One time, a small seven year old girl quietly approached me as I sat in a dark living room after work. “Jerry, can I tell you something?” she asked. “When I first met you I was very, very scared because you are very, very big…"
All in foster-care
From 1 to 50: Karen's Story for the US Children's Bureau
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.
From Stranger to Daughter: A Story For the US Children's Bureau
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 About Foster Care & Adoption
Christmas is the story of God bringing Help to the helpless, Hope to the hopeless, a Father to the fatherless. Sound familiar?
Foster Care is Contagious
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.
A Letter To My Daughters on the Day of Your Adoption
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
Ready To Be Done With These Multi-Colored Maps? There’s One More You Have To See.
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.
The Picture That Broke Me
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.
You Don't Always Reap What You Sow
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.
Meet the state.
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.”
Write Your Heart Out - Guest Post: Jenni's Story
Some of them are writers and some are “just” moms, but they were all faithful to write and share their story with others and, eventually, with me. I want to give them the gift that others gave to me in sharing their words. But more importantly, I want to give you the gift of reading their words and entering their stories...It wasn't my arms they were placed into, and their daddy wasn't there to cut the cord. He couldn't carry them swaddled to me for the first time like their sister.
Write Your Heart Out - Guest Series: Janice's Story
Some of them are writers and some are “just” moms, but they were all faithful to write and share their story with others and, eventually, with me. I want to give them the gift that others gave to me in sharing their words. But more importantly, I want to give you the gift of reading their words and entering their stories... "Healing days are about trauma and rewiring her brain. They need to happen for her to be healthy. But when the healing days become healing weeks, the weight of her suffering feels all consuming."
Write Your Heart Out - Guest Series: Sarah's Story
Some of them are writers and some are “just” moms, but they were all faithful to write and share their story with others and, eventually, with me. I want to give them the gift that others gave to me in sharing their words. But more importantly, I want to give you the gift of reading their words and entering their stories... "Then, the text came. It was my mom. “I know you have decided not to foster, but there is a family who has foster children that will most likely need to be adopted. Are you interested?”
Write Your Heart Out - Guest Series: Krista's Story
Some of them are writers and some are “just” moms, but they were all faithful to write and share their story with others and, eventually, with me. I want to give them the gift that others gave to me in sharing their words. But more importantly, I want to give you the gift of reading their words and entering their stories..."I'm reading about how sharing your story can change the world. I'm a terrible story teller. I do have a story, but not sure how to begin to tell it."
Reading Corner: Books for Kids in Foster Care - Murphy's Three Homes
In an effort to kill two birds with one stone, as they say, I’ll be reviewing some of the books I read with my kids for you here on this blog, specifically books relating to adoption and foster care. I decided to start with my very favorite “made for foster kids” book: Murphy's Three Homes!
A Letter to My Foster Daughter On the Anniversary of Your Homecoming
A couple of months ago a judge took away your biological mother’s rights and you had your last visit with her, said goodbye to her. I cried for you and cried for your mom and cried for the loss all around, but then dried my tears and assumed life would go on as usual. It hasn’t.
LICENSED: FOLLOWING ONE FAMILY INTO FOSTER CARE - POST #3 - It's called paperWORK for a reason
As much as any future foster parent may wish this process away to just get on with the foster caring, maybe it’s the perfect intro course into foster care...maybe the sacrifice is meant to remind us of why we got into foster care in the first place.
Fatherless: When my daughter's dad didn't show.
Her father hadn’t shown up, but she had her daddy, going to great lengths, working to adopt her and become her forever father. And she had her God, who already “finished” the great work, making the way to adopt her and become her Forever Father.
Giveaway #3: Where the products benefit FOSTER CARE - Feather Refuge & Ransomed Cuffs
Second, these “companies” are just foster mamas, each with a gift and a heart of gold. There is just something so exciting to me about a mom on a mission, using the overflow of her mama’s heart and the spare minutes of her day to love others. There’s also something so exciting about any person who uses their creative talents to bring attention to others in need.
“Choose the smallest numbers” - 5th Grade Math & The Orphan Crisis
If you read these numbers anything like the way I typed them, you just glossed over all the zeros and saw the precise number of “it’s a really big problem.” These kinds of numbers are just too much to even process...A few minutes of fifth grade calculations and the numbers are quite easily reconciled.