Grief and Relief

 It has been a strange couple of days at the Cash house. 

We miss the girls. I specifically miss the way that the littlest would whisper "Hi. Hi. Hi." through her pacifier when I woke her up from her nap (and how she'd likewise greet EVERY PERSON ON THE PLANET). I miss the way she would melt into my body in the rocking chair, holding my arm with the sweetest little death grip. I miss the way the oldest would flutter upstairs to get dressed in the morning (she never did just walk) with her mermaid hair bouncing behind her. I miss her general excitement about everything - outings, food, information, and new people. All of the mothering energy I'd created for them now has no place to land - I can't direct, soothe, encourage or teach them anymore. The first night, I laid awake wondering if they were sleeping okay in their new beds. Phoenix and Jericho have both, more than once, volunteered that they miss the girls. Our life and home were SO FULL and now there is a void: it's less like a cavernous hole, and more like a wispy cloud of lost experience. We don't really know what to do with ourselves.

BUT, the four of us have been breathing much deeper. I can't even explain the general feeling of health that's fallen on our home ... everyone just seems to be functioning from a place of peace for the first time in months. I know it is partially logistics - no toddlers, no diapers, less laundry, less fighting, fewer attitudes, etc. - but there is something more. Previously, being at home was largely about surviving, just making sure everyone was alive, fed, and occasionally bathed. But for the last few days, I've been enjoying my home and my kids. Slow meals, quiet mornings, lots of snuggles, no appointments or visits or paperwork, long bathtimes and lots of eye contact are small graces that compile into huge joy. I think my kids subconsciously shrank to make space for A&A, and I didn't notice it until this week when I've watched their little souls expand again. They are holding longer conversations, living more freely, asking to read more books, finding themselves more frequently on our laps and in our arms. Being a family of four again has been so deliriously sweet. 

I just keep thinking about the significance of my two hands. I'm sure God has a myriad of reasons for creating our bodies in specific ways, and I certainly don't claim to understand those motivations. But, very practically, having two hands means that I can carry more than one thing. So, when it seems contradictory to feel two very opposite emotions at the same time, my hands seem to mirror my soul's ability to stand decidedly in both joy and pain. It's grounding to look at my physical fingers and imagine them grasped around separate experiences, validating my dichotomous experience of losing 'our' girls.

In those same two metaphorical hands, I hold the truths that (1) the girls were a genuine blessing to our lives and (2) the girls were an exhausting drain on our lives. I was feeling guilty about how much I'm enjoying this new season until my counselor kindly reminded me that fostering puts an amazing amount of strain on even the healthiest, most faithful families. Which is why, for the moment, we won't be accepting any new placements. We are going to give our family soil some time to remineralize before we even discuss re-opening our home. 

We are so grateful for all the people that have carried us through the last eight months - we would not have survived this experience without the support and prayers of friends both near and far. And PLEASE PLEASE continue to pray for the girls! Pray for them to powerfully bond with their new parents, to settle easily into new routines/places/therapies/etc, for a case without major hiccups or delays and for them to trust Jesus as the restorative force for their lives. 

Sustenance for the Journey

Illustration by Jago

I am a weary foster momma.
I think some of that weariness is universal to parenthood, and we are caring for four very small kiddos at one time. Having stair-step siblings in this particular age bracket is an insane undertaking.
But adding two foster kids to our team didn't just mean two more small kids ... the slew of fostering logistics is overwhelming.
For example, our fostering schedule this week involves:
- Monday: a potential birthmom visit, which was up in the air until the last minute
- Today: a speech evaluation at the local school
- Wednesday: a home visit from our private agency
- Thursday: a home visit from CPS
- Friday: play therapy and a home visit from the girls' attorney
Throw in visits from CASA, speech therapy, occupational therapy, preschool and all the paperwork, and it becomes a full-time job.
And, not only does fostering dominate our schedule, but it also dominates my thought-life.
"Am I getting them the interventions they need?"
"Where is their mom? Should I start calling hospitals?"
"How much should I push for their best, and how much should I permit their worst?"
"How do I keep them healthy without constant food battles?"
"How can I help heal them when there is so much unknown?"
"Is this four-year-old behavior, or is this trauma behavior?"
"What is our life going to look like in three months?"

To be honest, I feel like I'm drowning -- I was a confident swimmer until I decided to land myself in the middle of a typhoon. And all arenas of my life are sinking too. I'm less available to my forever kiddos, I'm less prepared as a home school mom, I'm less stable as a wife (ha!), I'm less committed in my ministries, I'm less diligent in other responsibilities, I'm less present in my friendships and I have less bandwidth to love/serve outside our home.

I want to quit.
But God won't let me quit.

As much as I want to be frustrated at God for keeping me in a place that feels so hard and thankless and desperate, God keeps being near and kind.

I've been reading The Chronicles of Narnia out loud to Phoenix at night. A month ago, when we were still in 'The Magician's Nephew,' I could barely finish reading because my eyes and voice were brimming with tears. Digory, the main character, is standing before Aslan, the creator and leader of Narnia. A series of unwise mistakes have caused Digory to bring with him a person of great evil into the fledgling world. Aslan is giving Digory a task to help save/protect the land, but Digory is distracted with worry about his mother, who is dying at home.

"'But please, please -- won't you -- can't you give me something that will cure Mother?' Up till then he had been looking at the Lion's great feet and the huge claws upon them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion's eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory's own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself."

Aslan doesn't instantly heal Digory's mother, nor does he release him from the task at hand. Digory is expected to carry his own pain forward into obedience. But Aslan is fully present with him in his pain. While our two girlies surely carry the greatest sadness in this season, I have my own legitimate grief. But (wonder of wonders) my roaring lion of a God is bent near to me, shedding tears on my behalf.

Over breakfast, we read a Bible story to our kiddos, and then a page from Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing. The other morning, I read this (which references the illustration above):

"God's Spirit is called the 'Comforter.' Does it make you think of a nice comfy quilt - all cozy and warm? Oh dear.

In the Bayeux tapestry of 1066, there's a knight on a horse and the caption reads: 'Bishop Odo comforts his troops.'Is Bishop Odo giving them nice fluffy quilts? No. Look! He's prodding them from behind with a stick! NOT comfy.

But Odo is spurring them on, encouraging them, urging them to keep going and not give up. Because comfort in the Bible doesn't mean 'to make comfy.' It means 'to send help.'

When we want to give up, when we are afraid, God sends his spirit - the Comforter - to make us strong, to give us courage, to lift us up."

My latent desires for a predictable, comfortable life are being beaten out of me by the fostering process. God doesn't comfort me with retreat or rest, no matter how much I beg for relief. Instead, God is asking me to lean into the pain, to put aside self-preservation, to trust God with my family and to keep pushing Kingdom lines forward.

I have the wine of divine tears and the bread of divine encouragement as sustenance for the journey. Those traveling mercies are yours too, whether you happen to be on the same road or have your own path of exhausting obedience.

Redefining Motherhood

Up to this point, I've been quiet on this blog about the hardships of foster parenting. Honestly, it's because I believe fostering is good, important work and I don't want to scare anyone away from its particular graces because of its particular pains.
But I've decided that it's important for me to own the emotions of this experience, and to tell the truth about things that felt really dark until I processed them with God.
So here's the brutal truth: I feel almost zero affection for my foster daughters.
There are a lot of articles circulating on the internet about how the extensive paperwork, the regular intrusions, and the sketchy system make fostering difficult. There are plenty of people that tell the truth about how fostering blows up your family, incites difficult sibling relationships, requires endless empathy and wears you to the bone. So I saw all of that coming.
But because so many vocal foster parents proclaim deep love for their kids and how they dread birth parent reunification (even if they support it), I just assumed that I would bond quickly and easily with our girls.
They've been with us for four months, and I still don't feel particularly attached to either of them.
So I've felt guilty. MAJORLY GUILTY. Everyone else on the planet seems to easily figure this out, and I've been over here floundering in my efforts to muster up the feels that come so easily with my other two. I've wanted to quit more than once, just because I feel like the girls deserve more than I seem to be able to offer.
Until recently, I didn't realize how much of my innate definition of mothering was reliant on affection. I thought being a mom meant being crazy about your kids, because that's such a huge part of my relationship with Phoenix and Jericho. I think their antics are endearing, that their sweet toes are adorable, that their sleep-sweaty bodies are a treasure. I could stare at them for hours, and that kind of soul-deep tenderness is incredibly energizing. When they are a hot mess, all the warmth that burns for them in my bones makes it easier (though not easy) to teach and love them in spite of themselves.
I just don't have that with the foster girlies. The first time I clipped our four-year-old's toenails was a major exercise in self-discipline. Their little smells (you know, the kind that mommas drink in deeply?) kind of gross me out. And even though they are generally cool kids, the times that I really enjoy them are few and far between.
But, after a meaningful conversation with Josh this weekend, I'm standing a little taller before God and asking for a new definition of motherhood. Turns out, God never asked me to have warm-fuzzy feelings. Even Karyn Purvis, the guru of attachment parenting, says "It's okay not to feel love for your child right now."

Instead, as a mother (biological, adoptive AND foster), God has asked me to:
EQUIP my kids.
ENCOURAGE my kids.
ENGAGE with my kids.
And, most importantly, to INTRODUCE my kids to Jesus, so they can be loved perfectly (with abundant affection) by the tender God who created them.

Seeing the job description written down leaves me sobered by the gravity of my role.  But because these tasks are God-assigned, they can be Spirit-fueled. Instead of trying to fabricate feeling, I'm asking God to enable choices that serve Kingdom purposes instead of my own misguided notion of what I'm 'supposed' to feel.

I may be the only foster mom struggling with affection, but, just in case I'm not, I hope this post leaves you feeling less lonely. This is hard, holy work, and all of our imperfection and insufficiency just leaves more space for the glory of God.