Three Years in a Whirlwind!

I was recently sharing with someone, that was asking how I was doing, about how I am suddenly feeling a sense of relief wash over me, and as I thought about it, I started realizing why . . .

Three years ago, life was in a pretty nice, normal groove. It was fairly serene and predicable, with not much perceived stress. Then, things changed dramatically! We entered into a crazy whirlwind that didn’t really let up till last month. Now three years to be exact, we’ve begun a new chapter of re-grouping and recovering, and a season of catching our breath and bracing for the next challenges that lie ahead!

Three years ago, the Lord led us to welcome two additional orphans into our home. They were 2 and 4, and even though we didn’t have experience with welcoming kids older than newborn infants, we figured it couldn’t be too hard at those young ages, and we were hopeful that they were close to the end of their days in the foster system. We were working with a Christian agency that helps place adoptable foster kids into forever adoptive homes, which was perfectly in-line with our heart’s passion . . . .to adopt orphans, not just be foster parents indefinitely.

What we didn’t know at the time, is that these two kids (and their older brother) had lived most of their lives moving from bio family to relative placement to foster homes. Then, when they tried reuniting them with bio parents and it didn’t work out again, the cycle started all over. When we finally got their history, it was discovered that they had moved at least 12 official times (probably a few more “unofficial” moves) in their little lives. This affected them more deeply than we could have imagined.

And the wheels of bureaucracy churned so slowly that they ended up being bound up in the foster system way longer than they ever should have been. What this meant for us was over two years of planning and preparing for twice a month social worker visits in our home, and lots more paperwork and home inspections and rigmarole because of needing to extend our foster license. It also created this strange relationship to settle over our family, with the foster kids finally being in a stable environment, but becoming accustomed to us just being another set of foster parents to them. This enabled a situation that kept them in a state of limbo, never really being able to move forward in any normal, healthy way. But probably one of the hardest parts was that the kids continued to have weekly bio parent visits for a year and half after they came to live with us. (Again, this was after a failed reunification attempt.) So what it all meant for them was being kept in a prolonged state of instability, fear, and confusion, and not being able to attach or bond to anyone, let alone trust and accept our love and parenting/authority of them.

No doubt, this all created lots of extra stress on our family. But the depths of this stress is hard for others to understand who haven't walked down this foster parenting road. There are pressures from every side. It's been our experience, that the social workers are not really for foster parents. (And we've heard so many other such stories from foster parents.) You feel as though you are being judged constantly. (One example of this is when I sent a sweet Valentine's Day photo to the SW out-of-the-blue, just because I thought she would like to see how cute the kids were all prettied up in their Valentine's Day attire. And she replied with "Why does Peter have a bruise on his face?  Did he have an accident?"  For starters, Peter didn't have a bruise on his face at all.  It apparently was a shadow on his face. And even after I told her that, she said she had to blow up the picture and study it before being convinced that it was true.  I cried so hard that day, because the SW had no idea how hard it was to keep the kids bruise-free.  They came to us being so wild, without any self-control or proper training/boundaries/healthy fear of dangerous situations, and had to be watched every single minute of the day so that they weren't harming themselves or others!  We had worked sooo hard at keeping them safe! And I was very proud of the fact that we had been able to keep them mostly bruise/injury free to that point!)  We also had some judging of our parenting of the kids even come from within our own family.  And for the first two years, we kinda had to go into “lock-down” mode, just trying to cope and figure out how to parent in this situation. In the beginning, we couldn’t really even take the kids very easily out into public places, and cringed at the thought of social situations, as we were always on edge with what they would do, and felt so helpless, and yet so responsible for their behavior.

Needless to say, kids that have come from hard places and have experienced lots of trauma can be very difficult, and the state’s answer is to put them in therapy. Yes, they have been traumatized. But we fought against more therapy at this young age, as we felt what they really needed was not another “professional” in their lives, but to be released from the system and be able to be adopted and settle into a loving, stable family, without feeling "different" from everyone else. What the state had been doing/trying for all those years with these kids and their older brother, was definitely not working and created more mess. These are 2 and 4 year old kids that would run away from us in public places and up to complete strangers and ask them for things and call them mom and dad and they would have been perfectly happy to go home with them. Foster homes kept refusing to keep them, because they were just too difficult by this point. They were one step away from a “therapy” home when they came to us. What they needed was a stable home, one mom and one dad and a forever family that they could count on to be there always and to meet their needs and to help them learn to respect proper authority (A mom and dad with staying power that they could trust to not let them down in their little lives) - and for the state to release them. This, in our opinion, was their only hope of regulating their self-destructive behavior.

We felt fairly alone as we dealt with all of the trauma that hit our household. No amount of training can prepare you for this 24/7, day-in-and-day-out strain and stress. Foster parenting is always about the kids, they say, and helping them through their losses and trauma. And it is. But at the same time, our home was turned upside down, and every relationship in our home was tested, and deeply affected. So, we think it is so important to simultaneously give much support to the foster parents and families who are being so affected by the trauma that comes in to their homes. Foster parents really need love and support, too!  At a Refresh conference I attended recently, they talked about how foster parents can actually be traumatized with such dramatic disturbances and all the stress in the life of their family. This was actually refreshing to hear . . .that we really weren’t alone! (This, of course, is totally a side note and not really the main point of this post! It is more of my soap box!  

We’ve definitely been stretched to what felt like the point of breaking at times. There were many days that I felt like I couldn’t do it anymore. (And of course, that is just the thing that we couldn’t do - give up!) I remember siting at the kitchen table once with the guardian ad litem/CASA, when my melt-down trigger was flipped, and I began crying and telling her that I didn’t think we could do it if the process was prolonged any further. (I was surprised by her indifference as well, and not really caring about the kids potentially experiencing another move, when she just said, "Okay, we can find another home and move them."  I know that she felt helpless to help me, as the lengthy process was totally out of her control.  But it still seems like out of all the people working on the kids' behalf, she would have fought hard to do whatever she could to keep the kids with us.)  And another time, I was crying on my mom’s shoulder about the difficulties we were dealing with, when at that very moment a social worker showed up to our home for a surprise visit!

We’ve come a long way in three years! The kids have only been officially adopted for 10 months, so in a way, it is as if they are only 10 months in to being our kids and learning to trust us. We have great hope that God is making something beautiful in His time!

But I digress, as we often say in our home! But all this is to explain a little and document what a huge part of our whirlwind this was for us!

And this leads me back to the “Three Years in a Whirlwind”  . . . the main theme of my ramblings! God has brought us through the whirlwind of not just our foster-to-adopt experience, but also within this three tumultuous years, we also had three of our older kids’ weddings; Brielle’s treatment of her Hep. C. with several trips up to Seattle Children’s hospital; a beloved relative attempting suicide; two of our young adult children going through some tremendous trials simultaneously that turned THEIR lives upside-down (Which of course, is really hard for us parents to see them walk through!); and two grands being born that have blessed us with being a Grandma and Papa!

It’s been such an interesting and challenging season for sure, with all the wide range of ages and stages of life all around us. We’ve wanted to stand firm and be strong through it all. But we have stumbled and fumbled our way through, and know that we have failed so many times. BUT GOD is always at work, completing the work that He has started in us and the good deeds He has prepared for us to do. He is the strength of our lives. With Him ALL things are possible! He has orchestrated all of these things for His higher purposes and in His perfect timing, and we can trust that He is bringing about good in and through it all! And hopefully, we have grown in our faith in Him!

You know the saying, “God will not give you more than you can handle?” Well, we have proved that wrong! He DOES give us more than we can handle! This is a good summation by John Piper in a message titled, "God's Power Made Perfect in Weakness."

“Finally, God’s purpose in our weaknesses is to glorify the grace and power of his Son. This is the main point of verses 9–10. Jesus says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” God’s design is to make you a showcase for Jesus’s power. But not necessarily the way the market demands: not by getting rid of all our weaknesses; but by giving strength to endure and even rejoice in tribulation.

Let God be God here. If he wills to show the perfection of his Son’s power in our weakness instead of by our escape from weakness, then he knows best; trust him. Hebrews 11 is a good guide here. It says that by faith some escaped the edge of the sword (Hebrews 11:34) and by faith some were killed by the sword (Hebrews 11:37). By faith some stopped the mouths of lions, and by faith others were sawn asunder. By faith some were mighty in war, and by faith others suffered chains and imprisonment (see also Philippians 4:11–13).

The ultimate purpose of God in our weakness is to glorify the kind of power that moved Christ to the cross and kept him there until the work of love was done. Paul said that Christ crucified was foolishness to the Greeks, a stumbling block to the Jews, but to those who are called it is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:23).

The deepest need that you and I have in weakness and adversity is not quick relief, but the well-grounded confidence that what is happening to us is part of the greatest purpose of God in the universe — the glorification of the grace and power of his Son — the grace and power that bore him to the cross and kept him there until the work of love was done. That’s what God is building into our lives. That is the meaning of weakness, insults, hardships, persecution, and calamity.”

So if you're going through trials, hardships, tribulations, challenges, stress, anxiety, etc. . . . hold fast to the anchor of your soul!  God is in it and He will see you through!  He truly is working all things together for good, even when it seems at the moment like chaos!  We are here for His good purposes, and He will bring it all together for His glory! So when the going gets tough, just be faithful in all the little things and "baby step" (as we often say) to the next thing the Lord has for you to do.  And just keep trusting Him in everything! I still love going back and reciting this quote from our beloved Pastor Dean:  "God is good.  He loves us.  He is in control. Therefore, we will trust him.  We will praise Him and thank Him for He is worthy.  And we will do the next thing."