"Hard"

"Doing" was a key theme at our Women's Retreat this week, and as it was a group of many current, former and future moms, foster care and adoption were recurring topics.

It was all at once incredibly humbling, exciting, inspirational and terrifying.  Did you know many people have actual gotten "the call" and kids have come to live in their homes?!?!? 

I know...that's the whole point, but something about these women's stories made it real, that not only are we going to look forward to, fear, pray about and prepare for children, they will actually arrive one day and we'll get to love them.  Crazy!

Also, many of these women have said goodbye to children they've loved -- some knew all along that it was a temporary arrangement, but that didn't make it any easier.  Once you've loved a child, you love that child for good.  We dearly hope to foster to adopt, but just because that is our hope doesn't mean it's God's plan.

And...they still don't regret it...even for their biological children's sake.  Their children survived and flourished not only the arrival and learning to share, but the departure and learning to let go.  

I learned so much...but mostly that it's going to be hard.  Hard to wait.  Hard to say no. Hard to say yes.  Hard to adjust.  Hard to get to know.  Hard to fit in.  Hard to get through.  Hard to balance. Hard to sleep.  Hard to love.  Hard to like.  Hard to understand.  Hard to communicate.  Hard to prioritize.  Hard to schedule.  Hard to afford. Hard to rest.

Then I came home to my boys waiting on the porch for me, and we went back to our regular life as a family of three.  This afternoon my sweet Charlie brought in the mail after school, as he always does, and there was a short note of blessing and encouragement from a mentor and friend, with a gift to help us through the hard.

It's going to be hard...but I'm surrounded by women who've lived the hard and will love us through it. Amazing.

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him... But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves...Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

(James 1:12,22,27)