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.

A Little Light for the Darkness

My friend pulled up while I was untangling Christmas lights on the front porch. I had them all rolled up nicely last year when I put them away, but the kids got into them before I put them up and now I had 5 strands all in one big knot. I knew when they didn't come free easily at first that I didn't really have the time to mess with them. What was supposed to be a 5 minute project was turning into more than an hour. But I just kept trying. Sometimes pretty desperately just pulling and shaking hoping for the best... and when that didn't work, taking more time to look closely to maneuver each strand free. I took a break when my friend arrived and returned to it later a few times throughout the day. I should have been doing other things, but I finally had them all free and quickly wrapped them around the rails of the front porch. I wasn't expecting it to be pretty, I just wanted light. The kids love Christmas lights, and I knew I didn't have the time or patience to put up a lot, but I wanted them to have at least a little something to look at. And the first night, when it got dark and they popped on, I was pleasantly surprised with how nicely they did look even though I really only spent 5 minutes hanging them up. But I was more surprised how much I really needed to see the light.

It's so dark this time of year. The sun didn't officially rise today until 7:57 am, and set at 4:51 pm. That's less than 9 hours of light in a 24 hour day. More darkness than light. It's how our life has been feeling the last few months. Its sometimes how we view the world when we turn on the news.


This is why we celebrate Christmas now. The church planted Christmas here in this dark time for a reason. Because the world was dark and broken. There was so much war and hatred and there was such little hope. But then God sent Light into the world. He didn't come in blaring or with a strike of lightening, but quietly, so quietly that no one would have noticed at all had it not been for that star and those angels. He plopped a light in the middle of all that darkness and from now on the darkness would never overcome the light.


I need to look out onto my front porch and see light when the sun is fading before I've even begun to think about supper time. When the dark feels like it isolates us from the neighbors we can see in the light. Their houses haven't moved but our perceptions of them change at night. If it weren't for their lights, I wouldn't realize they are still there at all. Darkness separates us from people.


In the light of day I can see beauty, God's creation all around me. My body needs the sun to actually survive. I am made this way, to long for it. So its natural that this season of so much darkness doesn't feel right.


I am also made to long for holiness, goodness, righteousness. It's natural that I feel so out of place in a world that is so filled with sin, hurt, death.


There are two approaches to dealing with the darkness closing in. We can just give in and accept this is the reality of the season we are in OR...we can put up our own lights.


Last week I was having a particularly sad week when I picked Nathaniel up from school which included walking down the hallway just an hour before the beginning of Christmas break. The entire building was radiating joy. Every teacher was smiling, students were filled with expectation and excitement. It was infectious. Halfway through the walk I felt lighter, and by the time I left the building I was beaming. I sent up a prayer of thanksgiving for this wonderful Christian school that my son gets to attend, and I got back in the car with a lifted spirit. It was beautiful to see the Christian mission in action in that way, truly sharing the JOY of the gospel.


I'm sure there were plenty people in the school that day that had reasons to be sad. This season of Christmas especially we have been keeping in mind those who are finding this season a difficult one. As we are missing our little boy, we think of so many others we know who are spending their first Christmas's without their loved ones.  We also remember how hard Christmas used to be when we were mourning the loss of the babies we never got to hold in our arms. This season that is supposed to be so joyful can feel just the opposite when the people we love aren’t here to share in the joy.

But this is actually exactly WHY we celebrate.  We aren’t celebrating all that is good in this world but we’re celebrating that the world is broken and hurting and pretty wrong sometimes and God sent his son here to enter into it with us and save us from it. The world was dark, and he sent the light. In this season, when there is more darkness than light, we hang lights out on our front porches, and light up the darkness. Nathaniel's school did that for me last week; tossed some light into my darkness.

This is the gift (reminder) of Christmas for all of us: That everyone has a reason to celebrate, especially those in their darkest moments, because Jesus came exactly to save us from them, to bring light to the darkest places, hope to the most hopeless situations. I can’t see a solution for so many of the situations we encounter and are wrapped up in every day with foster care, but He promises to fix it all someday and only asks me to trust him until I see His face again. So until then, we celebrate, and those of us who don’t feel like celebrating this year are the ones who have most reason too! We're the ones that really need to be saved from this world. And if we've lost hope, maybe it's because we placed our hope in this world, and not in the one who created it.

And when our hope is in Jesus, then the darkness will never overtake us. And this is a reason to celebrate.

Every year, our family puts on pajamas and santa hats, fills the largest bowl we have with popcorn and jumps in the car. Our favorite Christmas CD goes in and we drive around looking for the best Christmas lights and dropping off some goodies to our friends. Every time I load up the car with 4 kids, it still feels empty 2 months later. Someone is missing. I was tempted not to go at all. The darkness would really prefer I just stay home and not venture out into the world in the dark. But I know what's out there even though I can't always see it through the darkness. I know if I just take a few steps in faith I'll find the light. So I put my santa hat on and hopped in the car. And there are a lot of challenging things and fun things about having 3 pre-school age kids, but one of the best has to be driving around looking at Christmas lights. The sense of wonder in a 3 and 4 year old is fabulous. Every single light they saw got a "woah!!!" "Wow!!" One strand across the roof of a house, one star on a light pole, or a whole yard decked out. It was all so incredible to them.

 

 

 

I don't have a lot to offer, my measly string of lights wrapped around the deck railing hardly seems like a contribution. And yet, it's lighting up the darkness, it's bringing a little hope. I don't have a lot to offer right now while I'm just trying to survive each day as a grieving mom of 4 instead of 5. But I'll trust that Jesus will use whatever I can offer to bring a little bit more light to earth.

We celebrate the season of Christmas now for two weeks, because we have good reason to celebrate. Would you keep your lights on for the next two weeks? Because after all the family celebrations are over and the last gift is unwrapped, this dark time of year can get quite long and lonely for a lot of people, especially those who are missing someone. But your light, whether its a strand of bulbs on your front porch or the smile on your face when you visit or an unexpected phone call or letter, will brighten up that darkness.

Prayers offered for you tonight if this Christmas has been a difficult one. Praying you see the light and the joy of the HOPE that we are saved from all of this heartbreak and that He's going to bring a little light until then!! Pray for me too, I'd really appreciate it!

What Does it Mean to Carry Someone?

For the last 11 years I've been carrying other human beings. First inside my body, later cradled as delicately as glass in my hands, then on my hip, and in rowdy piggy-back rides years later. I noticed one day after a year with 3 babies and then a year with three toddlers that the skin on my right arm where I tend to hold babies on my hip more often is actually permanently wrinkled from being stretched like that for so long. Ah unexpected hazards of motherhood.
Carrying a child is a natural thing. They need us. They can't reach and I can help, so I do. They can't walk and I can get them where they need to go, so I do. They are lonely and just want to come along, so I bring them along. Sometimes its an airplane ride full of giggles and stomach turning drops, and sometimes its a horse-y ride where the goal is getting bucked off. And sometimes, its a scraped knee or bumped head or brother hurt me and a snuggle will make everything ok. No matter what the reason, I love carrying them. Some days of course, the weight of their bodies gets the best of me, and that's probably good, because I would probably carry them too much otherwise. Its a burden, a stress to my body, to carry someone else. And it's also such a joy. A joy that's greater than the burden.
I held my infant niece a couple weeks ago and I couldn't believe how much I missed holding a baby. I remember when it felt like a burden, getting up again in the middle of the night because someone missed me and wanted to be held in my arms. I remember when my arms were so tired because I'd held that teething baby all day while I loaded the dishwasher and washing machine with my other free arm. It would be easier and faster with two hands, I'd think. But now thinking of all that I can get done with my two free hands makes me just sit on the floor and cry. You won't realize how much you'll miss carrying someone, what a gift it truly is.

But I'm not talking about just children today. What does it really mean to carry someone?


Last weekend I watched my husband, along with his brothers and cousins, carry their uncle's body to his grave. I watched their bodies strain under the weight, but the strain on their face was the reality that this was the final goodbye. This didn't seem natural. These young men had all once been carried by this man, who they looked up to, and now instead they were carrying him.






What does it mean to carry someone?


So many times in my life, when I have experienced something so hard, the death of our babies, the loss of a foster child, there have been people who have carried me. They have lifted me in prayer, listened to me cry for hours, brought food, cleaned my house, even painted my living room when I was on bed-rest, but most of all they helped me carry the emotional burden of whatever I was going through because I didn't have to do it alone. The lifted some of the weight of a burden that was too heavy just for me. Sometimes, maybe almost all of it.






I also think if you are carrying someone it means you have once been carried.


Obviously my children only grow to love because they have been loved. They grow to care for others because they have been cared for. My husband can carry his uncle because his uncle taught him to take care of people.






And I think if you carry someone it also means you will someday again be carried.


What a beautiful moment, watching those young men carry the man who once carried them. And in so many relationships, in so many ways, when we help others, then we are helped in return. When we give not expecting to receive, we usually receive so much more. I think about the wisdom he shared with them as they worked on tractors and contemplated things a lot heavier than bolts and metal. He was carrying them then yet, as young men, even young fathers meddling through financial decisions, work, relationships and parenting. And then, they began to carry him. To doctors appointments, through tough diagnosis's, through treatments and phone calls just to pass the time, and finally, to God. What each was receiving was so much more than what they were giving.






I think having been carried means we carry others better.


Once we've been carried though something difficult in life, we tend to notice when others need to be carried when maybe we wouldn't have noticed before. We relate. We understand. We can be more compassionate. Each new suffering I realize how selfish I have been in the past. I realize how I just didn't understand what someone was going through. I really didn't realize how much they needed to be carried or exactly how they needed to be helped. And I try to open my eyes, to notice more often when and what someone needs.


But beyond noticing, I need to lend a hand. And not just a passing, "I'll pray for you" or a pat on the back. To carry someone means to commit my whole self, to be ready for the whole weight of their burden, and to see it through. The same way those young men committed to carrying their uncle.


It might take a lot of time, it might be a huge sacrifice. And I might feel ill-equipped and just too tired from my own struggles. But I think, the true secret to carrying others and being carried is that we must first be carried by Jesus, in whom we receive all of our strength. "it is a sign of the fidelity born of love, for those who put their faith in God can also be faithful to others. They do not desert others in bad times; they accompany them in their anxiety and distress, even though doing so may not bring immediate satisfaction." Rejoice and Be Glad, Pope Francis 2018


If I put my faith in God, I can be faithful to others. If I allow God to carry me, I will be able to carry others.


This is the message of the cross, in order to help we must be brought to our lowest. We must need in order to give. We must be humiliated in order to hold power.
I am being carried right now. By friends who listen and share their company when the quiet days in my house get too long. By meals shared. By so much PRAYER. I am so incredibly grateful to be carried by you and by God. I don't enjoy being having to be carried, I would much rather be the carrier, but here is where God has allowed me to be, so I will open my eyes and take in the lessons. I will appreciate that God is using this to help me grow in virtue, to grow in mission, so that I can better carry someone else someday. Because today good people lifted my burden with a visit, a text message and an email. Today I could breathe easier than yesterday and could be joyful with my children. Because someone carried me, I could carry my children. Can you ease someone's burden today?




"We love because He first loved us." 1 Jn 4:19

Dear Person Holding my Child's Life in Your Hands

Dear Person Holding my Child's Life in Your Hands,
Four weeks ago, someone came and took our foster son from his home, to take him to a new home, to live with the mother who gave birth to him. After 13 months, after living here and knowing us as his parents and his family his whole life. He doesn't understand anything about laws or judges or court, he only knows what he has experienced, and that is that we are his family, who have always been here and always cared for him.

When you took him away, and then told us we couldn't visit him, I don't know if you understood what you did to our family and I don't think you understand what you are doing to him. You see, you forced us to "abandon" him. All I can do all day is picture his face, and imagine that he is wondering where we are. All I can think about is how this abandonment is hurting him, and that he might struggle for the rest of his life to trust because of this trauma.
You want him to attach to his new mom, that's what you say. Except that logic doesn't match any research out there about attachment and children. I have looked for it and read document after document and everything says children attach better when they have a transition, and when they stay attached to their previous attachment. Like this article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3422627/
or this one https://www.bcadoption.com/resources/articles/better-adoption-transitions
In our foster care training, our facilitator transplanted a plant, and asked us if we should clear away the old dirt from the roots, cut the roots, etc to be sure the plant did well in the new soil. NO! Everyone shouted. Of course anyone that knows anything about transplanting a plant knows the best chance at surviving in new soil is to keep as much of the old soil around it, to keep the roots as in tact as possible. This is one of the reasons why we keep our kids in contact with their birth families. This is why I reached out to this child's mother to ask her to please come to visits with her daughter last year when she stopped coming. This is why we still try to spend time with our other foster children if parents will let us. When children lose people out of their lives they start to believe they aren't good, they aren't worthy of someone caring about them. They stop trusting people to ever stay, they stop trying to even have relationships. When they are supported by the sturdy foundation of a positive attachment, they can confidently build new attachments.
Maybe you don't know all of this. Maybe you haven't had the attachment training that I have. Maybe you haven't lived with multiple children who have struggled with attachment issues. Maybe you haven't held them and seen the pain in their eyes as they fight an internal battle wanting to trust their mom but needing to protect themselves as history has shown. Maybe you don't know multiple families like I do whose adopted children can't function in society because of their extreme attachment issues. Maybe you really do need to hear from the attachment specialist you are supposed to be consulting.
But here's the thing, it's been FOUR WEEKS. You haven't managed to have that meeting in FOUR WEEKS. Maybe that doesn't seem like a long time, but that is 28 days that he has looked for us. 28 days he has felt abandoned. 28 days we have cried missing him and afraid for him. 28 days we can't sleep or eat. 28 days I feel like I am going to throw up most of the time. 28 days his sister has spent half the day crying or throwing tantrums because another person has disappeared from her life, just when she was starting to trust us again, she is now sure she shouldn't. 28 days my seven year old has cried and missed his brother and wondered why people he thought were good have made this decision he feels is so bad. 28 days when I haven't been able to answer my children's questions when they will get to see him.


Have you ever left your child for 28 days? I bet if you even left them for a few days somewhere it was in a familiar environment, with someone you trusted and someone they knew. And I bet you and they both knew you were coming back.
I am upset, and hurt, and so so worried about the damage that is being done to him in this very crucial age where his brain is developing the ability to form healthy attachment.
I contacted my daughters attachment therapist in Sioux Falls, she and everyone in her office specialize in child attachment, and she would never be supportive of him going this long without a visit with us. She is worried about Jadence and the setback this is for her as well.
No one seems to have time to set up a meeting, or to respond to phone calls. But I'm betting you didn't go into this line of work to hurt children. So I'm asking, one more time, to please let us visit him.
I don't know if you think a visit is just something we are being selfish about. I hope you realize that as much as we want to see him, visits are so hard for us, because they have to end, and at the end I have to walk away, and leave him once more. I have to talk my body through motions that are not natural as a mother, and my heart will break all over again. But I do it because I know he needs it, because it's better for him to know I didn't disappear completely. I do it because I know my kids need to know people don't just disappear.
If there is research that supports no contact, I'd love to see it. If you really truly believe it's best for him not to see us, and that belief is based on actual data, then please share it. We are his parents. We only want what's best for him. We only want him to be ok. Unfortunately, it seems a visit just isn't happening because everyone is too busy. Please don't be too busy today for my son. He is such a special little boy. He is so full of love and joy. He has a purpose. Another person like him will never again exist in this world. Would you please treat him like he is that precious? Like this matters? Because it really truly does.
I know we're all busy. But at the end of the day, you turn off your computer, close your office door and go home to your life. But this IS his life. This is our life. Your decisions, even the decision to ignore something, severely impacts all of our lives, changes them forever.  Will you consider that before you shut your office door tonight? Will you realize how you spend your time at work determines if my children will cry themselves to sleep again tonight? Before you pick up your phone to send that personal text message, will you realize doing so means you didn't take the time to message the therapist and my son will now go to sleep for the 29th day wondering what he did wrong to make us not come back for him?
When you make a decision, he needs you to do it with the same care that my husband used when he held him for the first time in the photo above. Because that is what you are doing: You are holding his life in your hands. Did you do it with care today as if his whole life depended on how gently you handled him? Its an enormous responsibility, making decisions about the life of a child. Please don't get so accustomed to it that you stop doing it with care.
And if you won't take the time to handle him with care today, maybe my readers will. Maybe my readers will share this post to get your attention, to get you to respond. Maybe my readers will share this post so that all people who work with children will be reminded of the importance of prioritizing our children. Because they are so incredibly precious. They aren't replaceable. And they need us to protect them. We can't keep treating our children like this and expect our world to get better. Will you help this little boy today?

Stuck in the Middle

Has it felt like your world is falling apart? Does it seem like if it can go wrong it will? Were you smooth sailing until an unexpected storm came up that just doesn't seem to calm?
A few times since Dan and I have been married we've felt this way. Most memorable was the month we lost our baby, our dog ran away, and our new puppy got run over in the driveway by a delivery truck. I'm pretty sure I wrote a pretty ugly "thanks for kicking me when I'm down" letter to God that day. Really...the puppy too?
A lot has felt like it is falling apart for our family recently too. Maybe someday I can share the details with you, but right now I'll just stay that everyone is struggling to deal with the difficulties of foster care and all the emotions and hurt that comes with it, especially the fear of loss.
In the middle of trying to navigate that, we are trying to sell our house, beginning the busiest season of our business, and September also brought school and new routines. And then, court hearings didn't go well, the house didn't sell the first day like I had hoped (too much to ask?), equipment repairs keep adding up and most of the equipment isn't in the field yet, and all these new and stressful things are throwing new behaviors from our kids that I haven't had experience with yet. September left us feeling beat up. September had me on the edge of writing another sarcastic letter to God, something like "did you fall asleep up there?" or "what in the world were you thinking?" as the opening line.
This time I didn't write the letter. Oh, I said some choice words about it to a few friends who were unfortunate enough to ask how things were going. But I didn't talk to Him about it, I just stayed angry. Luckily for me, He has given me a safety net. That even when I won't sit with Him in prayer, even when I'm too angry or hurt to go there, He has put all these other things in my life to reach me. My good friends who always know what to say and always reassure me and comfort me. And the church (made up of people) who prays for me, hears my failings and offers forgiveness, and guides me to read scripture.
The beginning of October, which was maybe the worst week of all, we have been reading through the book of Job in the first readings. I used to love this story of the man who had everything and loved God so the devil took everything to see if he would still praise God. It's a beautiful story of faith. But as I was reading it in short clips as the daily readings, I realized if you only got that day's clip of the story, it would be a pretty sad one. God allows the devil to take away everything Job has. It's devastating. His family, his animals, his workers, everything was gone just like that. And then the devil takes his health. And then his friends are convinced he is sinful because he is being punished. Job stays faithful. He continues to praise God, he defends himself humbly against the false accusations of his friends, continuing to point them to the goodness of God. But he is sad. He goes on for so many chapters with his pain and hurt.
If you read those clips of the story, without having read the end of the story, its a very sad and depressing story. But I knew as I was reading them, how the story ends, that after so much time of not hearing from God, He finally answers, and He questions Job: "where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?" Job 37:4 and goes on and on reminding Job that He is the creator who knows more than Job does. And Job acknowledges this and says "I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted." Job 42:1 And then the story ends "and the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends, and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before." Job 42:10
You just can't look at the middle of that story and make any sense out of it.
And I read it this week and was reminded that's where we are. We are right in the middle of the story. And when we turn on the news or get hit with a tragedy that rocks our world, or if the storm just never seems to calm we can feel like it's all falling apart. It can take us to a place of despair. But it doesn't have to. Because we know this is the middle of the story, and we know the ending is going to be happy (eternal life in heaven right!?).
I still cringe thinking about what else will happen in the middle of the story. Just like Job, having faith during difficult times doesn't mean we can't still be sad or even angry during those hard parts in the middle. Being sad doesn't mean we don't have faith. It means we weren't made for the brokenness of this world, and that's ok. But faith doesn't despair. Faith remembers this is the middle of the story, and takes hope that we already know the ending.
I wasn't there when He laid the foundation of the earth. So who am I to question what He is doing? I know it doesn't always make sense. My one year old right now is in that "play with everything that is not a toy" stage. And he gets so upset when I take things away from him that are dangerous. He doesn't understand that I'm doing what's best for him, and he cries the saddest, most dramatic cries about it. It's ok to cry and be sad when you're stuck in the middle, but don't despair. Even when the end feels really far away, remember that the middle is really what the story is made of.
Despite everything that's falling apart, there's so much good in this season of life. There are 5 kids in my house that all still want to sit on my lap and read a book and try not to let me go after bedtime hugs. There is this incredible man I get to walk with who still does whatever he can to make me laugh and never forgets to say "I love you." And after all of the mistakes and bad choices and 'stress-got-the-better-of-us moments, there is forgiveness. There is the sound of the baby's deep belly laugh when Dan is holding him high on top of his head. There is the moment brothers share and sisters help each other put on dress up clothes. There is the most precious phrase of "I love you mom" after an "I hate you" screamed earlier in the day.
Reading clips of our story might not make any sense right now. It might just be incredibly sad. I wrote this post a few weeks ago, and yesterday they took Tiny to live with his birth mom, after 13 months and his whole life here. We can hardly breathe. We are so afraid for the hurt he is experiencing and the dangerous situation he is living in.  This part of his story just doesn't make any sense. Maybe that's how yours reads too. I'm praying for you tonight, that you find hope that this is just the middle of the story, and the end is going to be a happy one. But I'm also praying you find hope that the middle still has a lot of good stuff in store for you too. Because even though I cried more than I smiled today, there was still a massive blanket fort in the living room with three  beautiful giggling faces inside. Even though I have never seen my husband this hurt, a friend rode with him in the tractor all night so he wouldn't be alone. Even though the evil in the world seems to be closing in, we will still give praise to our God. It doesn't make any sense why you haven't stepped in, but we still love You.  "Father, Glorify your name." Jn 12:28

Pipestone County: The Vote that can help our Foster Kids

If you live in Pipestone County, there's one selection on your ballots this year that affects our foster children. It might seem odd, that there are so many signs all over Pipestone and Edgerton for the County Attorney position. If you are interested, I'd like to tell you why it's a kind of a big deal.
The County Attorney has a lot of different roles, but one of them is very important to us. One of them is to represent the county social services agency and our foster children, most of whom have been abused or neglected by their parents. Because our children have come from different towns, we have worked with county attorneys from three different counties during our children's child protection hearings, parental rights terminations and finally adoption hearings. So, I will not speak about any other responsibilities that the county attorney has, only the one that I have the most experience with. To me, making sure a child is protected is one of the most important things they do.
Dan and I will be voting for Ben Denton for Pipestone County Attorney and I'll tell you why as briefly as I can.
We were referred to Ben when we were seeking someone to help us with our son Nathaniel's custody transfer probably 6 years ago. We already knew Ben who was active at our church. What I always remember most about our first encounters with Ben as an attorney, was how he changed my opinion of attorneys. As we were navigating a delicate custody issue to protect our son's safety he made sure to ask us questions to be sure we were doing things rightly by our child's birth mother. I remember it surprised me at first, I had gone in to an attorneys office with the expectation that an attorney I was hiring would simply look out for my best interest. But Ben explained even though the law might not always require something, he himself is accountable to God, and so in whatever he does, he always wants to be sure he is doing what is right.
Ben worked hard to help us obtain custody and later finally adopt Nathaniel, being sure to be fair and right to his birth mother at all times. He also recently helped us adopt our daughter Jadence. He has always been someone that we know we can rely on for sound legal advice that we know will always be in the best interest of everyone involved. I have always felt that Ben cared dearly about our family and especially the kids he helped us protect.

We remember receiving emails from Ben late at night or driving by his office to see the lights still on at 9 pm, and his fees were always fair. We know Ben will work very hard at this position and we know he'll always do what's right.
Last September, our daughter Jadence's little brother came to live with us just a few days old. He turned one this September and unfortunately the current county attorney, Damain Sandy, refused to file the original order for protection and in one years time has not represented him at court. I have spoken with him about this and am sad that he still stands behind his decision. It's a difficult thing when decisions about the life of your child are held in someone else's hands. When that's the case,  we need someone that will see them as children, important and precious, and do what's right for them to make sure they are protected.
Like I said earlier, I think the county attorney position has many roles, and I can't comment on who has more experience in any of those ways. I only know, when I used to hire employees at Good Samaritan Society who were responsible for taking care of vulnerable adults, it always paid off to hire someone whose heart was truly in the work. A lot of people can have experience and do a job satisfactorily. But when someone has a good heart, when they really care, then they are motivated to learn and work hard and put in the time and effort to do the job exceptionally.
I trust Ben's motivations and his heart with the decisions of my children, because I know he sees them as children and not just a case. 
I appreciate your time and your kind consideration of both candidates. Even though I don't always agree with decisions made, I still have respect for all parties and appreciate the time they have both put into serving our communities.