A couple of months ago a judge took away your biological mother’s rights and you had your last visit with her, said goodbye to her. I cried for you and cried for your mom and cried for the loss all around, but then dried my tears and assumed life would go on as usual. It hasn’t.
We talked about war and poverty and injustice in the way you do with a seven year old, shoving big ideas into small words, dancing with light steps around heavy ideas. Then I addressed what it all means to her.
You get a cute shirt and needy, deserving girls in Uganda get an education. Buying one of these beauties is a classic win-win.
As much as any future foster parent may wish this process away to just get on with the foster caring, maybe it’s the perfect intro course into foster care...maybe the sacrifice is meant to remind us of why we got into foster care in the first place.
Her father hadn’t shown up, but she had her daddy, going to great lengths, working to adopt her and become her forever father. And she had her God, who already “finished” the great work, making the way to adopt her and become her Forever Father.
Tears streamed down my face and filled her little eyes. I was aware of yet another “small” blessing we had that so many others didn’t. I was aware of the times I’d thought my girl “needed” a new pair of shoes...But Sole Hope did more than just change my view of children’s footwear. Let me begin with all the onion-y layers of why I love Sole Hope (as in, the tears increase the deeper you get)
Second, these “companies” are just foster mamas, each with a gift and a heart of gold. There is just something so exciting to me about a mom on a mission, using the overflow of her mama’s heart and the spare minutes of her day to love others. There’s also something so exciting about any person who uses their creative talents to bring attention to others in need.
In the global community of 2016, maybe the definition of “neighbor” has grown past our own local communities...So, NEIGHBOR, I want to make you aware of a need so that you, too, can consider if it's one of the ways you're meant to be involved in orphan care...my friends are having a fundraiser, selling super cool shirts to help fund the massive expensive of giving this little one a family.
Maybe you could learn something from my four year old. Maybe you didn’t know that 1 in 9 people don’t have access to clean water...Thankfully there is something we can do to help the real-life-people behind these statistics. Thankfully there are companies like MudLOVE that make it really easy to do.
If you read these numbers anything like the way I typed them, you just glossed over all the zeros and saw the precise number of “it’s a really big problem.” These kinds of numbers are just too much to even process...A few minutes of fifth grade calculations and the numbers are quite easily reconciled.
Trafficking is a huge topic these days. There are few issues that devastate and anger us - especially us women, us mothers - like sex trafficking. But I believe there are few issues that seem as inaccessible to us being able to affect change within as trafficking either. When I hear the stories of girls and women trapped in sex slavery, I shudder and weep and then move on with my little life. Because what else can a middle-class mom from New Jersey do?
Each week in July, I’ll be introducing you to an amazing organization that’s doing amazing things and selling amazing products. Each organization is working to raise money for or actually hands-on caring for orphans, the poor, and the oppressed. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to tell you about them and let you know how you can follow/support/pray for them, and I’m just as excited to be able to GIVE YOU SOME OF THEIR BEAUTIFUL PRODUCTS!
Last time we talked, Britt and Andy shared their hearts about becoming foster parents (in pure blog gold). Now that they’ve ventured into getting licensed, they can share about the actual process of becoming foster parents. In the past month, Britt and Andy have had a number of meetings to begin the process:
Every foster child will be placed in a “bed” somewhere. There are beds in child protection offices (even when there shouldn’t be). There are beds in group homes and shelters. There are beds in “those” foster houses - the ones you read about, the ones you don’t even want to think about. And then there are beds in a foster home. In a home where a bed comes attached with parents, with a family, with love.
I’m grateful he keeps saying yes to something that makes him uncomfortable, because He loves God and others more than he loves his own comfort. I’m grateful he’s opened his heart and home to all of the children who’ve come in and out. I’m grateful that he’s followed The Father’s example and become a father to the fatherless.
In three weeks a judge will take away her legal rights as this little girl’s mother. In a year, our daughter’s birth certificate will show my name as her only mother. This woman was first stripped of her relationship as mother, will soon be stripped of her rights as mother, but nothing can take her biology as mother.
I discovered that as I began to really share my heart, God began to really change my heart. Instead of regurgitating rehearsed words, my prayers became declarations of the beautiful truths of God’s character. And I started to believe them. Instead of being so-afraid-of-asking-for-the-wrong-thing-that-I-ultimately-asked-for-nothing, my prayers became times of just telling my God what it was I really wanted. And I started to want what He wanted even more. Instead of carefully crafting my words, my prayers became a child’s begging. And I started to trust Him as my Father.
In a very real sense, all of the children in my home are “mine.” In another—maybe even more real sense—none of them are mine.
