Are We Even Making A Difference?

It has been 347 days since Luna and Sunshine came to our family. For the first seven months, their parents did nothing to get them back. Things are different now. Every day, it looks more and more like they will return to their bio parents in the coming months. I have been, and continue to, battle the hopelessness and despair that such a conclusion invokes in me. I vacillate between anger, hope, despair, peace, fear and joy... sometimes all in the same afternoon. The fact that I cannot see what the future holds for them can torment me (when I let it- and sometimes I do) On particularly dark nights, I wonder if I have wasted the last year of our lives trying to help a situation that cannot be repaired.

Multiple times this week, I have thought that my attempts to "help" or "save" by becoming a foster parent have been thwarted by the ridiculous system that is foster care. We walk into court hopeful and prayerful and leave infuriated, shaking our heads at the lack of logic and sanity that governs our laws. Our system holds the rights of parents above the rights of their children and I cry and grieve and shake my fist in anger. The very system that should protect our sweet girls holds them in limbo... preventing them from knowing the peace of permanence in family life.

I ran into a friend this week and we discussed how these situations make you think that to really affect change or make a difference for these children, you need to be an attorney, a judge, a politician. I feel that I have no power over what happens to Sunshine and Luna and that fact is unnerving, discouraging and infuriating. Maybe I should run for office or go back to law school or, at the very least, encourage my children to choose careers that will enable them to help others. What we are doing seems so futile...Watching all of our love and work and prayer for these girls get cast aside so they can return to the very people who got them into this mess in the first place.... Are we even making a difference? What is the point of all we are doing if the system just sends them back to be neglected and abused again?

I held my daughter Daphne last night as she wept over the future of our little Sunshine and Luna. Daphne has become the most amazing young woman over the past year. I look at her and I see a glimpse of the powerful and impressive mother she will be one day. She gives all of her love and heart to Sunshine and Luna and is such a wonderful big sister to them. As I held her, She looked up at me and said, "But they should stay here. With us. It won't be safe for them if they go back. It won't be good for them." I held her and I even said these words to her:, "Maybe, in order to really help them, I need to be an attorney or a judge.. All I know is that God has called us to love these girls and we must trust him with our future." We prayed together and cried together and talked. I told her that none of this makes sense to me. This system, this outcome. I told her how although I struggle to trust God several times a week, that trusting Him is my only Hope. I know... I KNOW that His ways are higher than ours. While our understanding leads us to believe that these girls would be best in our home, in our family, I trust God to finish this story. I have seen Him pick up the pieces of my broken heart and make the most beautiful story with them. I choose to trust Him. We read Proverbs 3:5-6 together:

This morning, she sent me these pics:

I'm not gonna lie, y'all. I am both gutted and empowered as I watch my children go through this process with me. I wish I could show you all the pictures of them laughing and playing together. What joy we have known with these girls. How amazing that in the midst of "anticipatory grief", Daphne can see God's hand in this, that she can trust Him through such pain. How blessed am I to be their mama.

My dear friend Spring shared this quote in her lesson today and I was pierced with its truthfulness:

“When the real history of mankind is fully disclosed, will it feature the echoes of gunfire or the shaping sound of lullabies? The great armistices made by military men or the peacemaking of women in homes and in neighborhoods? Will what happened in cradles and kitchens prove to be more controlling than what happened in congresses?”- Neal A Maxwell

I was wrong, dear Daphne. We ARE changing these girls for the better. We ARE helping them. We ARE making a difference. Whatever the outcome of this story, God has written on the fabric of who they are while they have been in our home.

They have come to know the love of their Savior. This summer, I was telling them the story of Jesus and explaining how He died and how the Roman soldiers crucified Him. Sunshine looked up at me, with the most pure and innocent expression on her face and asked, "Why would them do that?" My heart was so enriched to know that we get to share the gospel with these precious children. These girls have learned of their Savior, of who He is and that He died for each of them. I pray, with all of my heart, that their time with us will stay with them. I pray the love they feel here, the lessons they have learned, the peace and security they have known will stay with them, imprinted on their hearts. They may not remember our faces, or even our names, but I trust that God is using our family to change their trajectory. I trust Him. It is a choice I have to make every day. I choose to trust Him with the future.

How ARE we?!

How ARE we?

First of all, thank you.  Thank you for caring how we are.  Thank you for asking how we are.  Thank you for bearing with my long answers or tear-filled responses.  We love you.  We are SO blessed that so many people care about our family.

Answering this question has become increasingly difficult.

I have a lot going on in my brain right now.  Our lives are overwhelmed.

I feel like a walking apology.

I forgot to make that phone call... I forgot to order school lunch for the big kids... I forgot to reply to your text or email... I didn't remember your birthday.  My brain is on overload.

If I failed to reply to your email, text, request, application for preschool, question about anything in general, request for a recipe... please forgive me.  I thank you for your patience.  We have a lot going on right now.

But let me just tell you right now:

It's not about how many kids I have. 

When I have to issue an apology for something I have let fall through the cracks, the person to whom I am apologizing often says something like, "It's ok!  You have a lot of stress- I mean, you have five kids now!"

And I truly am so grateful for your patience with me and your willingness to forgive me for my failings, that I don't say anything, but I kinda want to scream:

"It's not about how many kids I have!"

Does that sound rude? I'm Sorry.  (walking apology, here)

(**DISCLAIMER: If you have said this to me... I do not blame you one bit. I am certain that we would have said the same things... We had NO idea.  I am sure that if we weren't going through this ourselves, we would say the same thing.  One of the greatest lessons this experience is teaching me is all the things I wish I had said to my friend and foster mom mentor, Mary and all the things I wish I hadn't said to her.  I truly appreciate your support and encouragement and the last thing I want is for this post to alienate you.  BUT... I feel so strongly that foster parents need real, authentic voices.  I hope that somewhere, someone who is beginning their journey in foster care might find some comfort and encouragement and camaraderie from this post. So please know that I love you and am grateful for all of your encouragement!!)

It's just beyond frustrating.

Let me tell you right now that we got in over our heads.  Foster parenting is significantly harder than we thought.  But very, VERY little of the difficulty has to do with the number of children in our home.  
I don't mean to sound like I'm in denial- of course having five children instead of three is adding stress in our lives.  But seriously, in all truthfulness...the number of children I have accounts for maybe 10 % of our additional stress.  And even if we talk about the children themselves... loving them is like breathing.  It is the most natural thing in the world... I cannot begin to explain to you what I feel for those girls in my heart.  It was ferocious and intense from the moment I met them and it grows stronger with each passing day.

At this point, you may find yourself thinking what an ungrateful brat I am and asking, "Well, then, Laura, why are you forgetting appointments and texts and emails and applications?!"

Let me try to explain:

We *may* have had a slight savior complex when we got into Foster Care. We saw children in trouble, children in need, and we wanted so desperately to "save" them.

Haha.

Imagine you see a child in a raging river with a storm pounding wind and rain around them, threatening to overtake them at any minute... you would do everything you could to pull them to safety, wouldn't you?  

That's what we thought Foster Care would be.  "Saving" children by pulling them to land, to the warm, safe family we have to offer.  And we knew from training that we would get wet and we would get hurt. But even these amazing little quotes like this didn't adequately prepare us:

In truth, foster care is not pulling that child from the raging river and the storm... it is getting into the river and braving the storm with them.  

You give every bit of energy you have to prevent their heads from going under and you let the waves pound your back so that they don't pound theirs.  All the while, the biological parents (who threw them into the river in the first place!!) are creating waves that come crashing down at their little heads.  The caseworkers, attorneys and judge even allow some of these waves to keep on pounding, all in the name of giving their parents a chance to get off the bank of the river and pull the children to safety.  It is exhausting, maddening, infuriating and back breaking.  But precious little of that has to do with the number of children in our home.  The exhaustion is the storm.  We want, more than anything, to pull our girls to the safety of the river bank and into the warmth of our family and home, locking the door on that river forever.  But we have NO power to control the end of the story or the timeline of events.  We can only endure the storm with them.  

What does the storm look like?  It is drug use or child neglect or child abuse, sometimes all three.  The storm is health issues and developmental delays as a result of drug use and neglectful parenting.  The storm is a broken legal system that exalts the rights of biological parents while setting the rights of their children on the back burner.  The storm is meetings and driving and visits and phone calls with hostile, aggressive, difficult, and threatening biological parents.  The storm is drying a child's tears when their parents fail to come to a visit or when they detail the terrible experiences of their lives.  The storm is sitting by a child's hospital bed while they fight for their lives because their parents were too high to get them medical treatment.  The storm is gaining the trust of  a child who has been traumatically removed from his or her family.  Broken as that family may be, it is likely all that child has ever known. The storm is being told to bend over backward to accommodate the parents who put the children into this mess.  The storm is listening to caseworkers extol the virtues of those parents while offering no substantial relief or encouragement to our children or our family.  The storm is waiting for people who have only seen the children from across a room to decide our fates.  The storm is rocking a baby to sleep and not knowing what that baby's future will hold...  Will she stay?  Will she go?  Will some relative or the Tribe step in and take her?  Will she be hurt again?  Will she remember us?  Will all of our love and effort and energy and prayer help anything at all?  If our foster daughters go back to their bio parents, what will happen to them?  Will they return to us in another year, more broken and scared than before?  

These questions overwhelm my thoughts.  The intricacies of court hearings and team meetings and caseworker dramas can run rampant in my thoughts to the point that doctor's appointments and lunch orders and email correspondence falls to the back of my mind, sometimes never to return to the forefront.  I fall asleep easily because I am so exhausted, but if I wake in the night, I cannot get back to sleep.  I lay awake wondering about the one million minutia that affect the girls case. I pray to God and beg sleep to come. So if I have failed to return your call or reply to your email, please know that it was not intentional... and that it wasn't because I have five children.  (Ok, maybe a little bit) I just got overwhelmed with it all. 

So, how ARE we?  We are good, crazy, stressed, happy, overwhelmed... we have all the feelings.  We are completely and totally in love with these girls and we are so grateful for your patience with us.  

And as we discuss how many children we have... it bears mentioning that the bio mom of our girls is pregnant and due any day.  

Will that baby be removed?  Maybe. 

Will they ask us to take the baby?  Probably.  

Will we say yes?  Probably.  

Are we ready for this?  No.  As far as baby items go, I have a crib and..... that's it. 

You might find yourself wondering if we have completely lost our minds, but let me assure you that we have not.  We have considered this issue from every possible angle and have discussed it ad nauseam.  It is one of the aforementioned "wonderings" that keeps me awake at night.  

Have I considered that maybe our plates are too full and we should just say no?  Absolutely.  

Have I considered that if we say no, the girls could be removed and placed with a foster family willing to take them AND their baby sibling?  Yes. 

Is THAT the reason we are willing to care for this baby?  No. 

If someone came to your doorstep with a helpless newborn and asked you to care for them, would you say yes? My instinct is to take that baby in and keep her as safe and loved as possible.  But even instinct isn't enough.

If we accept this baby, will our children get what they need?  Would it be too much?  Will our heads finally sink under the water?

These are all questions I have asked God.  

On Saturday, I spent some time in the temple and was able to be alone there.  These precious, secluded moments were like a sanctuary to me.  Being in God's house, away from all the hustle and bustle of the world...we talked, God and I.  I asked Him all those questions that I have been asking for months.  What will happen to the girls?  How long must we endure this storm?  Why is this happening to them, to us?!  I wept.  My body shook as I cried out to Him.  His answers poured over me from scripture:

"O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?

 2 How long shall thy hand be stayed, and thine eye, yea thy pure eye, behold from the eternal heavens the wrongs of thy people and of thy servants, and thine ear be penetrated with their cries?

 3 Yea, O Lord, how long shall they suffer these wrongs and unlawful oppressions, before thine heart shall be softened toward them, and thy bowels be moved with compassion toward them?

...My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;

 8 And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.

 9 Thy friends do stand by thee, and they shall hail thee again with warm hearts and friendly hands.

 10 Thou art not yet as Job; thy friends do not contend against thee, neither charge thee with transgression, as they did Job."   Doctrine and Covenants 121

This passage brought me tremendous comfort.  I read the whole section and felt nourishment come to my soul.  

And then, I found courage to pray about the baby... and I felt the most surreal peace come over me.  I felt His love calm my heart and still my fears.  Every fear and doubt and sorrow was chased out of my soul and all I felt was peace. Warmth and peace filled my soul.  

Will they ask us to take the baby? Maybe.  Maybe not.  

Will this journey wear us down and exhaust us?  Definitely.  Will we have anything left of ourselves? I hope we will have easier days... But I honestly hope and pray that gradually less and less of us can be seen and more and more of Christ will be seen.  If there is anything I have learned in this process, it's that foster care isn't about US.

I recently read a talk by Jeffrey R. Holland that brought me such encouragement.  He shared the story of Esperanza Lamelas who cared for her three granddaughters night and day as they suffered from muscular dystrophy.  She cared for them selflessly for 22 years until she passed away. 

"In 1989, at age seventy-four, her own health now broken, she died, having given new meaning to the Prophet Joseph’s invitation to “waste and wear out our lives … do[ing] all things that lie in our power … [for the benefit of] the rising generation, and … all the pure in heart” (D&C 123:13, 17, 11)."

 This may waste and wear out our lives somewhat.  I may even complain about that to you all now and again.  But I know what God has called us to do.  I know this call came from Him and we trust Him.  We trust that His plans are FOR us and we will Go Where He Wants us to Go...

1. "It may not be on the mountain height
   Or over the stormy sea,
   It may not be at the battle's front
   My Lord will have need of me.
   But if, by a still, small voice he calls
   To paths that I do not know,
   I'll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in thine:
   I'll go where you want me to go.
2. I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord,
   Over mountain or plain or sea;
   I'll say what you want me to say, dear Lord;
   I'll be what you want me to be.
3.  Perhaps today there are loving words
   Which Jesus would have me speak;
   There may be now in the paths of sin
   Some wand'rer whom I should seek.
   O Savior, if thou wilt be my guide,
   Tho dark and rugged the way,
   My voice shall echo the message sweet:
   I'll say what you want me to say.
4.  There's surely somewhere a lowly place
   In earth's harvest fields so wide
   Where I may labor through life's short day
   For Jesus, the Crucified.
   So trusting my all to thy tender care,
   And knowing thou lovest me,
   I'll do thy will with a heart sincere:
   I'll be what you want me to be."
5. 
   

Foster Care is Not Fair

Injustice.  Unfairness.  Inequality.
 
If I had to describe foster care in ten words, all three of these would make the list.

All three are things that make my blood boil.  I get this fire in the pit of my stomach when I, or even more so, one of my loved ones, experience injustice or unfairness.  I’m kind of passionate.  Bat$#@* passionate, as I *may* have been called before.

  I was nicknamed the terminator in a past life and have been known to wage fiery verbal war on those who have wronged my people.  I *may* have done this overzealously on occasion.  I *may* have gotten my son’s soccer team a yellow card for going apoplectic at a referee who failed to call nasty fouls on my child.  I *may* have gotten into it with some French girls in front of the Versailles Palace.  I *may* have made a customer service rep. cry a time or two.  And the secretary at my kid’s school.  Oh dear.

In my defense, I grew up watching Designing Women and got a little too excited when she took someone to task for being unfair and unjust.  

Two of My Favorites:

And especially this one:

Thank goodness for Jesus because this passion of mine and lack of filter have certainly gotten me into some trouble a time or two.  God has been helping me to temper those reactions and learn to control them better.  I don’t claim to be “healed” or to now be “meek and lowly of heart” or anything like that… but I’m making some progress.  It’s a daily prayer for me that God will help me to control my tongue.  And frankly, I don’t want to become a door mouse, because I truly believe God has gifted me with the ability to speak out when others hold back, with the ability to put words together quickly and efficiently and the ability to advocate for others who need protection and direction.

I am a work in progress.  And man is it slow going.

Foster care is born of injustice and unfairness.   Children enter foster care because they have been treated unjustly and unfairly.  In most cases, that is a gross understatement. 

Being a foster parent often means putting yourself in between the child and unfairness and protecting them from it. We often absorb the unfairness for them to prevent more of it from splattering and wounding them further.  Being a foster parent also often means watching, with our proverbial hands tied and mouths taped shut as unfairness splatters all over our foster children, our biological children,our marriages, our selves.  It means holding the hands of children and empathizing with the unfairness with no power to change it or fix it. 

We were so excited and nervous to begin this process.  The fact that, on an intellectual level, we understood what bringing brokenness into our home would do to us, is hollow comfort.  The emotional weight of suffering the consequences of the horrible choices of others is often just too much.  Those are “eat the ice cream out of the carton” days.  They are “cereal for dinner” days.  They are “meltdown days”.

I feel as though we sit in a pool of unfairness every day. Every now and then, a bio parent or caseworker or judge shatters glass in the pool and then has the audacity to ask us to clean up the glass AND figure out a way to live in the pool of unfairness with this new mess.

So, last week, we were hit with another shattered glass of unfairness.  I have attempted several paragraphs trying to share this little story with you in ambiguous, confidential terms, but there's just no sharing it.  Sufficeth to say that we are being asked to do unreasonable things and being reprimanded for speaking out when the unreasonable things hurt our family or the girls.

I truly entered this process believing that my passionate, outspoken nature would be helpful to the process and the children we foster.  So far, I have done nothing but make it worse.  I was wholly unprepared for the people we are working WITH, to come to my home and imply that I "shut up and color" or they would move the girls to a family that was more.... passive.

I was not prepared for sleepless nights over the wounds inflicted upon these girls, on the willingness of caseworkers and judges to put the needs of these children second to their own ease and comfort.  I was unprepared for the unfairness of watching these children suffer from the actions of their parents and being the ones responsible for helping them deal with those wounds.

The unfairness feels almost tangible at times.  I, My husband, Sunshine, Luna and our whole family are asked to rearrange our lives over and over to make things easier on bio parents who take every bit of it for granted.  They go on, living their lives as they please, inflicting hardship and pain on these precious girls and, by extension, the rest of our family.  I feel the injustice coat my skin and my arms tingle with frustration and outrage.  It is all I can do not to scream or yell or "verbally annihilate them" as Julia Sugarbaker would do.

I watch them slide back into destructive behaviors and then turn around and tell us they are changing and I am supposed to believe their hearts are changing and they are becoming new people? I spent a good chunk of the weekend pondering how to accept their repentance.  And then I realized that it's not really my job.

When I sit there, judging their repentance and suggesting they deserve no mercy, am I no better then the brother of the prodigal son?

I have always listened to the story of the Prodigal Son and connected more with the prodigal son.  I saw myself as someone who went away from my Father in Heaven and was received back with open arms.  I never really pondered the plight of the older brother.

How do I treat those who have fallen away?
How do I treat those, who, in their sin have wounded those I love?
How can I be expected to love the very people who have hurt and neglected and harmed these precious girls? We spend every moment and prayer and thought and tear to help heal the wounds inflicted by their parents.  Can we really be expected to LOVE them?

But… there is another type of unfairness. 

Last night, I held the most beautiful little two year old as she giggled and said new words for the first time.  I got to watch a precious five year old as she spelled words for the first time and sang songs and laughed and played and I thought…. I am so blessed.  We are so blessed to watch them blossom.  And how very unfair that they don’t get to look over and see their first mother and father smiling back at them.  How very unfair. 

So, how do you sit in the pool of unfairness without going all Julia Sugarbaker on everyone?

Well, sometimes I don’t.  Sometimes, I DO go all Julia Sugarbaker on people.  Other times I get out and hug my people and let my unfairness drip all over them and let them hold my wet and heavy burden for a while. The Lord has sent some very precious burden carriers who hold me when I cannot sit in the pool one more minute. 

But 99% of the time, we must stay in the pool.  It’s what we signed up for.  If these girls must stay in the pool, we have promised we will stay in the pool of unfairness with them as long as God is willing. 

And so… last week, when someone threw a giant vase into the pool and shattered glass all around, I scrambled… trying to gather up all the pieces before they cut any of our children.  And yes… I got cut in the process.  Just as I was crying to God about all the unfairness, he reminded me:

“If life were truly fair, you and I would never be resurrected; you and I would never be able to stand clean before God. In this respect, I am grateful that life is not fair.” - Dale G. Renlund, "That I Might Draw All Men Unto Me" 

I stopped in my tracks and chills ran up my arms.

 Is it really fairness I want? 

Don’t I crave that God bend the rules where I am concerned?

Oh, Dear God, please forgive me.  I seem to constantly need reminding that YOU are God and I am not.  I need your mercy just as much as these bio parents and I am not the one to decide when that mercy should end. Please, please help me deal with the unfairness being heaped on these girls.

The very next line brought me great comfort. 

“At the same time, I can emphatically state that because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, ultimately, in the eternal scheme of things, there will be no unfairness. “All that is unfair about life can be made right.”¹⁴ Our present circumstances may not change, but through God’s compassion, kindness, and love, we will all receive more than we deserve, more than we can ever earn, and more than we can ever hope for. We are promised that “God shall wipe away all tears from [our] eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

I trust His promises.  I know He is FOR us. I know He is FOR those girls.  I trust that one day, he will wash away all the unfairness and we will sit at His feet, basking in His perfect mercy and justice. 

What does the future hold for these little ones; for our marriage; for our family?

I don't know.  But He knows the end of the story and I know He works for my good; for their good; for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes.

Nostalgia and The Homeless Shelter

Last week, Sunshine had an appointment for a medical procedure at a hospital down town.  She's been having a  lot of doctor's appointments lately and has seen her bio mom more in the past week than for the past four months. 

Sunshine was a little nervous, so I knelt next to the chair and held her hand.  This is a pretty typical reaction, and I wouldn't mention this except that it was slightly awkward when the bio mom arrived twenty minutes late, breathless, saying, "Well, I made it."  

Well, pin a rose on your nose!! 

No,   I didn't say that.  But I thought it.  

And in truth, it's good that she came.  I'm glad that she is making an effort to be involved.  It just kind of reminded me of when your husband does the dishes or something that you do every day and then acts all proud of himself like he deserves a prize or something. Except that my husband doesn't do that because, well, let's face it: He's married to me and he'd be sorry if he acted like that. Bwahahaha!   Come to think of it, if I mowed the lawn one week, I'd be pretty darn proud of myself... but I digress.  

As we walked out, the bio mom gave Sunshine some cinnamon twists from Taco Bell, a bag of small random happy meal toys from a second hand store called Savers... It was a kind gesture and so sweet that she took time to go and get things for the girls.  

Sunshine, of course, treats these toys as treasures since then.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I'll explain that later. 

When Sunshine and I left, I needed, and yes I do mean NEEDED, to stop by Mc Donald's for a coke.  Because if you know me well at all, you know that I love me some Coca Cola.  

This meant that we took a different route home:

We traveled downtown and after several minutes neared a 

park which is known for being a resting place for homeless people. Sunshine's eyes lit up and she said, "Wait a minute! I know this place!  That's our park! " 

She became so alert and excited, pointing to things out the window and exclaiming over each one: "We go to that library!  I go to that Wendy's!"

With every exclamation, she mentioned how near the landmark was to the shelter where they had stayed.  

She then directed me to the shelter because she wanted me to see where she used to sleep.  She knew exactly where to turn and how to get there and said, "But we stayed here when we had a car.  And now we don't"  

As we pulled up at the shelter, Sunshine looked out at the homeless people congregating outside and said, " I know these people!  This is where I used to sleep."

We drove past this long street full of homeless people camping and I asked her if she knew these people and  she said, " No... I know some of them." And then, in the sweetest, most gentle voice you can imagine she said, " I used to love this place."

I looked out the window at the shelter and the people congregating on the street.  My heart was beating so rapidly and I felt sick to my stomach.  I wanted to hug her and protect her from ever knowing the reality of this place and at the same time wanted to say, "You weren't safe here!  This was no place for you! "  But I just listened.  I repeated her words back to her and watched her face and just looked with her.

Her expression turned wistful for a minute and then we turned the corner.  She saw the soup kitchen where they would eat and was bouncing in her seat with excitement.  She said, "That's where we eat.  This was our place.  This is still our place, you know."

Last year, when I went back to Texas, we drove around with our children and saw the two houses I lived in as a child and it was such a funny feeling- nostalgia.  Excitement.  Bitter sweet sensations. It was important to me, not just to see the houses, but to show them to my children.  There's just something about going back... seeing your place.  Miranda Lambert's "House that Built Me", anyone?  

Nostalgia does in fact mean, "a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations."

But the thing is, when you and I and heck, even Miranda go back to our childhood homes, we are going to just that:

Homes.  

Y'all.  It was gut wrenching and sweet and precious and maddening and sickening and so sad all at the same time.  Watching her experience all of those same sweet feelings for... a shelter?  A soup kitchen?  A park full of tents and partially dressed transients?  

 I wanted to hold her and protect her and comfort her.

As we passed the park, she said, "This was our place when ___________ was my dad and ___________ was my mom and _______ was my big sister and _______ was my little sister."  (I can't use their real names!)

And I said, "Yes, you were all there together.  And they are still your family.  I bet it was so neat to see where you stayed together.  I'm so glad you showed me where you slept.  I loved seeing that with you."

And off we went to spend the afternoon at a water park and the evening at a soccer game, playing and laughing and eating together.  

Later that evening, she said, "We should go back to that place again that I showed you."

Sweet precious girl. 

Now, please know that I do not advocate the State removing children from their parents simply because they are homeless.  But there were choices made that caused their homelessness and then there was a deep neglect for them to fail to get care for these sweet girls.  Let us remember that the girls both had drugs in their systems and that it was drug use that led their family to homelessness...

So back to the trinket treasure gifts from the bio mom:
  I have so many thoughts on this subject.  It is important to note that the bio mom has been almost completely absent until the past week or so.  It is also important to know that Sunshine's reaction to seeing her "place" is evidence that she really has no idea how neglected and in danger she really was.  All she knows is that when she was in that place, her family was together.  

It is this sense of loyalty, this sense of belonging to her parents, regardless of how they neglected or abused her, that drives her at this point.  And it is only natural to love your parents.  Sunshine is young enough that she barely understands what drugs are or how dangerous they can be or how very at risk she was.  She just misses her family.

Her big pink room with two beds and every toy imaginable is a poor substitute for the family she has grown up with. Our loving, happy, sober family is wonderful, but... remember when???

And that is why, when she prays at night, she thanks God that her bio mom  gave her cinnamon twists and "new" toys... but she barely notices that we bought her the Ariel costume she has been so excited about for the past month- We buy her everything that she could need and new clothes and new toys and there is rarely much of an afterthought.  

Yet: it is these little offerings from her mother that make it into her conscience, that are mentioned in her precious, genuine prayers at the end of the day, that are cradled and treasured like nothing else.

I do not mention this to sound petty. I am not hurt by this- but I share it  simply to help you see into her sweet mind.  

Is there a part of me that judges bio mom for only giving second hand happy meal toys and cinnamon twists.  And there is another part of me that sees the widow's mite.  There is another part of me that sees myself as a pharisee judging the woman who washes Christ's feet with her hair.  And do you remember what the Savior replied? 

The truth is, I need the Savior's grace and atoning blood just as much as Sunshine's bio mom.  And as much as I would like to wrap myself in superiority for being able to "give" so much to these girls... am I really just a pharisee who isn't giving as much because it's less of a sacrifice?  Maybe. 

And then I found out that the bio mom got a gym membership over the weekend, so I got over it.  

But... in the spirit of being servants of Christ, I am truly trying to pray for their bio parents.  I know, in my heart of hearts, that if they could experience true healing, true recovery and yes, true repentance... THAT would be the best outcome for our girls:

But... we have committed to standing in the gap for them, to be here if they fail, to be here while our girls wait and to be here forever.  "We'll go where you want us to go, dear Lord, we'll be what you want us to be."

It is an impossible feeling to describe: hoping that the bio parents accept Christ's grace and become the parents they need to be... while simultaneously hoping that we can call these girls our daughters forever. Two hopes can exist at the same time. Two things can be true at the same time.  Sometimes, the burden of those two hopes is so heavy that my arms fail me and I cannot hold it all.  But: