Because He Lives

"Most people only do this once." Most people only become a parent once, and become childless once. Most people have a few kids, raise them to adulthood, and then those children become adults, leave their childhood home and go out on their own. Us? We become parents on a few hours notice, and we might become childless again just as fast, and come back to empty cribs and empty schedules. We are foster parents without biological or adopted children, and that puts us in a very unique position.

I worry about most of the same things other foster parents do when our kids leave us, because for however long they've been with us, I've been responsible for making sure they are safe and healthy and loved. Being asked to suddenly just stop feeling those things and let someone else whom I've hardly met take that over is honestly like asking the impossible. But there's more to a child leaving than that when that child was your only child. When a child leaves my house, my motherhood leaves with them. When I hand over my foster-child, I hand over a part of who I have been for the last however long I've fed, and changed, and played with and sang to and cuddled, and comforted that child and tucked them in at night. Suddenly I have no-one who I am responsible for keeping happy and healthy and safe anymore, and suddenly all this love and protectiveness that I have for my kids has nowhere to go again. We make that transition that most people only make once, over and over and over again and to a much more permanent end than most parents ever experience. Over and over and over again it's worth it. And over and over and over again it hurts like crazy. And over and over and over again, it leaves me longing for the day when I have a child who I will never have to say goodbye to. One I can look in the eye and say "I will be here for you every. single. day. until the Lord calls me home." We never intend for a foster-child to fill that void in our lives, but the taste of parenthood it gives us leaves us longing for parenthood the way the Lord intended: permanent and uninterrupted.

I did one of those "ask your spouse" things on facebook the other day. One of the questions was "what am I afraid of?" Matt's answer to what I am afraid of? Childlessness. My husband knows me well. When faced with the idea of a foster-child leaving, half of my fear is for the child, and half of it is for myself. I love being a momma. It's literally all I've ever wanted to do with my life. Every night when I was a little girl I would go to bed imagining I was grown and married and raising my children, and I couldn't wait to grow up and do just that. I always thought I knew exactly what my purpose was. I knew it from the time I was 4 years old. I even jokingly refer to my Children and Family Ministries BA as my "Homeschool-Mom Degree." Yet, here I am: 26 years old, married for four and a half years, and three and a half years into unsuccessfully attempting to conceive and carry a biological child, and I've realized I have an identity crisis. If I wasn't made to be a mom, then I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing instead.

Being a foster-mom has allowed me to fulfill that purpose when I have a child under my roof. I am grateful for the opportunity to work out this calling in this way, and in some ways, yes, It has been a salve; it has been a privilege to see God bring healing and love to hurting hearts (ours and theirs). However, if I'm not careful, it can leave me more discontent and afraid than ever before. I allow a good and godly calling to become my identity, and the thought of losing that identity on top of a hard goodbye to a child I love becomes terrifying and crippling to me some days. As a foster-mom with no forever kids, I have to constantly be checking my heart and my motives for what I'm doing, because the temptation to desire for a foster-child to fix the sadness in my life caused by infertility and miscarriage is always there. If I give in to that temptation, I am no longer here for the right reasons. If I cease to pray for their birth parents and biological family, then I am failing in this calling. If I am crippled with anxiety over the thought of an empty crib, I have ceased fulfilling a godly calling, and have bowed down to the idol of motherhood.

I was talking with a counselor recently about the line between godly desire and idolatry, and he explained that an idol is made when a good-desire becomes a demand of God or someone else. I've had to reflect on exactly what this means for a couple of weeks, and have realized that if I demand motherhood in order to fulfill God's command to be joyful and content in all circumstances, if I believe that I cannot follow God's law without being a mother, I have made an idol of it and have implied in my heart that Christ's death and resurrection were not enough for me to be set free from sin, but that I must also have something else in addition to it. But the reality is that "by his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life." (2 Peter 1:3).

This doesn't mean that a foster-child leaving is easy. It doesn't mean that making the transition between not-parent to parent and back again is to be done without grief. It is, however, to be done with our trust and identity placed firmly in Jesus Christ and his all-sufficiency. After my first miscarriage, I spent a long time processing what had happened and what my response had been, and I found myself asking these questions of myself: "if I have to go through that again, will I be able to glorify God more tomorrow than I did before? Will I be able to see the difference between my selfish desires, and righteous grief and anger at the fallen nature of our world and lives better next time? What am I doing now to prepare myself to glorify God more and see truth more clearly when the next hard thing comes my way?" Through nothing other than God's grace and mercy and work in my hard heart, I really was able to do so when I faced the death of two more of my children. My post "When Sorrows Like Sea Billows Roll" remains to this day my favorite thing I've ever written, not because of me, but because through writing it, I was able to see just how radically I had been changed and sanctified by God's goodness and love over the hardest two years of my life. I pray that he will continue doing that work in my heart as we continually place ourselves in the back-and-forth nature of being foster-parents without forever children, so that I may love God, our foster-children, and our children's families better each day.

Being foster-mom is wonderful and it's hard, and it's scary, and I'm not doing this perfectly. I need grace and mercy and forgiveness and sanctification every single day, so that tomorrow I can glorify God more than I did today. Then when goodbye comes, and I say goodbye to another child and I set aside motherhood one more time, I am not lost and aimless in this life; my hope, my purpose, my identity, and everything that I need for life and godliness are perfectly supplied in Jesus Christ, because he lives.

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow
Because He lives, all fear is gone
Because I know He holds the future
And life is worth the living, just because He lives.

To the People we Forced into Fostering

I was talking with another foster-mom last week about some hard things we have to face and do as those with the privileged position of foster-parent, and we were talking about our families reactions to those hard things. And I realized, we, the foster-parents, signed up for every bit of joy and heartbreaking grief that comes our way in this journey, and we force a lot of people along for the ride, willingly or not.

The most common objection I hear from those who don't foster, is "I I'd get too attached." As foster parents we're okay with that. I honestly don't believe I'll love my biological children more than the little love sleeping 6 feet to my left right now, and I know that it's likely this child will leave me one day, and I may never see her again. It terrifies me to think about, but I keep going, keep loving, keep hoping and praying the best for her and her family even as it rips my heart out to think about the personal pain I will experience as an answer to those prayers. And I'm okay with that. I decided to be okay with that a long time ago. My parents, my siblings, my nieces and nephews, my in-laws, my closest friends, our church family, were never given the choice to be okay with it. We drop these precious child in their lives, who you can't help but ADORE, and they love them so, so well. And then our kids leave, and though as foster parents we bear the brunt of that grief, our family and friends bear it too, with no choice, and no training. They stand alongside us as we try to explain that it's okay and it's good, and it's freaking hard, as we all wrestle with the profound and uncomfortable dissonance of foster care and the unnaturalness of the relationships formed and torn apart by it. 

Many foster-parents have little support from their friends and family when they tell them they are going to welcome foster children into their homes. Many people lose friends over it, and strain family relationships. Because foster care IS scary. Loss is scary. Trauma behaviors and poor mental health are scary. The unknown is scary. Staring deep, dark brokenness in the face is terrifying. 

So I want to say thank you. To the foster-grandparents and foster-extended-family, for including and spoiling our children just like any other grandchild, for reading them bedtime stories over video chat, and sending clothes and books and toys, and snuggling every chance you get. To the foster-neighbors and foster-friends, who show up big every time we have a need, who are excited to meet our little ones regardless of how long they may stay, and for trying to understand the intricacies and commitments of foster care. To every single one of you who loves our babies, and fosters them alongside us knowing that doing so means you, too, will experience the heartache of goodbye, and who prays hard for their families anyway. To everyone who had no say in our decision to foster, but jumped in alongside us instead of turning away, we're blown away by you, we're grateful for you, and we couldn't do this without you. We love you and thank God for the blessing you are to us and to the children who we all have the privilege of caring for in our lives for a time, and treasuring in our hearts forever. We love y'all, thank you for loving us.

“Joy Thief”

I have resolved that I will not be a joy thief. It can be a tempting thing to do as someone who struggles with infertility and miscarriage as I watch those around me conceive and give birth to healthy children while I wait and pray that the same will happen to me someday soon. But a joy thief is a miserable, miserable thing to be, I know from experience.

A joy thief is someone who is so consumed with selfishness and jealousy and anger over their own circumstances that they mourn rather than rejoice over the happy providences of God in others’ lives, even those whom they love and care for deeply. You see, a joy thief forgets who God is because they have spent too much time thinking about themselves instead of the Lord. The Shorter Westminster Catechism asks the question “What is God?” The answer it gives is this; “God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice goodness and truth.” A joy thief is someone who has forgotten these things and needs to be reminded. I realized lately that I need to be reminded of these things again and need to take some time to dwell on who and what God is, and what that really means in my life, and how I need to ask for forgiveness and help to overcome these thoughts and feelings.

God is infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his Goodness. How easy it is to doubt God’s goodness in the midst of our pain. It is easy to wonder why God has not given me children when he calls them a blessing, it is hard to see why God in his goodness would withhold this good gift from me. I don’t have the answer to why, but I do have the answer to who God is, and he is infinitely good. Unchangeably good. Eternally good. He is good beyond my comprehension and my current circumstances. What I do know is that who I am has been shaped in ways beyond what I have fully realized through the last three and a half years, and I have been sanctified through these challenges, I have been blessed by things that would not have happened had I not experienced miscarriage and infertility. We would not have started fostering when we did, in fact, I never would have left my previous job, never would have found my current job that allows all the flexibility I need to be able to be a foster-parent, and never would have had the privilege to give 4 precious children a loving an godly home in their time of need, and provide their families with the peace of mind that they were loved and well cared for while they did what they needed to to bring them home. Our neighbors who heard me talking about our decision to pursue foster care and shared the same desire and calling as us may not have started their fostering journey at the same time either. When one of my best friends lost her child to miscarriage this past year, I was able to offer knowledge, love and support to her in a way that could only come from having experienced the same kind of loss. So not only has God been good to me through theses difficult circumstances, he has also been good to others through them, what a privilege to have had, and how incredible that he is able to redeem such sad and hard circumstances, results of the fall, and make them blessings for his people. God is good.

God is infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his wisdom. He knows all things fully from beginning to end, and in fact, has ordained all things from beginning to end. I struggle to organize my day wisely, meanwhile the Lord has perfectly and wisely ordained everything from beginning to end, and knows so much better than us what we need and when. He is so worthy of our complete trust and surrender to him.

God is infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his power. When I experience jealousy over a friend’s pregnancy and childbirth, I display an appalling lack of confidence in God’s power. To be jealous is to think that someone has received something instead of me, but God’s creative power is not so limited that he is only capable of creating a limited number of little souls each month. He in his aforementioned goodness, has given that person a child, and he in that same goodness and wisdom has not given one to me.

God is infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his Justice. He is not unfair to give one person a child and not another, for everything we have is a mercy from the lord and is undeserved. At the same time, God will one day make right all that has been ruined by the fall. That doesn’t mean that I will have children, it doesn’t mean that it will be made right in my earthly life, but we who trust in Christ will one day watch as Satan, sin, and death are defeated once and for all, and all things redeemed and and made new.

It is not wrong for us to mourn the brokenness of the world, of our bodies and the tragedy of death, we are right to grieve those things, but is is wrong and sinful for us to allow that righteous grief to become jealousy, bitterness or distrust of the Lord, and to keep us from celebrating with others when they receive happy providences from the Lord. It’s taken me a long time to get to this understanding, because jealousy is such an expected emotion when experiencing something like infertility. It’s a socially acceptable sin in many ways, but it is not acceptable to the Lord and it is not good for my own spiritual and emotional well-being. Which is why I’m grateful to be able to say that when I recently found out over the course of a couple of days that 3 of my friends are expecting, by the work of God in my heart, I was able to share in their joy and praise the Lord for the gift of these precious lives, and it was a feeling infinitely better than being a joy thief. I pray that the Lord will continue to remind us all of his infinite, unchangeable, and eternal wisdom, power, justice, and all of the rest of his wonderful being and make us content and give us joy and righteous grief in every circumstance, no matter how difficult our days may be.

I Hope We Don't Adopt Her (Even though we love her to death!)

"Do you think you'll be able to adopt her?"

Brace yourselves, I have some strong words to say on this subject, so let me preface this. I get this question a lot. Our parents get this question a lot. I realize that many people just haven't had to think through the complexities of this issue or don't really have an understanding of what foster care is. If you have asked me this, I am not upset with you and I do not look down on you, but I do hope that you are willing to humbly learn and consider these things.

** I want to add here in the beginning that we are not opposed to adoption. There has been some confusion after my initial post that this is what I'm saying. I like to believe that it would be hard to know us personally and ever get this impression. As far as adoption is a necessary consequence of our fallen world, we love the idea of adoption in the case where it is already necessary. What I am saying is that I hope it does not become necessary in any particular case. I realize I'm taking an idealistic approach to this topic, and that the reality is that it is necessary in many circumstances, but I want to continue to seek and pray for healing for biological families as long as possible.**

 My husband informed me today that there is a subreddit of foster parents who take infant foster placements, and then actively work against reunification with the bio family in an effort to get a free baby. It makes me ill to think about. It makes me furious. These are someone's children. They probably have parents and families who love them despite the choices and circumstances that may have led their children into care. To actively campaign against your child's biological family for your own selfish desires is despicable. Yes, there are instances when parents do not have their children's best interests at heart. There are times when the parents will not become a safe place for their children to go home to, and in those cases, terminating rights and adopting are good and right things to do in a desperately sad and broken situation. Adoption is always plan C or D. Never plan A.  This kind of foster parent is rare, but it highlights an issue with our attitude towards the God-given goodness of biological family. The family unit is a beautiful and wonderful gift from God that has, like all of his good creation, been warped by the fall. Our desire as foster parents should be to see it restored, not permanently dismantled for our own gain. My heart breaks for bio parents whose children are placed with the foster families who are gaming the system in this way, my heart breaks for children whose foster parents care more for their own selfish desires than for maintaining, respecting, and building up their connections with their biological families.

When we became foster parents, we made a commitment to more than just the children placed in our home, we made a commitment to honor, respect, and pray and hope the best for their families too. I doubt there is a single decent foster parent alive who hasn't at some point selfishly wished their foster child would stay forever. I admit I have. But I recognize that thought for what it is: selfish and prideful. Historical atrocities have been committed by governments and organizations that took children away from parents whom they deemed "less suitable" and gave them to be raised by people of a "more desirable" race, religion, or political affiliation. The goal of foster care is not for the child to end up with whomever will be the "best parent", the goal is for the child to be with their true family, even if we disagree with their way of parenting or their religion, or if their culture is different from our own and we lack an understanding of it. To permanently dismantle a biological family is an extremely serious thing that is not to be taken lightly, and never to be hoped for. It may be tragically necessary, but it is NEVER to be hoped for.

I have said this before, but let me say it again: WE DO NOT DO FOSTER CARE BECAUSE WE HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO HAVE OUR OWN KIDS. WE DO NOT DO FOSTER CARE IN THE HOPES OF ADOPTING A CHILD. Yes, in some way our infertility is related to our foster-care, I've gone into that in detail in previous posts. But we do not do foster care in an effort to replace the hole in our lives left by infertility and miscarriage. We do it because there are children who need to be safe and loved while their families put in the work to reunite their families, and we have a safe place and love to give. It may be that some families don't succeed in reunification for one reason or another, but I could not in good conscience support terminating a parent's rights if they were not given every opportunity and help we have to offer them.

You see, the thing is that you and I are fully capable of making the same decisions that parents of children who are in foster care have. It is only by the restraining grace of God at work in our lives that we too have not fallen into whatever it is that has led to these parents being separated from their children. We don't want to believe this is true, but Scripture is clear on this point. Our hearts are deceitful above all else, we are lured and enticed by our own desires,  we are slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness without God's intervention in our lives. We contributed nothing to our own privileged birth or moral development, and certainly not to our salvation. And when you stop and realize that it could have just as easily been you in that situation, you realize what a tragedy it is not to give this parent everything you can in an effort to see them and their children together again, because I hope someone would do the same if it was me or my family member in this situation, and because we should strive to uphold the God-given gift of the biological family. 

So, no. I hope we don't adopt. At least not in this way. Someday we plan to adopt children out of foster care who are already waiting to be adopted. The sad reality is that some day we will probably be called upon to adopt a foster child who lives in our own home, but I hope that never happens, because I hope and pray for hearts and lives saved by Christ, and for families made whole again. 

The Weary World Rejoices

"A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new glorious morn." 

It's tempting to write off Christmas when you're grieving. It seems to be a time for holiday cheer, not for grief, and yet, this time of year often serves to magnify our grief and make us even wearier than we may already be. We feel like we don't fit into the Christmas season. 

Advent is a season of waiting, though and before the celebration of Christ's birth, there was a weary world. It had gone 400 years without a word from God. It was groaning and yearning for God to act, to fill in the missing component. The world was waiting for Jesus, whether they knew it or not, and they could feel that emptiness and incompleteness that only he could change. I can relate with that right now a lot quicker than I do to the more positive feelings that surround our idea of Christmas. Maybe it's not so incorrect of us to mourn more deeply this time of year after-all, in fact, maybe it's just as in-line with this advent season as any other emotion. Advent is a season of waiting, and whatever it is in our lives that we may be waiting on, the truth is that we are waiting on the Lord to act; to intervene, to save us from our despair and hopelessness.

More than 2000 years after the birth of Jesus, we approach advent with an utter certainty that soon, Christmas will come. Soon, we will be celebrating the coming of the Lord in the same way that the angels, shepherds, wise-men, and those who recognized the arrival of the messiah did all those years ago. Soon, the weary world will rejoice. This is such a wonderful reminder that as we feel more keenly the brokenness of our lives this time of year, that we can wait with confidence and anticipation of God's action and deliverance in our own lives also. We do not know how long it will last, but we know that the Lord will deliver us from this too because we know that he has already delivered us from much more; we know with that same utter certainty that we can put our hope in him as we wait. We celebrate this child in the manger, because without him, we would have no hope as we face these weary seasons of our lives. We celebrate that in the scope of eternity, our weary souls will soon rejoice as well. As we have a full understanding of what it is to be weary and waiting upon the Lord, we can celebrate  the coming of the Jesus with an even deeper joy as we eagerly anticipate his work in our lives and his second coming when he will fully and finally fill our weary world and weary souls with the completeness that comes only from him. He is the thrill of hope in our weary lives. He brings the new and glorious morn. He brings joy to our suffering and thankfulness to our discontent hearts. He brings salvation, hope, and joy to the world. 

Three Years a Mom

My precious Brighton. My eldest child. The one who made me a momma. The one over whom I've shed the most tears and spent the most days missing. Three years ago, we found out God had placed this little soul into our lives, and left them completely changed. Every day since then has been directly and deeply impacted by the knowledge that this child exists and the love we have for this child that has no place to go. There's a beauty that I can't help but recognize in realizing that this never-ending grief and disappointment, the tears that flow steadily even three years later, all stem from a love that is natural and pure and deep; a mother's love for her child. I have loved this child fiercely, and have defended his or her life and worth time and time again to myself and others in my words and my actions. I am grateful and unashamed to call myself a mom because of this child.

God has made me who I am through Brighton. This child caused me to lose all my confidence and then find it back again in a more loving, compassionate, Christ-centered, focused,  and determined way than ever before. This child is the reason that I am passionate about every child being loved every day, and why we have had the joy of being foster parents. This child is why I started writing, because I felt like this life needed to be known and recognized and I couldn't stand the thought of my beloved child being forgotten and not missed, and I wanted other mommas to know that their children and their motherhood are not forgotten in the absence of their child either; the Lord sees, and so do I.  The knowledge that this child is with Jesus keeps me looking heavenward and gives me a tangible reminder of the marvelous grace of our loving lord who keeps those whom he has called to himself safe and secure in him through all the days of their lives, be they 90 years or 1 month.

The past 3 years have been amazingly hard; God has done amazing things through deep joy and unimaginable grief. God has done incredible good through our love for this little soul. I am grateful to have been granted the heart of a momma that rests in Jesus Christ as her children come and go from this life and this home; gone but never forgotten, never not missed, and never not loved from now until eternity when we meet in the presence of Jesus Christ; our savior, our hope, our comfort and joy, our greatest love, the one who glorifies himself in even the darkest of days and gives purpose to our sorrows. To know that he has been glorified through the life of my beloved Brighton, and loves this child for all eternity is the fulfillment of the most aching prayer of a christian parent for her child. I am deeply grateful in the midst of deep grief for this mercy from the Lord, and I am grateful for Brighton, the little soul that has forever changed our lives for the better.

Diagnosis

I lost Brighton one day after seeing a healthy heartbeat on an ultrasound. I remember sobbing in the shower with the distinct impression that my body was killing my perfectly healthy baby. They tell you that's not the case. They tell it's "chromosomal". They tell you there's nothing you could do. It turns out I was probably right though. My own broken body, my own blood, is what's been killing our babies. In all likelihood, they could have been perfectly healthy, happy babies, had it not been for this thing called "antiphospholipid syndrome." And it turns out, it could have killed me too.

Doctors call it "sticky blood". In short, it means my blood clots very easily; too easily in some cases. And if it's not treated during pregnancy, they believe that tiny blood clots cut off blood flow to the baby causing miscarriage. If this doesn't happen, then, as pregnancy progresses, it increases the risk of blood clots forming in arteries and risks stroke and pre-eclampsia, and pre-mature birth.

It's scary, and it's sad, and it's comforting to find this out. We always look for reason in our suffering. We want to know why God has allowed things to happen in the ways that he has. To be able to see that he was protecting me from great harm gives some meaning to the tragedy of it all, though I would of course have risked my life for any of my 3 kids in a heartbeat. But that wasn't his plan. Now we know though. We can take precautions, we can treat it, we can take away most of the danger for me and our future babies, but it won't be easy. Every time that we want to get pregnant from now on will have to be well planned and well prepared for. It will involve 3 different doctors, and 5 medications administered 3 different ways, two of which are contraindicated, and one of which is a daily injection for the entire pregnancy, and a 6th medication if I'm as sick the next time as I was with Keelan. As much as I desperately long to be pregnant again, I'm also dreading it. The joy and excitement will be there, I know they will, but my first reaction will have to be to take a deep breath, thank God for the next precious life, and pray for the strength to face my fears. On top of concern for my next baby's well-being, it feels like it's all riding on these treatments, because it's everything we know to do, and if it doesn't work, I'm afraid nothing ever will, and not only will we not have that baby, we may never have a biological child at all until we meet our children at the throne of Jesus Christ.

But that's exactly where I find my peace in all of the medical jargon, and odds and percentages, and the depths of googling: the throne of Christ. Brighton and Keelan and Addison remind me to keep my mind turned heavenward, towards my true hope for them and for me and for all our future children.Though I am extremely grateful for them, my hope is not ultimately in medical treatments but in the unfailing savior, Jesus Christ. This truth is the difference between crippling anxiety and unnatural peace. No matter what happens, I will have joy and peace in both the happiest and most desperately trying of times, because, as always, everything is in the hands of our God who reigns sovereign over all of his creation; over my life, over their lives, over bodies and blood clots, over placentas and hormone levels, over thyroids and umbilical cords, and every cell in our bodies, and even over death itself.  We are thankful to him for this diagnosis, the treatments that are available for it, and the ability to move forward with genuine hope, regardless of the outcome. To him be the glory, great things he has done, and great things he will continue to do. Amen.