Sometimes I sit here to write, and there are a lot of things I want to say. I could talk about foster care, or about listening for God to speak, or just write out what He's doing right now. But, at the same time, I feel like I don't have anything new or valuable to offer the world. It's just small me, writing something that someone else has already said in a better language to a bigger audience. Have you ever felt that way? Maybe one day after I'm dead and gone, someone will find my little online diary like Anne Frank or Elisabeth Elliot, and it will catch fire and God will use these words for His glory. But, when I think about it, Anne didn't know anyone else would read her words either. Elisabeth wasn't someone people knew until her husband was…

There's a lot going on these days. There's a lot of noise, a lot of things competing for my attention. There are a million apps on my phone, endless time sucking traps that I'm always tempted to tap on. There are a million emails rolling through my inboxes that need to be attended to - read or marked as spam or marked to come back to later, or just marked so that they don't end up as 20,000 notifications to stress out my little Aspie brain. My kids are yelling, there are spelling words to write and letters to sound out. There's an endless stream of flyers coming home from school, dress up days to plan and homework papers to look at. There's baseball for everyone, including my husband, and a dog that's getting older who needs more attention and vet trips than I…

Sometimes as a foster parent, you get calls that on paper you know don't look good. Caseworkers push for you to just try it, to just have the kid over for dinner, or just sign up for one night of respite care, or just for a week of temporary placement. They do this because they know, that a lot of times, you will find a kid that just seems to fit with your family, even if all of the stuff on paper seems scary. In my (limited) experience as a foster parent, the long-term placements that we've said yes to were all seemingly scary. Each kid was well outside of the tidy list of things that we said we were ok with and comfortable taking in. Our first placement was a newborn, 10 years ago now. We picked her up in a borrowed baby…

The nail that sticks up gets hammered in. -Chinese Proverb There's a weird phenomenon that happens when you get people in a group. They start to compare stories, they start to try to out-do each other, and sometimes when they've been together as a group of friends or people for a really long time, they start to turn into each other. I've seen it with friend groups, with couples who have been married for a long time, and even people who have worked together for years. It happens slowly, over a period of time. Often, the people inside that group don't even realize it's happening. But someone from the outside looking in might find it very obvious - like, hey, all these people have the same kind of clothes, and the girls all wear their hair the same way, and they kind of talk…

We are foster parents. There is something truly unique about foster parenting, that most people can't understand. It's one of those, "if you know you know" situations. There are so many scenarios that you encounter as a foster parent that you would never run into as a bio parent, or even as an adoptive parent. Sometimes, this makes it really hard to feel like you can share what's going on with someone else who really understands. For example, there's something so strange and uniquely "foster care" about having to mentally prepare to love someone forever and be excited about it, while simultaneously having to mentally prepare for them to go back home, or to another home, and be equally invested in that option. You can't really love fully unless you let yourself break down all those walls and love that child like they are…

If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin for them. - James 4:7 Yesterday morning, on my way into work, I noticed someone out of the left corner of my eye. I was hurrying to cross the street, but she was hurrying faster. She was almost at a run, at 8am, in the freezing 20 degree weather, wearing what looked like a robe and slippers. Her skin was black and her hair was short, almost like it had been shaved. At first I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, or why they were half running. I'd like to ease my pride by telling you that it happened so fast that I didn't have time to think or react, but the truth is, there was a split second where God asked me to obey. I didn't. Then there was a…

I got a text while I was on my lunch break. "His mom didn't show up. Now I'm listening to the song you sent me and sobbing in my car". I'm three blocks away. I counted down, 5..4..3..2..1.. and texted back. "I'm so sorry friend. Need a hug? Or a taco? It's on me. I'm already nearby." Then I held my breath. Checked and re-checked the phone. Looked outside to see if I could see her car from my office. After what seemed like a long time but was probably only a minute, a text came back. "I'm not really hungry. Coffee?" I was already in my car. I slow-rolled up to where she was parked and started frantically throwing trash into the backseat, because #momlife. She got in and we started driving. She got a text with an excuse, a reason why his…

"To him who knows what to do and does it not, to him it is sin." I am the world's worst at talking myself out of things. Seriously, I have so many good intentions, and I like to say, "I'll be there" and then I talk myself out of it at the last minute every time. Even this, this being here and showing up and writing things down, is so hard for me to do consistently. The Lord told me to start writing years ago. But I talk myself out of it all the time. I make it out to be some huge thing in my brain and before I know it, it's so big and scary and inconvenient and I can't even bring myself to sit here and type. Last week, I felt like I was supposed to be at a particular women's…