There’s moments unique to fostering and adopting- comparable to the moments of a positive pregnancy test appearing before one’s eyes, or an ultrasound image coming into focus. Those unforgettable moments when a life is unfolding and coming to you. One of those moments in fostering and adopting is the moment you get the call. You remember the details around it, the words of it, the feelings in it.
I remember exactly where I was standing in the kitchen when the … continue reading
Oh sweet girl, how I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and a million times more if I need to: You were never, ever plan B.
How often does the world of adoption and foster care get assumed on the infertile and barren? As if God said, the child-losing should take care of the parent-losing. But no, He said His children should care for the orphans, and there’s more than enough of us for them and yet they … continue reading
“Hey, mama… do you have that picture…?” I wouldn’t even have to explain it anymore to my mom, she knows what I mean, she knows “that picture.” The picture of the first time I held my daughter, the first day I met her, the day that we began.
She knows, sends it back to me, back to my phone that had lost it when it lost everything. I have it ready, ready to post on Facebook in a couple hours … continue reading
I knew it would be a hard winter. It didn’t disappoint. The depression weighed heavy, the cold numbed, the bitter dry season felt never-ending.
I knew it would be hard. But I didn’t expect the first tastes of spring to be so hard too.
March started and hope got in line, and I thought, oh good, now it will get better, now the gloom breaks, now the load lifts. And maybe it’s because I expected it, maybe it’s because … continue reading
After going through a miscarriage at the end of January, it was strange just a couple weeks later to be facing Lent.
I had practiced Lent for several years before that, to help prepare my heart and sharpen my focus for the Easter season, but that year, it begged a new question- how does one do Lent in loss?
Lent is often practiced by giving up something, but it can also be the practice of the addition of something. Frequently, … continue reading
There’s just something about loss anniversaries that’s inexplicably hard. And it’s grief, yes, but it’s something more than that, something about being in the same spot of the cosmos that you were when things happened. There’s a heavy darkness that comes, that you know isn’t just the sadness in your heart but it’s the wound in your spirit being pressed.
A couple Sundays ago, it was the anniversary of when we took the first pregnancy test that would end … continue reading
I remember sitting in the service on Sanctity of Life Sunday, expecting the usual pro-life lectures, anti-abortion stances, but what came next surprised me.
Because in that Sanctity of Life series the topics were on foster care and miscarriage.
And I still feel just about as stunned now at remembering it as I did then sitting there hearing it for the first time.
What kind of church takes the podium on Sanctity of Life Sunday and leaves the opportunity to … continue reading
The numbers roll over, 2020, 2021, and I hear the comments, see the hope.
This is the year, this will be the year, to fulfill all the shattered dreams of 2020 and live our best lives, and restoration is at hand! So long, 2020, couldn’t get rid of you soon enough.
And I hear the comments, see the hope, but my heart skips a beat, my stomach knots, and my mind whispers: Be careful what you wish for.
I remember … continue reading
Maybe it’s because the trees went from green to brown to fallen.
Maybe it’s the imagining of them soon stark brown, see-through, bare.
Or maybe- likely- it’s that when they were flower-filled and magical we were locked in on lockdown.
Whatever it is, I know that winter is bearing its teeth at me when it’s not even yet here.
I struggle with depression regularly and added seasonal sadness on a good year. When life is right, February is still long, … continue reading
Ecclesiastes tells us there’s a time to dance and a time to weep. But life begs me ask the question, is there a time for both?
I’ve long been convinced of the need for the appropriateness of responding to seasons of grief with tears and seasons of gain with glee. But what about when both seasons collide? It’s not always so easy to differentiate.
Life has certainly been seasons of ups and downs and not long ago was a long … continue reading