A simple yes.

When we started the foster process I was filled with many emotions. I can't tell you how many times I replayed the scenario in my head of when we'd get our first little one. Even though I had no picture, or reference, I still thought about it a lot. We would wait for them at the door and welcome them to our home. We'd tell them our names and show them their room. We'd help them unpack their things and show them around. We'd all start to adjust and get used to our new normal. I was excited, anxious, and fearful all at the same time.

I had a LOT of fears when it came to fostering. I had a LOT of what if's. I wrote a blog post on this once before. For those who know me well, you know that I am extremely Type A personality. I love order, structure, and consistency. I like knowing the plan and being in control of the plan. Fostering turned my world upside down because all of the things I love and thrive off of were taken from me. I wanted to write this post for people who have maybe considered doing foster care, but are similar to me and letting fear stand in their way. I want this to be an encouragement to you. To share with you how much God has provided for us in this new journey and how He will do the same for you.

Three of my biggest concerns were family visits, having everything a child would need, and finding respite care for our already planned trips. Most children in foster care get weekly visits with their parents, sometimes more than once a week. I was VERY stressed about how we would make this happen with Chris and I both working full time. I also had fears about the financial burden of setting up our house for a child. We had NOTHING for children and were starting from scratch. Lastly, we knew of two weeks that we'd be gone this summer and it just seemed easier to keep putting our start date off. Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of other little fears and what if's swirling around in my head, but these three haunted me.

All that to say, God has stomped on ALL of my fears and what if's. He has blessed us beyond measure and provided in ways that can only be explained by His goodness.

1. I was stressed about visits and we found out that she would only have one monthly visit. This took off a lot of added stress for us. ((Don't get me wrong, if she is allowed more time with her mom, we will gladly find the time to make it happen.))

2. I was stressed about getting everything she would need for day to day life. Before little miss even came to us, our friends threw us a gift card shower, which was a huge blessing. We were able to prepare a whole bedroom for her to come to, full of toys and games. Several co-workers, friends, and church members have gone out of their way to buy her clothes, shoes, and toys. People have mailed us things as well. We literally have not bought her any clothes and her closet is overflowing. She came with one pair of shoes that fit her and she now has a closet full of choices. People in our life have seen a need and met it. It is humbling and so overwhelming.

3. I was stressed about all that our life holds. We are busy people. We had already planned an anniversary trip for the summer, plus we had CIY for our youth kids. For both of these trips I knew kids would not be allowed to come. Having these fears made it easy for me to keep pushing off our start date. When little miss came, I started to pray that respite would fall into place. It broke my heart to think about putting her in a stranger's home and telling her we'd be back in a week. I just couldn't bring myself to it. I had thoughts of canceling our vacation and doing it another time. Just this week, God, yet again provided in a BIG way. Our friends, who are currently in the process of becoming foster parents themselves, are going to be able to watch her while we are gone. They are literally finishing the trainings they need TWO, yes TWO days before we leave. Little miss knows them, is familiar with their house, and loves playing with their girls. My heart has been so overwhelmed with joy and peace since we've found out that they can watch her.

Lastly, I know that for many a fear is having a good support group. This one can be hard because you don't get to choose how your friends and family will respond to your decision. I wouldn't say that this was a fear for me, as we had a lot of support from the get-go. However, I did worry that our social life would die once we had a child in our home. I feared that our friends wouldn't want to hangout. This is probably the fear that has not only been stomped on, but has brought me the most joy. I have learned that it most definitely takes a village and our is the best. I'm not kidding when I say that I will think about the ways our friends and family have blessed us over this past month and just cry tears of joy. We've had friends call us and ask to come take little miss out so we could have alone time. We've had friends come to the house and hangout with her so that we could go out on a date. I've had a friend sitting on my bed, while I ugly cry, and just encourage me and pray over me. We have people who are constantly checking in to see how the three of us are doing. I've made late night calls to people who always answer, and listen, and provide wisdom and suggestions. It's been amazing to watch our friends and family connect with little miss. They are doing what they do because they care and they see the mission, but also because they already care deeply for her. It's amazing getting to see the connections she is making with so many people that are dear to our hearts. She is impacting the lives of so many.


With all of the fears I've talked about, whether big or little, I could have easily let them get in the way. I could have let my thoughts take me captive and never moved forward with becoming a foster parent, but in all of this, I have learned one simple thing. All we need to be is obedient. All we need to do is say "yes," and God will do the rest.

{{If you're reading this and you've sent well wishes, messages of encouragement, texts to check in on us, you've asked how we are doing in person, you bought clothes/toys/shoes/etc. THANK YOU. We could not do what we are doing without the support and love from all of you.}}

Day by Day

Today, as I was scrolling though Facebook, I realized that May is National Foster Care Awareness month. I've thought about writing a blog post several times, but haven't actually made the time to sit down and type out all my thoughts. Reading through the different foster care pages I follow, I decided that this month is a great time to share. 

I've posted a few thought on Facebook, but I don't even know if what I've experienced over the past month can even been put into adequate words.

First, I'm amazed at how quickly we've been able to make a connection with little miss. She has adjusted so well to us and really seems to be enjoying herself. She has let her sassy personality shine. She loves to make jokes, cuddle, and just spend quality time together.  She's confident, super intelligent, and isn't afraid to call us out. Just today at dinner she said, "You two just talk and talk and talk." In the moments you want to be mad, you know she's right. I thank God for blessing Chris and me with such a sweet little girl. She has turned our life upside down, but man, is she worth it. 

Things have really started to get into a routine for us. Somedays, I forget all the sticky circumstances we live under. I forget that she's five and has a thousand thoughts in her mind about what the rest of her life holds. When she opens up to us and shares the things she experienced in her life, it takes everything in me to not just cry with her. I remain strong and encourage her and then go to my room and have a moment. 

Life just isn't fair. There is so much hurt and brokenness. I look into her sweet eyes everyday and am just amazed at the little girl that she is. I'm thankful to her family for nurturing her and caring for her. I'm thankful that they realized they couldn't provide the adequate care that she needed and decided to seek outside help. On the days when it kills me that she doesn't get to see her family or talk to her family, I'm reminded that right now, this is what's best for her. I've learned in the past month that it doesn't take long to become a momma bear. Chris and I have learned that we are her biggest advocates and that if we don't speak up for her, who will? We've been "those people" the last month with teachers, doctors, CPS workers, you name it. I'm totally fine to be thought of as annoying and persistent if it means that little miss gets what she needs. 

Foster care is a broken system, no doubt about it, but it is one of the most beautiful and transformational things I've ever experienced. 

((I plan to write several other posts this month, ranging in all things foster care. If you've ever had thoughts or interests in fostering, please read my next posts. I hope it will encourage you and push you along on your journey. There is such a need for foster families. There is such a need for people to be a voice for the kids who unfortunately don't get one.))

Why Fostering?

As most of you know, Chris and I have started the process of becoming foster/adoptive parents. Many people have showed support with kind words and prayers. We are so appreciative of all the love shown. In many conversations, people have asked us why we decided to pursue this journey. My hope is to share our answer through this post.

Ever since I was a young girl, I had a strong desire to take care of children without parents. I knew from a young age that fostering/adoption would be in my future. I don’t believe that having biological children is wrong in any way. I think pregnancy is a beautiful gift from God. I do however, struggle with adoption typically being viewed as something only for people who struggle with infertility, or who have a "special call" from God. When we read scripture, everyone of us has a call to take care of orphans.

From the time Chris and I got married, we talked a lot about adoption and the possibility of fostering. We were pretty broke our first year of marriage and the thought of taking care of and providing for a child was totally out of our mindset. I loved the idea of fostering, but a one bedroom apartment wasn’t really going to cut it. I also struggled with a lot of “what if’s.” 

• What if my heart can’t handle it? 
• What if it’s too hard on our relationship? 
• How much sacrifice is this going to be on our marriage? 
• How different is our schedule going to look?

I struggled with these thoughts and fears for a while. Once I started to pray through them, I realized that they were all self-focused. The thing about fostering is that it isn’t about us. It is about children who are in despite need of someone to love on them, provide shelter, food, and healthy connections. Chris and I truly believe in our inner core that God calls everyone who is a believer to “care for the orphans.” You can find several scriptures throughout the Bible that show how much God cares for the fatherless. He calls us to care for them as well. Not to pity them, or feel sorry for them, but to actually care for them.

Once Chris and I viewed this as an obedient act to God, it became a lot less about us. It was really simple, actually. We now have a house, with extra bedrooms, a fridge full of food, and a lot of love to share. It simply became a question of why wouldn't we open our house to these children? God has blessed us with the resources we have and we simply want to bless others with them as well. Whether that is for one week, two months, or forever. We believe that by doing this we are following a command that Christ has given us.

Will there be hard days? Of course.

Will there be frustrations and tears? Of course.

Will it be hard to let go of a child you’ve loved on and not be sure of what their future hold? Definitely.

 

Not all things that Christ call us to are easy, but we know that it will be worth it. We hope that the kids that come through our house can experience a love that they haven’t known before. That they feel safe and can build a routine that helps them cope with the trauma they will inevitably be facing. If having them in our family helps even just one of them in their path of life, it’s all worth it.

Making Me New

Last night I was listening to the radio on my way home from youth group. The sound Lift My Life Up came on by Unspoken. Maybe you've heard it, maybe not. As I was listening to the lyrics I realized how much this song reflects my life right now. If you haven't heard the song you can listen to it here: Lift My Life Up.

The song starts by saying:

You brought me this far

So why would I question you now

You have provided

So why would I start to doubt

I've never been stranded

Abandoned or left here to fight alone

So I'm giving you control




I lift my heart, lift my heart up


You can have it forever

All my dreams, all my plans
Lord

I leave it in your hands


I lift my life, lift my life up


Have your way in me
Have your way in me


If peace is a river


Then let it sweep over me


I'm under fire
I know it's refining me

When I hear you calling out


I follow now wherever the road may go

I know you're leading me home

In an earlier post I wrote about starting a new job. I wrote about how I had this perfect plan lined out to teach in a classroom and to finish my Master's Degree in Literacy. Then God took me a whole different direction. A direction I never would have pursued on my own. As I've started this new chapter in my life, I feel it now more than ever that I need God in every area of my life. I need Him in my marriage, in my friendships, in my job, and in our youth group. Without God being at the center of everything I do, I am worthless. There are so many days I wake up and get to work and think I am so unqualified for this job, yet God continues to give me peace and wisdom. There are days where I don't want to love to those around me, and God reminds me to walk alongside of them and love them. I am realizing the beauty of simply walking with people where they are. There are days when I don't want to serve Chris and I want to be selfish, yet God reminds me that I am serving Him through serving Chris. I know that God is stretching me and continuing to mold me into the person He wants me to be. This song is my prayer. That I would honestly lift everything in my life up to God, that He would have His way in me.  I know that He is making me new and it is such a beautiful experience. 

The Blessing of Family...

The dictionary definition of family is "a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household." If you were an education major, you would have taken a whole class on how family dynamics have changed over the years. I believe a better definition for family is a group of people who love one another and take care of each others needs. A family is supporting, encouraging, and above all, a place to feel safe. According to my definition, a family may not necessarily be parents and their children. It could be friends, other relatives, or even church members.

I learned this most recently when I went away to school. I was far away from my family, but I soon met others who would join my family. It's almost funny how some of my friends and mentors seemed more like family than some of my own relatives. I formed deep, real, raw relationship with people who to this day mean the world to me. They have poured into me and have helped shape me into the person who I am today and I can not thank them enough. They will always be family to me.

I write this today because lately I have felt overwhelmingly blessed by my family. My family from school, which I am still in contact with, but also my family at home. I'm not only blessed to have my entire family (extended) in St. Louis, but also Chris' parents. I am very thankful for the healthy relationship we are able to have with both of our families. I cannot describe to you how supportive and encouraging our families have been - throughout our whole lives, but especially in this new season for Chris and I. I gained a great deal of respect for both my parents and Chris' during the wedding planning. We had heard many horror stories about families fighting and disagreeing about wedding plans. Both of our parents were there to help and assist but they allowed us to make all of our own decisions without judgement. That may seem small, but it is a HUGE blessing. Planning a wedding is stressful enough, but having the pressure of pleasing other people while doing it is just not needed.

Our families are not only supportive in the big things, but the small things as well. They are constantly checking in on us, praying for us, and inviting us over. We had a church event last night and my cousin brought his kids out for it - which was awesome! Chris is getting ordained this Sunday and both of our families are coming and then going to dinner to celebrate. Both of our families helped us move in to our new apartment and did everything they could to help! These are just a few examples.

I don't write all of this to brag about our families. I have just come to realize what a HUGE blessing it is to have two families who are so encouraging and supportive that I had to share. It is a very rare treasure and I thank God for giving us the families that He did.

Summer Adventures

When I originally started this blog, I intended to use it for more of an artsy release type of thing, but now that I am out of college and living far away from my dearest friends I decided I want to actually start writing about my everyday life so they can keep up in a simple way. Sometimes there is just too much to share over one Skype call.

Today at work, I was writing the date down and I was shocked that we are already halfway through August. I seriously don’t know where the time has gone.  We’ve been extremely busy and a lot of people have wanted an update on what’s happening in our world. So here is a breakdown for those of you who want to know!

Honeymoon – Directly after our wedding (which was everything we dreamed it would be – thank you to everyone who came and made it so incredibly special) we went on a week long vacation to Jamaica. The island was absolutely breath taking, the food was amazing, and I loved getting to hang-out with my husband for a week straight with no distractions! We made a deal to go back to the same resort for one of our anniversaries, but we didn’t decide on any specific one!

Trips – Pretty much right after we got back from our honeymoon we left for 16 days with our youth group. We spent the first week at the Christ In Youth (CIY) Conference in Tennessee. We had a blast getting to know our sponsors and students better. Directly following that week, we left for Chicago for 9 days where we got to work with an organization that works with refugee families. We got to experience many different cultures, religions, people groups, and foods. It was an amazing trip and a great learning experience for everyone. Although both of the trips were awesome, we were excited to return home and get into a normal routine.

Our Home – Two days after returning home from our trips, we moved into our new home. We absolutely LOVE it here. We finally have everything unpacked and decorated how we want it. We bought paint the other day and we are planning on sprucing it up a little. All white walls are a little blahhh. I’ve really enjoyed getting to cook and bake for Chris. All of my meals have turned out well, except one. I over-slept from a nap and burnt our pulled pork in the crockpot L … the awesome thing about my husband is that he will eat it anyways! –That’s when you know you’ve found a keeper because I didn’t even eat it! One of the cookbooks I’ve been making things out of is called – Cooking with Flavor. It is simply amazing. Knowing how to use spices makes your meal go from bland to grand!! I would highly recommend this book!!

The Church – Chris has now been the full time Youth Pastor at FCCF for almost 3 months and he loves it. We could not ask for a better church. The staff is amazing, the members are amazing, and our students are amazing. It’s hard to describe, but we both feel such a strong sense of unity within the church and we could not be happier to be there. I am currently teaching a 7^th grade Sunday School class (they’re crazy, but I love their high energy – most days) J and we are planning on going to a young adult/married couples small group starting up in September, so a lot of really fun stuff is happening.

Work – I recently started training for my new job as an ABA Therapist. So far I am really enjoying it and only working with two clients. I’m looking forward to the next few weeks and having a more normal schedule, but other than that I am just jumping in. It is definitely a fun experience, but it also has its challenges! I am really thanking the Lord for bringing me down this path, as well as Chris for supporting me 100% in taking a step of faith. 

Two exciting things this month: 1. We get our wedding pictures TODAY!! 2. Chris is getting ordained this month! (So extremely proud of him!)

So that is kind of our life in a nutshell as of now. We are staying really busy between work, church, family, birthdays and friends. It’s nice when we just have a night to relax and cuddle up on the couch. We have a lot of fun things coming up in the next few months and we’re really looking forward to celebrating them together!!! 

The Next Chapter...

As many of you know, I graduated from Missouri State University on May 17 with my Bachelor of Science in Education. Let me just say, it is an awesome feeling to be done with school. My plan was to enjoy my summer – get married, help out at the youth events, hangout with friends, you know, the usual – and then I would get a teaching job and start my first year of teaching in August and eventually finish my Master’s Degree in Literacy. That was the plan and I was set that it would happen.

As the weeks passed, I wasn’t hearing from any schools. I eventually got one interview, but they ended up going with people who had more experience. Surprisingly, I wasn’t really upset because I had been praying A LOT about getting a job.  I got to a point where I felt very content with whatever happened and I had peace knowing fully that God would provide when the time was right.

Weeks went by and nothing new came my way. I began praying that God would show me if I was supposed to be doing something else. I had no clue what I would even want to do, except teach in a school. After a few weeks of prayer, I really started to feel a pull towards working with kids with Autism. I had been babysitting two families who have autistic children for two years and had really fallen in love with the kiddos and working with them. One of the families happened to be looking for a new behavioral therapist. I kind of pushed it aside, but it kept coming back up in my mind. Many things happened within the next month that I believe were clear signs that I should pursue my passion for working with kids with Autism.

So, with all of that being said, I am happy to say that I will be taking a job as an Applied Behavioral Specialist. I am so excited for this new learning experience in my life. I have to admit, it is a huge step of faith to start a career that I was not planning. I have committed to the families and if I were to get a call about a classroom job, I would have to turn it down and that was hard for me to swallow at first, but I am trusting that this is the path God has for me right now and I am so excited. I am excited to get to know my kiddos better and to help them become the best that they can be. I am also excited to have a more flexible job schedule so I can focus on making my marriage Christ-centered and being able to help support Chris in the youth ministry.