Becoming Brave and Opening the Door

I was reminded of this story from Acts 9 while I listened to a recent sermon from Austin New Church (which can be found here).  This serves as our introduction to Saul, a Pharisee and persecutor of the Way, Jesus' followers.  Saul will become Paul as a result of his encounter with God on the road, and will go on to write most of the New Testament letters and spread the gospel message further.  But in Acts 9, Saul is traveling and is suddenly struck blind and hears a voice from heaven.  He does what the voice says, which makes sense, because even with our modern Western medicine and technology, if I suddenly lost the ability to see, and I heard someone giving me instructions to restore my sight, you better believe I'd follow those words down to the letter.

And then the story takes an interesting turn.  God has called out to a man who will make a radical life change and plant churches all over Asia and Europe, but then he also speaks to a man named Ananias.  Ananias is already a believer, already fully committed to God and His Church, so when he hears the voice, he responds, "Yes, Lord."

The Lord told him, "Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street.  Ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul.  He is praying.  In a vision, he has seen a man named Ananias.  The man has come and placed his hands on him.  Now he will be able to see again."

"Lord," Ananias answered, "I've heard many reports about this man.  They say he has done great harm to God's people in Jerusalem.  Now he has come here to arrest all those who worship you.  The chief priests have given him authority to do this."

But the Lord said to Ananias, "Go!  I have chosen this man to work for me.  He will carry my name to those who aren't Jews, and to their kings.  He will bring my name to the people of Israel.  I will show him how much he must suffer for me."

Then Ananias went to the house and entered it.  He placed his hands on Saul.  "Brother Saul," he said, "you saw the Lord Jesus.  He appeared to you on the road as you were coming here.  He has sent me so that you will be able to see again.  You will be filled with the Holy Spirit."  Acts 9:10-17

As I reflect on the word brave this month, I am reminded of how often God's calling to me has been the same as for Ananias.  Open your door.  Take down your walls.  Let others in.  Ananias had every reason to stay away from Saul.  He'd heard all about him, and he didn't want to get locked up or put to death.  He just wanted to worship the Lord in peace.  But God had a plan not just to redeem Saul's life, but Ananias' as well.

The world is teeming with stories of hate and violence and fear and isolation.  Sometimes it is impossible to separate the people of God from everyone else, because we allow ourselves to hear these tales and we shut our doors.  We try to keep it out.

"For God has not given us a Spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and self-discipline." (2 Timothy 1:7)  God calls His people to be brave.  To open their doors and step out in faith.  Nowhere in my life is this more evident than our decision to become foster parents, and then adoptive parents.  Plenty of people warned us and tried to talk us out of doing it.  We would be opening ourselves up to something unknown, possibly dangerous.  We rejected that mentality, because we don't believe in fearing what we don't know.  Instead of some horror, we became the parents of a beautiful little boy, who nestled himself firmly in our hearts.  And that little boy, in turn, opened us to a whole family of people of look like him and share his personality quirks.  Though it is sometimes difficult, it is a beautiful expression of God's kingdom that we are able to walk this journey openly.

Sometimes being brave means opening the door of an adoption agency, and beginning the process of placing your child in someone else's home.  Sometimes it mean opening your door to a child (or children) in need of a family.  Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is let go of the labels we've borne in the past (unloved, abandoned, unworthy, ashamed) and let in people who will walk with us towards healing and wholeness.

God didn't give up on Saul, even though he persecuted God's people, sometimes to the point of murder.  God didn't let Ananias stay in his house, scared and alone.  God brought these two men together to accomplish the work of His kingdom, and generations of believers have been blessed by their courage.

God hasn't given up on you either.  Every morning, He gives us the chance to be brave once again.  So who will you let in?

Outside In

Every other Saturday night, our house fills with delicious smells.  My husband and I take turns making yummy breakfast foods, because every other Sunday morning, we teach the middle school students at our church.  A wise friend once told me something that has proved to be true: you have to love people from the outside in.

When we show up with food, our students will sit with us and allow us to nourish their minds because we are first nourishing their bodies.  Over time, after being consistent with food and honest answers and showing that we care, they will finally allow us into the depths, where their spirits reside.  If we want to reach their souls, we have to start by feeding their endlessly hungry bodies.

It makes sense if you think about it, because we all know how poorly people learn when they are starving, or afraid, or worried about their personal safety.  I learned Maslow's hierarchy years ago in a college sociology class, and yet I can be so intent on what is below the surface of the people I love that I completely ignore their more pressing physical needs.

It shouldn't be complicated, and yet it is.  Sometimes it is tunnel vision, sometimes it is our own ignorance.  I was thinking about my son who is adopted, and the little girl that we fostered a few years ago, about how needy they were when they came to us.  And we wanted to soothe their bodies and fill their bellies and reassure them that they were precious and loved and safe, but we were ignoring the first layer.

Do you know what is most important to a child?  More than food, more than physical safety, more than warm blankets on a clean bed?  His mom.  Psychologist Harry Harlow performed experiments on rhesus monkeys in the 1950s that demonstrated how crucial a mother is to her baby, and the conversations I have with my non-biological children confirms it.  Which means that while we mend the physical and emotional wounds of children who have been neglected and abused, we must also demonstrate love for the adults who allowed it in the first place.  No easy task.

I had a moment of panic the other day when my son reached for a bag of cookies and said, "I've never tried this before.  Let me have some!"  Because I can easily imagine his birth parents saying or thinking something similar when they were introduced to the addictive drugs that derailed their lives. How much are we, as adoptive parents, able to re-write biology?  Is there something ticking inside him that will go off in adolescence and take him down their same path?  Or was it childhood hyperbole that I was reading way too much into?

I don't want my son to repeat his mom's mistakes, and the best way I can think to help him is to let him know her, to be honest about why he lives with us and what unique challenges he'll face as he grows up.  The worst thing I could possibly do is talk about her with disrespect, calling her names or criticizing her choices.  If I can step back and allow him to see her as she is, without casting my own thoughts or feelings onto their relationship, then I trust that he'll understand what is true better.  He won't grow up with some idealized version of her (or me, for that matter), because he will know where he came from.

Adoption: Love is all you Need

I remember so vividly the scene in 16 & Pregnant when Tyler and Caitlin told their parents they were giving their baby up for adoption.  When they listed all that they couldn't provide for their child.  And Tyler's father's response was "Love is all you need."  And I was dumbfounded when this 17 year old boy responded, "No, you need more than love.  You need diapers, you need food, you need a job!"  How telling that this kid realized that you need more than feelings (or Beatles' lyrics) to raise a child.

Some children are adopted because they come from poverty or young parents, like Tyler and Caitlin.  And some kids are adopted because someone intervened to protect them from abuse or neglect.  Either way, children who leave their birth parents experience a huge loss.  As I have traveled on this road of adoption as a foster mother and adoptive mother, I have learned more and more about the deep wound of separation and loss.

Hearing adopted people talk about their grief makes my heart constrict.  Partly it hurts me to watch people experience this level of trauma.  After all, it was the deep love and compassion in me that led me to fill out all the papers and make a place for this child in my home and in my family.  I don't want him to hurt, to grieve.  My greatest desire for all my children is wholeness.  But part of me is selfish.  Part of the pain I feel centers on my wish to be enough.  I want to be the only mom some days.  I want to fill all the empty places in my child's heart.  The reality is that I can't.  I can't be the cure.  I can't erase the past.  I can only love enough to fill one piece of my son's heart; that love can't fix everything.

As adoptive parents, we have two choices.  We can stick our fingers in our ears and hum "La La La" as loudly as necessary to drown out the voices telling us that adoption is painful, or we can surrender our pride and accept that our children need more than our love to come into adulthood with healthy, intact hearts.

Brother and Sister 2014

For me, this means doing all I can to maintain relationships with members of my son's first family.  We are not necessarily close or in daily contact, but we are able to get together once or twice a year and celebrate this boy that we all love.  It means letting another woman share the title of "Mom", of stepping aside so she can bond with our son.  It means sharing my weaknesses and frustrations and selfishness with my husband behind closed doors, and not making a child responsible for my happiness.  It means learning and researching adoption issues and preparing myself for future conversations.  It means pointing out people who have already walked this road, whether they are friends and neighbors or Buddy the Elf.  It means parenting without a map.  It means delving into the Beatles' catalog and choosing to quote from the song "Help!" when discussing parenting and adoption.  It means I need more than love; I need openness, grace, and support to keep going.

Two mommies

Mother Teresa and Me

There came a time in my life, just about 10 years ago I believe, when I just got fed up with myself.  I took an honest look in the mirror and I didn't like the person there.  So I decided to change.  I looked around at what everyone else was doing; if I wasn't going to be me anymore, who should I try to be like?  I focused in on Mother Teresa (aim high, right?).  Although she passed away while I was in high school, I don't know if anyone has yet to cast their shadow over her reputation as a humanitarian and a living saint.

Okay.  So I sat on my mattress (it took getting married to finally start sleeping on a bed frame again) and tried to think where I could go and how I could be the next Mother Teresa.  She had cared for lepers in Calcutta, breaking the social mores of a society that cherished its hierarchy and really looked down on touching diseased, poor, unworthy folks.  Well then.  I could, I don't know, go to Africa and care for people dying of AIDS?  Except, um, I didn't know where exactly I would need to go, and I didn't know what qualifications I had or could get quickly to make myself useful.  And I was engaged.  I was pretty sure my fiancé wouldn't be excited about this change of plans (CORRECT!).

Okay.  So I planned my wedding and continued working and sat with this tension about who I should become and who I was.  A few months after I got married, I was hanging out with some friends.  One of them told me he was going to a poor neighborhood in the area every Wednesday and helping some people serve dinner to the families who lived there.  My husband and I were working different hours, meaning I came home four days a week at 5pm and sat around our apartment (reading, cleaning, napping) until he came home around 9pm.  I thought about Mother Theresa.  I thought about Africa.  I thought, maybe I can't be her and do great things, but I can do this thing right now and maybe make a positive difference right now.  The following Wednesday, I met up with my friend at the appointed time.  And I found out that he had left out some details.  Like that he went to this neighborhood with our church's youth group, and by showing up to go with them, the assumption was made that I wanted to help lead the students, not feed the neighborhood.

I kept going, even though my husband said "You went where?!" with a freaked out look on his face after the first night, even though I didn't want to be a youth group leader, even though serving dinner to strangers is kind of uncomfortable and I didn't really think I was making a difference.  After the summer ended, the Wednesday nights continued.  I was given a group of sixth grade girls to visit patients at the local hospital and organize stuff at Goodwill.  But some nights we just stayed at the church and talked about God.  Then it was my task to sit with the girls and generate discussions about whatever the youth pastor taught.  I remember facing a line of 11 year old girls and drawing a complete blank, so I just started babbling about baptism.  I figured out that I didn't need to stick to a script or ask the right questions, or even stay on topic.  I just needed to get them talking.  We got to know each other, and I was surprised to find myself kind of being a leader.  The next summer, I went with the girls to camp, and I found myself in a super awkward conversation with a girl from another church who had some pretty serious questions about boys and sex and, while I hope I handled it well, my 11 year olds did not prepare me for that.

When the girls were in 7th grade, I had my first baby.  I was still able to come on Wednesday nights (mostly), but I wasn't able to help chaperone trips and my priorities had changed a little.  Still, I wanted to do something.  So taking what I had learned so far, that I understood middle school girls and enjoyed spending time with them, I signed up to be a Big Sister.  I was matched with a 10 year old girl who liked to play basketball and didn't live too far away from me.  It was no Calcutta slum, but then again, Mother Teresa didn't have a baby at home.  So I spent a year picking D up and trying to find thing to do together.  She liked more active stuff, so we played basketball at the park and had a snowball fight after Christmas.  She came to my house and we baked cookies and we went to Steak and Shake and shared a plate of fries.  As our match year came to an end, I was about to give birth to my next baby, and she decided she didn't want to continue with the program.  I was relieved, because, although I liked hanging out with her, it was hard to make separate time for this girl and take care of my kids at home.  I found myself thinking that it would be easier if I could mentor a kid who lived with me instead.  And that's how I became a foster parent.

The idea had been germinating when I happened to meet a lady who had adopted her three daughters through foster care.  I was supposed to have a quick 10 minute meeting with her about a completely unrelated matter, but we ended up talking for close to two hours, as she described the process of getting licensed, told me the stories of how she'd gotten her daughters, and talked about life as a family.  I went home that night and told my husband we had to do it.  He wasn't so sure (but at least we didn't have to go to Africa...).  A few months later, our church arranged a weekend service trip to a local children's home for their annual fundraising carnival.  I used a little coercion to get my husband to come with me and we left the kids with my parents.  We drove out on Friday night, my husband gritting his teeth and not saying much, and we drove home Sunday overwhelmed with the desire to get licensed.  We just had to do it.  A year later, we were approved and our next son was born to another woman.  We brought him home and fell in love.

In the last year or so, I've been given some opportunities to speak and teach.  It's not something I've sought out or felt prepared to do, but it continues to happen.  I'm still not caring for the dying in a developing country on the other side of the world, but I look back at the past decade and I see the steps I've taken to distance myself from that selfish, miserable 22 year old.  Have I made a difference?  Am I getting close to Mother Teresa status?  I don't know.  I don't know how many people remember me after our time together ends.  I don't know whether I've influenced people to live better lives or care for the poor, but I know that I've changed.  I know that these experiences have transformed me.

And let me tell you something I learned recently about Mother Theresa:  it took her decades to become the woman serving the lepers in India.  She left home at 18 to begin her life as a nun, and studied and trained and spent the next two decades teaching in a school not far from where her better-known ministry would launch.  She was almost 40 when she finally left the safety of her convent and began working directly with the poor and sick.  She spent the last 37 years of her life building her Sisters of Charity from one person (herself) to a network of more than 5,000 nuns and priests operating more than 600 facilities for the "poorest of the poor".  I find this very encouraging.  There's still time.  I'm not Mother Teresa...but maybe someday I'll be known as Mother Rachel.

If we want to reap a harvest, first we have to plant.  If we want to be known for something, then we have to get off our butts and do it.  If we want the world to change, then we have to follow Ghandi's advice and be the change.  My heart breaks for orphans and vulnerable children.  My hands are itching to hold them close and keep them safe.  And my mouth can't stop telling people to join me.

On Thanksgiving and Giving Thanks

It was Thanksgiving yesterday.  The day we welcomed our families into our home.  The day we turned the kitchen into a room where adults could eat and talk and laugh and give thanks.  Not the room where peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are made, where pictures are drawn, where board games are played, where junk mail piles up week after week.  We did some actual work to transform this room, but mostly it was smoke and mirrors.  It was "Nobody go upstairs."  It was a time to pretend it always looks that clean.  We said our thanks.  For the support of friends.  For employment. For a year of sobriety.  For family.  For health.

This year, I feel thankful for so much in my life.  For the marriage that is about to celebrate its 10th year.  For the children who continue to grow and change and occasionally offer hugs and kindness.  For the house that keeps us warm and together.  For the friends who actually support me and encourage me.  For the new pastor at our church.  But mostly I'm thankful for all that has changed since last Thanksgiving.

Last year at this time we were a family of six.  Two of our members had spent a total of 7 days in the hospital.  Our cupboard had filled up literally overnight with several new prescriptions that we were still learning how to administer.  When the preschool teacher asked our son what he was thankful for, he burst into tears.  Life had been reduced to figuring out how to get through each day.  There was nothing beyond today, no long-term projects, no plans for the future.  This was especially hard for me, as I am a planner.  I like to look ahead, to be working toward some larger goal.  But I was overwhelmed by each day's needs, only able to think about how to keep each child alive until bedtime.  And even then, I lurked outside doors, I listened to the little breaths, I wondered if they were coming too fast or too slow or too shallow or too raspy.

Life became very narrow.  There wasn't time to discuss, to argue, to talk things through.  And so we put it off.  There wasn't time to fix, to replace, to repair.  And so we put it off.  There wasn't time to rest, to recuperate, to be restored.  And so we put it off.  There was barely time to eat and bathe and wash and read and brush and hold and drop off and pick up.

This is not to complain.  It was what we signed up for, it was what we were promised in those foster parent meetings and trainings.  This is just to explain that it was hard.  That it took everything we had.  It wasn't all bad.  There were many moments of love and understanding and so much growth, the kind that comes from months of difficulty.  I was reminded of the importance of scheduled rest, of intentional nights off, of friends who will step in to carry the load.  I learned that my frequent response to stress was (is?) to withdraw, to hide out with a bar of chocolate and a good book (or a trashy show on Netflix).  And I took steps to make life more sustainable and less draining.

When the call came that our little Girl was leaving, I spent days in tears.  In the busyness I hadn't realized just how attached I had become, just how much I loved this little one who required so much from me.  And after months of feeling as though I had shouldered the burden of our family, of needing to be strong and to keep going so that we didn't all just fall apart, I found myself done, exhausted, unable to maintain the exterior calm.  She left; I cried.  I fell asleep on the couch, in the boys' room, in a lawn chair.  I searched for the energy to cook, to clean, to do anything really, but my reserves were spent.  At the point when I had to say, "I just can't...", my husband stepped in.  He let me sleep.  He made meals.  He rounded up the kids and took them to the park.

This is how life has gone since then.  First, we had to rest.  Like literally sleep.  We had to say No to some things we really wanted to be part of.  I read a huge stack of books.  We had conversations with our kids about why the Girl was no longer living with us.  Next, we had to relearn how to be a family of five.  We couldn't go back to who we were before; we had to learn who we had all become.  We had to stop buying so much food.  And finally, it was time to catch up.  It was time to address all that had been put off.  We had to reconnect in our marriage, we had to reconnect with our kids.  We had to prioritize those home repairs.  We had to clean out those boxes, that room, that closet.

As the holidays approached, I began to feel once again like an equilibrium had been restored.  The kids are doing well in their new schools and new grades.  They are tackling new responsibilities and developing new interests.  I feel like I am once again able to be the giver in my relationships, able to connect with my friends and my husband instead of beginning every conversation with all that is hard in my life.  We finally fixed that drawer, that leak.  Maybe we will even be able to say that we are preparing for what's next instead of catching up with what was left undone.  I'm still reading a few new books each month.  And my days became rapidly easier as school began just a few weeks after the Girl left, and I am left with one child at home.  It felt selfish at first, all this time for myself after doing so much for everyone else.  But rest assured, I enjoy it now.  I am renewed in the afternoon quiet.

Some families stay open immediately after a placement leaves.  Some parents are ready to jump right back on that horse.  As Amy Poehler says, "Good for you, not for me."  We have needed these months of restoration.  We are once again strong, we are once again comfortable.  Perhaps we are now ready for a new challenge.

We are blessed with an abundance for which we give thanks.

An Update on My Heart

I got more than my usual number of pageviews when I wrote about our little Girl leaving to return to her family, and I so appreciate the support and encouragement that you all have given to me and my family, not just in the past few weeks, but in the past several months.  This was a very challenging placement, full of highs and lows and non-stop work.  I felt the need to update everyone about how I'm doing, lest you think my summer has been spent on the brink of full-blown depression.

We said goodbye on June 26th.  I had been packing her stuff gradually so it wouldn't all come on one day, but it was still a rush to get everything together.  I wanted to get it all out at once because I thought I might lose it if I opened a door or pulled out a drawer and found something of hers.  Well, I didn't get it all, although I did get most of it.  There were some clothes still in the laundry, a few toys that had wandered under the couch.  But seeing them did not have the devastating effect I thought they might.  Instead, finding Doc McStuffins under a pile of clothes and pink and white sneakers in the basement made me smile.  I put the leftovers in a bag and was able to take it over to her grandma's house the following week, which gave me the extra benefit of seeing Girl again.  We dropped her off in the morning, and it was just Michael and me, since Chris was at work and the boys had VBS.  I thought it was better that way, since I could focus on saying goodbye, and I thought Michael would benefit from actually seeing her go to another house, to know that she was going to live with an adult who would take care of her, to give him closure.  Because the family was so scattered that morning, we took the night before to say our goodbyes properly.  We explained to Girl that she was moving to Grandma's house, that this wasn't a sleepover, but a permanent move.  She got excited and smiled big.  Then she asked me if I would be mad at her for leaving.  I shared on my facebook page the response I gave her, which is that I was only sad to have to say goodbye.  We had talked before about how she would always be part of our family, even if she didn't live in our house.  Then she proceeded to say, "I think Daddy will miss me.  And Michael will miss me.  And James will miss me, and Winston too."  We were all there and said yes, she would be missed.  We took turns giving her hugs, telling her that she was loved and precious to us.

When the car was unloaded, when it was time to get going, she didn't want to say goodbye.  She didn't want to hug us, but that's pretty typical for her.  I never forced her to give hugs or kisses if she didn't want to, I felt like she needed to have that choice respected, and it made her rare moments of physical affection mean more.  So we left.  I spent the morning with Michael, then we picked up the boys and went home.  And I crashed.  I fed the kids and got them in their rooms for quiet time, and I laid down and cried.  For a few days, I just felt this heaviness on me, this weight on my chest, and it was exhausting.  I slept quite a bit, and my darling husband really stepped in and gave me space to crumble.  He took our boys to the pool and let me sleep, he took them to the park while I lay on the couch.  Then he suggested that we do a family activity.  We picked up pizza and went to a park.  We ate together and the kids ran around and then James wanted to go for a walk, so I followed him.  It was exactly what I needed.  I needed to get out of the house, I needed to remember how amazing my kids are, I needed to feel love and togetherness and FAMILY.  Because this giving, giving, giving is hard work.  The appointments and the medicine and the personality differences and the trauma that manifested itself over the past 8 months took everything I had.  The boys have taken it easy on me the past few weeks, they have been pretty calm and good to each other and very loving to me.  I feel like there is room for them again, on my lap, in my arms, they are filling up the silence the Girl left with their funny observations and silly games, and they are my joy.

Not many people get this experience, I think, of adding a fourth child and then reverting back to a family of five within the year.  Because what's interesting is that we got used to it, how much food to make, how much time to allot for, how to do baths and dentist appointments and school drop offs.  So now there is all this time, this space, this freedom.  The boys are pretty low maintenance.  They are content to hang out in their jammies, to watch movies or run around the yard catching bugs.  They don't really fight, they don't cry too much, overall the drama has pretty much gone away around here.  There is an element of relief to this saying goodbye that has gotten me through.

Although they don't talk about it much, I think the kids notice her absence too.  I noticed the day after she left how they had abandoned our rules for being fully clothed around the house.  A DAY people.  After almost a year of having a sister, they were in their underwear, shirts off, penises hanging out on the couch(that one I nipped in the bud, because the Girl might be gone, but Mommy has no desire to see it either).  A week after she had left, we went swimming, and as we were pulling out of the driveway, Winston, suddenly in a panic, said, "We forgot the Girl!  There are supposed to be six of us!"  We explained again that she didn't live with us anymore, that it was five again, and everyone was in the car who needed to be there.  I still see and hear her in Michael, which I figured he would be the kid who was most influenced by her.  But without her to feed off of, to egg him on, even Mikey is calming down.

I mentioned in the previous post how we had just hung our family picture with all of us in it when I got the call that she was leaving.  I then printed out some candids I had taken recently, and filled some new frames with images of our beautiful children, our family, and hung them on the walls.  I find that I like glancing across the room and seeing her huge smile, and remembering that even though it was hard, it was good too.  I think of her leaning against my shoulder while I read stories, how we held hands and prayed at night, all the times I carried her and tickled her and swung her around.  And I'm grateful for the time I got to spend as her mom.

PS-- No more ethnic hair care dilemmas.  That's what I'm most glad to be done with.

Even When Your Heart is Breaking...

Tonight, I'm nursing a broken heart.  It's happened before, of course, when the boy that I liked didn't feel the same way, when the person I loved, a fixture in my life, passed on.  I felt that shattering inside, cried those nonstop tears, wondered how I would ever get through it.  But this is a brand new heartbreak, because today the social worker called.  Instead of vague ideas and hypotheticals, she called to give me a date.  Two weeks.  In two weeks, our little girl will be moving back home with her family.  All I could say was, "Oh," as the lump formed in my throat.  Because we knew this was coming.  We had been told this was the plan.  This is what we signed up for.  And yes, I can think of a hundred different reasons why this is going to be good for everyone, how this is the best plan given the messed up nature of the world we live in, where parents aren't always the best people to raise their children, where a flawed but well-meaning foster care system is necessary.  I won't have to worry about that hair anymore.  She won't talk back to me when I speak.  Our next holiday celebration isn't going to be hijacked by her behavior.  She won't be able to teach my sons anymore bad habits, and maybe the ones they've learned over the past eight months will die out over time.  She'll be with the people who look like her.  She'll be able to see her mom more.  She'll be someone else's responsibility, which would mean I can finally relax.

But every time I think of it, the actual date, packing up the dolls and hair products and clothes and shoes that have drifted to every corner of our house, I just keep crying those non stop heartbreak tears.  Because we are her family, and I am her mother except in the one way that matters to a judge.  After living with us for eight months, she has become my daughter, and I love her.  I just hung our new family photo yesterday, the one with Chris and I surrounded by daffodils, with four kids spread across our laps, 3 blonde boys and one brown girl.  That is my family, but in two weeks, it won't be.  Instead of listing all the ways she bugs me, I keep thinking how much I'll miss her.  I'll miss seeing her grow up.  I'll miss all the development that will happen after this point, won't see the final result of all that we've poured into her.  I won't know for sure that she is safe, that she is being fed, read to, hugged, given appropriate boundaries.  Maybe her (other) family will still call and invite us to see her, but it's not guaranteed. 

We knew this was going to happen, theoretically when we signed up to be foster parents, and practically, when her social worker told us she would be moved sometime this summer.  And I've said myself that I just can't see us adopting her, signing up for another 15 years of being exclusively responsible for her, making her a permanent member of our family.  Right now, I wish I could be more calculating, more rational about all of this.  I wish....I don't know.  That I wasn't human?  That the very act of caring for someone day in and day out didn't forge a deep and lasting connection between two people?  That I could just smile and wave and tell her goodbye and never think of her again?  I honestly kept thinking that when it was time for her to go, we would just go back to our regular lives.  But now I see the flaw in that thinking, because there is no going back, there is no life previously in progress that has just been waiting, static.  We are all different than we were 8 months ago, both because the boys are young and that is just the nature of early childhood, but also because this girl came into our house and she infiltrated every one of  us.  How are my boys going to react to losing the person they have started calling their sister?  Part of me thinks there will be some relief, a welcome quiet in the mornings and in the car and all day long,  Probably they will notice and appreciate that there is one less person to share with, one less person to occupy their mother's time and her lap.  But at the same time, I think they'll miss playing with her.  I think they'll miss her nonstop energy, her whole-hearted joining in of whatever game they devised.  We've laid the groundwork to answer their questions, of course.  They know she has another mommy, another home.  We've said she's just here for a while, but they will never have to go.  I've whispered that this is their forever home and I am their forever mommy in the quiet minutes before they fall asleep.

I keep thinking back to a conversation that Chris and I had at Friendly's (because, of course it was at Friendly's, where every pivotal moment in our relationship has happened, every deep conversation, every big decision) a few years ago.  Michael was just a baby, only a few months old and just coming out of the infant drug addiction that brought him to our family.  His social worker had informed us that she was contacting family members, looking for a kinship placement for him.  We sat across from each other, the little guy fast asleep next to me, and Chris said, "I think we should have another baby."  I shook my head.  No.  I didn't want to be pregnant again.  I was no longer interested in growing our family biologically.  And besides, I knew the real reason he wanted me to get pregnant was to salve his heart as he faced the loss of Michael.  He wanted to make a baby that they wouldn't be able to take from us, because there would be no conflicting loyalties, no one standing before the king and asking to cut him in half.  Another baby would be all ours.  But that wasn't the solution to losing Michael, and I told him that.  Chris was disappointed, but he knew I was right.  I wish I could summon that calm person right now.  Because I just keep thinking about how nice it would be to get pregnant, to have a new child to look forward to while I am losing this one that I love.  It won't happen, because we took that option off the table about a year ago.  There are always more foster kids though.  More babies and toddlers and preschoolers who need a home, a safe adult to look out for them.  As much as I want to call Children's Services and ask them to send me another, I know that I need a break, at least for a few months.  I need to let myself grieve.  I need to feel what I'm feeling, because there is no "fix" for this.

Time heals all wounds.  Right?  So if I can just give it time, maybe I can stop crying.  If I just think about all that she has learned and experienced while in our care, maybe I can tell myself that we did what we could, what she needed, and release her.  Maybe if I can quiet this internal storm, I can hear the voice that reminds me that He loves all His children, that she will always be in His care, that His love is big enough and deep enough and transforming enough that we'll all be able to get through this.  And I need to remember the look on her face, the huge smile that broke out when I finally dried my eyes long enough to tell her that she was going to see her grandma, that she gets to have a sleepover this weekend.  She knows who her family is, every last one of us, and she belongs with them as much as she belongs here.

Comfort and Poverty

Currently, I'm reading the book of Job.  I read this passage last night, "I broke the jaws of godless oppressors and plucked their victims from their teeth." 29:17  My first thought was, Ugh, the Old Testament.  Geez.  Why does it have to be so violent?  Every story has to involve severed heads on stakes and entire tribes decimated.  But I stayed there, thinking about that verse.  The whole chapter is Job listing all his worthy accomplishments, explaining why his current circumstances can't possibly be punishment for bad behavior.  He helped people, he had status in his community.  He was honest and fair.  And he rescued people.

Okay, so there's a reason we kept the Jewish history and law books as part of our Christian faith, right?  Because all of this stuff takes on new meaning if you look at it through the lens of Jesus on the cross.  So once a guy dies for the whole world (like everyone, not just the Jews, not just the Evangelicals, but EVERYONE), then who is a godless oppressor?  It's not really an individual, because each of us has the potential to turn, to change.  Everyone that might have fit the description of godless infidel in the Old Testament is just a soul looking for Jesus in all the wrong places.

But people ARE oppressed these days.  That hasn't changed.  So I ask again, who is a godless oppressor?  I think about myself, about growing up in the suburbs.  All the folks with their trim houses and green yards, the shiny cars and the good educations.  My high school classmates went on to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT.  I went to Kent State.  Were we oppressed?  Our houses weren't in foreclosure, but what about our families?  Glennon Melton says in Carry On, Warrior that "People who need help sometimes look a lot like people who don't need help."  I believe that people are oppressed by comfort.  I think we convince ourselves that since we are able to satisfy our wants, that we don't have any needs, and we get on this conveyor belt and try not to look too closely at anyone.  When I think about what Jesus has changed for me, as an adult, I say he broke the jaws comfort and plucked me from its teeth.

What am I saying?  That Jesus calls me to be uncomfortable.  That just as Chris and I were starting our own little suburban comfortable family, we threw a wrench in the machine and signed up to be foster parents.  Nothing quite like the discomfort of being part of the most tragic and painful months of another family's journey, bringing home a sick, addicted baby.  Probably you would expect that I have some strong feelings about drug-exposed infants...that's true.  But it might surprise you to learn that while, yes, prenatal exposure is 100% preventable, it's long-term effects are nothing compared to the long-term effects of poverty.  This is really the oppressor that foster care has brought me face-to-face with.  And so I read that verse from Job another way:  because of Jesus, I broke the jaws of poverty and plucked its victims from its teeth.  It started with Michael, my beautiful son, but it kept going, and I LOVE going to my church and looking around at all the amazing people who shout this as their anthem.  Poverty has people in its jaws, it is chewing them up and preparing to eat them alive, but we say NO, not on our watch, not today. 

We spend time with kids and help people do their laundry and pass out food and toilet paper and always we say "There is hope that is real, hope that extends beyond our present circumstances."  And those words are just as important to say to the people who look like they don't need help.  That hope is for everyone.

So...what am I missing?  What other "godless oppressors" are out there, and who is breaking the jaws and rescuing the victims?

Chocolate Hair/Vanilla Care: A Rant

It took six months, but it finally happened: I was accosted at the store by two black ladies who criticized the way my foster daughter's hair looked.  It is hard to be the one being judged, and especially I take criticism of my parenting extremely personally, and I'm having a hard time just letting this one go.  So here is my rant, all the things I wish time and circumstance had allotted for, and I hope that people will read this and try to adjust how they speak to others about such issues.  (I find myself REALLY wishing that I had a huge black woman following, but sadly, I fear that this blog might not be read by any.  Let me know if I'm wrong.)

Let me start by saying that I understand that hair care is part of the whole caregiver repertoire.  To that end, I have taken classes, researched styles and products, asked my black friends (and a few strangers who had the misfortune of being in the hair care aisle with me) for help.  It is a learning process, especially for someone who does very little with her own hair, and was blessed with three sons who require very little maintenance in that respect.  I am definitely still learning, trying to understand what healthy hair looks like, and it's not easy when there are differences of opinion and conflicting advice.  I am trying to do what is best for my Girl.

Because, secondly, she is not in foster care because her hair was jacked up.  She was taken from her mother because her physical safety, her very tender precious LIFE was in danger.  And because of that, my priorities in her care are first to keep her safe, to help maintain her health, second to tend to her broken heart and be a source of comfort since she is going through a very difficult time.  The way her hair looks comes at the bottom of a long list that includes positive life experiences, educational opportunities, spiritual development, having enough food to eat, a safe place to sleep, and teaching her rules and boundaries.  In these areas, I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job, and her caseworker AND biological mother agree.

Another reason her hair doesn't look great is that she is three, and a bit of a tomboy.  She tolerates medicine better than she tolerates hair care, whether it is me running a comb and some product through or getting braids done by my new best friend Shaquana.  She rubs her hair on the couch, pulls out beads and barrettes, rolls around in leaves and dirt and grass.  Her hair gets messy, dirty sometimes, and styles come out.  If given a choice between letting her be a kid and keeping her hair looking nice, I will let her be a kid EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.  She has witnessed too much for her young age, and I refuse to hurry her childhood any more than it already has been.

Finally, I'd like to address what was said to me, and what ultimately turned this into a negative experience.  I was pushing Girl in a grocery cart, along with my son James, when a woman approached me and told me I needed to get a specific product to put in her hair.  I stopped because, as I mentioned before, I am trying to learn and do better.  I'd never heard of the product she mentioned, so I asked more about it.  Another woman was walking by and joined in the conversation, and what I had thought would be a conversation turned into a verbal assault.  The two of them went back and forth on either side of my cart, RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY CHILD, and the advice about getting this hair product gave way to a general admonishment of how her hair looked.  "You shouldn't have brought her out looking like that," the woman told me.  Without giving me a chance to speak, she went on, "You're a foster parent right?" I nodded.  "They give you money, take her somewhere and spend some of that money on her," was her response.  At this point, I was shocked, and the other woman began to back away, saying, "No offense intended," but the first woman, the one who stopped me in the first place, the one who worked at the store I had just spent money at, went on.  "Put a hat on her or something.  You wouldn't take your own children out like that," were her final words as she turned away and left me face to face with a little Girl who was patting her hair and looking confused.

This is where we come face to face with Assumption and Humiliation.  Because yes, I am a foster mom and yes, "they" do give me money, and hey, guess what?  I do spend that money on her.  I pay a woman (remember, my new best friend?) to braid her hair every couple of weeks.  I buy fancy shampoo and conditioner from the health food store, not to mention a variety of detangling and moisturizing products.  She has her own set of combs, barrettes, beads, rubber bands, and headbands that we have purchased for her.  Not to mention the money we spend to clothe her, feed her, transport her to school, the activities that we do, like swimming and gymnastics.  As for my "own" kids (which is a whole other thing, because, um yeah, she IS one of "my" kids now), just ask my mom how nice their hair looks.  She will be the first to tell you the only times my boys' hair gets combed is at her house or at the barber shop.  They walk around with bedhead, they go too long between cuts, they suffer terrible hack jobs when they get gum or burrs stuck in their hair.  I spend more time, energy, and money on Girl's hair than my entire family COMBINED.  And if you've been paying attention, she doesn't keep pretty things in her hair.  She pulls out twists and braids, accessories (we've lost all the headbands we got for her), and the scarf she wears to bed is almost always on the floor when she wakes up in the morning.  So putting a hat or some other item on her head is no solution at all, but thanks for suggesting it.  What was going on yesterday then, if I'm putting all this effort into her hair?  It's been hard to make time to get new braids, since she's in school four days a week, has doctor's appointments and family visits every week, and, you know, I have three other kids to take care of.  Her hair was loose, and I hadn't had a chance to comb through it that day.  It was looking a little tight and kinky, I guess, maybe it looked too dry?  The ladies never did tell me what exactly was wrong with it, except that I needed to give her an oil treatment (which I do) and have someone put it in braids (which is happening in a few days, on the one morning we are available).  What upsets me most is that all of this was said right in front of my Girl, that she heard every word.  That I have spent the past six months earning her trust and taking care of her, and that was undone in about five minutes.  That we got home and she went to the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror and asked, "Mommy, can you do my hair?"  Up until that moment, she hadn't paid any attention to her appearance; just that morning, a friend at church smiled at her and told her she was beautiful.

I will always try to avoid the confrontation, especially in front of my children.  And so I didn't answer the charges those women leveled at me.  I didn't pass some of the blame onto Girl's birth mother, who certainly has the opportunity to style and care for her daughter's hair during their visits, because I have a personal conviction to never criticize a child's parent to their face (going back to that trust I'm trying to build with her).  I didn't offer up the figures that prove I do indeed spend money on her care.  And I can't help but wonder if they would have said any of it if my husband were the one pushing the cart.  Why is it that we applaud men just for spending time with their children, but we criticize mothers no matter what they do?

 I wish this wouldn't have happened at all.  I wish those women would have either stayed civil and conversed with me, or just kept walking and minding their own business.  But ultimately, if they think black children in our community are suffering at the hands of their white caregivers, I wish they would head downtown and get licensed to be foster parents themselves.  All they've done is make me angry and make my Girl ashamed of her appearance.  Why not do something positive instead?

Child Abuse: Why?

I have little kids who are still learning how to communicate.  It's exciting to hear them finally express themselves verbally, to hear what they are noticing and thinking and what is important to them.  It's also really cool when they finally answer my questions.  Who hit you?  (Winston) Where did you get that?  (from your closet) What's in your mouth?  (that candy you were trying to hide) But then I ask WHY? and they are still not sure how to answer that.  (Winston, WHY did you hit her? To make the little girl cry.  Really? Because that's kind of psycho.  We need to work on that, buddy.)  And it is a daily frustration to get some of the information, but still have this nagging WHY that goes unanswered.

Child abuse is like that.  We can say What happened.  We can prosecute Who did it.  We can avoid returning to Where it happened.  But many of us are left with this question: Why?  My very young brain tried so hard to answer this question in the silence.  If I had reported it, maybe some adult would have helped me figure it out, but I didn't speak of it, and so I tried to make sense of it on my own.  Was there something wrong with me?  Something that made him target me?  Was it luck, or, more accurately, a lack thereof?  As I got older, the world unknowingly provided other possible answers.  Was I asking for it?  Was I doing something unconsciously that drew his attention?  Maybe if I had fought or yelled, would he have left me alone?

Here's what I've come to realize in the past few years, although maybe the Why can never be completely put to rest...it happened because I was little and he was big.  It happened because we were alone, probably by design.  It happened because he was pretty sure I wouldn't tell.  Maybe he tested me in other ways beforehand, pushing the limits, seeing if bit him and ran off screaming or became still and quiet.  It happened because this world that we live in feasts on the souls of children, and there aren't enough good people to stand up and defend them.  It happened because there is darkness all around.

This can't be how it goes.  Do you know how to get rid of darkness?  SHINE A LIGHT.  That's something else I've learned recently.  So here's a new question, a much more relevant one than Why?  We need to ask How?  How do I shine my light?  How do I stand between a child and someone who means them harm?  Start by being the safe person.  Don't hurt kids.  Remember when you speak to them and look at them and care for them that they are PRECIOUS.  Ask yourself if you would be doing this if someone else were with you.  I started with the two children I gave birth to.  I vowed to be their safe place.  That expanded to another son who joined our family through adoption, and a girl who lives with us through foster care.  Then we added some kids in our neighborhood.  Now it pretty much includes every kid whose name I know, whose path crosses mine.

Our little girl told me last week about a fight she witnessed, about a man hurting a woman, even though the woman yelled stop.  She said, "He has strong arms, so he punched her."  But that's not okay, I told her.  Just because he could doesn't mean he should.  Do you understand? (please tell me you understand, please tell me that you won't let someone treat you that way someday, please let this one thing be what you remember from your time with our family)  And she said, "My daddy  (Chris) has strong arms, but he swings me around.  I like that."  Yes!  Not all men hit.  Strength shouldn't be used to oppress, it should be used to protect.  I'm so glad that she made that connection.  I'm so glad my husband can show her what a good man looks like.  And I hope she can realize Why.  Why he chooses to use his arms to hug and hold and embrace and defend.  Because Jesus did it first.

Lent 3: Meditation

"Look at the proud! They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked. But the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God." Habakkuk 2:4 NLT
 
We are deep into the Lent season now, with Easter Sunday just two weeks away.  My Lent challenge is going well.  Not perfect, but well.  I find myself praying more, stepping away more, being that calm presence for my kids more.  It's interesting that when I decided not to boil over, it became easier to not even let the pot heat up.  I really challenged myself this past week, attempting to braid Girl's hair by myself instead of taking her to the nice lady who does them beautifully for $20.  You hold still while I practice this new skill...and Jesus save us both.

Jim Gaffigan has a great joke about the arrival of a fourth child; that it's like you're drowning, and then someone throws you a baby.  I thought I was ready to become a mom for the fourth time, but our experience was a little different.  It felt more like being capsized by the arrival of a three year old in respiratory distress who fought us trying to pull her to safety.  Unintentionally, I had assumed that a child who was *lucky* enough to be placed in our loving home would realize the lottery she had won and be so grateful that she immersed herself into our lives.  It was a stupid fantasy, and one that was quickly replaced by reality.  Real life is never quite as pretty as a movie.  Orphans aren't like Annie; they sometimes give all their love to the abusive caretaker and kick the person who reaches out to rescue them.

And so, during my time of meditation and reflection, I listened to a sermon from a church in Texas.  The message revolved around that passage from Habakkuk, about the difference between the proud and the righteous.  The people who seek God ALWAYS live by their faith in Him.  ALWAYS.  That means even when things are going poorly.  Even when life is so backwards or upside down that we think God must not even be aware of how screwed up it all is, that there couldn't possibly be a Master Plan at work, or else it wouldn't be this HARD.  Be faithful anyway.  All I could think of is our Girl, and how different these past few months have been from how I thought it would go.  How I wondered if this was really God's will for our family, for us to parent this child who has disrupted everything.  How each day I resolve to parent her anyway.  To do what is best for her, to care for her, to keep the long-term goals for her that we have in mind when dealing with the other kids.

We were having a bad day last week.  Sometimes this happens, and there's literally NOTHING I can do to make the kids turn it around.  All I can do is control how I respond.  Finally, the day ended (Thank you Lord), and I took Girl upstairs to get ready for bed.  As she pulled her covers up to her chin, I asked if we could pray together.  She nodded.  "Okay, I'll go first sweetie," I said.  I bowed my head and wrapped her little hands in mine, and I prayed.  I was honest.  I was real.  I prayed for myself to be a better mother, for our Girl to have good days when she listened and made the right decisions.  And then I prayed for her mom.  I asked God to Please Please help her get it together, so she could be a mother to her Girl again.  And a little voice whispered in the darkness, "Yes."  "We know you love her just as much as you love us, Lord," I continued.  And again, "Yes."  I don't know when the tears began, but as I said, "Amen," I realized my face was wet and they were falling on her comforter.  It was the most beautiful time of prayer I've experienced...maybe ever.  So is God in this moment, is God aware of what life is like for us right now?  Absolutely.  And he's asking us to be faithful.

Becoming a Family

I've written before about the process of becoming a foster parent.  There were so many thoughts, so many fears, just the months leading up to receiving our license provided enough material to keep this blog going.  So here's another from back then: I worried that becoming foster parents would ruin our family.  I would lay in bed at night and think about this beautiful, amazing, increasingly rare thing we had.  Chris and I did it all in the "traditional" order: we got married, we had a baby a few weeks after our second anniversary, we waited 18 months and then we made another one.  I gave birth to two healthy, beautiful boys, and the four of us were a family.  Chris earned the money, I stayed home with the kids, we all had the same last name and the same skin color and the same love of buttered popcorn and movies on the couch.  When the time to enroll the boys in school came around, we just showed up with a birth certificate and immunization record, filled out some papers, and it was done.  We got to skip over the lengthy sections detailing custody agreements.  We got to travel when we wanted, to make all the decisions affecting our kids.  We made a family from our own DNA, and I thought being in that exclusive club held us together.

We got the call, we brought home a baby, and it was different.  When I held him, when I gave him his bottle (no breastfeeding, which was a bummer), I didn't search his features to find the ones that matched mine.  Between the pediatrician and the caseworker, we made arrangements and implemented their decisions.  We tried to be considerate of the strangers who visited with him each week, the people who bore the titles of Mom and Dad.  We had to get a court order to take him out of state to visit my sister.  And then, one day, he began talking.  His first word was "Dada", and he said it while he was in my husband's arms.  A month later, he called me "Mama".  And I was confused at first, because he called the other woman Mama too.  I thought there could be only one, but he showed me how silly and narrow that was.  At church, we began meeting with other families, and we talked about being a family to others.  The doors of my heart opened to the people coming through the doors of my house.  Michael was just the beginning, as we reached out to his sisters and the relatives taking care of them, the other Second Moms.  And, despite not having a title, a roll-off-the-tongue name to describe how we fit together, I knew we were becoming a family.  My preteen neighbor started coming over, and bringing her friends, and we would stop by her house and spend time with her parents, and another branch was added to our tree.  We got another call, a little girl this time, and she quickly joined the other kids in calling me Mom, and she loves to tell people that she has two Moms, two Dads, two Grandmas and one Nana, and a Grandpa.  And she began to use a word we hadn't taught her to describe our boys; she called them her brothers.

All these people, they taught me that family isn't about looking alike and living in one house together.  Family describes the people we love, the ones who live in our homes and the ones who find a place in our hearts.  Family is who we show up for, it's who we take care of, it pulls us together.  When Michael's First Mom contacted us, when she came back to the land of the living, it was the easiest thing to share a meal with her, to talk to her, to let him sit on her lap.  Of course we want to see her, to help her, to clear off a chair for her to join us.  Because she's family.

It's OK to miss your mama

As a foster parent, I've spent quite a bit of time in class over the past three years.  We took 36 hours (12-3 hour classes) just to get licensed, and we take 20 hours each subsequent year.  Sometimes the classes are really helpful, the teacher is passionate and I'm in the right mood to learn.  Other times, the teacher has trouble with the Power Point (or DVD player, or projector, really these teachers need to take a class on using technology before being released to instruct others), or I'm tired and have trouble concentrating, or another parent hijacks the class to air their grievances or get help specific to their situation.  Usually in the course of 3 hours, I can get at least one thing to take home and apply.  Especially in the beginning, I had to save these lessons for future use.  Now that we are in the thick of it, I find that I remember the words of my teachers more and more.  One thing that stood out to me, in a class about maintaining information about birth families, was the instructor's explanation that just because your kid isn't talking about something, doesn't mean he isn't thinking about it.  If a child is separated from siblings, or parents, or another close relative, odds are their thoughts are never far from that person.  She said foster parents have to open the dialogue, and let the kids know that it's OKAY to talk, it's okay to say you wish you were back home, that you miss your family, even that parent that beat you black and blue.  That really resonated with me; after all, I kept in almost everything that I thought about as a child.  I've been thinking lately that I really should have spoken up to my parents about many things that I kept secret, because they probably could have made things better, helped me.

So when a child comes to my home to live, under confusing and possibly scary circumstances, I have no doubt that they are thinking way more than they are saying.  Foster kids learn to say whatever they think the other person wants to hear; they don't know when they will see their biological family again, what the new rules are, where they fit in this new family.  While fostering is definitely similar to more traditional parenting, with the preparation of meals and the wiping of noses, the bedtime stories and trips to the park, there is an added component of nurture that these classes are meant to teach.  The most important part of foster care is the healing, taking in a broken child with no foundation, no structure, no good examples, and transforming them into a whole person, someone who knows his worth, who knows there is another way to live than what he's seen first-hand.  Sometimes these conversations are difficult to start, but if I don't help my kids heal, then what am I doing?

Our current placement is a young girl.  She came to us on a Friday afternoon.  We didn't know much about her, except that she is an only child.  She really enjoyed the experience of having other kids to play with, and jumped right in with our boys, rolling in the leaves and driving trucks across the living room.  But at night, she would cry.  She would ask me to take her home, to her mom.  And I would feel so helpless when I told her no, that she would stay with us until her worker said different.  It's a complicated situation to explain, and I've tried many different ways of phrasing.  We talk about this several times a week.  We've also gone to the library and perused books about parents and children who are separated.  I found one picture book called "I Miss You Everyday", which I believe was written for children whose parents divorce and one lives far away.  In it, the narrator mails herself across the country to see her dad.  Another one, "Llama Llama Misses Mama", is about a little Llama who starts school and has trouble when his mom leaves for the day.  This has actually become a favorite of all our kids, since three of them are in school and have experienced this kind of separation.  But our foster daughter loves it most, and these days, she asks to read it at bedtime instead of crying for her mom.  In the middle of the story, it all becomes too much for the Llama, and he cries out, "Llama Llama misses Mama!"  His teacher rushes over to comfort him, and our Girl burrows deeper into my side.  "Don't cry little Llama, it's okay to miss your mama!" I read.  Then the Llama warms up to school and actually starts to have fun, just as the words "Mama Llama, you came back!" appear with a picture of the Mama coming to pick up her son.  Although our girl can't read, she excitedly says the words at just the right time, and her face lights up in a smile.  I smile too, picturing with her the day when her mama comes to get her.  When she no longer has to miss her mama.

The Things that Were Taken

It was bedtime, and our Girl wouldn't put down her toys.  She wouldn't put them away, so they were taken away, downstairs with the other toys for the night.  I rubbed the cocoa butter lotion on her skin and helped her dress in the pink and white pajamas and wrapped her hair in her purple scarf and covered her with her blankets.  But she wasn't happy about it.  "Mommy," she said, "I want the things back that were taken from me."  I know she meant the Monster toys that were downstairs, so I said, "In the morning, you can play with them again.  Now its time to sleep."  But as I walked across the hall to my own quiet room, her words echoed with me, and I heard a new meaning.  I thought about all the things that were taken from her, and I knew that the rising sun wouldn't begin to help restore those Things.

We are born into families, homes, cities that are varied and much of our early years is determined by the things we are given by our parents, what is culturally acceptable, what choices the big people around us make.  When I had my first baby, I had a job, a college degree, a loving husband, a home in a two-bedroom duplex on a quiet street in the suburbs.  I had a car and parents nearby who were excited to be grandparents for the first time.  I had a room full of gifts from friends and family, a brand-new crib, a dresser full of clothes, gender-neutral blankets, diapers and wipes that would last for five months.  All of this affected how James was raised, how he was loved and cared for and what he learned about family and his place in this world.  Even when, a few years later, we learned that he was different, that he would face challenges we had never known, it didn't change the fact that he was precious to us, that he was safe and loved. (Really it helped, because it gave us a better idea of how to love him, how to structure things to make life easier for him.)  But this Girl?  Even though she was born in the same city, she didn't have much of that.  For her, and too many other children in our country, in our world, she didn't learn from day one that she was precious.  She didn't see healthy, appropriate adult relationships.  Her development and interests were not the number one priority of her primary caregivers.  And when it was determined that she was a little different, that she would face challenges her mother had never known, it only made things harder.  She wasn't given the care she needed to thrive, and ultimately the state had to get involved.

What happened next...another Thing.  She was taken.  Sitting in a police car watching her mom yell and protest, and then someone brought her to our house.  New people, new rules, different food, different schedule.  Those first weeks with us, she asked so many questions.  She didn't understand how we related to each other.  One time, when she was in time-out for hitting one of the boys, she said, "My mom just whoops me."  Even the punishments are different here.  I don't know if she has figured it out yet, that even though she is one of four here, that her health and her safety are the number one priority.  That she is precious and loved, not because of what she does or how cute she is, but because she exists.  Because she is a child.  And I don't know how to explain that some things she will never get back.  She can never unsee those things.  She can never unfeel those hurts.  She can never get back these months that she has been apart from her Mama.  I know.  I've tried to pretend that I was someone else, someone who didn't lose her innocence too young.  But it happened, and I can't get it back.  How do I tell her that she has other things now, that life will replace those Things that were taken, that, although she is now marked by the system, that doesn't have to be a bad Thing?  That, hopefully, this experience has changed the home she came from into a safe place for her to live; that someday, when she's ready, she can talk about everything that has happened and find peace; that her heart has been shaped to break when she hears about other children just like her.  That she doesn't have to repeat the life of her mother or father, that she can find something new.

I wish I could wave my Foster Mom wand over her while she sleeps and make her understand these things when she wakes up.  But I don't have a wand, all I have is a warm bed for her tonight, hugs and kisses in the morning, and a mouth to pray for her future.  Won't you join me?

A Good Match

I call this one "Baby Faces"

Its nerve-wracking, that whole dating thing.  Isn't it?  Does he like me as much as I like him?  Does he like me a little too much and maybe I'm just not really feeling it?  Will we last?  Does he love me enough?  Is love enough?  Is it even worth jumping in, when you watch your parents or your recently married friends struggle, give up, set TNT around their marriage and just blow the whole thing up?  I don't miss those days.  I don't miss the uncertainty and the sense of how important it was to choose correctly.  And what was supposed to guide me?  Should I listen to the advice of friends?  Should I go with my "gut"?  Is there such thing as a soul mate...and is he The One?  If our relationship is nothing like a movie or CW show, does that mean its wrong? (*to clarify, it actually means you are doing something VERY right...the truth is way better than fiction)  And in the end, and how many of you married folks can say a big Amen to this, the things you were looking at while you were dating end up not being as important after the I do's, and if you are lucky and have made a good match, you will find a depth of love and tenderness and faithfulness that you couldn't even imagine existed before you were husband and wife.  And nine years later, I can look at this man beside me and say YES, we are a good match.  You and me together make a TEAM...we knock out the dishes, we take turns cooking dinner, you bathe the kids and I dress them, and on the rare night that they are all asleep before 9:30, sitting on the couch together and watching a movie is the absolute best thing ever.  He goes out every day and makes the money to pay for the house that I clean, the groceries I buy, the clothes and games and books for the kids that I spend all day with.  We challenge each other and grow together, we share ideas with each other (again, on the rare occasion that we can talk without screaming over four little voices).  He encourages me, tells me I can do it when the self-doubt reaches crippling mode.  I give him the once over before he leaves to make sure clothes are on right-side-out and collars are laid down evenly.  Despite the uncertainty I felt as a newlywed, the intervening years have made me appreciate how well we go together.

Three generations: Linda, Chris, and Winston

So then, when you start adding children to the mix, and you wonder how many?  And what will they be like?  Will we still be a good match?  Will they fit into our family?  When you give birth to a child, these questions are small and easily answered.  Of course he fits here.  He looks just like me.  He laughs like his dad.  He shares his grandpa's interest in moving little figures around in different patterns FOR HOURS.  He is undeniably ours.  But what if you go outside the box (no dirty pun intended) to get your kid?  What if you adopt from Ethiopia, a beautiful chocolate baby who requires homework and training to care for?  What if you become a foster parent and open yourself up to all the issues and problems that mal-treated children bring with them?  Then the doubt comes, and it reminds you so much of high school and dating and crushes, but its so different at the same time because its children who are joining your family and living in your home, and there is no divorce once the judge bangs that gavel and a new birth certificate is printed up.  Will she love me as much as she loved her first mom?  Does he wish we hadn't brought him here, made him one of us?  Is love enough?  And this is what I know, having passed from the hypothetical to the practical, transitioning from the foster mom to the mom (no qualifiers).  Just like I made a list of qualities that my future husband needed to have (not anything crazy, just a few items like having the same religion), a child who comes to our family has to fit within a parameter in order to be a good match.  We got lucky the first time around.  We got Michael, a sweet, angel baby who looks just like us and was our son (and James and Winston's brother) from day one, and I learned that sometimes your soul mate weighs six pounds and wakes up every three hours.  He doesn't know anything other than living with us, nor does he find it strange that he lives with his brothers but only sees his sisters a few times a year.  We rolled the dice a second time, not knowing if this had been a fluke, if it was possible to find, in this system of broken children and hopeful parents, another good match.  But we did.  A little girl has come to stay for awhile (oh, how we love the vagueness of caseworkers, but honestly, there is no way to know what the future, or even next Tuesday, holds for her).  And she runs around with the boys and learns their songs and teaches them to play with guns.  She yells and laughs and jumps on the couch.  She practices karate moves and plays Fight.  She calls me mom, and a few days ago, asked why she isn't in our family photo, the one we took a year ago, long before we met.  And I see, the way I see with Chris, that we are a good match.

Could you say no to that face?

Its not without challenges, don't get me wrong.  But my marriage has plenty of challenges too.  That's what happens when two imperfect people come together and live on top of each other and eat all the Oreos and knock over piles of folded laundry (am I talking about the hubs or the kids?  I can't even tell).  Its why we filled out a profile, we will consider a child with this, we cannot take a child with that.  Right now we can only handle little kids...later, we hope to make room for some older ones.  And our family worker knows us, knows what kind of kid would do well here, and what kids will do better in a different family.  It doesn't mean that it is wrong.  It doesn't mean we made a mistake.  This is why love exists in the first place, to overcome those difficulties.  And love is enough.  Big, perfect, fearless, humble, compassionate love.  It moves mountains.  It changes lives.  It makes strangers into a family.

Moses and Foster Care

When we finally took the leap and started our paperwork to become foster parents, Chris and I realized that we needed to explain what was happening to our kids.  We needed them to understand how our family was going to change, who the new kids would be, why they might leave and never come back.  Because foster care is not just my job or Chris' job...our whole family participates.  And while Chris and I spent 36 hours in training classes just to get licensed, James and Winston spent four weekends playing with their grandparents, oblivious to the upcoming changes.  I thought and thought and researched and researched, trying to find a clear, simple way to tell our four and two year old sons that they were going to become siblings in a non-traditional way.  Finally, one night during our story time, I found what I was looking for.  I turned the page in the Bear Bible to the story of Moses.

 

"Moses was in danger, he was hiding in a stream.

A princess came to take a bath, and heard a baby scream.

She hugged that tiny baby, and carried him back home,

And loved that tiny baby, as if he were her own.

Just like Baby Moses, we are always in God's care.

He will love and keep us, now and always, Tiny Bear."

 

It was perfect: simple, to the point, and Biblical!  It even rhymed.  And I was struck for the first time that Moses was kind of the first recorded foster kid.  He saw his mom, he knew who his siblings were, but he was raised in another home to keep him safe.  That's exactly what we're doing, I told the boys.  There are more baby Moses' out there, and Mommy and Daddy want to help them be safe and grow up big and strong, just like you.

 

Then we got our first placement, and it was a baby boy.  A real, live Baby Moses to complete the explanation.  I held him when he cried.  I gave him medicine to soothe his aching body.  I bathed him and changed him and bought him clothes.  And I came to a wondrous, surprising realization about parenting:  he is not mine.  Of course, it was very literal at first, because every other week, I dropped him off with the social worker to visit with his parents.  But even after they stopped coming to see him and the judge rescinded their rights and we moved to an adoption, I knew that he wasn't mine, any more than the boys I gave birth to.  My children aren't my property.  They aren't an extension of myself or my husband.  They are little people, little versions of the self they will become someday, and I'm given the chance to be their mom, to watch over them and care for them, for a while.  I'm not perfect at what I do, I yell and lose my temper and forget to bring the diaper bag (always when a huge poop is imminent, too).  These boys came from God, and they are always in his care.  And when they no longer need me to wipe their tushies or rock them to sleep, they'll start to pull away and eventually leave my home.  This realization made me cherish our time together.  It made me stop trying to do, do, do, to push them to enjoy the things I enjoy and dislike what I dislike.  I started looking at who they really are, and finding ways to cultivate, rather than dictate that.

 

The story of Moses stuck with me.  It was the lesson in the 2s class I taught the weekend we took custody of Michael.  It was the sermon preached the first Sunday we came to church with our new placement.  Its the story I try to impart to all the foster kids I meet.  He was just like you, I tell them.  He could have been killed as a baby if his sister and mother hadn't made arrangements for him, and his new mom hadn't had compassion on him.  But that's not the end of his story, and its not the end of yours, either.  Because when he became a man, capable of making decisions for himself, Moses came back to his people, and he spoke for them and he cried out to God for them, and he led them out of slavery.  You can do that too.  You can come back to this place of hopelessness and confusion where you live right now, and you can lead other kids to safety.  You can break their chains because you know exactly where they are bound.  Your childhood doesn't determine the rest of your life.  I know this, because its my story too.

Our Adventure

Back so many years ago (okay, like 9 years), as I was preparing to marry my love, I read the John Eldridge book Wild At Heart.  Say what you will, but that man can energize with his words.  I was bouncing up and down, ready to take on the world with Chris.  I remember excitedly talking about the book with him, about our future together, and ready to dream big.  "What is our adventure going to be?" I asked.  Chris gave me the dubious look I have come to know and love and sometimes resent.  He said our adventure for the time being would have to be living on a single income, as he was still looking for real, full-time work after dropping out of college.  Not the answer I was hoping for.  But we got married, he did find a good job to help pay the bills, and life started happening.  Within two years we were expecting our first child, Chris was going back to school, I was thinking about quitting my job to be a stay at home mom.  It seemed like adventure was on its way in the form of midnight feedings and exploding diapers.  We bought a house and settled in, getting used to being parents and a family of three.  Chris kept at the work and school, I tried to figure out what I was doing with my baby.  When the first year passed and we had kept our little guy alive, we started thinking about another baby, and shortly after James turned two, we welcomed Winston.  Chris finally finished school and we were a family of four, just your typical suburban dream.  But still I longed for Adventure.

It started small, a yellow highlighter through the books I was reading, a whisper as I scanned newspaper headlines.  When I look back now, I see a bright ribbon woven through my life from the very beginning, a ribbon that leads to children.  Children who are hurting, children who have been abandoned.  And the voice whispering, "They need good people to help them.  They need parents who will heal them."  And the realization: We are good people.  Chris and I are good parents.  They need us.  Slowly, timidly, we talked about foster care.  Slowly, timidly, we looked into the reality.  Slowly, timidly, we went to a local children's home for the weekend.  And that was when we said the bold YES.  Yes, we will do this.  Yes, we will be the parents who help children heal.  Yes, there are many reasons to hold off and wait, but there is one reason (one way more important reason) to say yes now.  Because they need us.  Now.

We began our training classes in March.  In fact, we spent our sixth wedding anniversary learning about attachment disorders with Miss Jan.  At one point, as we left another totally depressing class, Chris turned to me and said, "I don't think I can do this.  Its too much, the hurt and the brokenness."  I nodded.  He was absolutely right.  Our hearts broke each day as we learned about what happens to kids who are abused, neglected, abandoned.  Then I said, "There are always going to be kids in foster care.  The abuse isn't going to stop.  And knowing what we know now, I can't just go back home and pretend like its not happening.  We have the opportunity to help."  And the doubt was gone.  We were full-steam ahead through all the paperwork and interviews and inspections, and in eight months time, we were licensed foster parents.  They called us to take baby Michael after a month of waiting.  That placement became an adoption and now we are the happy parents of three amazing boys.  So we became open again.  We waited five months for a call, and were so excited on the day one finally came.  But within 15 minutes the circumstances had changed and there was no placement.  We waited some more.  The next week, a call came to provide respite.  This is a short-term placement wherein one foster family watches the foster kids of another family while they are out of town, medically unable to care for the kids, overwhelmed, whatever.  Only one thing gave me pause.  There were two kids needing beds, a brother and sister.  If you're doing the math, that would mean five days with five kids in the house.  Maxed out for space in the car and the beds.  Food disappearing from the fridge at an even faster rate.  I looked at the phone for a beat, and then said yes.  This is our adventure.  This is our calling.  This is our heart.  (And not to brag or anything, but we totally nailed it.  It was exhausting, it was challenging.  But we did it.)

While we were hosting these two spunky siblings, I read the story about Davion and his plea for parents.  I cried at how many children are still waiting for that placement, stuck in group homes or an endless parade of placements because there aren't enough good people willing to become foster parents.  I remember how scary it seemed to open our home to an unknown child with unknown issues.  I know its different from the Hallmark picture of giving birth in a halo of light to a child who will be yours and yours alone forever.  But if you are reading this, nodding your head and agreeing, Yes, they need parents!  They deserve parents! Please.  PLEASE.  Consider what you can do, right now, to change the life of a child in foster care.  Because as long as there are people looking for a way out of their present reality through drugs or alcohol or World of Warcraft, there will be dealers and enablers, and the children will suffer the most.  As long as there are cycles of abuse and poverty, with no one to intervene with education and healing, children will be at risk.  They are the most vulnerable people in the world, and they need someone to stand up, to speak out, to give them a safe place to grow.  Its my adventure, and it might be yours too.

For local folks: www.starkadoptfoster.com
For the US: www.heartgalleryofamerica.org