Fostering Friday: Love is.

Since this is the last Fostering Friday post I will be having,

I wanted to leave with this picture...

This is what love is...

Love is taking a child that isn't your own and loving them unconditionally.

Just now as I was writing this, our little guy walked up...

He recognized the picture and said,

"That's me and daddy!"

Then he said:

"I love daddy so much...he is so special to me!"

This is fostering...this is love.

Blast From The Crazy Past: My Great-Grandma Wickberg

Welcome to memories...my memories....

Welcome to a Blast from my Crazy Past!

I wrote this blog post about nine years ago, somewhere around 2008ish...

Tuesday Tidings: God's Love Is....

On Tuesdays you will find guest blogs by my daughters and many other people. Today's blog post is presented by McKenzie...

Enjoy!!

Tuesday Tidings: Good Luck or God's Provision?

On most Tuesdays you will find guest blogs by my daughters and many other people. 

However, today's blog is from me!

Enjoy!!

I don't know about you, but I am not a believer in "good luck" or coincidence. Rather I am a believer in:

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." James 1:17

and

"The Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." Psalms 84:11  

About a week ago, my four daughters and I made a trip a couple hundred miles away to go to the bridal shower of my niece who is getting married this winter. She lives in Japan, and we really wanted the chance to see her and the other women in the family.

Sunday morning we left bright and early, the trip up was fairly uneventful. Our truck engine seemed to running a little warm, but I figured it had to do with the mountains we had been traversing. I made sure the water and oil levels were good and we continued on our way.

We got to our destination in time to go to church and surprise some friends who weren't expecting to see us, which is always fun!

After lunch with friends and a beautiful bridal shower, we said goodbye to all and headed back down the road. On the way to the bridal shower, we had contacted a friend of McKenzie's who is going to college nearby and made plans to connect with her on the way home. So we headed towards our first stop of the University.

On the way, I noticed again that the engine was running warm and I was starting to get concerned. We stopped and visited with McKenzie's friend. We spent more time there than I was anticipating, but by time we started back down the road again, the engine was cooled off.

Fast forward to almost an hour down the road, things were NOT good. We were stuck on the side of the road and something was wrong. I called Peter, he wondered if our water pump was going out. We managed to limp to a rest stop and from there, it was obvious, we had a problem. One that was not going to get us over the mountains to home.

Let me stop a moment and tell you something...not one time did I doubt God's provision or care of us. Nor did I believe that we were having "bad luck" or a "bad turn of events". Not because I am some amazing person, but because God works all things to His good. Just like it says in Romans 8:28:

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

After being stuck at the rest stop for a half hour or so, the phone calls among family members were going back and forth. The Lord beautifully worked it out that we were only a half hour away from Peter's brother. He ended up coming to the rest stop, where he confirmed what we suspected, the water pump. He drove us to a nearby town where Peter's sister had set us up with an amazing hotel room for the night and got us some much needed dinner.

We settled in, took showers, tried out the jacuzzi bath and just marveled at God's goodness!

I will tell you....because I am human...that at one point before going to bed, I started to send out a text to someone that I thought might help us out in the morning. I remember distinctly, the Lord staying my hand and in His sweet gentle voice telling me to stop....to rest in Him and trust for the morning. I never sent that text and God amazingly was able to do His job without my help. I hope you are smiling at my sarcasm here, because it really is amazing how many times we humans think we need to help God out! Trust me, the Great God of the Universe does NOT need our help!

To make a long story short, my daddy drove up to where we were, picked us up at the hotel and we went to the rest stop and changed out the water pump. The Lord blessed us with a place in the shade to work, it wasn't too smokey (forest fires nearby), we had all the tools we needed and no surprises happened in the changing of the water pump.

A few other things I am grateful for in regards to God's Provision:

1. I'm thankful that the Lord prompted us to visit McKenzie's friend at college. If it wasn't for that stop, we would have been in the mountains, more than likely without any cell phone coverage to get help.
2. My girls: at one point, while we were blasting the heater to help cool the engine, one of the girls said, "Let's be like Paul and Silas and sing praises to God." And we did, we sang hymns and favorite Christian choruses while we sludged along! (If you want to read more about Paul and Silas and why they sang, look up Acts 16:16-33)
3. I'm thankful for family, both sides of our family were so willing to help and be used of Him in our trial. They rejoiced with us as God answered each prayer!
4. Last and certainly not least, for my husband. He held the fort with the boys while we were gone, made sure the house was spotless and helped our foster son through his anxiety of me not being at home yet.

Honestly, there are so many more....like having toothpaste in my purse and the receptionist of the hotel giving us toothbrushes and water bottles. God provided every need, there was not one thing that we had to go without.

This morning, I asked Peter what his verse was for the day, he said the first one that came to him was:

"In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." 

Proverbs 3:6

I have to agree....



Till next time...

Have a blessed day and embrace the craziness in your life!


Heidi

Fostering Friday: Staying In The Lives Of Families Afterwards

Welcome to Fostering Fridays!

 Our hope is that you will be able to get a taste of what it's like to foster by reading 

our experiences and thoughts!

Last week, I talked about how to stay in touch with birth families while the child is in your care, offering them support and help.

Fostering Friday: Staying In Touch With Families While Child Is In Your Care

Welcome to Fostering Fridays! 

Our hope is that you will be able to get a taste of what it's like to foster by reading 

our experiences and thoughts!

Keeping in touch with your foster child's family is so important...

Guest Post: Why I Foster

This guest post was written by my husband Peter.

I’ve been asked many times, “Why do you foster?” This question is generally followed up by other questions. “Isn’t it hard? Doesn’t it hurt to let them go? How are your kids handling it, are they okay?” I’ve been asked these questions enough times that maybe I just need to put my answer to paper – for my own benefit as much as yours. 

It all started through a very random set of circumstances. A little baby boy needed a home. His body was wracked by seizures so that he was taking greater than an adult dosage of phenobarbital. He needed a home. He needed someone to love him – no strings attached. I don’t know what my extended family thought – I was afraid to ask. But I couldn’t help myself. His need struck a chord in the deepest part of me and the only response could be to open my arms and my house to give him a life. Could someone else have answered that call? Could they have done a better job? For sure. But someone else wasn’t asked. I was.

The word “yes” is a simple word: three letters, one syllable. Yet it was through the simple, yet profound decision to say “yes” that an entire world opened up to me that I had no idea even existed. Our house has since had many visitors. Some of my fostering experience has been wonderful, and some has been painful. But through it all, I can say it has been worth it. 

We went on to adopt that little baby boy. Though it doesn’t always happen this way, his seizures subsided. We rejoiced the day that he took his last (ever) dose of the medicine that seemed to turn him into an emotional zombie. We’ve watched with awe as he has blossomed into a beautiful young man who has a depth of empathy that I can only begin to fathom. 

Then one day a new visitor came to our house. He changed everything. He taught us to see beyond the surface anger to the agonizing pain caused by neglect that hides just out of sight under the surface. He taught us to speak a new language. I can now understand and translate the language of neglect. I now know that rejection, hoarding, gorging, and tantrums are all cries for help being screamed by a prisoner to pain. 

But the greatest gift he gave us was brokenness. Something inside of me is shattered beyond repair. I no longer find it okay to live in a world where innocent children are tormented by the effects of drug addiction. I can no longer sit on the sidelines and do nothing. When I see a child whose life is being torn apart by the choices made by the adults in their life, there is a righteous indignation that rises up in me something fierce. 

Our visitor stayed at our house for two years, and then it was time for him to leave. Change is never easy in these circumstances, and his preferred method of self-defense was to be as nasty as possible. Perhaps he thought that if he tormented us to the place where we would reject him and eject him from our lives that then the separation would be easier. He was wrong. There is a quality about most foster parents that I admire – tenacity. My family has it, too. But as the days towards his move approached, things began to escalate around our house. So, one Saturday, we decided we needed some family time – time to huddle up, get some fresh air, and regroup. We took a drive into the beautiful southern Oregon wilderness. 

I’m pretty sure I could take you to the exact spot that it happened. Through all of this experience, God had been talking to my heart, but I had not been willing to accept what he was asking of me. Honestly, I was ready to give up. Who wants to have to deal with that kind of pain and drama all the time? But as we drove down the road that Saturday afternoon, God came along, too. In the gentle way that God directs our paths with his still small voice, he spoke to me in no uncertain terms. “You always talk about wanting to be the hands and feet of Christ. If you really mean that, then THIS is your option. Take it or leave it.” God was asking me to continue fostering – continue opening my home to these most vulnerable members of society. What could I say? I certainly couldn’t say no. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself. 

That commitment has opened still further worlds that were as yet unknown to me. I’ve learned more. I’ve discovered that even though DHS is a government organization that has many flaws, it is filled with some of the most beautiful people who make unimaginable sacrifices to try to rescue victims from suffering. I’ve met brothers and sisters in arms who have answered this same call. Fostering is a world where millions of tiny miracles happen every single day.

More than that, though, as a Christian parent, I have what I would guess are fairly standard Christian parenting goals: I want to be as much like Christ as I possibly can be, and I want to so passionately espouse the gospel in all that I say and do that my children will be irresistibly drawn to do the same. That requires me putting into action the words of our savior when he talked about simple acts of compassion like giving a cup of cold water. It requires the kind of agape love (love with no statute of limitations) that Jesus exemplified on the cross – the kind of love that comes from giving without taking any thought for recompense. 

I can’t think of any time in my life when I have given where recompense was not part of the agreement. Most all of the giving I have done in my life has been in the form of short term loans, or quid-pro-quo arrangements where I give when it benefits me. But then I became a foster parent, and for the first time in my life, I found myself in situations where the people who I was pouring out compassion, effort, and time to have had no capacity (and, sometimes, no desire) to give back. This has created the kind of teaching moment in my home where life values are forged. I’ve been able to explain to my children that this is what it means to love as Christ and give with no thought to recompense. This is what it means to give a cup of cold water. This is what it means to be the hands and feet of Christ to a broken world. 

The beautiful thing is, I watch my children in action, and they are getting it. The light has come on. I watch in awe as they live out those core principles of the gospel that are so often relegated to cliché. They have discovered that family isn’t just who you are related to. Sometimes family includes the people that you choose to embrace. When that becomes your definition for family, then you are never alone. 

How do I sum this all up? I once read where the noted evangelist Oswald Chambers wrote that “God hates sin, and the cross is the estimation of his hatred.” In similar words, I hate watching innocent children be victimized by the effects of drug addiction. My choice to foster is the estimation of that hatred.