My husband and I started the process of becoming foster parents. At the beginning, we wanted only one young child. To date, we’ve had 50 children in our home. We went from a three bedroom home to a six bedroom home, allowing us to have the room for more children to love.
You clung to me with tear-filled eyes like your life depended on it, like some stranger would come and take you away from me, too. And my heart clung to you just the same, continually aware of the risk of loving you, continually aware that you may leave...
Christmas is the story of God bringing Help to the helpless, Hope to the hopeless, a Father to the fatherless. Sound familiar?
Simply knowing about “foster children” isn’t very compelling. But getting to know a foster child, one specific child, can change us. When we know their stories and speak their names and see their faces and hold their hands, they enter our hearts.
This Christmas season, I've spent a lot of energy telling you all about the different "better than fair trade" organizations I love, why I love them, and which of their products I love the most. But it turns out, I got a little carried away. And it turns out, that all of the many lists may not be conducive to actual shopping. So consider this a "who's who" of organizations that do good, with minimum details...
I’ve called you by that label, that sacred name, “daughter,” many times. But today is different. Today there’s no prefix, no subtext, no “sort of but not really” as there has always been before. You’re not my foster daughter, I don’t love you “like you’re my own.” Today you are wholly, completely, for forever my daughter
For the first time in my life, I thought about the people behind the gift. And the thought that the beautiful figures sitting on my dresser had fed or clothed or protected a family made me happier than the beautiful gift itself.
I’m grateful there’s something I can do. I’m grateful for organizations like Purpose that allow someone like me who can’t do much to partner with what they are doing. And what easier way is there to “do” good for these precious women than to shop?
I created a list of my 10 favorite "gifts that give." But I couldn’t stop there. So I made a list of my favorites for kids. But I couldn’t stop there. All the people must know all the organizations! So, here is my second list of my very favorite do-gooding, beautiful-product-making, world-changing, better-than-fair-trade organizations.
I could not place any limits on the child that could bring value to our home. My mind had been forever shifted on value and worth. Here's the deal: I could not NOT check boxes. I stared down at the paper in front of me and as the pen pressed on to paper my heart began to expand a little more. Boxes all got checked.
I want them to know that the way we spend our money matters, that the best way to view money is through the lens of generosity and compassion, that there are people behind products...Here is a collection of my favorite “gifts that give” for kids.
They were asking if we would adopt, we said yes. Two years later, I found myself loading up the oldest two into their mom's van. Three weeks later, it was the younger two. Yes, I was heart broken, but I knew this was God's plan for their lives and mine.
In two years, we had met three different sets of birth families, met two babies right after they were born and yet none of them were in our home. I had given up.
I never planned for you to be ours. Sure we threw around the word adoption, like we “should" do that someday. It's never a for sure though, especially in foster care. I never planned an seven year gap between kids. I was done after 30, I didn't plan to be an "old" parent, but I never planned for YOU.
“Well, can you do it?” Tears fill my eyes even as I type this because the answer was no...we called back to say YES.
No matter who you voted for, whether you’re celebrating or mourning, the election is over. The advocating and voting are done, there’s nothing more to do there. But there is good to do. There is a way that we can affect the future of this nation.
I knew that I was going to have to let this little boy go, that I was only the middle mom between his biological mom and his adoptive mom. That was about all the sadness I could handle. I was expecting grief. I was expecting loss. Now I had fear.
So before you join the rabid crowds of Black Friday shoppers/wrestlers, before you aimlessly toss “maybe she’ll like this” items into your cart, before you spend up your money on things that don’t really matter, consider giving one of these gifts that give.
As a foster mom, you may not get the fruit of prayers answered and hopes realized. You may not get proms, graduations, weddings, and grandchildren. Let’s be real. You may not even get the fruit of bedtime routines achieved, table manners acquired, multiplication tables learned, or secrets whispered. But what you will get, what we foster parents are working for, is the joy of being faithful right now. Today, I have today. And I will faithfully train and parent and love this child today and for as many more “todays” as I get.
But helping these children meant dealing with the state agency, the one I had been afraid of and looked down upon, the one I had warned others about...I met the recruiter. She met me with an inviting smile and helpful answer. She had a heart for adoption, a burden to see the church rise up and champion foster care, and a genuine love for the children she advocated for. She was “the state.”
