Practicing Grace

On this lovely sunfilled day this tired mama had the opportunity to both choose grace, and practice grace. I did neither one of those perfectly but it really taught me a lesson. Today the tiny girl and I packed in a morning and afternoon of fun, sun, and friends. Upon arriving home it was obvious that we were both over-sunned and over-funned. As we walked in the house Amelia immediately began to protest the fact that we used the front door rather than the garage door. Then it was the awful way I made her take off her shoes. Don't even get me started on the diaper change and hand washing that had to happen. Everything mama did and asked her to do made her as mad as her little self could be. I am not going to lie....I was not being very patient or overly concerned with the very big feelings our tiny girl was having. I went about each motion despite her protesting. Off went her shoes, washed were her hands, and I changed her diaper despite her shrieks of anger. The reality that my sweet girl doesn't understand is that each of those things needed to happen in order for me to do what she needed...hold her in my lap and allow her to settle herself in for some comfort and a nap, or so I thought. Amelia has a really hard time regulating her emotions when she feels like she is being controlled. I know what you may be thinking....those are pretty advanced understandings for a two year old, yet this two year old spent her first 18 months having very little control over her life due to medical needs and visits with bio parents so she really works hard to control situations now. For the most part we try to give her as much control as is safe, yet there will always be moments in her life when as her parents we need to take over and control her little world for a bit in order to both ensure her safety and keep her progressing forward health and wellness wise. So today despite her need to be heard I did what needed to be done. I wish I would have made a different choice. What she needed was Grace...a moment where I would just let her remain dirty, and stinky and hold her close to me anyway. A moment where she could feel her big feelings and cry and scream and know I was still going to be here, holding her, calling her my beautiful beloved. Instead she got a tired mama who turned her back on therapeutic parenting in order to complete the tasks at hand. So when I finally stepped outside my own tired self, I realized what she needed...perhaps a little later than I should have. I gathered her in my arms as she screamed and thrashed about and I just held her. Her resolve weakened when she realized all I was offering was an embrace. She could cry, scream, and wail and I would hold her. After about 2 minutes of screaming she calmed down to an exhausted hicup.sigh.cry and we rocked on and on. After she was finally sleeping. I was imagining a nice quiet afternoon filled with reading and eating bon bons with my feet up on soft fluffy pillow....or maybe I was just excited for the 30 minutes I would have to sort through laundry and do dishes without a shadow. Alas my phone rang shortly after Amelia settled down. It was a tearful call from my middle daughter....she lost her phone and missed her bus. getting her to be responsible with her phone has been an uphill battle and she was feeling a lot of guilt and fear. So it was my chance today to get it right...so I held in my own big feelings made my own tearful phone call to my husband, pulled up my big girl panties, woke the baby kraken and went to go get Hannah. I wanted to yell, I wanted to discipline and I wanted her to take responsibility for her actions. However the look on her face when I went to her school told me she was already doing all those to herself. So it was my chance to show her grace, and to teach her how to accept it even when she feels she doesn't deserve it. So with some help from find my Iphone and a dad who knows how to work tech stuff we did find her phone and she calmed herself down. As we drove home she explained she was so afraid she let me down, and afraid I was disappointed and mad. I then explained to her this....some days we make the wrong choice and having a family means that even when we make the wrong choice we have a soft place to land. So while I do want her to make smarter choices, I myself make the wrong decisions many times each day....and I am so thankful for a heavenly Father who continues to love me despite myself. So today I made the wrong choice, beat myself up about...finally forgave myself and immediately got to teach my daughter that same lesson. Today I am thankful as a parent that mistakes or not God continues to mold me to be a mother who shows Grace, and humbles herself to receive Grace. The bible talks about the Grace we were given with the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, these 2 verses John 16 and 17 are great verses for kids and moms to look up and memorize together, especially verse 17. "16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." John 1:16-17

When life Gets too Comfortable

In February of this year we finalized the adoption of our daughter Amelia. What an incredible moment that was for us. I will not lie; I was a hot mess about it. As in call the attorney every day, panic that something would be missing, cry, laugh, sigh and repeat. I think it’s the nature of this process of adopting through the state. You learn very early on as a foster placement that it is never a good thing to get too comfortable with the way things are because that will be the precise moment that things change. Amelia joined our family at birth but she was 2 years old when we finalized her adoption. If you want to learn more about our fostering journey you can visit my other blog, andreaislaughing.blogspot.com. So now we are resting in the afterglow of the adoption. The judge that finalized our adoption compared it to marriage. When an adoption happens it’s a choice that a family makes to remain together. So with that thought we began to get comfortable and life began to feel safe. We delighted in cutting Amelia’s hair without having permission, not having to document bumps and bruises and leaving the state without formal permission. Life became easy, or at least a tad bit easier. Then it happened, not right away, but now lately it is creeping up on me…..I miss it. I miss being a part of families learning to survive and thrive. I miss watching a mother learn to be just that a mother. I miss holding a sweet newborn in my arms and being a placeholder for their parents while they figure out life. As those thoughts and words fly out of my mouth all I can think is, “my goodness I must be CRAZY!” I better not say this to anyone else or they will definitely order a strait jacket in my size. The truth is this. I am not used to easy, or comfortable. I am conditioned to keeping my house tidy for drop in visits and buying baby clothes at least every year or so. What is not familiar to me is the lack of a baby in my home. I am not complaining. It’s amazing to watch my family become stronger, and more tight knit as we have rest from the emotional tidal wave that is foster family life. Yes something remains there under the surface…the call of loving people where they are at and encouraging them to become more. Holding a sick baby and aiding in making them well. I miss wrapping my arms around a new mom and promising to take good care of her precious baby while she learns for possibly the first time in her life to take care of herself. Go ahead and say it….I will even say it with you….”that’s crazy.” I know…I know….and still. Our family is well and feeling settled. There is plenty of room for everyone and we are committed to truly just enjoying our family. Yet my heart it still longs to be a part of loving people from a broken place and encouraging them in their healing. Praying with moms struggling to let go of a lifetime of shame and accept that healing and redemption do happen. For now I will hold my girls tighter and be an example in their lives. I will be praying that God would meet each of them where they are and show them the path that leads to him. I recently had a personal experience that made me challenge myself to grow as a mama to my girls, that my compassion would be evident and my joy in mothering them obvious. I hope that my kids see Christ in me so that as they choose their paths in life maybe someday they will be a safe landing place for someone in a rough spot. Maybe the face reflecting love and acceptance to someone will be theirs. Right now life feels comfortable...who knows what tomorrow will bring.

H.O.P.E.

Sometimes you just need...to walk in hope. Tonight is the first night of advent and to be transparent my family spent much of the day living out our hope we ended up deciding at about 9pm (after tucking the little one in) that God wouldn't be too mad at us if we waited until tomorrow night to do our reading and light our first candle. Now back to the topic at hand. Hope...the first night of Advent concentrates on the hope of a Savior. The hope that the promise God made to his people would be revealed; an answer to their prayers. What remains of those emotions whether you are a believer or not, is that despite the commercialism of this sacred holiday no matter what...there is hope in the air. I am so thankful for hope. I am thankful for the season in which Gods people only had hope. The season before the miracle, before the light. I am thankful for the time spent in the desert, for the times of oppression, for the moments when the only thing that could carry them through was hope. The truth is, there are far more moments in life spent waiting on an action, a deliverer, the manifestation of hope. So for me, those times become really paramount in the coming of a miracle. In my life there have been many deserts, years of waiting, holding out hope that God was and is who says he is. Hope was my beacon, my comfort, my friend, and at times my foe. In the good moments it was easy to tie the idea of hope around my neck as a reminder of Gods goodness and his promise. I didn't need a sign because my faith rested firmly in the unseen hope I was sure was coming. In the moments of weakness where I spent my time grumbling in my own desert, sure that God must have stopped leading, stopped speaking, stopped loving. Those moments of dark where light seemed impossible...hope was the small spark, the fleck of beauty in a sea of coal. The tiny reminder to keep going, keep moving, keep swimming even when sinking seemed like a relief. Hope was found in the moments where the sting of goodbyes mingled with the words of grateful mothers holding their children whispering promises of forever, promises that were not mine to whisper...yet still hope found me. This year, hope didn't just find me, wasn't there just to remind me of the coming miracle, this year...Hope came to stay. When we got the phone call almost 2 years ago for our sweet baby girl; I was delighted to hear that her middle name was Hope, delighted and not surprised in the least. God brought us to one another. Her name a reminder of who he is...and who he will be. Tonight I think about her first mama, and her choice for her name. I am sure that when she chose her name, Hope meant something special to her. While I will not try and put to words emotions and feelings that are not mine to share. What I do know to be true is that her mama had a hope for a future, one that didn't come to fruition. As a mama of children who I will not have the privilege of watching grow up there is a part of me that truly understands those emotions and the loss involved. So tonight I am praying for Hope to come to our sweet girls first mom. I am praying for her future, for her journey. I am so blessed to get my answer, but my yes came at the cost of someone else's no. Some would say that our girl is far better off, safe, where she should be, and they would be right. Yet in moments of loss reason doesn't matter. The justifications don't erase the loss. So on this night that represents the hope that is found in merely expecting God to do and act in the way he promised I am praying for a miracle. I am praying that the hope we have in expecting a Savior would be evident to our sweet girls first parents. That his hope would find them, claim them, and continue to remind them that there is a future and it is good. Tonight I get to hold a peace of hope in my arms. Soon very soon, her name will change to reflect our forever....even then...Hope will remain.

Forgiveness

Sometimes you just....have to bear your heart even when its a little bit ugly. Tomorrow morning I have to do something...well...something unpleasant at best. In truthfulness I have to do something that is about to eat away at my heart, and very well would if I let it. Tomorrow I have to give an victim impact statement...against my mother. It is hard to put that information out there, its hard to know that some of you reading this may very well even know my mother. However this is just another part of the story God continues to write of my life. My mother stole from me, something precious, it was not very valuable but the cost of what she took was priceless. I am very aware of the belief that as a Christian maybe we should not bring a fellow Christian to court, or that we must deal in forgiveness and love. Trust me, I do know this. However after much prayer and some insight by fellow Christians whom I love and respect I decided to go this route. I am not interested in financial compensation, nor am I terribly concerned with her getting a hefty jail sentence. What I am searching for is an avenue that leads to forgiveness. For me, as her daughter; as the one who continually defended her despite wiser testimony and counsel this is an important step in my move forward. Yet this step might as well be a walk across broken glass. For as long as I can remember I have busied myself with the task of being my mothers keeper. I was her defender, her best friend, her confidant. What I never was at least not past the age of 14, was her daughter, her beloved, her precious one. It is far too tempting to air out all the areas of my life where my heart was damaged by her careless handling of it, however I am desperately trying to allow the healing balm of my Savior to rest upon those wounds so that in their place there is only healing and restoration. I am settling my heart on the words that Paul wrote to the church of Colosse. Starting in chapter 3:12-15 "Therefore as God's chosen people holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the love of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful." So as I am preparing this statement tonight after tucking my own little ones into bed it hit me just how much this grief and anger has overtaken my life and my heart. I have allowed this loss to rule my emotions and give credit to my sadness. I am not grieving the stone and metal theft. The loss of a valuable item. I am grieving the loss of a person, a parent, a mother and the reality that no matter how hard I work at making mothering easy for her, she cannot provide for me what I wanted and I need to forgive her for that. I need to forgive her for not being enough and for making me feel the same. I need to forgive her for walking around feeling like an adult orphan. I need to forgive her for making it painful to watch healthy mother daughter relationships, I need to forgive her for the fear her actions created in my own heart; that somehow I will not be a good enough wife or mother, that I will let my own family suffer. I need to forgive her....yet I don't need to enable her. I don't need to be soft and not speak truth. So tomorrow I will do just that. I will ask for accountability and I will offer her forgiveness. Its all I have left to offer her. I have no idea if we will ever have a restored relationship. I don't know and can't even imagine what that would look like. I will be honest and say that it is hard for me to not revert back to the insecure daughter who just wants to be pleasing. So I need to forgive myself to. I need to forgive myself for being a doormat, for letting my family and myself be hurt, for not listening to reason, for being vulnerable. Tonight I am praying that God would show me how to be compassionate tomorrow, how to be kind, yet strong, That forgiveness would come readily and be accepted in whatever capacity my mother is able to provide. That tomorrow the only thing that would rule in my heart is Christ, not fear, not anger, not resentment or brokenness, but just Jesus. Tomorrow I have to be a grown up, be a believer, be a forgiver and let go the torch of self righteous anger, lay down my own pride. Tomorrow I have to speak truth so that deception has no place, yet I need to do so without bitterness staining my lips. So tonight I will pray for a reminder of how God does and continually will forgive my own damaged areas of my life and heart, the places I hide my ugliness and the areas where my actions are not pleasing to my King. Pray for me friends. This is a tender are of my heart and life.

Beginnings

Sometimes you just.... can't seem to find the words to start your new beginning. I spent 5 years writing about foster care. Often times I found that those words, from the inner most chambers of my heart were not audience ready. So they stayed where they were safe, safe from strangers who stumbled onto my blog, safe from the ones I love and know from seeing how truly and completely my heart was breaking from the process of obediently following Jesus. So my blog, and my writing took a back seat. You see it was really easy to write about foster care or adoption when it was in the abstract area of my life. When it was all about reading the training materials and researching other people living a life committed and dedicated to foster care and or adoption. So I took out my pen and pencil and I wrote. Sharing my heart, and my home with my 1.2 audience members. Of course those blogs were also very personal and as in depth as I could manage. Sure I hadn't actually became a foster parent in the beginning, but I had lived quiet a follow after Jesus life. I took and shared some of how God brought us to a place of dependence and probably shared more than my husband cared for me too. Something happened...one Friday night in November 2007 our lives changed. We got our call...a baby boy. He needed us! Our journey started. I proudly blogged about falling in love with our baby boy, and then with surprise on my face and love in my heart, I wrote about falling in love with his mama. Then with devastation and elation married together we said goodbye to our sweet first son as he went back home where he belonged and my blogs, they changed. They became more real, more honest. It was hard to return to a place of obedience but then we found ourselves ready and waiting. Then she came and our lives were changed once more as our hearts grew large enough to accommodate our sweet new baby daughter. In steps our heart remembered, we also did the goodbye grief...yet as beauty comes from ashes and mourning turns to dancing we were able to join together with her mama and Become something more than what we were, we became family! So it went...one little after another, pieces of our hearts scattered through out our county. Solace was found in knowing that the beauty of loving was that by loving and caring these little's ones were given our best while their parents learned how to do the same. Somehow 5 years have passed since we began our journey, 5 Years? Now we are in a new place, a new beginning. Learning to live as a forever family with our newest little who will be staying for just that long. We will have a new set of challenges and a new family dynamic and I find my fingers itching to stretch across my keyboard in that still familiar pattern. The sweetness of writing our story too tempting to pass up on a quiet night. So welcome to our new place, our new beginning. If I have learned anything from where we have been its that my heart feels the most settled and in a place of belonging when I allow my sweet Abba Father to continue to lead me and right now he is leading me and settling me in my home..."He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children." Psalms 113:9 So for today I am going to rest in the goodness of his plan for my life. I don't settle my heart on the pain of infertility, the fear of cancer, the grief of loss. I settle my heart and my hope on a Jesus that came to save, a Father in Heaven who authored my very being, a husband who is a leader and a servant, and children who bless me by calling me mama. Today I can rest in those truths, yet dear friend I do know what it is like to not...if you find yourself here in a spot of fear, grief, pain please know you have a friend in me, for I am as broken as I am whole yet my sweet Jesus brings new mercies each morning. Leave me a comment if I can serve of pray for you...or just to say hi ;)