Good and Perfect: One year later

This has probably been the biggest roller coaster year of our lives. All of the trainings and books and conversations can’t quite prepare you for the day in and day out of living in uncertainty. Nothing in my life has exposed my sin quite like fostering has. The world tells us that we are “good people” for making this sacrifice, but twelve months in, I have never been more aware of my sin and my need for Jesus than I am now.

I’ve learned some things about myself on this journey, and most of those were lessons I wish I didn’t need to learn. But a great blessing that we have had over the last twelve months is one of perspective, something I often need in this fast-paced, middle-class world that we live in. I have been reminded countless times that so many of the things that I grumble about and get annoyed with are just not a very big deal.

Case in point: Sunday was a particularly grumpy day for two of the littles in my home. We had been inside all weekend, which was mostly fun, but on day three of the rain we were kind of over it. Josh was not home and I was doing some things to prepare for the week, and I really did not feel like dealing with any more tears. I had things on my agenda and my patience with the heightened emotion was quickly wearing thin. L was being especially weepy over something minor and I asked her, “why are we making a big deal of this? You made a mistake, you’ve been forgiven, so let’s move on.”

And in her tears, she replied, “Mommy… I can’t get the bad things out of my head.”

Of course, she wasn’t referring to the minor thing she had been corrected for. The reality was that the minor thing probably happened because there were some major things going on inside her little mind.

It was one of many moments where I had to just exhale and table my agenda for the time being so that I could deal with the greater issue at hand.

I can’t count the number of times that has happened this year, where I am moving at my pace and trying to manage my home of 6 and juggle our busy calendar, only to be stopped in my tracks and reminded that the needs of this child are greater than my needing to finish the laundry or iron clothes for the week ahead of us. I don’t think even once that the baggage and fears and emotions of her past have come at a time when I was expecting or anticipating it to come. We will go weeks at a time where all is moving along just well and then, what seems like out of nowhere (because I’m not that great at identifying the triggers just yet), we will have a really hard week where there is a struggle to obey, lots of emotions, lots of stubbornness, etc.

It’s draining, and yet it makes me dependent. Dependence has been another blessing that has come from this year. I have been stripped of any pride I had that believed I could handle the stress of life on my own. I’ve had to depend on friends, family, church community, and God.

I am not a private person. In fact, if I swing too far on the pendulum it’s that I don’t always use great discretion in what I share and with whom. I’m often guilty of sharing too much too fast or sharing with people that don’t need all the details. And even though I consider myself very open in a lot of ways, I have learned that I am comfortable doing that when I am in control of it. In the last two months I have had 7 different people in my home that I had never met before, and each time there is someone here, they see our whole home. It’s not fun to expose your mess to strangers that way. But at the same time, it’s been a good opportunity for us to remember that nothing we have is our own. I think vulnerability has been a really important part of this process for us. We are forced to be vulnerable by allowing people into our home, and we have learned to be more vulnerable by being honest with people about the hard places.

Another thing that has been of utmost importance this year is the strength and health of our marriage. It isn’t even all about foster care as much as being parents to four and having school and church and extra-curricular things, but we have literally had to plan for “us time” on the calendar. Spontaneity is not really a thing we have a lot of margin for right now, so we have had to be disciplined about getting out of the house together as well as creating a space and time at home where we silence our phones for an hour so that we aren’t tempted to escape into work or social media or mindless reading. We’ve learned that it only takes a few days of us being disconnected before things start to unravel. We have to be a united front before our kids, and if we aren’t connecting as a couple, then we aren’t a united front before them. When we are on the same page, I don’t feel overwhelmed. But as soon as we are operating as individuals with different agendas, we become quickly frustrated and stressed. Learning to have the discipline of creating time that’s for Josh has been a good thing for me.

I think my heart is more sensitive to the Gospel than it has ever been. When you are caring for a child who has experienced trauma and whose future is unknown, there really is not much more you can offer them than hope in something greater than this world. And really, that’s all I have to offer to my own children as well, but I forget that sometimes. One night recently L was laying in her bed awake and I peeked in on her and asked what she was doing. She said, “just thinking about God, and how He wants to be our friend.” This resonates with her in a very different way than it does my other two that are practically her same age because they have known love and stability and a wealth of healthy and caring relationships. She has not, and so I see her thinking on and processing “simple truths” in a way that I never did as a young child. I am learning so much as I watch her seek.

Perspective. Dependence. Vulnerability. Discipline. Sensitivity to the Gospel.

These aren’t things that I look back on with regret. These are good things for me and for Josh and for my children. The way they come about may not always feel good, but I can’t complain about the lessons learned.

This year has been hard, but it has been full of blessings. I have learned so much. But really, it’s not about me at all. I’m grateful that I have some takeaways and I’m thankful that God has been gracious enough to teach us and change us, but even if I couldn’t list any great bullet points, we still know that it’s worth our yes. We know that in spite of our busy, in spite of the unknown, in spite of how much I dislike living on a roller coaster, somebody has to care for these children.

One of the hardest things about being connected to the system and other foster parents is that I am so much more aware of how many children are in care, and what the reality is of them being part of a broken system that’s significantly lacking in resources. Last night eight children were taken into custody in my county. As of 10:00 pm they were still trying to find a place for a 1 and 3 year-old to go. The need is what has dictated this call for us, not our feelings or willingness or faith. It has become a great passion of ours to support others on this path and to be a voice and an advocate for these children who need stability. We have had a lot of great conversations with people, but please consider this an open invitation to contact me at any time if you have questions about what it looks like to become a foster parent.