It's been a whopping 5.5 weeks into our first placement, and I have no beautiful post to present the amazing picture of the Gospel happening in homes all over the place through fostering. Not at all. If you start reading foster blogs like I sometimes do, there's people who write so eloquently and illustrate life as a foster parent so well, and I'm just not one of them. I also don't feel like one of those foster parents at all, and that might surface here in a bit. For now, I just give little pieces that I'm sure could all work together into a grace filled post, but it's.not.happening.
:: One of the truly shocking things for me is that my phone rings SO OFTEN now. And I have to answer it. Or if I don't answer it, I'm inevitably going to have a voicemail that requires a call back to someone. And lately, I've decided, if I'm able to answer it when it rings, answer it. Calling someone back fills me with dread. I do not like talking on the phone with random people. I never answer my phone for numbers I do not know. Scratch that. Previously, I never answered the phone for numbers I do not know. Now I do. Because I have to. Otherwise, my to-do list just gets longer.
:: My mind feels worn down. There's so much I'm trying to keep track of as far as appointments, visits, assessments, rules, policies, etc. It's so much. There are so many people who have a job that pertains to Sammy- his case manager, our family consultant, his attorney and advocate, the physical therapist, the transporter, the Babies Can't Wait advocate, the pediatrician- and they all run through me.
:: I had a pretty sweet setup each day with a beautiful 2.5 hour (give or take) nap time every afternoon. Gone. Sammy doesn't take good naps. He's slept for over an hour at a time during the day literally 6 times in the last 5.5 weeks. So, now at nap time, I rush to get as much done as I can in the 45 minutes to an hour I have. The good thing is that usually Sammy is quite content to play near me once he's awake. So, I can get other things done still. It's just not the same. But I'm thankful for his ability to play and roam and be curious.
:: Nolan continues to amaze me. His relentless pursuit of Sammy regardless of Sammy's response IS the picture of the Gospel I could present. I thought Nolan's care and interest in Sammy would wear off after 48 hours. No. It has continued and probably grown. When his teacher put him in the car one day last week, she said, "Oh there's Sammy! We keep hearing all about Sammy!" I smiled and again asked for a heart like Nolan's in regards to Sammy.
:: On a pretty regular basis, I assume every single person I can think of would be a better foster parent than me. Ok, that's too extreme. But you get what I mean. My selfishness and lack of holiness has been quite apparent. When I think about people fostering who don't love Jesus, I'm amazed. How? How do they do this outside of the strength of Jesus? Clearly there are people better suited for this than me. This has caused me to question so much about myself- am I really cut out for this? Do I really mean it when I say I want to love people who need to be loved? How is my 4 year old doing better at this than me? And this is one tiny guy who has minimal issues on paper. I pray pretty often that all of this is coming out just because it's our first placement.
:: Adam came down in jeans this morning with a work shirt on, and I thought, "Mm! He looks handsome!" And I immediately got sad because asking someone to babysit our threesome for a date night seems like such a big request, and I don't know why. We had a double date scheduled back in August with friends that I'm now convinced will not happen. We'll need to get creative on how to have date nights in and make them seem special.
:: Sometimes it feels like people want to hear us say this is hard. Like, there's a silent, "I told you so," they are holding back. As if Adam and I went on and on about how easy we thought this was going to be, when I don't remember ever doing that. People supporting us in the midst of this has been so odd. And I do think I'll write a full post about it once I process it further in my mind. Taking in Sammy has been way harder than adding a newborn of our own to our family, but the outpouring of help came so strong when I had Isaac. Not so much when we got Sammy. I remember so.many. gifts for Nolan as he adjusted to being a big brother. Isaac went through that same transition with zero notice, and no one did anything for him. I went an entire month without cooking dinner when I had Isaac, thanks to meals from other people. I was making dinner the literal next day with Sammy. Did anyone at church even suggest I take some time off to settle in with our new little guy? Nope! Maybe all the help when you have a baby is because of the physical toll it takes on mom to actually birth a baby. I don't know. That's all I can think of. It's something I hope I'm constantly aware of for other foster parents in my life. I'm thankful for our community group who regularly checked in on us and has provided meals and gift cards and diapers and wipes over the last several weeks.
:: As difficult and at times, lonely, these 5.5 weeks have been, I can say with certainty, I am for foster care. There are problems with the system, yes. There are so many unbelievable frustrations with DFCS, absolutely! Is there a better way to do this? I think about this on a pretty much daily basis. But Sammy and his siblings? They deserve to be well cared for. We are capable of opening our home up, and I'm glad that we are. It's a weighty thought that one day Sammy will share his story as a teenager or an adult, and we're a part of it now. The statistics are horrifying for foster kids as far as their future is concerned. I honestly hope he never remembers us because he'll get to go home to his mom sooner rather than later, but we're a part of his story. I pray his story is filled with redemption and Jesus. This kiddo spent his first birthday away from any family and with strangers (it actually wasn't with us- it was with a different foster family). But I really hope his next one is a true celebration of his life and the hope this entire family has moving forward.
:: Anytime I'm getting frustrated with Sammy, I remind myself that he is not mine. I remind myself that being comforted by me is not the same as the comfort he would find in his mom's embrace. She probably knows what every single whimper or scream means. She loves him wholeheartedly. And I'm motivated to love well. To care for him well. I have another mama's baby in my house. I want her to know he's being treasured and protected, that I'm fighting for his well being. I've been doing a study on the armor of God, and when I started mentally shifting this struggle to a spiritual battle, things changed for me. The enemy wants nothing but destruction for this little guy and his family. And honestly, probably my own destruction, too. But I choose to wage war for Sammy. When he's crying in the night, I'm asking for the peace of God to combat the darkness coming at Sammy. When I get caught up in the hard parts of fostering, I need to remind myself that the enemy wants me out of the game, too.
:: This all quickly snowballed. Honestly, the majority of our days are pretty smooth. I owe much of that to the awesomeness of my boys. It's hard to explain. This feels like normal now. Taking three small boys everywhere feels normal. People give me weird looks. They often ask if there's a set of twins- to which I am so dumbfounded by! Who? Who would be the twins? There's a constant extra stressor in our lives now, and something new that's exposing parts of my heart that are holding onto doing things MY way. Instead of fully surrendering that to Jesus. Every single day I ask God to change my heart and make me more like Him.
I wrote this post during nap time and was getting worked up as I kept going. When I saw Adam at dinner, I immediately broke down in his arms. It had all built up for too long and came oozing out. When I woke up this morning, I felt lighter and clearer about everything. I'm not taking anything back from what I wrote because it was most definitely the weight I was carrying yesterday. I imagine there are more heavy days to come, and there is more and more refining to come in this fostering journey.
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