We Are Living in a Material World...

Stuff. Kids come with a lot of STUFF.

If you've had children, you know this to be true. When a pregnant mother nears her due date, she will have already have been nesting for weeks, if not months. Nursery decorated and furnished, stocked with diapers, wipes, clothes, and everything you could think of that one would need to care for a new baby.

She's often had 10 months to prepare for the arrival of this new little one. Some have been preparing for years. I know someone who started to stockpile baby gear for years prior to having her first child. I will have to admit I thought it a little strange at the time. But now I think back on how unbelievably smart she was. Kinda like those doomsday preppers, who everyone thinks is crazy until the zombie apocalypse comes...

Wait, what just happened there??

We've known that God has called us to foster care for a long time, and He confirmed His timing this summer. From the time that He definitively revealed His timing to us, until the time that we may possibly get a placement is the same exact timeframe that coincides with a normal pregnancy. It's funny how He pairs the natural with our supernatural callings. Every time.

So we have had quite some time to prepare. Not only to prepare our hearts and minds, but our home as well. The difference? I don't have a growing belly to remind us that baby is coming. And soon.

For a while now, I've been nesting, in the sense of cleaning out junk. Purging. Getting rid of the crap. I cannot believe how much stuff we have, even after only being in this home for 4 years. When we moved here, we purged, and I cannot believe that we still have so much more to get rid of. To compound the issue, our house is small, with very little in terms of storage.

I've been trying to move from one room to the other, cleaning out things slowly and thoroughly. But then Black Friday happened. We scored some amazing deals on some much needed baby gear. We got incredible discounts on a stroller/carseat combo, and a crib. So naturally, when these came in, I NEEDED to get them set up. Immediately.

The catch was that when cleaning stuff out, I didn't start in the extra bedroom. I started on the other side of the house. Making space for everything little by little. Because without needing to use the spare room as an actual bedroom, it became the room where we stored tons of stuff.

So to set up the crib, I needed to move a desk. I didn't have a place for the desk yet. But the desk would fit in the closet. So to fit the desk in the closet, I had to move all the boxes of my great grandmother's china. To move those, I had to rearrange the cabinet in my tiny kitchen with no storage. By the way, not all of it fit. What did people really do back in the day with a dinner plate, salad plate, bread plate, soup bowl, saucer for the soup bowl, tea cup, saucer for the tea cup, serving platter [X3], gravy boat, sugar bowl, serving bowl.............WHO HAS TIME TO DO ALL THOSE DISHES????

AHHHHH, I digress....

There came a point where I was just moving things around. Playing nesting Tetris.

Where was I headed with this? Oh. Stuff...

You know, becoming a parent through foster care looks so different than becoming a parent "naturally." I place that in quotes because going through the foster care route is so natural for us. But in some ways it looks the same. One of the ways that it looks the same is that you need a lot of stuff for a child: diapers, wipes, clothes, bottles, bibs, crib, carseat, stroller, changing pad, toys, books, bath toys, towels, pacifiers, blankets....

Stuff, stuff, STUFF.

Another way it looks the same? Often, a woman's water breaks suddenly, and she goes into labor quickly. She often rushes straight to the hospital, and gives birth to a baby a few short hours later (okay, okay, sometimes labor is not that quick...). Then soon after, she comes home with a baby. In foster care, the equivalent of going into labor is getting THE CALL. The call that there is a child needing a home, and needs to be picked up soon. Like within a couple of hours. This call could come during "business hours." Or it could come at 2:00am.

Since we have known that we are moving in this direction for months now, the Lord has made it clear to me that we are to prepare. We are to build our ark. In the faith chapter, Hebrews 11, the Bible says that it was By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family (Heb 11:7). We cannot yet see what God is doing through this journey, although we've seen a glimpse. It is entirely by faith that we are preparing, and building our ark.

Noah built an ark when God told him of the coming flood, even though there was no rain in sight. Sunny blue skies. No rain for months (if ever, who knows...). But by faith, he believed what God told him, and he built an ark. And it was credited to him as righteousness.

So we are doing just that. We are looking ahead to what God has called us to, and we are preparing and building our ark. We are clearing out clutter, and making space. We are gathering supplies. We have a crib set up, and a car seat purchased. I even went as far as making a registry. Which quite a few people have looked at me sideways for. But you know what? I'm building my ark. I don't have time for sideways glances. If you think that's overkill, then thanks for stopping by, keep on moving along...

The reality is, though, that a lot of foster families do not have this time to prepare their arks. There comes a time when a foster family gets a call at 3:00am asking if they can take a child. Oh, and by the way, they will be at their doorstep in an hour or two. Even for us, with "all the time" that we've had to prepare, you still never can be fully prepared, for any child, any age. Who has storage for that? I know I don't. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH STUFF YOU NEED FOR A KID??? HAVE I MENTIONED WE DON'T HAVE STORAGE???

But you know what's awesome? In our local foster community we have this amazing resource in the Vault. The Vault is a non profit organization, that is a local resource for foster families in our community. The Vault stockpiles essential items--MATERIAL THINGS--that foster families need at the drop of a hat.

You have a baby coming in an hour and need a carseat? Done. You have a toddler coming and you don't have a bed for him? Done. You bought a crib, but never got a mattress because you thought you'd have more time to nest? Done. You've always had older children, and now you're getting a baby and need bottles? Done.

You guys, I don't know if you know how much of a blessing this is, and how PRIVILEGED our foster community is to have this at our fingertips. Because the reality is that most foster parents across the country do NOT have this available to them. Most foster families are responsible for purchasing everything all at once that they will need, and all within a couple of hours.

I know what you're thinking. People who have children "naturally" have to get all this stuff too, right? Yes. But they have 10 months to prepare, not 2 hours. Not to mention baby showers and excited families and friends willing and ready to contribute. It takes a village right?

It sure does. And the fostering village in our local community is amazing. We are truly blessed to be able to be a part of this community. But guess what? Like everything, it takes money.

It takes money to have a warehouse full of childcare gear ready for families in need. Things. MATERIAL, TANGIBLE STUFF. Stuff that makes it easier for families to say Yes! to children in need of a home. Stuff that, without it, some parents would be too overwhelmed to open their homes.

Having the Vault available means that families are equipped to love on children. Having the Vault available means that foster parents who are not financially "wealthy" can still open their hearts and homes to children, because they have the things that they need to care for these kids. Having the Vault available means that when the 2:00am call comes, and a family doesn't have a crib or a carseat, they can still say a resounding YES! to the little one who will come into their lives. Having the Vault available means that the Kingdom of Heaven is advancing. That the love of Christ will shine vibrantly.

During this season of giving, often people are searching for the perfect organization to give their last significant financial donations of the year to. If that is you, could I ask you to keep the Vault in mind? Would you consider your year end giving prayerfully, asking the Holy Spirit to guide your gifts to be used for the things that He has set out for you to partner with? For organizations that show His love to the most vulnerable--to children displaced and searching for their home?

For religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress. James 1:27

Getting Started 101

I've had quite a few of you ask me what our timeline is, and when we will be expecting a child in our home. So I thought I'd take a moment to clarify a little bit on how this process will go. More or less. Because if I've learned anything from watching my friends travel on this journey, it's that things with foster care don't always go as planned. That's about the only thing we can plan on. HA!

This is not an end all be all explanation, as I'm going off of what I know right now, and what I've been told by our friends and our agency. I'm sure there will be a lot more to learn as we get deeper into this process.

But to start things off, in order to be a foster parent, you must first get licensed with the state. They don't just throw babies at anyone who wants them (thank goodness). There is a lot of training and preparation involved. When getting licensed, you can either go directly through the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS), or you can get licensed through a foster agency. We will be getting licensed through the agency 4Kids, which is a Christian foster placement agency that our church supports.

Through 4Kids, our first step will be to take licensing classes, which will take place over the first 3 weeks in February. During these classes, we will learn about the foster system in Texas, and we will be trained in how to effectively parent children who come to us out of their broken situations. It will run the gamut from discipline to grief to attachment to CPR/first aid training, and so much more.

Then comes paperwork. With our particular agency, a prospective foster parent must attend the first class (which is a basic intro into the foster care system) prior to being able to fill out or turn in any paperwork. Which, when you think about it, is smart. They want to make sure that you know what you're getting into before you jump into all the legal paperwork stuff. And so while I know some of the things that will be needed (copies of drivers' licenses, SSI cards, marriage license, pay stubs, budgets, inspections, etc...), we cannot start to get these things all together and turn them in until after our first class on February 2.

After all of the classes are completed, and all of the necessary paperwork has been turned in (which includes fire inspection from the fire marshall and safety inspection from the health inspector), the next step is to get a home study. This will be our "file" that CPS looks at and determines if our family wound be a good option for each child that is needing a foster home placement. I don't know a whole lot about this yet, but from what I've read in other blog posts and from poking around online, the process is a long and stressful one. But I know that my God will bring us through this victoriously, because He is faithful to deliver on His promises. Every time.

Once the home study is complete, everything gets turned in to the state, and we wait to be accepted and licensed. And one the license comes in, our home can officially be opened to waiting children.

So to answer all of your questions, after we go through "the process," I think realistically we could expect to get a child placed in our home sometime in the spring or summer of next year. Assuming all goes as planned, which...in foster care, there's really no such thing as a plan...

So I guess basically, I don't know. That will probably be our answer to most everything, huh? :) But I'm OK with that. Because the Lord knows, and that's all I need to rest on.

In All Fairness...

The amount of support that we have received as we embark on this journey called foster care has been overwhelming. We are filled with such joy and anticipation as we look forward to what God is planning to do in our lives and in our family. Y'all, I'm more excited for this than for Christmas!

And while we have not had anyone overtly say that they are concerned about us taking this step, I have heard this a few times: "It's just not fair. There are families that get their kids taken away because of [insert situation here], and then there are families like yours who deserve to have kids, but can't. It's just not fair."

That word deserve makes me cringe now. Because what do any of us really deserve, if we take a good long hard look at the mirror? These sentiments are genuinely meant to be sympathetic, and I do not want to discredit them. I will admit that in the early stages of my grief over our infertility, I have felt many of these things, often accompanied by anger and bitterness, shaking my fists at God, and asking Him, "Why??"

But you guys, in all fairness...life is not fair...

I know...groundbreaking truth right there, huh?

I'm sure we could all list countless things that have happened to us that just aren't fair, couldn't we? For me to type them all out would probably break the internet. But that's not the life that we have been called to. We have not been called to keep tallies, and to make sure that everything is fair and square for everyone. Don't even get me started on participation trophies...

I think that in times where we are questioning fairness, especially when it comes to heartbreaking things like families being torn apart, we would be wise to look to the Cross.

Because guess what?

The Cross wasn't fair.

Christ came down from heaven. He lived a perfect sinless life. He taught and lived out the Word of God. He brought healing, and love, and joy to those around Him.

And yet...He went to the Cross.

He went to the cross to die a criminal's death. A gruesome death that none of us could ever imagine enduring. All so that we, the sinners, could know God, and experience His Truth in ways that we couldn't have without that Cross -- without that sacrifice.

Y'all. THAT is what is not fair. It was not fair that Christ was the sacrifice for my ugly stained life. It was not fair that my perfect Savior God came and went through all of that to redeem my blemished soul.

IT. WAS. NOT. FAIR!

But oh, am I so grateful for that Cross. Oh, am I so grateful that He has redeemed me from the pit.

As I look forward to this journey, my outlook has changed from that's just not fair, to I cannot believe that God is allowing us to do this...

He is allowing us, and giving us this privilege to love on His children while their families are trying to heal and get back on track.

He is allowing us to pray life and hope and restoration into broken families, in order that they might encounter His redemption.

He is allowing us to minister to children and mothers and fathers in ways that they maybe never could experience otherwise.

He is giving us the opportunity to see broken lives as just that--broken--and to see them without judgment or condemnation.

He is giving us the opportunity to press into His Spirit more closely, and learn to live on complete reliance on Him.

And through all of that, our family may grow through adoption. Or we may just be vessels that He is wanting to use to bring healing to families. And either way, as long as we are living in His will and following the path that He's laid out for us, the journey is going to be so so sweet. I can't wait, y'all. It's gonna be awesome.

Mama Dove

Growing up, I always wanted a cool nickname. My sister Jessica couldn't say her name, so it came out as Kika. And it's stuck even to this day.

How adorable, right? Except I never got a nickname...and I always felt left out. And so for whatever reason, as a tiny babe, I decided that "Dove" would be the perfect nickname. Please stop laughing. I have absolutely no idea where that came from. I was like 6, for the love!

I may or may not have also used that as an argument that I was destined to have a Gibson Dove. For some strange reason, I've had difficulty winning that argument with Matt, although I can't imagine why...

So in true Mama Dove fashion, I have been nesting like a crazy woman these days, cleaning out all the junk we've accumulated over the past 10 years. The crazy thing is, when we moved to Boerne four years ago, we decluttered and got rid of SO. MUCH. CRAP. And yet, here we are, closets busting at the seams, and I'm left racking my brain trying to figure out where we are going to store everything that comes along with a baby. Or a toddler. Or a preteen...y'all...we could end up with any age child, isn't that crazy?

Some of our conversations have looked a little bit like this:
C: "How about these computer speakers?"
M: "Keep them."
C: "What? Why??"
M: "Because I might need them someday..."
C: "But they've been sitting here in this cabinet for the past 6 years untouched!"
M: "Fine, Goodwill..."
**Insert eye roll emoji here**

After a few weeks of this, we had ourselves a car load full of junk to donate. Hello, tax deduction! It's the first of many, I'm sure, because we are still swimming in stuff. Seriously, how does that happen??

Sometimes I feel a little dumb doing all this, because we haven't even taken the licensing classes to foster yet. But it's the only thing that I can do right now to prepare. I've mentioned it to another foster mama, and she reassured me that it is totally normal for me to be nesting like this. It's funny how women do this, even when we don't have the hormones that go along with pregnancy. And I also have to remember that if I were pregnant, I'd still be doing all these things.

And so I purge on, clearing the junk, and making space, trying my best to create my nest to be able to accommodate a baby. Or a toddler. Or a preteen...

And like everything with this journey, it's going to look different. But I'm finally in a place where I'm totally OK with that. And it's amazing.

When Things Look Different...

Motherhood. It's something that has been ingrained into my soul for as long as I can remember. I was that little girl with a baby doll in tote everywhere I went. I remember going to work with my dad in the summer, and taking the doll, her blankets, all her bottles, diapers, and every other play baby item we had, and mothering the heck out of that doll. Or spending time at my grandparents' house with our family, begging my Mamaw to let me take the doll outside for a walk. Because, you know, babies need fresh air. Duh. Alas, I didn't have a driver's license, so she wouldn't let me go...come see me after class for the rest of that story...

Serving in the nursery at church...babysitting any chance I got...always being the first to hold the new baby at friends' house...

Being a mother has been such a deeply rooted part of me for as long as I can remember. And so after Matt and I got married, naturally, my mind went immediately to babies. How many we would have, when we would start our family, what the names would be...a big thank you to my cousin for stealing my baby name...;) Just kiddinggggggg...

So about a year or so after we got married, we decided to stop taking birth control. Now, for those of you who know our story, and know that I was a budding 18 years old at marriage, you know that this means that at age 19, I was "trying" to have a baby. And while that probably seems bonkers to you (and now to me looking back as well), that was where my heart was, because, MOTHERHOOD, y'all! It is a part of who I am!

 So as you can imagine, being suddenly lumped into the statistic of the 6% of married women in the US who suffer from infertility came as quite a shock. I'm sure that Matt was also shocked learning that the chances of us having a child naturally were slim-to-none. But I'm not sure that it hit down to the very core of his being, as it did for me.

You guys, infertility is a real thing, and it is a painful thing to walk through. And more people around you are suffering with it than you would ever imagine. Because it is just not something that we talk about. It's not something that we are proud of. It's shameful in a way, and the enemy uses this disease to lie to us that we are not blessed if we suffer with this, because "Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from Him." (Ps 127:3)

And so if the Bible says that children are a gift and a reward, then wouldn't it be safe to agree with the enemy's lies that if you are not given this gift, it is because you don't deserve this? Because you are not worthy of a reward from Him?

Now look, I am not condoning these agreements. These agreements bring death to our spirits, but I'm just being real with y'all. These feelings are undeniable. These are things that your friends around you are struggling with, but you would never even know it.

But you know what is awesome about our God? He takes what the devil whispers to us, and He turns it around. And He declares that "He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children." (Ps 113:9)

I have received much hope from this and other verses that say the same thing. But as I study, it has become clear: God's Word does not say that "the barren woman will become pregnant." It says that the barren woman will be a mother of children. Interesting when you look at that subtle detail, huh?

Now, don't get me wrong. I fully believe and know that God is capable of healing this, and bringing life to my womb. He's done it in other women before, and He can do it again, for me. And He might still. But in the past 8 years, He has not. For reasons that He does not require us to know. The only thing He requires of us is that we trust Him and believe His Word. And so I do. I believe Him when He tells me that I will be a happy mother of children.

These days there are a lot of ways that a woman can become a mother. But right out of the gate, God made it abundantly clear to us that medicine was not the way that He was building our family. And so after getting our initial fertility testing done, we did not take things farther with more tests, procedures, medications, etc. Because to do so would be disobedient, first of all, not to mention a waste of time and money, knowing that God has not called us to that.

So I did what any other normal OCD woman would do, and I researched. I researched the crap out of adopting from the private sector and from overseas. For years I attempted to wrap my mind around it. And I hit roadblocks and mental hurdles that I just could not seem to get over. The entire process to me was completely overwhelming.

We have friends who have adopted, both privately, and from overseas. Friends who could point out the pathways for us, and show us how to start and get through that journey. But it was profoundly clear to my soul that this wasn't His plan for us either.

And so we waited. And waited. And waited.....

Enter Nineteen:Ten Church...

Being planted into this family has been one of the best things that has ever happened to us. Through this House, we have built relationships with people who will be lifelong friends. Through this House, we have found freedom from bondage. And through this House, we were introduced to the foster care system. A system that is teeming with the need for the people of the Church to step in and be the hands and feet of Jesus to these kids.

And so it is with great excitement that we would like to announce that late this summer, God definitively revealed to us that He will be building our family through the foster-to-adopt system.

Matt and I would love for you to join us in prayer as we prepare for all that God has set apart for us on this journey. Right now, we are preparing our home as best as we can. The first "official" step for us to take is to go through the licensing classes, which we are set to do with our church family in February. There will be a lot of hurdles to jump, and hoops we will have to go through. It is a process that, to some, may look and feel overwhelming. But you know what's awesome? To the degree that I was overwhelmed with researching other adoption methods, God has given me that much peace about this, and a deeply rooted knowledge that we can handle this.

I want you guys to know that we truly appreciate all the support and excitement that we have received from our families and friends, and look forward to starting this journey.

**If you would like to know more about the foster care system, and all ways that you can get involved, this Sunday, 11/13/16, at 1pm at Nineteen:Ten Church we are holding an information meeting that we would love for you to be a part of. To RSVP simply email Reclaimed@1910church.com

Image Credit