It is Well

This week we celebrate the two month mark of fostering our little girls. I still do not have a neat, tidy answer for how it is going--and am beginning to accept I may never have one. I am truly in love with these girls, but tired mentally, physically & emotionally--but probably not much more than any other Mom of five in the Summer :-)

When the shine wears off and the hospitality phase begins to fade, real family life is what remains.

This means structure. 

Boring rainy afternoons.

Inside jokes. 

Nagging about things like unmade beds, shoes strewn about & table manners.
Squabbles over who sits where in the car and which child gets to use the ipad/bring in the mail/sit next to me at the table.
Disciplinary eyeball to eyeball talks in the aisles of the grocery store.

The house is noisier & messier. There are more kids to hug, increased laundry and more sibling rivalry. My family room floor now has errant Barbie shoes and little flip flops mixed in with the wii remotes and Beyblades.

Really normal family stuff.

Taken before our date night a couple of weeks ago...an accurate representation of our new level of crazy :)

After a bumpy couple of weeks of reintegrating my big kids after their time away at camp, we are finding a new rhythm. Now there is bonding...the kind that extends beyond a long term house guest and into something deeper.

One calls us Mom & Dad. The other one does so sporadically but with increased regularity. When it happens in public places, I try to avoid the faces of adults who know us. Some tear up. Some wince. Some look shocked. Others just roll with it as if it were one of my bio kids. Depending on the moment, my heart matches each of those facial expressions.

Thinking about the end of this chapter together is the scariest part of being a foster parent. When will they leave? Where will they go? How much is that going to hurt?

Fear over this chapter is the reason so many people give for not fostering. I get it. I am not a heartless machine. I am not impervious to this fear. I just believe the risk of heartbreak for our family is worth providing for the needs of these children. People invite pets into their lives knowing they will bid them goodbye. The love and bonding and shared life in between carries the certainty of heartbreak, but they decide it is worth it.
 
Bonding is not to be feared-- for kids from broken, difficult and tumultuous, backgrounds, healthy relationships are, in fact, the point.

I am writing all this because in the last 24 hours, I have started to feel some overwhelm over the reality that these children who I feed, clothe, pray for, rock, hold & kiss goodnight, will ultimately leave. I am beginning to get flashes and pangs that foreshadow the emptiness they will leave behind in our home...and I am fighting to push it away.

The end date and circumstances remain unclear. And as a person who begins with the end in mind so often in life, I have learned I simply cannot operate this way with fostering. I must simply live and love TODAY--what do these little heart need NOW-- and let God worry about the rest. 

This means wrapping them up in my arms and showering them in kisses because they are little girls who long to be loved and accepted. It also means as I become more confident they understand the house 'rules,' I must consistently enforce them. I am not just "fostering," I am mother-ing. 

The initial phase of loving, welcoming, bonding and letting things go was more fun...but I am aware that if these girls are going to break the cycle that led them here they need Jesus and a lesson in consequences. So there is a lot more time on my knees at their eye level--reinforcing rules, explaining expectations, and emphasizing both my love for them and my desire to keep them safe. 

This phase of parenting was difficult when my bio kids were younger predominantly because of the pride & fear I had tied up in the outcomes. Of course I wanted to keep K,P & R safe--but I also wanted to be a "good mother." Mindful that (God willing) we are given almost 2 decades with them before they graduate and move on to more independent living I could pace myself.

With the girls I know I won't be the one to complete this process with them. I don't have the privilege of years to build and grow. We pick up pieces of the first 7-8 years of their lives, start from there, invest without knowing how long we have, whether we will ever see any fruit and/or to whom we will pass the baton of stewarding and loving these hearts. It may be weeks or months...but we just don't know. (Serious character work for a person like me!)

As a result, there are a lot of things I must let go in order to emphasize the most important things--life skills that will serve them well wherever they wind up...respectfulness, honesty, safety, education, nutrition. Giggles, adventures, bedtime routines and normal childhood activities sprinkled on top. 

There is no checklist or magic wand. It is just day-by-day seeking wisdom, patience and love from God to pass back into all five of the little hearts in this home...and seeking to stay united in mission with the big one to whom I said "I do."

I am trying to keep my heart marching to this simple beat:
Love.
Trust.
Repeat.

None of us know what tomorrow brings. We must simply do what God has put before us today.

My new favorite song to sing at church is from Bethel Music and has this refrain:

"Far be it from me to not believe
Even when my eyes can't see
And this mountain that's in front of me
Will be thrown into the midst of the sea
Through it all, through it all
My eyes are on You
Through it all, through it all
It is well
So let go my soul and trust in Him
The waves and wind still know His name
It is well with my soul."

May it be so...

Primary Roles

I recently read a tribute from a woman I respect on the occasion of her 25th wedding anniversary. She was honest in her portrayal of a lengthy marriage as a series of twists and turns taken together. What struck me the most, however, was a brief remark she made apologizing to her husband that she had frequently been a better mother than wife.

I was struck with conviction at her statement. The same is true of me. I quite often feel like I am still just a teen-aged girl playing house. Who plopped me down here and entrusted me with all the responsibility of a home, three kids, a growing menagerie of pets? Seriously, when did I become such a grown up?

In the face of all the responsibility, most women realize we cannot be all things to all people. There is simply not enough to go around to all the roles in our life: wife, mother, daughter, friend, employee, volunteer, sister. In order to survive with some degree of sanity, we make choices. Who will we give our best? Who gets our leftovers?

In my case, I have a husband that works long hours. By the time he gets home, I have generally already put 13-14 hours into Mommy-ing and managing our home. By 8pm I just want to be 'off.' I want to kick up my feet and think only about myself for a bit. That's normal and defensible, right?

It is easy for me to forget that he has put 13-14 hours into caring for other people all day long too. I think homemakers can sometimes allow ourselves to believe that when our spouses leave the house they are on vacation--but they are working hard for the family too. As a team we should remember that we both work hard in different places with different types of stresses and challenges with (hopefully)the SAME goals in mind.

Part of being a 'helpmate' means being the place of peace and rest that the other comes home to at the end of the day. It means being safe and kind. It means listening. It means attending to one another's emotional and physical needs--even when you are tired and don't want to. Some nights this means sitting on the sofa side by side in the romantic glow of laptops because quiet space to be productive is a mutual need. Other nights it means losing ourselves in a movie, laughing together. Still other times is means turning off the tv, closing the laptops, shutting down the ipad, not returning those social calls and texts and giving each other full attention. This requires intentionality in my house. It is a decision.

It is easy to understand how children edge out spouses. They are minors. They are completely dependent on us for food, shelter, clothing. Many times they are more demanding. They don't feel the guilt of being 'needy' like adults often do. Adults in our lives can surely fend for themselves, right? Sometimes, yes...but may we not forget that we made vows to one another. It is a covenant we stand under to be on the same team--sensitive and in sync.

Intentionally.

The good news is that this investment generally pays for itself many times over. Even when life is stressful and exhausting, I find peace in just being reminded that I am a part of a team. I am not alone. I am loved. And, honestly, being needed and wanted is not a bad thing.

No neat bow on this one...just rambling thoughts I am trying to remind myself. It looks different in every household and every relationship, but I prayed that God would specifically show me a couple of things I could do to show my husband that he wasn't an after-thought. Then I told him, so I would have the added accountability of committing to it verbally. Do you know what made him feel the most loved? Not anything I 'did' but just the initiative that I was thinking about it.

We can't do it all or be it all. We can't. But we can pray daily that God will help us sift through all the fluff and the noise to find what really matters and give those things everything we've got.