Life gets a little crazy with 5 kids. Adjusting to having a girl in our house has been hard. It feels a little like we lost something and there are times I miss the freedom of just being the "guys". But in reality I know we have gained much more.
We were discussing our journeys and where life has taken each of us on our way to church one evening. J said, "Mom, didn't you want to be a missionary? Why didn't you go to be a missionary?" So I told him how God had shifted our path. Sometimes we plan something thinking it is what we are supposed to do and then God shows us He has a different plan. AJ (9-year old foster daughter) chimed in, "If you had been living in another country would you have been able to have us come live with you?" No, we would not have been able to without returning to the United States and finding a home and work to support us. AJ continued her thought, "I think God knew He wanted me and Ja to come live with you before we even knew we were going to. God knew we would need a place to live and so he made you and Uncle S be able to have us come live with you!"
Listening to her piece together a small part of God's sovereignty in her life was so exciting. Since coming to our home she has grown in her understanding of God. She is a sponge and soaks in the Word she hears. It is exciting and terrifying at the same time. Lord, help me to be the witness she needs me to be...
Life is not full of peaches and cream. We have sour moments. We have faced a sense of loss of identity. Our home is no longer the same. We have yet to fully bond with the newest members of our home but we are forging ahead and building binds that we hope will be sufficient.
Hearing Ja cry out in the night does not fill me with the same sense of urgency that fills my mind when my own child cries out through my deepest of sleep. Instead it may take me a moment to realize he is crying for me. The bonds forged in infancy are so strong. I feel love and compassion for Ja but I still know it isn't quite the same. All we can do is our best. We can be there and we can care and we can continue to build the bonds that will unite us.
Life is not full of peaches and cream. We have sour moments. We have faced a sense of loss of identity. Our home is no longer the same. We have yet to fully bond with the newest members of our home but we are forging ahead and building binds that we hope will be sufficient.
Hearing Ja cry out in the night does not fill me with the same sense of urgency that fills my mind when my own child cries out through my deepest of sleep. Instead it may take me a moment to realize he is crying for me. The bonds forged in infancy are so strong. I feel love and compassion for Ja but I still know it isn't quite the same. All we can do is our best. We can be there and we can care and we can continue to build the bonds that will unite us.
It is even harder with AJ. We build and build but she has been there and done that. She has her loyalties and she has her past. She is excited for the future but she is also afraid. We have no clue what she has seen. We don't know what she has been through. Sometimes it feels we are on two parallel planes slightly missing one another but never fully understanding each other.
So for now we are going and moving and pushing forward in an unknown realm. New rules, new adjustments. We are strangers in the world of caseworkers, lawyers, and foster system. Our case is more complicated with the inter-state aspect. We feel like fish in a puddle at the mercy of a greater hand. My mother reminded me of something important: When you have done all you can do, all you can do it rest in the Father and the promise that He will complete what he has started. So I don't have to put myself in the hands of caseworkers and "the system". I will put myself in the hands of God who loves these kids more than I ever could and who will work His will out according to His purpose.
