it will really be like to love their child. People try sometimes, but the description falls short because they have not yet experienced being parents.

I feel that way about trying to describe being a foster parent sometimes. Words fall short. I couldn't fully grasp how good and difficult it would be to be a foster parent until I had the experience of being a foster parent.

Today, I am thinking about a few things about foster parents that you may not have thought about.

1. Foster parents love their kids. Bio kids, adopted kids, foster kids. I do not parent based on labels. If I didn't think it might upset my big kids, I think I would describe our family this way when asked: we have a biological child, an adopted child, and a foster child; I just cannot remember which one is which. In my house everyone is loved - whether you're here for the afternoon or forever.

2. Foster parents have all the responsibility and none of the authority. This always hits home when going to the doctor. I have all the responsibility for the health and well-being of kids in my care, but I have no authority on my own to seek healthcare. I have a letter that allows me to seek medical care for our foster children, but anything beyond routine office visits involves caseworkers and birth parents. This can be frustrating when you are the one up in the middle of the night taking care of a sick baby, and it takes a while to address the underlying issue.

3. Foster parents do not focus on the temporary aspect of their job every minute. We are too busy doing life to focus on that. It is not necessary to remind us of it all the time. When you see us acting like a family, just let us have the moment. That means we are successfully doing our job, we are fostering family. While I understand the concern, it would have been nice to just live in the moment.

4. We celebrate our kids' accomplishments just as much as you celebrate accomplishments in your house. We get really excited when good things happen to and for our kids. We might not be able to post publicly, but we are no less excited. Watching a little one heal and make progress from a tough past is amazing. There are days I want to shout from the rooftops "look what God is doing", but because of privacy issues, I have to praise a bit more quietly.

5. We are the keeper of hard secrets, and some days that is overwhelming. We know things about our kids that we cannot share. We hurt when we hear more of the story, but we are limited in how we seek support for ourselves because it is not our story. This part was very hard for me in the beginning. I felt very isolated, and had to learn to ask for support while protecting privacy.

6. God is faithful. This is not fostercare specific, but I literally have to trust God with each day. There is a lot going on in our house. I cannot do it all. He can. He has, and He will.

Hard to put into words

I'm just going to start this by saying I do not want to write this post. It's close to my heart, and I do not have the ability to write well enough to convey the magnitude of my feelings. However, this theme keeps coming back to me, so here we go.

When we were in the process of adopting our son we hit several delays along the way. Because his adoption was an international adoption, we were not with him during the nearly two year process to adopt him. We missed a lot of firsts. We ended up adopting a walking, talking, very active toddler when I had really hoped the adoption would be able to complete while he still had some infant qualities. I find this funny now that he Is almost six because in comparison he really was very little, but at the time I really grieved the loss of his infancy and early toddler days.

At the time we were adopting I read a lot of blogs written by moms who were adopting from the same country. One day I read a verse on one of those blogs that leapt off the screen at me. The verse was Joel 2:25: "I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten". I read that verse as a promise that God saw my heartache, he had not forgotten me. At the time I assumed that the years we would have together with our son would wipe away the pain of the delays, and that has absolutely been our experience. What I did not expect was getting to relive many of those firsts and those stages with my son by my side as a foster family. I could not have imagined the joy of watching my son tell a child who has been abused, "you are safe" - the very words we said to him over and over as he adjusted to our home. I could not have imagined how amazing it would be to listen to my son calm a screaming toddler in the car with the empathy of one who once had his whole life uprooted.

After the promise in verse 25, verse 26 promises "and you will praise the name of the LORD your God, who has worked wonders for you" . Lately, I find myself in awe of the plan God orchestrated in my life.

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!" (Ephesians 3:20-21)

Unexpected

When we were in foster care training I do not remember thinking about what it would be like to watch a child make strides in our home. I was more focused on learning the process, rules, and responsibilities of being a foster parent. The first couple of months of foster parenting were tough. We were still focused on learning our new role. We were advocating for needed services, and we were trying to stabilize in our new role as a foster family

Lately, things have really settled down around our house. Our early advocating is helping. I feel like we have a front row seat to see God's healing power. It's a blessing I never expected. I am ashamed to say I think I thought more about how we could be a blessing to kids who came into our care. I was wrong, we are so very blessed to be a part of this.

Kind comment

We are a conspicuous family. I get it, we do not match. We get stared at a lot, I ignore it because I really don't have time to worry about it. Have you ever tried to take three kids to the store by yourself? There is no time for worrying about the general public and their curiosity, you've got to keep your eyes on the task at hand ;).

A lot of people never say anything. They stare and maybe make a comment to whomever they are with, but say nothing. Those are the hardest for me if I see them. It makes me wonder what they are saying.

Twice lately strangers have said the one thing that warms my heart the most. The first time it happened was a night we took the crew out to eat. The young man who took our order told my husband after I had walked away with the children, "you have a beautiful family.". He asked nothing. He acknowledged that we were obviously a family, acknowledge that we were obviously built differently, but choose not to ask any more questions. When my husband told me about the comment later I cried because it was so unexpected and kind.

Today, it happened again. We were once again eating out with the kids. A family obviously noticed us, and my radar was up. I can tell when we are getting too much attention, and my mama bear starts to rumble a bit. As the family was leaving, the mom said "you have a beautiful family." It turns out they are in the process of adopting, and that was why we drew the extra attention. I quietly stifled the mama bear :).

I don't mind answering questions, but hearing a sweet comment, with no further comment from us needed, is a treat.