It feels almost foreign to be typing into the Blogger interface. I hadn't planned on taking an almost permanent hiatus from blogging but life has gotten full in a way that I could have never expected. I hate to use the word "busy" because we are all busy and we all have the same amount of time in our days and the freedom to choose what we spend those precious hours on. In an attempt to update you on the past 2 years of life may be pages and pages of me rambling so I am going to try to be concise with the intention of being back on here a little bit more in the future. As you can probably guess from the title, we are fostering! We became a family of 6 in the fall when a sweet 2 day old baby joined our family through foster care and almost 6 months later we are head over heels, attached, and in love with a little boy we will most likely have to say goodbye to. I plan on writing a whole post about that part of foster care- loving and attaching knowing you will say goodbye- but that is a soap box post for another day.
So what led us to foster care? That is a loaded question that was years in the making. Since before we got pregnant with Ford, our biological son, we felt the conviction to grow our family through adoption. We started the adoption process when our daughter Lucy was just a few months old (my most recent adoption post here) and brought home our son, Gideon Aaron, through adoption in November 2016. To say we were overwhelmed physically and emotionally is an understatement so I we held off on adding to our family. In October 2018 I vividly remember how sick I felt reading the news that the state of New York passed a law to allow abortions up until 40 weeks gestation. A baby's heart starts beating at 6 weeks gestation and by 40 weeks most babies are already born and in their parents arms. We had started to talk about adding to our family and it was that day that I felt a deep conviction about foster care. There is so many layers to this story and how the Lord used our failed adoption match prior to Gideon to start to stir our hearts towards foster care. I started working at The Heart of Texas Pregnancy Resource Center shortly after we brought Gideon home because I began to feel this passion towards family preservation, not just fighting for the lives of babies. God was working and preparing us for our foster care journey years before we said yes. So that October day I asked Jon to pray faithfully with me about the possibility of foster care. Fast forward to January 2019 where we went to our first orientation with a local foster care agency and the stars aligned (pun intended because our agency is called STARRY). I was finishing up my last semester of an intense theology development program at our church and knew we didn't have the capacity for training until I graduated. We continue to pray, asked our community to pray, and started to research, learn, and ask for discernment and wisdom to move forward. We started our pre-service training in June 2019 and became licensed in early September. We knew it was going to be mountains of paperwork because we've adopted before but honestly nothing could have prepared us for the mountain RANGE of paperwork, training, background checks, rec letters, and other things we had to complete before becoming licensed. It is definitely not for the faint of heart... or disorganized person!
Maybe there will be a day that I go more in depth on becoming licensed and what is involved but in order to keep this post less than 1 million words, I will come to a close. Foster care has been so much more physically and emotionally demanding than I could have ever imagined but also 100 times more wonderful. Our weeks are filled with therapy, bio parent visits, phone calls, paperwork, home visits with CPS, attorneys, ad litems, and very little sleep but I wouldn't change it for the world. There is a chance we have to say goodbye to our sweet baby soon and I can see how people could easily throw in the towel after 1 go around. It is so much, so hard, so tender and emotional. I break at the thought of saying goodbye and not having that beautiful baby laugh to wake up to every morning. I crumble thinking of my forever kids giving the baby one last hug and kiss. I can feel my breathing pattern start to increase and a frog form in my throat as I type this but you know what? I will do this all again. I will sacrifice by time, sanity, emotions, heart, money, and family for the chance to love a child. We would have never met this sweet baby had we not said YES to foster care. I would not have cried out in prayer night after night and felt the love and closeness of my Father had we not said yes. The promises of God in scripture are more real for me than they ever have before because this world doesn't make sense and my God is the one thing that does not change. My heart will break, in fact it has already broken, BUT GOD. He is working, moving, shaping, and claiming so much glory from this season of my life. I will never be the same after foster care. Once your eyes are opened to poverty, injustice, and brokenness, you are never the same. I long for heaven and I know the Lord is using foster care to place eternity in my heart. This world isn't my home (praise Him for that!) but while I am here, I want to serve Him faithfully by loving His image bearers.
Night after night I host TED Talks in my head of things I want to say about foster care, Jesus, attachment, redemption.... if only I could record them into words. I hope to write more and answer questions more in depth to be informative and encouraging but also as a reminder to myself where God has me.
24 comments:
So glad you are posting again and about this topic. I am loving seeing your IG posts with this little love, but it's so much more to get the story in a blog post. Please keep posting, love this!
If you are stuck with your marketing assignment then in this case you can opt for our Marketing Assignments. we provide the best Marketing assignment help.We also provide Market segmentation Assignment help for students across the globe. for more information contact us +16692714848.
Nice Post!!!
This is really a great article for those who are looking for Discount coupons, cashback offers on online shopping sites in India.
Thanks for sharing the wonderful information and Save you huge money & time. More offers and coupons Visit
Firstcry Offers
Firstcry Coupons
Firstcry Online Shopping Offers & Coupons
Firstcry Online Shopping Today Offers & Coupons
Firstcry Toys & Diapers Store
Very detailed and informative!!
Keep sharing...
Hello, dear author! thank you so much for all the detailed information in this article! I have read it carefully and hope that i will use some information for my posts on the site https://assignmentemperor.com/dissertation-helps in future.
I have been using this company's online essay writing services for about a year now. I ordered an 8 page nursing assignment on Saturday evening, due in a little over a day. The task was completed in 24 hours with progress reports being issued every 3 hours. So, I've just received my grading; I have an A in this paper. Thank so much to get paid to write papers service, I'll refer my friends.
My husband and I have been having lots of problems living together, he never gives me attention or makes me happy because he has fallen in love with another woman outside our marriage. I tried my best to make sure that my husband leaves this woman but the more I talk to him about it the more he makes me feel sad and unhappy, My marriage started leading to divorce because he no longer gives me attention. I wanted to forget him but i love him and didn't want to lose him. We have been married for years and he is all I could call a true best friend and best in all, the man that handles my problems perfectly, the man that makes sacrifices for my happiness. I wanted him back in my life badly and I was so confused. My Friends told me to buy books about relationships, so I went online for relationship books while I came across a spell caster called Dr Emu. I read testimonies and reviews about him so I contacted him immediately, explained my problems to him. Same day , he casted a spell for me and assured me for 2 days that my husband will return to me and to my greatest surprise the third day my husband came knocking on my door and begged for forgiveness. I am so happy that my love is back again and not only that, we are about to get married again, he proposed. I wouldn't stop talking about him. Contact him today if you need his help via email: emutemple@gmail.com and you will see that your problem will be solved without any delay. Website: https://emutemple.wordpress.com/
To know more about Chief Dr Lucky you can visit his website (https://chiefdrluckyherbaltherapy.wordpress.com/)
A friend that suffered from Herpes and was cure with the help of this great herbal doctor Chief Lucky so i decided to contact him for help in getting rid of my families genital herpes virus 1/2 which i did and all i was told to provide was just some useful information and some materials used in preparation of the natural cure and that i did and now i am the happiest person on earth because i am writing this testimony of mine with joy and happiness in my heart to the whole world to know that natural remedy is real because i am a living testimony of Chief Lucky traditional herbal cure and i want you all to contact Chief Lucky via his email: chiefdrlucky@gmail.com or WhatsApp him +2348132777335 am sure he will help you too.
We offer one of the Help with Essay that is provided at your convenience. The value of our service may surpass your expectations. Moreover, we are available at any time. At the time you desperately need help with your papers, you can count on our ewriters to help you
Independent Escorts in Dubai is the right decision. the top Dubai Escorts at your one Click. Log on to us for entertainment
I can't praise Programming Homework
Help services enough, except for the previous order. It wasn't completed and sent in time. There were also a lot of mistakes and a few plagiarism issues, too, but I'm glad they came in and resolved the issue quite fast. Please make an effort to match experts with the right orders. The previous Python Homework Help must have been an amateur, though I appreciate his food knowledge. He only needs some experience to be perfect.
My lecturer gave us an assignment almost at the end of the semester when we were supposed to be preparing for our examinations. I had to choose between studying for the exams and completing the assignment and going to the exams unprepared. So I paid for Statistics Homework Help on statisticshomeworkhelper.com. Then, I used the same Statistics Assignment Help expert's services for revising. After my results, I can confirm that working with the expert was a win-win. His assignment results were perfect, and I also scored most of the things he taught me right in the exams.
I need Matlab Homework Help services but can't see the prices. So how do I go about it? It's a Matlab emergency order with 20 questions, and it's due in the next 2 days. The Matlab Assignment Help task is not so complicated, because I'm a first-year student and it's my end-semester exam. Please let me know how to go about the order placement process.
Getting the perfectMatlab homework help solver has always been a challenge because very few Matlab assignments help experts understand all the concepts of Matlab. However, for the time they have been tackling my communications system assignment, they have given me new hope because they may not have one person working on all Matlab topics but they have different tutors in one pool. That is the main reason why I am so comfortable working with them.
Looking for a master’s levelMatlab homework help solver. I am starting my image processing project but I don’t have time for it. I want aMatlab assignment help expert who will work on it from start to finish. Our professors like it worked step by step so that they can check and return comments for corrections. The tutor I want will be receiving the comments, correcting them, and then returning them to the professor. Once they are corrected and given a go-ahead to continue the tutor will then go ahead to the next chapter until the project is completed. Let me know whether they have someone who can do that.
I do accept as true with all the concepts you’ve offered
on your post. They are very convincing and can definitely work.
Nonetheless, the posts are very quick for starters. May just you please lengthen them a bit from next time?
스포츠토토
I was reading some of your content on this website and I conceive this internet site is really informative ! Keep on putting up.
일본야동
Nonetheless I am here now and would just like to say many thanks for a marvelous post and a all round interesting blog . many have been looking for a way out in un bearable marriages . While doing some research , I fell on this HOW TO MAKE A FAKE DIVORCE PAPER ONLINE TO SAFE YOUR LIFE FROM CRAZY PARTNERS Article that changed my life and circle and made me have a new life legally with the help of the octopus tickets for valid divorce papers . Y’all don’t forget to join this TELEGRAM GROUP for more information . I have saved it and also added your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read much more, Please do keep up the fantastic work.
thanks for sharing great blog article.Thanks Again 토토사이트
Very appreciated post. Thank you for sharing this post with us. 경마
It was a great speech, thank you for sharing. 토토
I was browsing the Internet searching for help when I came across a testimony shared by someone on how she was cured from Herpes Disease. I quickly contacted him to get the cure. I bought the herbal medicine from the herbal doctor [Robinson Buckler]. I took the herbal medicine for 2 weeks as instructed and i went for a medical checkup and to my greatest surprise i was cured from Herpes virus. My heart is so filled with joy. If you are suffering from Herpes or any other disease you can contact this herbal doctor today on this Email address_________________[[robinson.buckler@yahoo.com]].....Thank you Doctor🌿🌿🌿🌿
You now have a wardrobe that is both functional and fashionable, making it ideal not only for the ranch but for Best Kevin Costner Yellowstone Jackets any outdoor activity. Yellowstone's best looks and how to get them, from quilted jackets and jeans to a couple of Beth's more funky pieces and even a pair of chaps.
You will never be the same after foster care. Once your eyes are opened to poverty, injustice, and brokenness. Thanks for sharing this article. Now it's time to avail solar energy for more information.
Post a Comment