And Just Like That It Will All Change

I am much more calm on paper. My friends, especially the close ones, can tell you that I tend to me much more intense when you meet me in person. In fact, you will either like me, or strongly dislike me..... fun fact, every single one of my closest friends throughout my life did NOT like me, when we first met.... turns out that the joke was on them, cause they all very much loved me, in time.

 I say this because I really lost it when I received news regarding our 2 foster daughter's case (Sorry Ashley for the "colorful" descriptive words I used when I found out the news). We foster parents can all unanimously agree that visits are the most challenging part of having foster kiddos. No matter how strong of a bond you build, or how safe and constant their lives become.... visits remind everyone that you are not a family. I do not mean this in a cruel or unkind way. But no typical family has to stop, then switch realities. There's flow and rhythm to a home, and a family. It is interrupted constantly with foster care. But with reunification.... the visits get longer and the overnights come.... which all lead to what the goal is always for kids in foster care... that they go back into a safer more capable bio family, situation. BUT, what if that goal cannot be accomplished. What if it's not in the best interest of the child? Then those visits are worst than the pits. And what if there's a new development that interrupts the reunification date? This is where our family and these two girls are.... it's called limbo. I am not fond of limbo. I very much like to what is going to happen next.... especially when it comes to my family.

But my life, my house, my time, my heart, and my mouth..... are not my own. As I follow Jesus, He slowly takes everything, and replaces it with Himself. So there is much uncertainty in a case that was supposed to move out of our care in 3 days. With foster care, everything can change. I do not know what will happen, but I am praying with all my heart, that everyone involved will think of and do what is best for these girls. Sometimes, the cases become about the parents... and the workers involved begin to think they are the heroes in these biological parents stories.... and things drag on longer than they need to.... at the expense of the kid's well being (btw, I have enjoyed dealing with every single one of the 16 kid's social workers).

Every child deserves to know where they belong. They deserve to know, without a shadow of a doubt, who it is that will protect, guide, defend, listen to, and love them. They need to know that there are people who are for them. We all long to find our place, the place we belong ..... children need that, as much as food, from birth. Kids in the system show you how devastating the disruption of meeting that need is..... or worse, they show you the faces of those who never had the need met, since birth. It does something to a child, to not have that. So we wait. Our girls and our family are in God's hands. I wonder what God's up to. Pin It Now!