When It's Hard to Be Thankful

There's been a common theme around me this November: life has been hard. For just about every farmer fall harvest has been hard. For so many of my friends health problems have been hard. Work, relationships, so many things have been hard for so many.
And we're just entering into the hardest season in Minnesota where it's dark more than it's light and the cold isolates us and chills our bones.
Foster care has been such a blessing to our family. And lately, it has been very hard. The two sweeties we raised the last nine months transitioned home in October. Our Tiny who is now a growing two year old returned to our home in September after a difficult 11 months. The transitions of all three brings so many emotions. So much joy, so much sorrow, so much worry. The hard is in the emotions and in the day to day keeping up with everyone, communicating with social workers and birth families all while trying to provide some elements of normalcy and stability for our kids. The hard is days that end in defiant tantrums that have nothing to do with going to bed and everything to do with feeling unloved by a birth-mom, trauma memories or missing a sibling. The hard is watching my children struggle at school because of things that happened to them as infants. The hard is hearing people talk about children like they are an object to be given as a reward for good behavior or a legal piece of property with no emotions.  The hardest is that I can't fix any of it. As much as I try and think I can control it, I really can't. Little things, I can make small tiny improvements maybe. But I alone cannot fix these things that are bigger than little me.

I set these pumpkins out in early November, usually a good time to decorate with pumpkins, but this year, snow and freezing temps came early. I'm not a big fan of people skipping over thanksgiving and jumping right into Christmas, but I couldn't help thinking as I looked as these pumpkins surrounded by snow, as snow came down in blizzard fashion like it was the middle of January, that it is hard to be in thanksgiving spirit when it looks like Christmas already.


It's hard to be thankful when the snow is falling, and it's hard to be thankful when life seems so hard.
But I also decided that giving thanks when it doesn't come easy, is the best thanks of all. It's easy when life is good to list off our blessings. But when life is hard, we have to be intentional about being thankful, it might not come naturally. But if we can be intentional, we might find our blessings multiply. "Thank you for good health" becomes "thank you for caregivers, hospitals, medicine, a rare good nights sleep, a remembered note from a friend, a warm bath, a deep breath." "Thank you for a good harvest" is instead "thank you for safety, time with family, help from a neighbor, solidarity with another who is struggling, reliance on God." "Thank you for answered prayer" is instead "thank you for friends who listened and prayed yet again, for showing us we could in fact make it one more day, for strength, for courage, for all the growth hidden in hardship."  When giving thanks gets harder, it also seems there is more to be thankful for.


I can't change the weather, and I can't fix so many of the hard situations that have collided into my life. And I realize now I'm most thankful that I can't. I'm thankful He is God, and I am not. I'm thankful it's not up to me to decide the weather and I'm thankful it's not up to me to fix any of those things because I have no idea how or where to start. I am thankful I don't have to keep carrying it all, keep trying to fix it all, keep worrying about it all. I am thankful I can simply entrust it to God, do all I can and know He will do what's best.


It is hard, sometimes, often. It's not a short sprint but a marathon-type of hard and we seem to have just gotten started. A lot of days, I am not thankful. I complain. I look for a way out. The end seems a very long way away. Those days are really hard. But some days, even though its hard to be, I am thankful. I look for things to be thankful for, and I find more than I realized I had. Being thankful twists and spins hard situations into reasons for praise. Being thankful reminds me I am not God. Being thankful reminds me I am not in control. And wow am I thankful for all of those things because they bring me peace!


I know it's been a hard year for a lot of us. Praying for you this week and this next year, that when it's hard to be thankful, you can still be thankful and find that you are more blessed than ever.  

I Keep Breaking Back In

Sending cattle to pasture is one of my favorite farm activities. Not only is it great to just get them out of the yard along with their smells, flies and poop, its great to see them take off into the green grass, munching as much as they possibly can at first and then settling into a constant eating/sleeping rhythm. The calves run around and play and they all just enjoys the space, the clean place to lay and of course the delicious grass green grass.

This year, we had two calves who just couldn't make it into the pasture. Usually, calves follow their mama's anywhere, so we don't have to worry if they can get out of the fence because they won't go far from their moms. But for whatever reason, these two calves left the pasture and wouldn't go back in. One was trying, he could see his mom on the other side of the fence, but he could not figure out how to get back in. (FYI It's almost always, just the way you got out) But he just kept trying to go the most direct/quickest way, and that way was blocked. We finally, after MULTIPLE attempts, chased him away from where he wanted to go through the fence to the open gate where he could get in. And then, when he still wouldn't go through the open gate, his nervous mom ended up coming to get him and we finally were able to chase them both back inside the fence.

But THIS guy(can you find him in the shadows?)...WOULD NOT LEAVE THE PEN. I have NEVER had to chase a calf OUT of the pen. We'd open the gate wide and he'd just sit there. We'd chase him all around and he'd do whatever he could not to go through that open gate. When we finally got him through the open gate, instead of running toward the pasture, he'd dart the opposite way, run all the way around the outside of the pen, and duck back INTO the pen through the feed bunk. I have NEVER seen a calf break back into the pen. About ten times we repeated this cycle, we'd chase him out, he'd break back in. Finally we gave up, left the gate open and hoped he'd eventually get hungry or miss his mom and go looking for her. But there he sat. For hours. All day.


This pen had been his home his whole life of 2 months. This was his security, this was all he knew. Stinky and cold and damp but it was home. Outside the pen was green grass, and warm sunshine, and a warm breeze where he could nap under the shade of a tree. But he was too scared of what he didn't know. So there he sat. In his own poop. Because it was familiar.
This must be what God feels like, I thought so many times that day as I was trying to convince this stubborn calf there was something better than the pen he was clinging to so stubbornly. Paradise is waiting but we'd rather sit in our own filth. We tend to hold on, to our anger, our unforgiveness, our hurt, our bitterness, our sin. Jesus went first and flung the gate open for us on his way out to the pasture, but so often there we still sit. Too afraid to leave, too comfortable? And then, after a good long wait, he tries to chase us out. Because he loves us, and gosh there is paradise just beyond the gate, where the sun will always be on our face and our bellies will never be hungry. Where the weight of worry will never rest on our shoulders again. So he tries to chase us there by allowing things to happen in our lives to make us really think about our pen and question if it's so great after all.




We understand I think, this inability to trust when we have never seen. For someone who has never known the goodness of trusting God, it makes sense their hesitance to leave the comforts they know. But how silly once we've been to the pasture, to break back into the pen? How crazy to know what's good for you and do the opposite? 


So what am I doing? I have spent the last year angry and afraid because of what is happening to children in our child protection system, because of what happened and what might be happening to a little boy I loved as my own. I let anger and fear and refusal to trust steal so many moments of happy. I let it eat away at my relationships, I let it steal my peace, my prayer, my soul. I spent a year in that crummy, cold pen and I was finally crawling my way back to the pasture. I was finally feeling the weight of worry eased as I entrusted my worries to God. I was finally starting to forgive.
I finally surrendered Tiny and his future to God. Finally able to say "OK", I trust you know whats best for him eternally, even if it doesn't make sense to me now. I was doing well loving the people who had hurt me and hurt him.
And then, he came back. And there are a million things I want to tell you about that that I can't share but I will just say he was truly being protected by God the way it happened. I spent a week in thanksgiving just enjoying the time with him and being back together again. It was such a great place to not be worrying about him anymore and knowing that God had it under control. The sun felt so good on my face.
And then after about a week I broke back in to the pen. I took it all back. Everything I had given away to God. I grabbed back control and worry. It's ridiculous, to know what's good for you and do the opposite. But here I sit. In this yuck. How do I get out? (It's almost always the way you got in.)


But what if I really can't figure it out. What if we really know we want paradise, peace and love my heart longs for but we just aren't sure how to get there? We can see and smell peace and love and surrender on the other side of the fence but we just can't figure out how to get there from here? The only thing I keep thinking is: Follow your mama.
Calves, children, everyone knows mama's only want the best for their babies and won't lead them wrongly. How did Mary live out her life on earth? She continually surrendered to the will of God. She "pondered things in her heart". She didn't try to correct or fix or change what was being asked of her. She trusted. She spent time with Jesus. She went out about her daily life knowing each day her son's life, her life, was set for suffering. But she knew the goodness of the pasture. She trusted. I pray that you can trust like Mary today, and have the peace that comes with surrender to the will of God.
If you're really stuck, don't worry, the good shepherd will come along and try to chase you out eventually, but it would sure be easier for everyone if you would just follow your mama.

The Reason Every Day is the Best

Oh Husband,
Tomorrow we celebrate 12 years. Its hard to believe it was that long ago that the "best day of my life" was finally happening. I remember the joy of the day so clearly, how I think I smiled the whole entire day, and I never believed I would be so happy ever in my lifetime. Sometimes it feels like yesterday, and sometimes, I think about the things we've been through together and it's hard to believe it's ONLY been 12 years. But today, as I'm thinking about you and the gift you've been to me, I just want to thank God for you. Of all the incredible blessings in my life, and I have been seriously spoiled by my Father God, you are the greatest blessing of all.
You have seen me at my worst and loved me anyway. You have walked with me through so many seasons of grief. You have held my hand, and held my body up as we have laid child after child in the ground. You have prayed over them when I could not utter the words. You kept a steady, even faith through every trial we have faced. You have been the voice of reason when I am being irrational and I know you want to be too. The number of hours or probably days worth of crying you have sat with me through I cannot count. You have always been the strong one, the one who holds all the burdens of our family on your shoulders. You balance the emotions of loss and foster care and worry and things being out of our control along with providing for our family. And I know that when you walk out the door, you go to take on the burdens of your friends and your customers and your customers who have long since become friends. I see you care so deeply about their families and their success and I don't know how you possibly have anything left to give them after our family demands so much of you, but you always give everyone all you have.
What I love the most, is that after everything we've been through the last 12 years, after everything that has been placed on your shoulders, you still walk through the door every day with a smile on your face, so happy to be home. You still can walk in to a house full of crying, fighting crabby children and an even crabbier wife, and completely change the atmosphere and have us all laughing and smiling in a matter of minutes. I love that after 12 years you still have the same mischievous look in your eyes and all it takes is one look to know you still love me like crazy. I cannot figure out why. But I'll take it. Because I never would believed this if you told me twelve years ago, but tonight when you walk in the door, I will love you even more than I did back then. It will bring me even more joy than the day of our wedding to be with you. It's such an honor to be married to you, to get to walk these hard roads with you and the joyful ones.
Last week, a song came on the radio, and Little Man was dancing, and decided to slink over and climb into your lap and lay his head on your shoulder, right as the words of the song sang "you're a good, good Father." I thanked God in that moment and every day that my children get to have the best father in the world. I thanked Him that they would know who He is because you are showing them what a fathers love is supposed to be. There are so many kids in the world who have no idea what the unconditional, constant, unchanging, forgiving, protective, wise, patient love of a father is and because of that they may never know or may struggle to understand the love of their heavenly Father. But not our kids. Not all the kids you are "dad" to that don't live here anymore. They are so blessed, because you are an incredible father, and we are so lucky to be your family.

You are a man of a million talents and its fun watching you and the things you can do. I can't understand how you seem to know or figure out how to fix or build just about anything from construction to mechanics to the kids toys. And I haven't yet heard anyone else say they know someone who has come home and built a 30 foot deck in one day by themselves, so maybe you're the only actual super-dad out there. And as much as I admire all of those things, most of all, it's when you bow your head before a meal and thank God or humbly ask for patience or forgiveness that I'm confident you're the greatest man I know.
These twelve years have been full of heartache and overfull of blessing as we welcomed more children in heaven than we can count, adopted 4, have 5 living under our roof right now (except for that one crazy month where there were 7!!), 4 that live under another roof but we love as our own and sometimes parent on the weekends, and others who have only stayed a few days. We've started a new business, purchased a farm, had 5,678 fights about money and who left their shoes in front of the door and who works too much and who should take out the garbage (FYI, you've forgotten the last 195 days). We've been handed children unexpectedly and we've had children taken unexpectedly. But everyday, every struggle, every joy, you have been there, and that has been the greatest blessing of all. No matter what happens the next twelve, the next fifty, I will be blessed because I get to live them out with you. And every day, everything we encounter, has been another opportunity to grow, and makes me love you even more. So tomorrow, 12 years later, I'm living out the best day of my life all over again. And I'll do it again next week. Thanks for making every day the best one yet (unless we're going to look at the farm books...then we're probably going to have a nice fight and not talk until morning.) Ok...even days we kindly and politely (right!?) discuss our farming business, those are the best days too. Love you!

How Does a Mother Grieve

It's been 8 months already. I can hardly type that much less say it out loud. The fact that life has gone on when the world seemed to end for us seems so incredibly wrong. And yet that's the reality. Life did keep moving. Days go on but he is not here anymore, his crib is empty and the whole house aches for his laugh, his beautiful smile, his happy spirit. And he thinks we left him. He will carry the hurt of that abandonment his whole life. That is the hardest part. The absolute best way to torture a mother is to make her watch her child suffer. (Mother of Jesus, pray for us!)
I am angry. Anger that I work and pray daily to overcome because it has stolen my peace and spirit of kindness.
And I am so sad, a broken shell of a person really. I could cry all day, every day, and it would not be enough.
But I am mother. I can not possibly stop to cry all day. Sometimes I sneak in a quick 2 minutes in the bathroom, and then someone is needing me. Someone is fighting over their favorite book and none of the 200 others we have will substitute. I am not ready to stop crying, but I dry my eyes and go read the book to them both.
How does a mother grieve? Because all the experts say it's not healthy to suppress grief but they aren't exactly lining up to cook my family meals and clean my house while I cry an oceans worth of tears and look through photos and remember the good times. And even if they were, my grieving children need their mother, they lost their brother and shouldn't have to lose their mother too.
Except sometimes it feels like they did. That person I used to be I just can't be anymore, no matter how hard I try.
But the laundry still piles up and demands to be washed, the dishes follow suit. The kids still need rides to school, and help with homework, and to get signed up for summer sports. Life keeps happening even though I am in no shape to handle it.  There isn't a choice when you're a mother.
But in order to function in this life that demands me I must live in a state of denial or numbness. This allows me to function, to get out of bed and do the dishes and fold the laundry and make meals, but its a counterfeit way of living really. When you're numb, you don't feel bad or good emotion. Its how I survived, but its not how I want to become my normal.
So I know, I need to grieve.
But how does a mother grieve a child who's still alive? That's a question for another post I think.
How does a mother grieve? Slowly, I think. A little at a time. To a mother, who feels so deeply, who loves so completely, the reality of the loss of a child threatens to be too much for our hearts to handle. So I feel it in small doses. For only a few fleeting moments, and then pack it away if I can. But I have to be sure, to come back to it. I don't want to. I remember how much it hurts to let my heart go to that place where I admit its real, it happened, it's over. I don't look through photos, I can hardly say his name without going to that place. So often I just don't. But a mother needs to, I know, because a mother can't keep running on auto pilot, barely scraping by with her duties while life barrels full speed ahead.
This is hard, because even though we want to pack away our grief, it doesn't mean it's cleanly away until we reach for it again, it just means I don't allow myself to feel the full extent of it all the time. It's always there.
Grief colors everything, I read somewhere. Was it Harry Potter? Someone wise anyway said its like putting on a pair of colored glasses. Everything in life, everything you see or do takes on new meaning because of this grief. And I think that meaning can be dark, and grief can make everything hard or sad. But I believe it could also color everything with light, the hope of eternal life. That if something this terrible exists, surely it refocuses us that our hope is not in this world but in the next. Surely this grief, this reality of the hurt of this little boy and all my children and of my husband and myself, all of it only makes sense in the light of Jesus. That what happens here is not the end. Wow have we messed up this world with our "let me do it my way" attitudes, and how patient is our God to comfort us each time. We see in our messes and prayers of desperation that seem to go unanswered that God isn't concerned with an outcome here, with making our lives perfect here, but instead he is concerned whether or not we (and so many others who touch our lives) choose heaven. Seen through this lens, its easier to endure hardship. Easier to overcome obstacles, easier to keep moving forward. Grief colors everything. As the scriptures read today at mass proclaim, "let the dead bury their dead." Lk 9:60. Death most of all should remind us to stop looking backward, or downward, and set our hands to the plow (read Lk 9:62) to the work we've been called to do and look forward, upward. So often, we can't take our focus off of the ground where someone lays dead and decaying to see them in their glory up above where they belong.
I know it's not always that easy. We can't just tell ourselves to "get over it" when a loss is so large.


In my 34 years I have been overall very healthy. These last few months I have been more sick and in pain than ever before. I got a bacterial infection that put me on the couch for 5 days. I started having lower back pain that made it impossible to sleep longer than a few hours at night at a time. And then I fell down the stairs and popped three ribs out of place that made it difficult to move at all. My foot has developed a weird pain that gets worse each day and makes it difficult to walk or run. Each given day I seem to have some type of pain and I've noticed just how difficult pain makes the easiest things. Well, sleeping, for example, didn't used to be difficult at all for me. But bending over to pick up toys, picking up a child,  carrying loads of laundry, pretty much every action I do all day long is affected by this pain.
Just like that physical pain, the emotional pain of grief is always there. Pain makes everything that used to be simple very difficult or even impossible. And I push through it and try to change the way I do things to make them less painful. And I pray I'm not like this forever. That I can go back to easily picking things up off the floor. And chasing the kids in a game of tag. And I dream that someday I might be able to run a few miles again.
Right now it feels like my body might not ever do that again. And yet, forever is a very long time. I have to believe (hope) that I will get better. That SLOWLY I will regain some of those things back. That eventually I will walk without pain, or at least with a normal gate. That eventually, I will chase and even be able to catch them. That someday, a morning run will be a normal thing for me again and the freedom and joy that accompanies it.
And if I believe that, then I also have to believe the same of my heart. That I will regain a spirit of positivity and love and joy. That I will again see the good in the world. That there will be days when I won't feel anger or hurt and experience the freedom and joy that accompanies a heart filled with peace.
Sometimes injuries are temporary and we heal completely. Sometimes injuries are more severe and it takes longer to heal, sometimes we never fully heal. Reality in this world, is that every day I'm getting older, and chances are there will be a day when I run for the last time. I hope that's a very long time from now, but at some point it will be true.
Some emotional hurts in this life cut so deep, injure us so badly, it seems impossible that we will ever fully heal, ever be back to our original state.
And that's probably the hardest part about grief, the fear that we will be like this forever.
But that would be a world without Jesus, without the Holy Spirit. In our world, the reality is that our God is alive and living with us and the promise He left us with is that there is absolutely no wound that He cannot heal. That "His power is made perfect in our weakness" 2 Cor 12:9. Not only heal, but USE this grief to bring about His glory. He promised in this hardest moment, worst version of ourselves, most helpless and weak time in our lives He will do His best work. SLOWLY. The best work happens slowly, just look at creation, look at a two hundred year old tree.
Right now, I don't feel like I will ever run again, and I don't feel like I will ever be the joyful mom, wife, friend that I used to be. But I believe, I believe You will heal me. I believe that even from this nightmare that every mother fears, I believe You can make even this beautiful. And I really can't wait to see you do it.

I took this photo of my friends daughter praying after her aunt was suddenly taken at a young age in a car accident and led by the spirit texted her the title of the song "Look Up Child" by Lauren Daigle. Its a good soundtrack for you today if you're grieving. This grief you're experiencing might be bringing people to their knees at the foot of the cross, and if it is, then God's hand is on it, and everything is exactly as it's supposed to be.
"Those who hope (wait for) the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on eagles wings, they will run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint. Is 40:31
I believe. We will run again mamma. I believe.

You are My Sunshine

It's spring in Minnesota and this year all it does is rain. Every day. Cloudy, rainy, cold. The sun only peaks out about every 5 days or so for a few moments. The cows are getting stuck in the mud. Hardly anyone can plant their crops, and those that do are planting in the mud and praying they will still grow. And our bodies that craved the sunshine and warmth all through that longer-than-anyone-can-remember winter are still left wanting.
Our two littles are visiting their mom for two days. I was looking forward to being able to tackle some projects, fight with my washing machine and re-find the living room floor. And I have gotten so much done. I went to bad last night and still had energy left, what a weird feeling!! But the house is quiet. And even though it's easier, there's less joy.
Babies are so demanding, needing to be fed more often, held more often, played with instead of running off to play on their own. Its hard to take them anywhere, they get into everything, I'm constantly chasing them. They need sippy cups and outfit changes and of course those stinky diapers no one likes. But oh they are the joy of the family. I truly believe. This is why big families seem more jolly. Its one of those things you don't realize until it's gone suddenly. The way they find joy in the simplest things, in everything really. The way they love with their whole entire selves.
This is Gods gift to us, sunshine even on the cloudiest day. Amidst the brokenness and hurt of this world he sends a reflection of Himself, pure and ready to burst with joy and love and wanting to give it all to us. Can't see Him through the clouds? Don't worry, He's still there, and just to be sure we know here's a giggling baby playing peekaboo or even a teething baby who only wants to be held and go everywhere we go. This is His love sent down to us.
And oh how we need it. As badly as we all need the sun to shine, we need these little people in our lives to show us who God is and how He loves us when we have forgotten. To brighten our spirits and give us hope. To bring joy, sunshine to the endless string of cloudy days.
We forget this though. We see stinky diapers, and sticky floors and missed work opportunities and fill in the blank. And we wonder why every day is cloudy. And He longs to share His sunshine with us if only we would accept it.
All across our country we are in crisis, the news says. Millenials aren't saving enough money, Baby Boomers didn't plan well for retirement, and the worst problem of all, no one is having babies anymore and there aren't enough people for the workforce and to keep the economy strong. And God keeps wanting to send His love into our lives. He keeps pursuing us, keeps trying to break through the clouds. But we tend to run, to say "No" to His good gifts. We good Christians even, who have better things to do, long lists, things to accomplish, clean houses to feel good about, "enough" other children to care for. And yet, when the house is all clean, the sky is still cloudy. He keeps pursuing, He keeps giving himself to us in so many ways, but oh the sunshine that's waiting to burst into our lives if we would accept this gift He's waiting to give. And we won't get anything done, and the house will be a mess and our career will be on hold and if we're lucky we'll realize none of that matters as long as the sun is shining. Because can we ever have "enough" sunshine. Will there ever be too many children, too much Jesus in the world, in our lives?
You are my sunshine little ones. From the moment you entered our life more than 8 years ago there has not been a day that has been too gray. Thank you God for sending us sunshine, even on a cloudy day.

I Care: The Award that You Deserve

8 years ago Dan and I fell into the role of foster parents. Truly, I think we had always talked about adopting even before our miscarriages, but we never really considered fostering. And then Nathaniel landed in our laps, and we started doing foster parent classes and before we knew it, we had accidentally found our calling. What sometimes looks heroic from the outside, is really just incredibly simple. Things that God asked of us that we said yes to. They aren't always "normal" I suppose, but aren't always "impossible" either.
A few months ago, I got a call from a social worker at the MSSA, informing us that we were selected as Foster Family of the Year for the State of Minnesota. It is an incredible honor. And in the least disrespectful way, it also felt like a sucker-punch in the gut. Here are the thoughts swirling in my brain as I'm trying to digest the information from this call and not sound like a complete idiot.
First, clearly this committee has not met me in person...People who know us in person will laugh at us receiving this award. I mean, my friend and I used to argue over which of us was the winner of the "worst mom of the year" title. I am surely much closer to winning that one, maybe the numbers got mixed up?
Second, this is the sucker-punch part, we just said a painful good-bye to the 13 month old son we raised from birth. We are still grieving. We are in that post-transition "we hate foster care" phase and you have chosen this moment to say "sorry for your loss but here's an award to make you feel better."  Obviously, the selection committee didn't know about our loss and giving us an award was not meant to inflict pain. But our current situation made it hard not to feel a little hurt like an award was meant to fill the hole left by his absence in our family.
Third, part of the nomination included our "adopting a child with special needs." This always throws me off because Bella is so incredibly normal to me. I just don't feel like she has special needs. And I know when people make me really think about it I realize that she's not talking much yet at age 4 and she still needs more medical care and more help with some things, but I would guess those that know her well would agree that she's pretty much just a normal kid.
And maybe that's really the bottom line of my hesitation with this award. It hasn't ever felt to us that anything we have done has been extraordinary. Ok, I know taking in 3 babies who turned into 3 one year olds, parenting 3 toddlers, and now having 6 kids is not everyone's idea of normal. But what I mean is what might seem impossible from far away, really gets very simple when faced with a decision to care about someone. And when that decision quickly turns into life as you know it, you find yourself doing something you used to look at from afar and think you could never do.
Of course, I know when I take a step back that being foster and adoptive parents is different in a lot of ways. I know we deal with birth families, and lots of questions and hurt feelings, effects of trauma and abuse and drug and alcohol exposure, and of course the eternal unknown and worry of "will I be able to protect this child who has come to trust me to do just that?"
But those things all slowly just became our normal. And a lot of other foster and adoptive parents deal with those things with much more skill and grace than we do.
I didn't tell many people about the award. I suppose because it seems a little silly to us to be honored for doing something we consider so normal, and maybe we feel a little undeserving, and maybe a little bit because of that sucker-punch piece as well. But I'm sharing it tonight, well because it got posted on facebook and I can't keep it a secret anymore...but also because I realize the very ordinary reason we won this award and the plea I'd like to make for you to join us.

The only thing we did to win this award was CARE. We just care about the kids who are strangers when we get a phone call, and need to become our family when they enter the door. Kids don't just need food and water and a roof over their heads. They need a family. They need parents who care about them and care about what happens to them and look out for them. And Dan and I have done this, have loved kids as our own, have seen them for who they really are, individual and unique and so important to the world. We have been protective of them and advocated for what's best for them. But isn't that completely normal? Wouldn't you do the same if faced with the situation?
I think a lot of you already do. I've written before about the importance of the support system of a foster family. So many of you are the reason we can care about children, because you love us first, we can love them. Because you welcome them into our extended families, and babysit extra kids, and hold them on your laps at church, pray for them and truly care about what happens to them, they are well cared for.
In March, two more kids joined our family. My heart isn't ready and someone else would surely be able to give them more time. But there is such a great need for foster families. For others who will care. I know that you do, or that you would, if the phone was ringing in your house instead of mine. But it is one thing to feel like we care, and another to ACT like we care. Can you take a baby step and do a foster care class to see what it's all about? Or read about it: try this article Ten Questions Couples Should Ask before Becoming Foster Parents
Can you commit to being a solid relationship for someone who doesn't have anyone else? (even kids who experience extremely difficult home environments can do well if they have just one consistent adult who cares about them). Can you care enough to offer a kind word, a prayer or a hand to someone who is struggling? When we received our award, the keynote speaker, a Suicide survivor, Kevin Hines spoke of his hope that even one stranger would ask him if he was ok before his suicide attempt. Did everyone that saw him that day not care? Or were they just afraid?
I reflected on this a lot in the middle of Holy Week. There were so many people who cared about Jesus, so many people who loved him and followed him. Where were they when he was being beaten? Did they stop caring about him? The ones he healed? What happened to them? Did they really not care? Or were they just afraid?
Fear seems to hinder caring often. We fear change, fear the unknown, fear the million things that might go wrong, fear how helping someone else might hurt us, fear making a mistake or failing, and we are so very afraid of what others might think.
Please stop to consider today, if the devil is working hard to make you fearful of something, it might be he is very afraid of what might happen if you succeed.
There is a great need in Pipestone County and a lot of other counties for families who will care about children. There is a great need in our world for people that will care about the people they encounter throughout their day. Would you take these sweet hands if they reached out to hold yours? Of course you would!!

Dan and I don't do anything extraordinary. We simply care. You do too. For those of you who are our incredible support system, you are the ones who really deserve the award. We could not love these children if we weren't first loved by you. And your prayer, helping hands and constant words of encouragement and understanding are the only reason we can continue. For those of you who are feeling any inclination toward caring for children in need, trust me, if Dan and I can do it, you probably can too. Probably better. Likely a lot better. Read that article I linked above even if you have doubts, it addresses a lot of them. And finally, remember what Jesus said? "Let the children come to me and do not prevent them, for the kingdom of heaven is found in such as these."

Super-Mom and the Saints: To Discourage and Inspire

I've always been intimidated by "super-moms". You know one I'm sure, they always look their best, they are on every committee and at every social function, their kids only eat the healthiest foods, their house is spotless and they never EVER speak a harsh word. Super-moms can inspire us to strive to be better, but more often they discourage us. We come in late to the only social outing we've been to in months, realize as soon as we see her that we haven't showered in two days. We already feel like we shouldn't have left the house. And then she starts talking about how wonderful her children are and how much she enjoys being a mom, and that's when we start to think we must be doing something wrong, because we love our children but wow are they naughty sometimes and some days we have to send them all to separate rooms just to get everyone to stop fighting and some days we have to walk to the mailbox just to be "away" from our little blessings before we lose it. And the more and more we hear from this super-star mom who has done all the research on essential oils and 65 discipline strategies to raise a confident child, the more and more we begin to wonder if we even have what it takes to be a mom. We start to think parenting should be reserved for those few who seem to have it all figured out.

I was reflecting on this last year on All Saint's Day, as our church celebrates the lives of some of the greatest known Catholics in the world. They are people who were super-star Christians. They loved to the point of death. They gave up all they had. They imitated Christ by touching the lepers, teaching the masses, giving all that they owned to the poor. It might be easy to take a quick look at their incredible accomplishments and be discouraged. "I could never give that much" we might think. "I'm not capable of that kind of faith, to leave everything behind, to suffer or die for Jesus." "I have too many failings to ever be a saint."


But the beauty of Saints is in their stories. They weren't perfect. They did have sins. They struggled with doubt, with fear, with anger, with so many temptations. They weren't overly talented or some even educated. I can look to saints and allow them to inspire me because they have walked in my shoes. They have struggled with these same sins, these same feelings of failure, and they have allowed Gods grace to take over. Some of them, many of them, never ever saw the fruit of their sacrifice on this earth. When I read their stories, I know I really can be a saint, because it has so very little to do with me, and so much to do with the grace of God. Because these saints were so imperfect, and God brought them to perfection, it means he can do the same with me. It means there's a contribution I can make, even sinful me.


Super-moms could do this same thing for all of us, but we all need to realize something: They aren't really super. Let's be honest, there are a lot of really incredible moms out there, and that is a wonderful thing, but none of them are perfect. Some of them could do better to take off their masks and let the rest of the world see their flaws, and in doing so they could inspire us all. But most of the time, they aren't really hiding their flaws. We see them as "super" because we see things in them that we can't master. She always brings delicious homemade baked goods and I always have to peel the price tag off of mine.  Her hair and makeup is always perfect and I didn't even look in the mirror yet this morning. Or my favorite, her children are so well behaved and mine....well a lot of you have met them.  But while I'm admiring her baking skills, she's admiring someone else's patience and wishing she could be like that "super-mom".  She really is just like you, she just has a different failing.


And while I have yet to have anyone admit to this, if you really do believe you are super-mom...then you never really will be. One of the greatest traits of the saints was their ability to see their flaws and offer them to God and diligently work to correct them. Because we can't fix what we don't realize is broken. So that means if you feel like you're a very long way from being a super-mom or a saint there's good news: you're already on your way.


As we added two new children to our home this month, I've been hearing a lot of really nice and heartfelt comments from people. But they put a "super-mom" cape on me that I have no interest in wearing. So hear me when I say that I love your kind words and they lift me up on days when I am struggling, but I NEED you to also know that I am so far from the mom I want to be. When you say "I don't know how you do it." I usually respond, "I don't." Meaning, I don't have it all together, we make it through each day, and some days I'm not confident we will! Most days I do not speak in the loving tone I would like to. Most days I have no idea how to teach my kid to stop pushing his sister down. Most days, when we go out in public I'm just praying we can all get in and out of the car safely and I don't lose anyone. I usually feel like we are such a mess at any type of public outing that there's no need to remind others I'm not wearing a cape. I'm thinking about the pile of dishes I left in the sink, the fact that I have to make a path to walk through certain parts of the house, and that my kids ate McDonalds twice this week, and [please stop hitting your brother!!!] that I can't finish a sentence without interrupting it to break up a fight or chase a runaway kid. But apparently sometimes the chaos I see doesn't translate to the rest of the world, who see their own struggle with their one or two children and feel discouraged because they couldn't possibly imagine parenting six.


You could. You can. You WILL do whatever God has laid before you, and you will do it with grace. Not because you are so wonderful, but because you aren't. And because you know it. And because you will surrender it to the grace of God, and He will raise you up to whatever He has called you to.

"I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us." Rom 8:18

5 Things We Say to Our Kids that We Still Need to Learn

There are some familiar phrases we've probably all heard as children and we hear ourselves repeating them now as parents ourselves where they take on new meaning. I've noticed, as I say these phrases to my children, I hear them also as whispers from God. As our Good Father, so often I know He is speaking these same phrases, same lessons to my heart that unfortunately I still have not fully mastered.
The first of those and most often used in our house is
1. Can't you please just get along with your brother?
My mother used to ask for it for every birthday and holiday. "I don't need any other gift than for you and your siblings to just stop fighting for one day," she would say exhausted. We would roll our eyes, "no, something REAL mom!" As in, buying a gift would be much easier than that impossible thing you just asked of us. And why does that matter anyway? Except now I'm a parent, and I'm constantly asking my children to stop fighting and to just play together nicely for five minutes! I do get why this mattered to her so much. First, it's exhausting, breaking up their fights all the time, listening to them treat each other so terribly, comforting their cries, trying to convince them to work it out. Secondly, its annoying, seeing how they are all making each other miserable when they instead should be having fun. What they're fighting about is so trivial! And finally, I just want them to love each other! I love them. I don't want to love them separately, I want us all to love each other as a family!!
And maybe God whispers...that's how I feel too. Why can't you just get along with _________... Why are you making yourselves miserable when you should be having fun? Why do you keep hurting each other? I love them, and I love you, and I really want us all to love each other as a family.


Or how about this one:
2. I don't care if you didn't make the mess, I asked you to clean it up!
We've all said this as parents haven't we? And we've all also as grown adults felt the injustice of cleaning up a mess we didn't make, doing someone else's work. A mom at a parenting class asked what to do when she asks both of her daughters to clean the room they share and only one does the work. Should they both get the reward? Should one be punished? She was worried more about the daughter doing all the work and that it might discourage her. I told her, from the perspective of an employer (I was an HR director at the time), her daughter is learning an essential life skill, and she shouldn't take it from her. Overwhelmingly in the workplace this is the conflict; someone isn't pulling their share of the weight. Someone else feels like they're doing all the work, or doing work they don't think is their responsibility. Do you know which employees are successful? The ones who just do the work anyway. It gets noticed eventually and paints you in a much brighter light when you aren't the one calling attention to it. But truthfully, we're talking less here about problems in the workplace and more about problems in relationships and in the world. People are seriously messing it up all the time. People sin and make mistakes and they hurt other people and it all crashes into each other and we wake up to look around our world and wars are going on and people are abusing and killing their own children and we know we've done a lot of bad things in our life, but this was a mess we did not make. Whether it's on a global scale or a mess in our own family or community, its our first reaction to say "but I didn't do it! It's not my problem!" Very few things get my 7 year old angrier than asking him to clean up messes that his younger siblings made.  But I ask him to help sometimes because they're too young to do the job well enough, (they'll just smear the jelly around if they try to wipe it up right?) or sometimes I know it would just take them forever and he can speed up the process of cleaning up the toys that seem to cover every inch of our house. "It's a part of being a family, helping each other out," we explain to him. And maybe God whispers the same..."I know you didn't MAKE the mess, but you CAN clean it up, and they can't, or you WILL clean it up, and they won't, and seriously, help a God out here, because I really just need it cleaned up, it doesn't matter who does it, it's part of being a family."


This takes us right to the response I give when someone says "that's not fair!":
3. Life isn't fair.
This is also what I told that mom who was worried about her daughters room cleaning being "fair". Life isn't. And yet, we try so hard to make it fair for our kids. We agonize over getting them all the same amount of gifts for Christmas, we keep score in our heads daily of how much time we've spent with each one and if we give one a compliment give the other one too, and if we are handing out crackers or especially cookies we better be sure to give the EXACT amount to each child so that it's fair! But this really sets our kids up for disappointment, because then they expect everything to be fair. And in fact, we all know it's not. Someone else will get the thing you want before you do. And someone will ALWAYS have more money than you, more stuff than you, more friends than you...fill in the blank. Do you know what happens when kids who have always gotten the same amount of cookies as everyone else suddenly get shorted? They throw a massive tantrum. Do you know what happens when kids who have never even gotten cookies get handed one cookie when others get three? They smile and eat the cookie. You see the ugliness of it, when you're handing out treats to children and someone throws a tantrum and won't appreciate what they have been given because they're so concerned about what someone else got. Why is it so easy to see it as ugly behavior in children, and not when we are throwing our tantrums about not getting that thing we've been praying about that everyone else seems to have? We tend to look fairly similar to that spoiled child I assume as we seem to fail to see what we have been given, only focused on what others have that we don't. And maybe God whispers in the most loving way...your tantrums kind of make me chuckle, especially when your face gets red and you yell and throw things...




And this would lead us to the most simple and also the hardest...
4. Be Patient
I have four kids, and sometimes I'm afraid I'm going to be squashed to death as I'm trying to hand out a snack or treat in the kitchen. Just give me a second to open the box! I have to yell at them to sit on their chairs or I'll never get it open with them trying to pull me down. They're all crying or whining, quite sure they're starving because it's been twenty minutes since the last meal, and it takes twice as long to get their food because they can't just wait. Have you heard of the marshmallow test done by psychologist Walter Mischel studying delayed gratification? They take a child into a room and set a marshmallow in front of them. They tell them, you can eat the marshmallow now, but if you wait to eat it until I come back in the room then you can have two marshmallows. The videos of this will make you laugh as the kids agonize over the wait and my favorite a littler girl who starts eating it before the lady even leaves the room. We can all laugh about which of us even as adults would struggle to wait those few minutes. But this is what God offers us. So often, the better thing is waiting if we will only be patient. But so few times are we actually patient. I always visualize my 4 year old on the floor crying because he wanted to play the iPad, and I had told him if he would just wait 10 minutes he could play. But he couldn't do it. He could not stop crying about the fact that he couldn't have it immediately, so he never got it. This is so simple. Waiting involves doing almost nothing. But this is hard, because it takes faith. We don't often know if it will be 10 minutes, 10 years or a lifetime's wait for the thing we're waiting for. To be patient and believe that something is coming even when there's no glimpse of it on the horizon...you'd have to really trust the person making the promise. And God says "I am trustworthy. I have always been faithful. (And He probably doesn't sharply say "crying won't get you anything!" But I sure do, and it holds true in this context as well.)




Finally, I've only said this a few times but each time I have I've heard it bounce back right at me...
5. You'd help me most if you would do what I asked you to do, not what you want to do.
My kids like to help. And sometimes I ask them to do something to help a situation, but they have already decided how they would like to help so they do that instead. It's always one of those, thanks-but-no-thanks kind of moments where they have instead now made the problem worse in a way they could not see from where they were standing. Like when someone comes running in to help clean up a mess and steps in it instead. "Nope, could have gotten the paper towels myself, just wanted you to keep your sisters out of here so they wouldn't step in it, but since you are all now are covered in poop, thanks for helping..."  Sometimes, it's not even that they made it worse, just that it would have been BEST had they done what they were asked to do. We were each put here with a purpose, and as a part of a "family" we each have our tasks and roles and things God has set us here to do. But sometimes we don't like this particular task. Sometimes, it's pretty quiet and in the background when we'd rather be in the spotlight or the center of the action. Sometimes, we're wanted on stage when we'd rather be scrubbing a floor all by ourselves. Often actually, I think we are asked to "help", to do our part in ways that we don't want to or don't particularly enjoy (or don't THINK we will anyway). But for the most part, we can chose. We can embrace these roles or we can try to help in the way we want to. Sometimes, maybe we make it worse in a way only God could foresee. Sometimes, maybe we're still helping, but there was a better way we'll never know. It's easy to tell once it's over, you're either covered in poop or your not.




We'll spend a lifetime learning and relearning these lessons that we try and expect our small children to learn. We'll be much harder on them when they get it wrong. And we'll expect them to trust us when we constantly fail them. But God is patient with us. He won't be hard on us when we get it wrong for the hundredth time. He won't be annoyed when we don't trust him even though He's never failed us. He is our perfect Father, who gives us exactly what we need, no more and no less, to become holy. He probably won't give us everything we want or even what we think we need. He will comfort us and cry with us when we are disappointed or sad. He will continue over and over again to encourage us to get along with our brother. And He will keep asking us to help in the way He knows is best. And yes He could do it better and faster Himself but He knows it's good for us and we like to feel important. So the next time these familiar phrases float off my tongue without a thought, I'll take the lesson to heart, and I'll try to show the same understanding to my children that God does to me as I try and fail and try again. And I'll pray that some of the time, with His grace, I'll get it right. And I might just learn I really do enjoy helping out my brothers and sisters...

Immigration: We Actually All Agree

I should start by saying I have not yet taken a definitive "side" in the current arguments about immigration reform. What I do read and hear though strikes me so much as someone sitting on the "fence" of the border wall debate. (Ha. No more bad jokes, I promise.) It's easy to see the benefits of both arguments when you haven't taken a side. But what strikes me the most when I listen, is that I think we all actually agree, which is incredible, and yet makes perfect sense. We don't agree on how to get there, but we do agree on one extremely important thing. Human life matters and should be protected and valued.
Some want to protect the precious human life here, in their own homes.
Some want to protect the precious human life in other countries who need a safe place or a chance for a better life.
Some want to protect the working class citizens in our country to make sure they can maintain the standard of living for their families.
It's all about people. Wanting people to be ok and safe. We actually agree on something: life matters. This is big.
I hope we can all take a minute and realize just how big this is. We ALL agree life is more important than money, than progress, than differences of opinion, than stuff, than ....fill in the blank.
You have no idea how much this realization makes my heart soar. In a world that sometimes seems so confused and lost, we have still not really forgotten the most important thing embedded deep into our souls: we matter.


So why are we still fighting? I believe it's because some of us disagree about how to best protect EACH human life, and because some of us might disagree about who needs protecting. I don't have the answers. I know our leaders and representatives have spent hundreds of hours contemplating and researching the solutions and I have just read a few articles online.


I do know, as I pray for our country and our world, my prayer is that we stop seeing problems and start seeing people. Because we agree, people matter. And if we make decisions always keeping the person in mind, we will do the best we can with this broken world.


We are foster parents, and we deal constantly with a social services system and court system that sometimes fail to see children as individual people.


Unfortunately, our systems seem to think emotion needs to be removed when making these types of decisions. We've heard it often from case workers and attorneys "emotionally remove myself."
And when that happens, when we remove emotion, we stop seeing people. We see cases, numbers, files, statistics. We don't see individuality, futures, feelings, hearts. How can we make decisions about people, who are clearly made with emotion, without emotion? Maybe we have emotion for a reason, because what would our existence really be like without it?


Whether it's our foster children, refugee children, immigrants or inmates, they all just become another statistic. Our foster son who lived with us his whole first year of life who was moved a few months ago, he is just another file on a big stack of paperwork in someone's office. He is just more work that someone with a big case load doesn't have time to do. But to us he is everything, he is a son, brother, grandson, nephew. He lights up our world. His laugh is incredible, his smile is like no other. He will never be duplicated again on this earth.
You see statistics about police officers but I see my sister-in-law who won't fully exhale until her officer-husband returns home from his evening shift to their 5 children.
You see statistics about illegal immigrants but I won't ever forget the fear in a young girls eyes as she told me the instructions she has from her parents should they ever not come home from work one day.
See, we group things that are alike, that's how we make statistics. But no two people really are, so every grouping fails us. Every statistic tells us the lie that certain people might be replaceable, might be the same. We are emotionally removed from people we've never met, stories we've never heard. We don't see brothers, sons, sisters, daughters, here in America needing protection, across the border needing safety, and across the world dying for our help.
We emotionally remove ourselves. Especially in this age where so many heart-wrenching situations can reach us each day through our phones and computers, we emotionally check-out as a means of self preservation.
BUT, will you ponder with me today, if we agree that life matters, if we agree that there is no more precious thing on this planet, then lets make the effort to emotionally invest today. Lets make the effort to care about that life. And maybe, the heart of the problem might not be that we don't care about other lives, but that we care about our own just a little more. But if we believe what I think we believe: that we deserve to live, that we deserve to be cared about, that we matter....then doesn't that mean my brother next to me matters and deserves the same? Then doesn't that mean someone's son across the ocean or the border deserves the same?
Maybe you can't possibly care for my little boy or think you can help a police officer or a refugee from so far away.  But could you be the change that our world needs, by taking the time to care about someone even though it's not your responsibility? Because I think if we really lived like other people matter, the people right around us, in our families, at the office, in the community, I think we really could be the solution.
Let's stop saying it's not our problem. Let's stop blaming politicians. Let's start noticing individuals for their uniqueness and realizing another like them will never ever exist again. And then treat them like they are that precious. Because they are.
A year ago, when Tiny was just a few weeks old, I was visited by a new friend who had recently lost her 22 year old son. She told me his story and all of the lives he had impacted with his loving heart and endless generosity in just 22 short years. And as she looked at Tiny, laying there sleeping, she waved her hand toward him and said how clearly she could remember the day her son lay there just like that as a newborn baby and doctors said because of his health issues he would "never amount to anything." Her voice cracked and tears rolled as she said those words. But he proved them wrong. He showed them God had a purpose for him, and in his short life, he loved more than most people ever do in their long ones. His family never gave up on him, and because of it, the whole world is a better place. (Read more about him here: Scott's Impact)
I keep thinking back to that image of him, sleeping on the bench on our deck on a warm fall day. My friend saw HIM that day. Not just a child, not a case, but a unique boy and she could imagine the impact that he could make. She would challenge all of you today to know the difference that you can make in this world, and to do the little things or the big things that you have been put here for. She would quote St. Catherine of Sienna "Be who you were meant to be and you will set the world on fire."
Maybe, there's someone you can chose to care about today. Choose to emotionally invest. Choose to give your time to care about. We really need you too. We can all agree on that.