Are you?

This year has been a whirlwind. Over the past four years, our family has been trying to leave Los Angeles.  We've craved open spaces and a slower pace or life. We prayed for jobs and open doors.  When our knocks weren't answered, we stepped out  in faith to continue fostering. We brought home our baby Samuel for six weeks before he went home to a relative.  Sharing tears with a stranger was holy experience as I handed him over to his aunt.  A few weeks later we brought home our little firecracker at two days old from a hospital in LA.  Reunification seemed highly unlikely, with adoption on the fast track.  

Fast forward a very very long three and a half years (which will one day have their own story told), and within three days, we had an adoption finalization and a job offer out of state.  June 2021 and the doors were finally opening. We found a home in a beautiful neighborhood and closed on it within a month.  God made it abundantly clear that the time to go was now.  

But that transition isn't what this story is about.  The move meant that our time with Olive Crest as a foster/resource family was officially over.  10 years of identifying with and walking alongside others in this journey. 10 years of trainings, heartache, celebration, blood, sweat, tears, and so many late night feedings.  10 years of advocating for my babies and crying out for others to join in this fight for family reunification and safe homes for countless children. 10 years of answering questions about what it's like to be foster parent and how people can get involved.  There's definitely been an adjustment to not having that all as a part of my identity.  Not needing to document even the minutiae of my day has taken some time to get used to.  Not that I miss it.  I don't miss social workers dropping in with barely a moment's notice.  I don't miss sitting in court.  I don't miss having to revolve my schedule around parental visitation.  It took me months of living in our new house to realize that I wasn't even sure if there were any smoke detectors in the house. I don't miss the pain of yet another delay.  I don't miss the paperwork or the doctor visits for every little thing.  I don't miss the discomfort of foster care.  I don't miss the uncomfortable questions.  For every good question came one that shouldn't have been asked.  The ones that were just asked to feed the asker's curiosity or make them feel superior.  Another foster mom I knew used her deadpan sense of humor to turn the question back to the asker.

"Oh, is she a drug baby?" 

"I don't know. Were you?"

"Is her mother a prostitute?" 

"I don't know. Was yours?"

"Are you fostering because you're infertile?"

"I don't know. Are you?"

These questions are uncomfortable. And you get used to them. Whether you answer them directly, deflect them, throw them back at the asker, however you end up coping with these uncomfortable questions, you get used to them.   Becoming a mother, and even more so a foster mother, has made a far more assertive person that I ever could have imagined.  So I am going to ask you something uncomfortable.  

Are you? 

Are you willing to be uncomfortable so that a child can be comfortable? Are you willing to hurt so that a child doesn't? Are you willing to step out of your comfort zone, out of your blessings and into a broken hurting system that is full of flaws, frustration, and heartache so that a precious child will feel safe and loved and secure? Will you give up sleep so that a baby has someone to hold them, whether for an hour, a day or forever?  I don't miss being uncomfortable, but I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Our journey as a foster family is over for now as we transition to discovering what our adoptive family looks like, especially as our kids grow into adolescence.  But that does not mean that our role in foster care is over.  Our ten years does not absolve us of future action.  I know it's a few days early, but May is Foster Care Awareness Month, and I know that I will be using it to research new ways that we can be involved in these precious kids' lives in our new state.  And I beg you to do the same. Are you willing?