this guy

his stunts always make me catch my breath. 

 somehow, miraculously, he never has been seriously injured.  love his spirit...

my mom

so thankful for this lady, and the chance to celebrate her today.  my mom is the epitome of strength, perseverance and grace...

the fact that God has blessed her with another year is such a gift to all who know her.

 here's an old one of us, and a clear indication that we aren't in enough pictures together!  but i love this one of her!  she smiles and presses on through the challenges and demonstrates beautiful dependence on God and solid leaning in to Him, regardless.  this anchors both her life and mine.  

Mom~ thanks for your steadfast love and beautiful character!  i'm forever impacted by those choices you made so early on, to stay the course and live out your faith and teach your children well.

Happy Birthday...love you lots!!!

frontline

proud of this girl and her many hours working frontline as a PSW at a local nursing home.  she has gone in full-speed during a pandemic and immersed herself in a whole new world.  a complete "180" from her usual summer lifeguard/swim instructor role, and not an easy transition, but soooo very essential...still, she's doing it with excellence and i'm certain those residents are feeling just a wee bit brighter because of her presence.  great early nursing experience too that will make her first clinical shifts soooo much easier...

love you, dear kid. ❤

how even??

not sure how my firstborn baby girl grew up so fast.  how can she be on the other side of her university journey with a nice job offer and full time position as a real deal nurse?  

(so thankful she sent me a few "first day" snaps)

thanks to COVID-19 she's missed out on a formal graduation, a class goodbye, a final wrap-up to her last year at Mac.  rather, she's been plunked from clinical shifts mastering skills and experience under a preceptor to twelve hour shifts of orientation into her new position at a Hamilton hospital.  she is rolling with it.  there is lots to learn, there is a lot of change.  she's got her gaze set forward and is making plans accordingly. 

i pray God guides her steps and gives her wisdom and joy in the process.  i pray she discovers more and more of her divine purpose and specifically how God has shaped her and equipped her for the very roles He's hand-picked for her life.  

i'm very proud of you, my dear Joelle.  dad is too.  good work over the past four years!  too bad it ended so abruptly.  can't wait to see what your future holds as you continue to seek out new and exciting adventures both within nursing and beyond.  love you so very much...

too attached

another super well-written response by "Foster the Family" to the most common feedback we hear as a foster family.  "i could never do fostering~ i'd get too attached!"  yep, we get that soooo often...i love this woman's insight, and being that it's still May, i thought another post about fostering was timely...

"It has to be the reasoning I hear most often from would-be foster parents: “I could never do that. I would get too attached.” Well, that makes two of us. Attachment is the whole point of this, after all. Kids don’t just need homes and food and “caretakers.” They need families. Families who are willing to give these kids their hearts, love them as their own and get “too attached.” 

We misuse the word “attachment” to mean something more like “bond,” but it’s so much more than that. It’s not a sentimental feeling (as in “oh I love that teddy bear”); it’s a foundational skill (as in “oh, now I understand what mother means”). Attachment is vital to human development. It’s the force that teaches a child “the world makes sense, my needs will be met, people are trustworthy.” It’s the scaffold for every other relationship a child will form, the basis of every interaction a child will have with the world around him. And it takes (at least) two people to make it happen. This means that on the other side of this all-important learning is a space waiting for someone willing to step in and get the job done. Love is costly–attachment is costly–and it takes a person willing to absorb the cost of it, someone who’s willing to spend up their heart on this lofty and worthy price tag. 

Getting attached to a child who will most likely leave means living in tension. It means freely releasing your heart–where you love and feel and connect–but holding the reins on your mind–where you plan and hope and daydream. Your heart and your mind are two different things, and you can operate them separately. I can desperately want a child to stay, while believing it’s best for him to leave. I can love a child as my own, while knowing that he isn’t. And that’s the bottom line: he isn’t. God created the family, and it is sacred to Him. Broken families are a broken reality of the whole and perfect picture He created. But He is all about restoring what sin has broken, and I want to be a part of that, when at all possible. For me, being a foster parent is about playing a role in His redemptive work on earth. What a privilege to get to be a part of something so big and beautiful.

But I’m not superhuman with some special skill that the “I would get too attached-ers” lack. After five years and 22 kids, my husband I have learned to embrace it: when you love these kids hard and well, when you love them as your own, heartbreak is inevitable. Saying goodbye is hard when you say it...and before you say it...and after you say it...and sometimes forever. It’s a unique kind of loss, the kind where the person you lost keeps on living–just without you. I carry deep and daily grief with me. I cry. I mull over happy-memories-made-sad by missing characters. I live with a stomach that doesn’t quite know where it belongs, sometimes sitting in my throat and sometimes dropping to the ground.

My children–two who are mine through biology and two who are mine through adoption–grieve as well. They, too, are part of the attachment dynamic, and they, too, cry and remember sadly and deal with a flip-flopping stomach. They talk often about their “brothers” and “sisters” who they’ll never see again. But they also understand–as much as their tender ages allow them–that what we gave each child was “worth it.” And they continue to vote, each time, to welcome a new child and get too attached all over again. You could see it as a cycle of repeated loss. We choose to see it as a cycle of repeated love. We get to do this again for another child.  

And the children who leave our home? They deal with the inevitable loss of losing family yet again. This whole thing is–at its core–broken. But, along with their loss, they carry with them the gift of attachment. They take with them the love we poured into them and the picture we’ve given them of what family is and can be. In our getting “too attached,” they get to learn what attachment is. 

But maybe, after all I’ve said here, I’m changing my tune. Maybe I don’t get “too” attached, after all. Because, really, I don’t think there is such a thing. I don’t believe you can give too much of your heart, love too much, provide too much care. In matters of the heart, there can be sacrifice and loss and pain, but there’s never too much. I’ve decided to stop worrying about my heart. I’ve chosen not to hold and hoard, but to be gloriously, stupidly generous with it. I believe that love and attachment are the greatest gifts I can give to my foster children, so I give them freely.  

I get attached."

this is it...exactly. ❤

cuties~ furry and human

Miss Ruby is too cute.  she sooo loves to play.  she is good for the spirit on any given day.  

Ruby knows nothing of physical distancing.  she breaks the rules all the time.  and in some ways it's like therapy for the recipient.  soooo much love to give. 

photo credits to Hannah and AJ

national foster care month

May is here.  so is National Foster Care Month.  i couldn't have said it better than "Foster the Family" did on Facebook.  i follow this mama's foster care journey, and i love love love her heart for children, their mothers, and families.  this was her post from May 3rd, and keep in mind that her statistics are based on the US.  Canada will be much the same.  our worker has shared the same concerns locally that things are "too quiet" right now, and time will tell what effect the pandemic had on the most vulnerable children and families.

"Reports of child abuse are down, nationwide, by as much as 70%. Removals and the placements of children in foster care are down, nationwide, by as much as 50%. These numbers suggest that the epidemic of child abuse and neglect in this country has been magically erradicated. But we know better.

The sad reality is that today, where you live, children are being abused and neglected. That has not changed. The only piece that's changed is the eyes that are normally on these kids–the teachers and the doctors and the "village"–that are on the frontlines of reporting and protecting. It's happening just the same–potentially even more–it's just not being seen.

This means that the call to engage the foster care system has never been more vital. When our world "reopens" and children are seen again, these kids and their families are going to need us more than ever.

Foster parents: may we consider how we will rise up to meet the call, the ways we should stretch our hearts and our homes to welcome. Friends and family of foster parents: your people will need you to be there and bring strength and support. Those who've considered becoming foster parents: the need has never been greater, the call never more pressing. Anyone burdened by the reality of foster care: there are ways that you can step in, needs you can meet, ways you can care. Every single person: consider the families in your community, right now, who are vulnerable, the ways you can come alongside and support and empower.

Protecting our children and strengthening families is not the responsibility of the state, not the work of foster parents. Vulnerable children and families need all of us. We all carry the burden, we all have a part to play. How will you step up?"

these two sillies had the best time at "the hotel with the big airplanes" back in January.  

my life is so much richer because of the dozen or so children we've been given the privilege of knowing and loving.  if you have any questions about fostering or ways to help, please leave it in the comments...