What A Week!

This week has just been beyond crazy. With 7 kids you have lots and lots of appointments and the foster systems just adds to that. I don't mind the appointments though because it gives some really good one on one or one on two time where the kids just jabber away.

This week we have learned way more than what we would have ever wanted to learn about trauma in children. We are blessed though that DCS has hired us a counselor to train us in parenting hurt children. A couple of days ago I spent 9 hours with a caseworker and I learned so much about the kids in foster care, how the system works and sooooo much more.

I learned that in our county (we have a very rural county with not a lot of people compared to other counties) there are now only about 4-5 foster families. The problem is that there are 7 caseworkers and each one carry a load of 16-20 somethings kids. Do the math and that is not nearly enough foster families!

Every single day people ask me how I do it. Let me ask you a question...how do you not do it?

A long time ago I asked God to open my eyes to the things that broke his heart. Maybe that's why I couldn't continue to make excuses. When I asked God to do this my eyes were opened beyond anything I could imagine. This week my eyes have been opened to things that I would have never dreamed about a year or 2 ago.

It's not easy being a parent or a foster parent. The truth though is that I am finally at a place in my life where I can put my selfish desires aside because I can no longer sit on the sidelines watching. I wish I would have done this a long time ago.

When we signed up for foster parenting I told the caseworker "bring me the special needs kiddos but don't call me for the extremely hurt child." Let's just say that things have gone the complete opposite of what I asked for. God has now given me a huge heart for the things I didn't think I could handle and he is also giving us the tools to take on everything that he brings us.

There are so many hurt children needing someone to love them. I can't even begin to tell you the changes that happen in a child when they start feeling safe for the first time in their life. Adoption and fostering parenting is HARD but if everyone says "I just couldn't do it" then who will be there to show these children the love of Jesus? Trust me I was one of those that said "I just couldn't do it."