healing

This weekend many people said to me "Oh, I am so sorry to hear about the kiddos. I will pray that something will change and that they will get to stay with you."  As sweet as the statement sounds and I am sure kindness that was behind the words, it's a hard statement for me to swallow.  Don't get me wrong, we LOVE the kids and would be their forever home in a heartbeat, but if that happens it meant another family failed.   It means a mom who has been working hard to make changes messed up again, it means that we are rooting against her.  (And for those of you who have asked if mom does make a mistake or chooses not to stay well we will be the first to be called).

In my six plus years of working in the social work field and mostly with CPS families in some fashion I know this is not what always happens.  There are parents who choose to not get well and families fall apart.   I hope that as Buck and I continue in our journey as foster parents we will always be rooting for the parents and that we will remember that we serve a big God who does big things!  Then if the day comes that a parent chooses not to change then we will mourn the loss of the birth family for the child(ren) and hope to give them or someone will them a forever family.

Today this is easy to say.  There are tough days when I just want to keep kids and even more babies.  I find myself early on rooting against their mom too.  So I understand.

I ask you to pray for the family unit, (for mom, her husband, all the boys and the sweet baby girl) for mom to keep making changes and to stay well, to pray that Buck and I will be able to keep in contact with them and that our hearts will mend so we can do this again.  And to also be patient with us, it's all so new and the emotions are much bigger than we thought.  

tomorrow

So no matter how much we prepare ourselves for this transition and know that God's hand is in it all, it's still hard.

Visits for our little ones (by themsleves without the other boys) and their mom start tomorrow.  If all goes well they will do a few more then an overnight visit.  The most current word we have gotten is they will be transitioned home by Spring Break.

All of a sudden I have a sense of ergency.  There is so much more I want to do with them, so much more I want to teach them, and so many more times I want to tell them that we love them.