Foster This
When I get home from the foster/adopt classes I want to smother my kids with hugs and kisses. I want to let T play with my hair as long as he wants and get back in bed in the mornings so he can come and snuggle with me (something I sacrificed when I started getting up before the kids). I want to listen to Addie tell really long stories that I usually don't have the time to hear the end of. I want to play soccer with Ben, whoever gets to THIRTY wins - instead of whoever gets to five. I want to get down and look Mia in the eyes when I talk with her and hold her every time she says "Hold you mommy!".
I go to these classes and I learn about our next child and maybe it was or maybe it wasn't held as a baby. Maybe it had dinner, but probably not, and if it did it most likely came from the minimart down on the corner. I learn about toddlers who hoard food because it's a survival skill they've acquired. T throws a fit and it lasts -at the longest- 5 minutes. I learn about children who throw rages for over an hour. Ben has been really huggy lately, making sure to hug and kiss me before he goes to bed, even after I've hugged and kissed him, and sometimes I huff and puff at this, because I see it as him dragging out bedtime. And maybe he is, but someday he won't. Someday he won't need me at bedtime at all. I learn about kids who don't even know what a bedtime is, let alone have someone hugging and kissing them each night.
There are SO MANY kids out there, right down the road, maybe even in my neighborhood, being taken away from their homes. They see things and hear things and feel things and do things that we would "die" over if our kids experienced any of them. And we'll get this baby sometime early next year and I'll have at least 12 months, maybe 18, hopefully a lifetime, to pour myself into. Pour all of the truths I know, all of the prayers and all of the love I have into this child.
But I'm not perfect.
And neither is Mark.
And Lord knows our kids and extended families aren't either.
So what do we do? When we see this sickness and yuck in the world and all of the sudden it's in our home and we're talking about it over dinner like it's the weather? What do we do when sin and deception has taken over, completely defining an entire family, and we have the offspring of that family?
We take it in. We swaddle and sing. We cradle and love. We feed and pray.
Lord, how we pray.
I go to these classes and I learn about our next child and maybe it was or maybe it wasn't held as a baby. Maybe it had dinner, but probably not, and if it did it most likely came from the minimart down on the corner. I learn about toddlers who hoard food because it's a survival skill they've acquired. T throws a fit and it lasts -at the longest- 5 minutes. I learn about children who throw rages for over an hour. Ben has been really huggy lately, making sure to hug and kiss me before he goes to bed, even after I've hugged and kissed him, and sometimes I huff and puff at this, because I see it as him dragging out bedtime. And maybe he is, but someday he won't. Someday he won't need me at bedtime at all. I learn about kids who don't even know what a bedtime is, let alone have someone hugging and kissing them each night.
There are SO MANY kids out there, right down the road, maybe even in my neighborhood, being taken away from their homes. They see things and hear things and feel things and do things that we would "die" over if our kids experienced any of them. And we'll get this baby sometime early next year and I'll have at least 12 months, maybe 18, hopefully a lifetime, to pour myself into. Pour all of the truths I know, all of the prayers and all of the love I have into this child.
But I'm not perfect.
And neither is Mark.
And Lord knows our kids and extended families aren't either.
So what do we do? When we see this sickness and yuck in the world and all of the sudden it's in our home and we're talking about it over dinner like it's the weather? What do we do when sin and deception has taken over, completely defining an entire family, and we have the offspring of that family?
We take it in. We swaddle and sing. We cradle and love. We feed and pray.
Lord, how we pray.
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