My toes and fingers are cold as I'm writing this, the winter wind whipping around outside, reminding me that the tease of warm weather we had was just that, a tease. No spring yet, although we're close. The light is seeping into the evenings later and I find myself breathing a quiet sigh of relief that we've made it once again through the darkest part of the year. Surely for us to fully appreciate the light, we must also have the dark.
Our days aren't necessarily what I would call dark, although the light does like to play hide-and-seek with us on more days than others. My weeks are consumed with not only our three precious children and running a home, but also with the world of DHS, questions almost everywhere I go about our foster care life (most of which I cannot answer), and too many trips in the car to even want to think about. There are certainly little parts of our life and story right now that I hold in my hand and don't know what to do with or how to summon up a rosy attitude. Foster care does come with a lot of extra responsibility and paperwork and more emotions than one can wrap their head around in a day. It also comes with agreements that the stories of the precious lives involved aren't shared, for obvious reasons. This has made it tricky for me to know how to share much of anything, leaving many thinking our new life is a piece of cake based off the lack of hearing anything different.
It isn't a piece of cake. Foster parents must be the toughest, most kind, stubborn, loving people in the world. I am convinced of it. I would also say the same of the tribe that surrounds each foster family, and oh how I hope and pray each has a tribe! We certainly do. I have a couple of really close friends that lean in close and see how I'm really doing. I have a mom and dad who ask questions, love on our family, and offer healthy amounts of encouragement. We have a church family that fully supports foster families, several couples older than us even showing us how they thrived as a foster family in their younger years.
I have missed you, dear readers. You too, are my tribe. There is so much I wish I could share with you about this season and when I mention music, cooking, photography, and all the "easier" topics it's only because the deeper, raw stories of my life are tucked away on my laptop for now. They simply aren't mine to share. If you have questions in general about foster care though, please feel free to ask!
I read a quote by a fellow Instagrammer this week about poking holes in the dark to let the light through. My, how that has stuck with me. It is simply just so true. We do have such power, don't we? I want to leave you with a few paragraphs from the sacred words tucked on my laptop. Something to think about over the weekend. While you ponder these words I'll be puttering around the farm and my home, sitting amongst my church family and teaching Sunday school beside Brett, holding Brett's hand and letting our marriage be the focus on date night, quietly clicking when a moment of life stops me in my tracks and makes my hands reach for my camera.
"The ridiculous, silly, beautiful are necessary to balance the hard, the behind-the-scenes, the daily grind of being called to care. When life and emotions go deep, we go dreamy. When hearts sink, we lean towards silly and smiles. When souls are crushed, we crave the corny. For in laughter, something catching us by surprise, humor, silly shenanigans, fun just for the fun of it, we feel our power being strengthened. Maybe we don’t even know it’s happening. A laugh can carry us for days, traces of the sound drifting on the wind, like music to our ears. A laugh can feel like breathing hope, because most of us breathe deep after laughing. It makes our eyes crinkle, lightens our heart, although maybe not our load. It feels that way though doesn’t it?"
(written by me)
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