We did that hard thing and we survived

Most people don't do foster care because of the whole "good bye" thing. Nobody wants to give parent-level investment and then say good bye. I can tell you from first hand experience, moving a child out of your home is simply unnatural.

But we did it. Our girls left and now they've been gone five whole months; almost as long as they were with us! The other day we completed our re-certification, an annual meeting during which our home was rechecked for safety -- yes, smoke detectors still working, we still have empty beds, we have not adopted an exotic animal. We said, yes, it was crazy but we'll do it again!

"How was your first year as foster parents?" Our home finder asked me. It was a kind and open question and I just unloaded all of the good things that happened to us. It was our privilege. That's not pious BS; months after their departure I see what a mark they've left. I see that we were changed. We gained so much.

For example, when I was in the car alone today actual tears came to my eyes as Meghan Trainor came through the radio singing, "I'm all about that bass, bout that bass, no treble." I can remember when our girls first sang that song together, out of nowhere but in unison as sisters sometimes do, and my anxiety spiked. My babies are hearing a song about big butts and boys liking a little more bootie. How do I handle this? Shut it down? What will that say to the girls? But if I allow it...? Ohlordhavemercymakeitstop.

I was intense. I really like to do things exactly right; sometimes gray is a hard place for me. (I can hear my husband saying, "sometimes?") Fast forward a bunch of ups and downs and lessons learned and last week All About that Bass came on the radio. The kids and I sang that chorus loud and proud and giggling. Not because we are all about that bass, per se, but because it reminds us of two little girls who came into our family, messed us up, changed us, and then left.

Not only did I loosen up about songs regarding butts, but our kids' eyes were opened to people who are just different than us. One of our kids said, "When I first saw her, I wasn't sure if I could like her because she looked so different than me. Then I learned she's just like me." You know what, people? That's an invaluable lesson. That is a lesson about race that I couldn't teach. That was our benefit. That is a clear and definitive gain for our family.

Less definitive are the ways that we grew relationally. I'd like to say I have more patience, but I'm not sure it's that. It is more like when your skin is really, super stretched out and then just never quite holds onto things like it did pre-stretch. I was really stretched emotionally and the aftermath is that I just can't bother to get quite so worked up about every little thing. It's a little easier to let my family be people, it's a little easier to see where I should tune in and when to let it go. A little, I still have a long way to go and everyone I live with can vouch for that. But I consider moving in the right direction progress.

"It was so hard, it was really intense and someday when I look at a picture of all 5 kids together, I know I'll think they are all so little! That was crazy!" They were 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7! By the way, I happen to know lots of moms who could handle that many at those ages forever like it ain't no thing, and my hat is off to you and I'll bring you dinner sometime. So, I laughed during our meeting this week. You know, 5 months later, now that I know that they are doing okay with their family and so are we, I can laugh. I can see clearly it was more of a who-helped-who situation than it was us rescuing them.

Really good things come from really hard places. It's easy to let difficult things harden you, but if you lean in and let them soften you instead, goodness can happen. This is not where I pitch foster parenting to you, unless your one and only reason to say no is cause you "just couldn't" say goodbye. You could - you've said goodbye to people before and you will again. We did it and you totally can too!

This is where I pitch life to you. There will be times when you struggle, but down the pike you will check out your rear view mirror and I bet your heart will swell with gratitude for the journey. You will see how far you've come, you will see your muscles are stronger and your heart is softer and you are more flexible. You survived that hard thing and you are better because of it.

Helpful Mother's Day

A year ago I wrote about the woman whose children I might foster or adopt. Now I can match that imaginary woman with a face, a story and voice. I think of her often. I pray for her. It only takes a little to bring tears to my eyes when I think of her.

The ability to be the mom you want to be is a blessing. Some days it is a choice, but we make choices based on the strength inside of ourselves, the support around us, or a combination of both. We need one another.

This weekend I heard a birth mother speak about her experience with an unplanned pregnancy. She gave her child up for adoption not because she had several options and chose adoption as the best. She gave him up for adoption because an adoption agency was the only place where she felt support and acceptance during a crisis. 

(Insert long essay about the job of God's people to spend more time helping and less time picketing.)

Still with me? Nice! I propose that we take some time to support one another and to cheer for one another. High five to you if you've let your heart envelop a child, if you've given selflessly of time, energy and quiet. If you can feel what they mean when they say "your heart walks outside of your body" then I applaud you.

Now, we are real good at applauding people. That's why there is a Like button on Facebook! It's fun! Here's my Mother's Day challenge to all of the moms and like-moms: fetch yourself some help and support. Keep looking until you find it. Don't let it go. Find somebody or lots of some bodies you can call when you're not okay, when you're less than your best and when you (wait for it) need help.

Recently one of the social workers we work with mentioned to me, "you don't have to do everything yourself, but you try to. That's what you do." Aghast, I asked Dave how she could know this about me. He said, "she did our home study, she knows you." Dang it. They really got in my head.

So, if you happen to be like me and try to do everything yourself (and, ps, like, all the moms I know do) why don't you make it a point to ask for some help. I bet somebody will enjoy offering the support as much as you appreciate it.

Grace for the journey

There are so many reasons you should not become a foster parent, but they are not the reasons you first tell yourself. If you have a propensity for violence, if you are single and work 80 hours a week, if you are a non-recovering addict, if you are in jail or if you just don't like kids then please, do not become a foster parent (actually, if I may, do not become any kind of parent).

The reason I did not want to become a foster parent is probably the same as anybody else. I don't want to love then lose. I don't want instability. I don't want unpredictability. I don't want to get all that involved in somebody else's mess. I don't want to lose control at that level.

But then I realized we lived in home with plenty of space for more than 5 people. We had 3 open seats in the car. Becoming a foster parent was a relatively simple process of training and screening and paperwork. Foster children have their own health insurance and social services covers some of their expenses. After a series of events and conversations my mind changed. Suddenly it became as simple as: we can help so we will help.

Big changes often start with simple intentions. The desire to be helpful has forced me toward grace like never before. After six months as a foster parent I see my failures and limitations with alarming clarity. At first it consumed me with self doubt but since then has dragged me to the feet God, I am so aware of my need for grace. I pray way more than I ever have. I pray because I have to, not just because it feels good.

Big neon signs are pointing toward our two girls moving. It is very likely that I will experience what it is to move preschoolers out of my home. It will be unnatural and it will be unnerving. I think of the control I am about to lose. I think of the influence I want to have. I think about getting them tattooed with all of the things I want to make sure they know in years to come, but I assume social services would frown on that.

These next few weeks are the reason many people do not choose to be foster parents. To love and lose that love is the greatest fear we have, isn't it?  Foster care reminds me of the reality that we do not control how long we will have anyone we love. In foster care, this reality is just impossible to ignore. It is in conversations with social workers, it is in conversations with bio parents, it is in vacation planning and it is in little moments in between. Even though nothing is certain, we do not filter plans with our biological or adopted kids with, "If they're still here, then we will..." We just make plans with the beautiful abandon that we will be together as long as we live.

Whenever I think about the act of packing up two children so they can move out of my house, hugging them, smiling like everything will be okay and saying goodbye I kind of want to lay in my bed and sob. Visions of the next 15 years of their childhoods shoot through my mind and I wonder how their first day of kindergarten will go, and who will help them navigate middle school and their periods and shaving and mean girls and sports and difficult school projects. Will somebody comb their hair even when they hate it? Will somebody teach them that their worth is woven into their being and there isn't anything they can do to be worthless? Will somebody look into their tearful eyes and quivering lips and speak confidence into their little hearts? All I can hope is that something we have done will stick with them and that we might continue a relationship after they're gone. And all I can do is pray. Pray like never before.

In all of my anxiety and turmoil I know that these children, just like Haven, Maiya and Tristan, are God's children. When they go and if they go, they will literally go with God. In that there is the peace that "passes understanding."

So, here's the thing, I'm not sure how you could be a foster parents without God's help. People do it, but I don't know how. There are plenty of reasons to avoid it and to stick with the seemingly predictable lives we have. But grace is there for every journey, even the ones we just don't think we could ever do.

Growing

This won't be long, but I want to put a bookmark in the now. I just realized Haven's size 6 pajamas are too small for him and that he will turn 8 in a couple of weeks. He finally, at long last, has a couple of loose teeth. But, you see, I just gave birth to him. He was just as tiny as my brand new nephew Judah, like, a minute or two ago.  I just made a few dinners, gave a few baths, decorated some Christmas trees and went on a couple of play dates and now he is no longer an infant but halfway through second grade. So I want to just grab him and kiss him and hold his hand in public until he absolutely will not go for it any longer.

Since we became a foster family our life has been a little dr-a-ma-tic. But I notice bio kids are really good at foster care. And not just my kids. Two of my friends are foster moms and their kids are pretty awesome foster siblings too. They are so literal and in the here-and-now that they can embrace their new buddies relatively easily.

I offer ginger conversations about the unknown part of our future as a family of 7. We could revert to a family of 5 at some point. Or not. We won't know until we know. "What if they stay? What do you think that will be like? What if they can't go home?" I pose these open questions hoping to keep the reality of foster care on my children's radars. They are so less swayed by feelings than me. After one litany of questions Maiya looked at me like I'm nuts and said, "If they can't go home we'll adopt them and they'll stay forever." Like it was just that simple. Like that involved nothing intense at all.

At this moment we are a family of 7 and I will make some more dinners, bathe some kids, and schedule some more play dates and look up and we might be a family of 5 again. Or a family of 8. Or some larger number I am not prepared to think about. Just the picture of us invites stares and questions. We have some questionable behavior in public. We see the absolute best and worsts parts of ourselves on a pretty much daily basis. We are always behind on laundry, but there is always somebody to play with. Hide and seek is way better than it used to be. We have a little girl who laughs so loud it sounds like an emergency. We have another little girl who chirps, "I love ya, Dave!" every time anyone but she is in trouble. We have children who are growing in awareness and stretching their little hearts into big, deep spaces.

Most days I look like Haven does in this picture. I'm kind of covered in the day. But he didn't go to bed looking like that and he didn't wake the next morning covered in finger paint. Because things change. We take baths. Holidays come and go. Children grow. Situations change.

So today I place a bookmark in the messy pages of our life. I will probably never again have three preschoolers (many days I promise myself I won't). But there won't be better Christmases than there are during these young-children years. Someday there won't be so many kisses on my face or little hands reaching out to "help" me in the kitchen. So I will embrace it for what it is, because in the fog of my rear view mirror I will someday only remember the cuddles and not the sleepless nights.

On trust and love and God. Mostly God.

Here is what I cannot stop thinking about: the love of God. I grew up in church so the idea that God gave his son for my salvation is as ingrained in my memory as is the color of my eyes. But life lessons have a way of awakening the rote.

A main reason that young families do not do foster care is because they worry how their biological children will fare. This is a legitimate concern. In Another Place at the Table Kathy Harrison explains that it does not make sense to improve the welfare of one child to sacrifice another (paraphrased). Foster care only works if everyone in the home can be well cared for, protected, loved and attended to.

After a training class discussion about the impact of fostering on our biological kids Dave and I drove home saying, "We don't have to go through with it. We can still change our minds." It was the only time we had that discussion. Our only pause was to protect the three children we already had. It was only natural.

We decided what we were willing to handle and what issues we were unwilling to welcome in our home. We agreed it would be terribly hard to send a child away, but the safety of our kids was priority. They are young and they trust us to create a safe home for them. Even with these boundaries and expectations in place, I prayed and prayed about how Haven, Maiya and Tristan would manage. As I've mentioned I cannot describe the inner peace I had about becoming a foster family. I simply chose to have faith that we all, the five of us, were doing the right thing. We would manage details as best we could and the rest was in God's hands.

It has been a struggle, as I mentioned in my last post and in probably every conversation I've had since the end of September. Our standards are met in terms of the physical safety of everybody. However, when there are more children in the home, no matter how they got there, there is less one to one time with each. I usually believe this is so good for them. It is a fantastic life skill to know that the world is not all about you. I vacillate between confidence and anxiety. I remind myself of Peter dipping his toe into the water and having a little difficulty keeping his eyes on Jesus.

So, back to the love of God. What makes my eyes well up and brings a lump to my throat is the reality of John 3:16. I could quote it in my sleep: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son...." I mean, who were we that God would love us, compared to his own son? We, as humans, did not even know what was good for us. We repeatedly chose self destruction. But for our sake God gave (to quote our pastor) his first and best. He did not hold back.

This kind of love is profound and beyond what is rational. It becomes more profound to me when I think of the knots in my stomach as I watched my biological children struggle during those early weeks. I felt their tension deep, deep in my body. It was different than the tears running down my face during the first phone call the girls had with a family member. It is almost like the difference between empathy and sympathy.

How revolutionary is the love of God. I mean, it isn't like God just took us in along with Jesus and raised us together. He literally sacrificed Jesus to save us. Sheesh.

I am not suggesting that we should sacrifice our children for other children. I'm with Kathy Harrison on that point--and probably the rest of the sane world. What I do know is that God sees a bigger picture than we do. God knew Jesus would live again and he knows our future too. As my children trust Dave and me to keep our home a safe place, I'm glad that we can trust God with the same confidence.

Maybe this realization was just for me and sounds super weird to anybody else. If you don't believe in Jesus I will just say this: the love of God is The Thing which has held me together throughout my life. It's as real as my heart beat and my lungs. And if you do believe, well, you probably already knew everything you just read. But here's to God meeting us where we are and speaking in ways we understand.

parenting, faith and the ymca

This morning I had some quiet time at the YMCA. (If you ask me about the YMCA you might get more information than you care for. So for the sake of brevity I'll just say I understand why the Village People wrote a song about it.) But this is not about the YMCA, except that I was there and I ran.

I am not a good runner, but I appreciate the single-mindedness of it. Lately there are so many things to think about all the time. My mind is busy from the moment I wake up until I tuck five little people into bed at night. Laundry. Food.Cleaning. Marriage. Appointments. Repairs. Bills. Social services. Activities. Play with kids. Discipline kids. Bathe kids. The future. Vacations. On the treadmill there is only one thing: one step in front of another.

There is a seasoned foster mom who goes to our church. I barely know her but I've latched onto her and plagued her with questions. She's given me support and tips and I lap it up like a hungry kitten. She recently responded to my tears and self doubt with a smile and "It's like you have a huge mirror shoved in your face." So ... no solutions this time, huh? Oookayyyy.

She's right. The mirror she speaks of is more like a full size mirror in a public bathroom with bad lighting. Suddenly I can see the ugliest parts of myself with alarming clarity. It makes me want to run. Fast.

We signed up to be foster parents because we have so much and we felt we had so much to give. Turns out we were wrong. Whatever reservoir of patience, grace and kindness we had got slurped up in the first, oh, 24 hours. So, we have had to ask God for help like never before. We cannot do this on our own. We cannot even do this with a little help from our friends. We can only move forward because of God's own patience, grace and kindness toward us. It is a reality we have to connect to constantly. It is hard to explain but some of you know what I mean.

I don't mean to turn this back into a commercial for the Y, but exercise has been an avenue of grace for me. I joined about a month into fostering. My children have a happy place to play while I focus on one thing for a little while. I run, if I may, in the right direction. It is therapeutic and calming and brings me closer to the person I am not but the person I hope to be.

My faith and heart are stretching, and it doesn't always feel good. On the treadmill it hurts a little but as my heart rate rises so does my confidence that I can keep going just a little bit longer.

Nothing Worth Doing is Ever Easy

Well, we got the phone call from the Department of Social Services and we said yes. I have so many things on my mind about our first week as a foster family. However, most of the stories are not my stories; they are our foster daughters' stories, and they are not mine to share.

I will share my own story. It took a shorter amount of time than I care to share for me to think, "What have I gotten myself into?" It wasn't anything about the two cherubs that were brought to my house last Friday; one feverish and both wary. It was the system. It was the fact that I now had two little girls whom I did not know and did not know me at my house. Indefinitely.  I was not given a lot of information. I kind of just had to trust that social services made the right call. I had to trust that my house was safer than their house right now and that was all that mattered.

So we went to the doctor for the fever, bathed, went clothes shopping, played outside, tried to make drinking water fun, styled hair, taught the difference between a cow and an elephant, read bedtime stories, said no, set their favorite show to tape on the DVR, watched Haven and Maiya's soccer games, went to church and went on play dates. By day 2 they decided to call me Titi (Spanish for Auntie) and by day 3 they said, "I love you Titi."

If that all sounds sunny, please do not go sign up to be a foster parent and yell at me when your house is turned upside down. Lots of moments of the week were sweet, but the air is thick with transition and uncertainty. Everybody needs time to talk (me especially). Everybody needs to know they are special, valuable and important. I have spent most of the week thinking, "Who doesn't feel special right now?" and racking my brain for ways to fix that.

I asked one of our (bio) kids how he/she felt and he/she said, "Mom, we just talked about it!" I guess I've been a little intense myself.

I need a neon flashing sign on a t-shirt that says, "You're super special and I'm so glad you're in this family." For my own peace of mind.

I am not a fan of uncertainty, lack of control, or transition. Given that, one might wonder why we became foster parents. We couldn't not. I cannot explain it another way. I believe in God calling us to do certain things and, for Dave and me, this was one of those things. I love the quote, "Nothing worth doing is ever easy."

At the end of one day this week I felt so empty. I needed a sign, even post-it size, to show me this was the right thing. As I cared for one of the little girls we talked. I can't share her story, but she gave me shred of information that brought tears to my eyes. I was so glad she was there with me. For however long we can offer a shelter, we will.

We named our first son Haven because we wanted to create just that for ourselves and our children. We felt the strength of comfort and safety was a great place to spend our lives. As we move forward we continue to work toward that environment. If you pray, pray for us. This is a journey and some days have worse weather than others. It is not easy; it's just worth it.

5 reasons to stop comparing your life to your Facebook friend’s life

I don't know about you - no wait, I do know about you: you’re on Facebook.  Anyway, my Facebook feed is filled with so many stories that scare me and lure me in: Nine reasons why your water is making you sick! The fifteen most disgusting places to vacation! Seven signs you have cancer and don’t even know it! The three foods that will ensure your child does not grow up to be self- indulgent, fast-food eating, lazy, cruel person! I exaggerate, but still. You get it because on Facebook you get it too.

I don’t really have a list of 5 things for you to read. But I thought the title might get you to click. I guess it did. Know why? Because it sounds like every other title in your feed and it popped up right below a picture of your ex-boyfriend’s 12-month old who is already potty trained. Dare I say there is too much information at our fingertips?

When we are bored we scroll through the newest updates from our 271 “friends.” While Facebook provides a connection it also provides a window. It’s a window that was covered with curtains a decade ago, a window in which only a handful of close friends were invited to look.

I was happy to have it when I saw my 30-some cousins at my Grandma’s 90^th birthday party. Most of them I had not seen in a decade, but I recognized them and even their children, thanks to Facebook.

We used to exclusively write about our feelings in journals and greeting cards. Now we can see the beautiful things couples write to each other on birthdays and anniversaries; we see children grow with each birthday and read the moving sentiment their parent writes. You see the homes purchased, vacations experienced, the growing pregnant bellies. You see a lot and you and I can start to think it is reality. Not just a piece of reality.

We are created to learn from one another. The danger comes when we do not filter what we are “learning.” In addition to all that fun stuff your college roommate’s neighbor is doing this summer, she’s also taking out the trash, fighting with her husband and treating a yeast infection.  So keep in mind, while you are privy to So Much More of the beautiful moments of your acquaintance’s lives, they still have drudgery, just like you.

My life is beautiful, difficult, exciting, boring and just plain life. I bet yours it too. So next time you scroll through that feed while you’re cooking dinner and pouring milk for your toddler – oh that was me, you’re probably doing it from a private island while pool boys respond to your every whim, but anyway, chin up. Your life is beautiful, difficult, exciting and boring too. None of our lives are as fantastic as they appear on Facebook. Go enjoy yours!