From the Diaries of a Foster Mom... part 1

Life has been crazy in the Pierre home this year… I can’t believe we are already 1/3rd of the way through 2012.  It is flying by.

I’m not gonna lie, adjusting to being a mama of 4 kids has been…an adjustment.  I’m pretty much tired all the time, waking up about twenty minutes after my first cup of coffee, and have a hard time remembering what day of the week it is. But all that being said…I am enjoying every minute of our precious little foster baby.  I love playing with her, watching her meet her developmental milestones, seeing my children interact with her, hearing them pray for her, seeing her thrive, watching Vermon deeply connect with her, talking to God about what he has in store for her, and developing a special friendship with her wonderful Grandma who is anxiously awaiting the many bureaucratic loop-holes that need to be jumped through so her grand-baby can move into her forever home several states away from here.

I have learned so much about myself, our family, and our calling to care for children.  It was easy for me to talk about how God’s word shows me how to love children who aren’t mine, but it has been another thing to actually walk through it.  I used to be easy for me to think and speak about how we are all the same before God, but to actually live that out as I interact with bio family and move toward them with a pursuing love was harder then I imagined.  It is easy to say we are called to suffer for Jesus and that knowing him makes this current affliction seem light & momentary…but it becomes easy to forget when I am working through the painful emotions that come up as our little one begins to transition from being our foster daughter to her wonderfully awaiting grandma. It was easy for me to say we are called to care for orphans, but it really isn’t easy unless you are Superwoman (I am not) and it is very, very consuming.

Having a baby that we will not be keeping forever has challenged all my beliefs about foster parenting and helped confirm in us why we are doing this. I am not sure if we will do this with two children or twenty…for six more months or six more years… but I do know that this journey has been amazing and that I am more passionate then ever about foster care….and so appreciative of the unfailing love of  Jesus.

I wrote this a few days ago and I am still unpacking all that it means to me...I am hoping to write more soon on all that I am learning through this journey:

"I can deeply love a child as though they are mine, even though they are only "mine" for a small portion of their life...because my maternal love was a free gift given to me by my gracious Father and therefore it doesn't belong to me. It belongs to whatever children God brings in my path and asks me to mother. 6 months or 60 years...from my body or another woman's...from the perspective of eternity, it will all seem the same-maybe even richer."