Dear Foster Mama {There is no hierarchy},

There is no ladder of calling.

Photo Credit: chrisvonada.com

No short cut to holiness.

There is only the thread He designed you to be in the tapestry He is weaving...

Photo Credit: Boyd Photography

The space He molded for you to bring His kingdom to earth. 

That only you can fill, in a way only you can. 

Because without your Yes, the puzzle is incomplete.

Photo Credit: crerpenado.com

Though the Restorer doesn't need you, He created a calling for you to further His story...

A tale that only you can tell.

But well-meaning watchers will challenge you.

Perhaps whisper you are another rung to accomplish a purpose...

Available on zazzle.com

You DO NOT fill an if you can't space.

You have walked on water into a calling, fixing your eyes on the only One who can calm the storm.

So if He has whispered to your soul...

To adopt, embrace it.

To foster, do so with excellence.

To sponsor, answer faithfully.

To volunteer, serve selflessly.

To donate, give generously.

To educate, speak thoughtfully.

Because to pull even one thread from this kingdom story He is writing, is to deny the deepest longings of our designs.

Answer your high calling with the astounding freedom and beauty that flows from His grace.

And as you do so, we rise to bless you ~

What if's?

I've been working at the Empowered to Connect conference, refreshed through the insights of Dr. Karen Purvis.

The teaching has been wonderful, but more than that, it has been so renewing to my soul to spend moments with friends, acquaintances and strangers, who in sincerity know and understand a part of my soul that others may never grasp.

Almost a secret fraternity.

No words need be spoken.

We understand that when one another says, Good, in response to, How are you...

It means, Today, we are alive.

Today, the seams are still in tack.

Today, I'm not going to blubber through the morning.

We knowingly nod that the other is functioning in survival, rather than diving deep.

There are seasons for each.

I've had moments to sit still and remember.

It was exactly five years ago today that we sat in a Lifeline office on Pump House road and felt our hearts jump to say, Yes. Our child is in Uganda.

It was a brand spankin' new program. No one had traveled.

But our hearts resonated.

What if...

This story is not the one that played out in our minds in that moment.

It looks so very different.

I've allowed myself to play the what if game this weekend.

What if that red dirt Ugandan door had not been closed?

What if we had been called to lead one precious child in healing, rather than wading with tens of children and families through their griefs?

What if the stories my tale has held had never called forth these spaces of my Savior from my core?

What if?

Sometimes to own the present and embrace the future that is unfolding, you must remember what never was; acknowledge the whispered dream... in order to release it.

We cannot despair in that place or allow ourselves to become stuck, but we remember what the Father used to ignite our souls in order to celebrate the spaces of our journey He is inviting us to enter.

Every great story of faith begins with a detour.

It's okay to grieve that turn.

That's where I've been this week.

I know from the deepest wells of my soul, I was shaped for what seems to be unfolding in our future, but it is not the reason I originally said yes. So I allow myself to whisper a sober goodbye in order to celebrate the obedience of today, and tomorrow, and the next.

And right when my mind is wrestling in the goodbye, I'm given this in surprise from my precious sisters in faith Suzanne and Lori...

New mercies to say yes to new obedience each new morning.

But I adore the people who said, Yes, to that first dream so long ago.

Because God's mercy in leading us obedience to that first step, is the same mercy that has brought us through the fire time, and time, and time again so that we may look like this...

Nothing is wasted in God's economy.

All is Grace ~

A Time to be Real

In the same breath, it is my favorite night of the year, and silently, one of my heart's most dreaded nights of the year...

Lifeline Children's Services annual banquet...

Rock Star Foster Mama Friend Erin!

Or as some refer to it, Lifeline's Christmas...

Cloudy, but too good to pass up!

It was five years ago that Executive Director Herbie Newell called Jamie and said he had some extra spots and would love for us to come. I am so grateful for that man and his family, whom we call friends, as he faithfully follows the Spirit's leading in his response to defend the fatherless.

When we came that night, we had no specific intentions other than to learn and support, but when we left I remember Jamie taking my hand in the parking lot and saying, We're never gonna be the same, are we?

No. I don't think we can be, I responded.

Within weeks we began making calls and to do lists. With three boys four and under and a house for sale, we didn't know what obedience was suppose to look like, but we did know we were to take steps forward in faith.

And in that moment it felt so deeply like Uganda.

But for almost two years we inched along as one adoption process became detoured and then another. Our restlessness only grew.

And with each banquet we looked at each other knowingly saying, Just wait until next year.

It was two years ago that as we listened to David Platt share at the same banquet, I constantly checked my phone, waiting on a court's response to see if Baby J was returning home the next day.

That night as adoption was celebrated and a new foster program promoted, my face smiled, as my heart crashed because in that moment I heard the Father's whisper, It may never look like your dream, but it will look exactly as I design.

I came home and wrote in my journal that I was coming to understand our journey of orphan care was not going to look like I had planned, like I had wanted.

I was coming to recognize that our tale of obedience may never make sense.

Hear my heart...We believe in adoption. We still long to adopt one day. I don't think that will ever change.

We celebrate with friends who obey God's calling on their lives to walk the road of adoption, and it is not an easy road...it is beauty born from deep brokenness, and those shadows of grief that are woven throughout are real.

But there is something circular about adoption. To the watching world, it makes sense.

Hear me... I know a wide range of individuals in the orphan care world read this blog: foster mamas, adoptive mamas and daddies, ministry leaders, adoptees and biological families...

But I am saying, to the watching world...there's a logical flow to the cycle of a child in need, and family answering a call on their lives to restore that child's brokenness by God's mercy and grace.

And there's a stunning Biblical understanding of that act of obedience.

Most of the time, really all of the time aside from the Yes on the phone call with my social worker, this whack-a-mole game of foster care, doesn't make logical sense to me.

It doesn't to the watching world either.

It is utterly unnatural in our human nature to fully love a child as your own, a child who screams at you that she hates you because you're not her mama...to deeply give your soul to a child, with the full knowledge you will be crushed...and then to turn around later that day to say yes to a new child and begin the insanity again.

It's not just that it doesn't make sense...it's crazy, and it hurts...

So bad that some days I laugh hysterically and make really demented jokes in order to keep my sanity.

Other days, I allow myself to enter the dark hole of grief and wail over the losses and deaths my home has come to know, has come to represent to so many children and parents.

Still on other days, I plough through the unending loads of laundry, my badge and symbol of physically claiming these children who have a state emblem stamped on their permission slip in place of a parent.

It's fitting that I cope in so many different ways because not one day is the same.

Daily, so many of you email me the tales of your hearts. You kindly thank me for words I often don't even remember writing.

Sometimes I reply after weeks or months, and sometimes never...because aside from my intense disorganization, when I read your stories, I curl up in a chair and weep because they are my stories too.

Your words remind me there are others who live this life of a frayed tapestry, unwoven and damaged, marked by threads of redemption making their way through the ancient ruins and broken walls.

Last night was beautiful. 

The stories of God's mercy and hope through a ministry and individuals answering the call were the very presence of God.

But an unsuspected anger arose in me as Mandi Mapes sang her song, "This Love" ~

I’ve never felt this way before
funny how you found you’re way to my door   
and suddenly my prayers are coming true
and these arms are not letting go of you

this love this love is the deep kind
you’re my baby, you’re my sunshine
I’ll hold your hand, be your biggest fan
and I’ll love you all of the time

our eyes are not quite the same shade
and your hair blows in the wind a different way 
but I am your mother and 
I love you just the same 
so I’ll take your hand honey 
and you can take my name

my heart has been redeemed,
adopted and now I know my Father
this grace that I’ve received 
I want to show you
I want to show you

this love this love is the deep kind
it hangs on through the storm and the sunshine
I’ll hold your hand, be your biggest fan
and I’ll love you all of the time.

I indulged this morning as I rested in the lyrics, amidst mountains of laundry and Joshua screaming Mommy... 

He'll never take my name. 

There is and never has been anything binding in our relationship...or in any of the other 30 faces who have reached for my hand.

There's no legal document giving cause to 12 little kiddos who name Jamie their daddy, even though they no longer regularly lay their heads here.

There's no guarantees or permanency, and though I know we can say that about all of life and all our children whether they be biological or adopted...

That truth's reality plays a constant, urgent presence in my home.

And rather than a love song, I feel my calling is a broken record many days...the chorus of saying Yes, loving fully, surrendering, grieving, and saying Yes again.

This morning as I prayed, I asked myself if I trust my Father's hand enough... even if we are always, only given glimpses of the promise land from afar...

Will I trust if He continues to ask me to lay Isaac, after Isaac, after Isaac on the altar...every time with hope, seamed together with the Gospel?

I want to say Yes. 

I want you to say Yes with me.

But some days, that Yes feels as if it is being clawed from my grasp, as I look longingly back to the moment when Jamie took my hand and said, We're never gonna be the same.

And so I'll choose instead to look unto Jesus ~

A Bust, Grace, and Orphan Sunday for the Family

So, I totally busted.

I could make a thousand and one excuses...family heartache, a surprise trip to Vegas, a 1,001 loads of laundry...

But really it's just I'm so dadgum unorganized.

At the first of October, I had the plan to create an Orphan Sunday devotional for families to process and apply throughout the month of November...it's halfway finished.

So...grace abounds, and look forward to next year when the other half will be completed.

Until then... Consider working through this incredibly simply and practical devotion with your family. This is intended to be used with The Forgotten Initiative's Christmas sponsorship program, but you can utilize it in a number of ways.

A Simple, Three-Day Family Devotional on Orphan Care

Day One:

Read: John 14:16-20

Questions and Prayer:

• ·      What is an orphan?
• ·      Have we ever been orphans?
• ·      How has God not left us as orphans? How is He a father to us?
• ·      Thank God that He has not left us as orphans. Pray for your sponsored Christmas child and the orphans around the world.

Day Two:

Read: Psalm 68:5 

 Questions and Prayer:

• ·      What things do you love about your father, or what kind of father would you love to have if you do not have one?
• ·      How is God a father?
• ·      What are some ways God takes care of the fatherless and the hurting people in the world?
• ·      Thank God that He cares for the orphans, the widows, and the people hurting around the world. Thank God that He is a Father. Pray for your sponsored Christmas child and the orphans of one special foreign country.

Day Three:

Read Psalm 82: 3-4   

Questions and Prayer:

• ·      Who are the fatherless of our world?
• ·      What does it mean when God commands us to defend them and do justice to them?
• ·      Are there ways you are defending the poor and fatherless now as a family?
• ·      Thank God that He allows us to be part of this fight to care for the orphans and the poor around the world. Pray for your sponsored child and the orphans right here in our country. Pray that God would continue to show your family ways to obey this challenge to your family.

Reflections on Orphan Sunday...

Guest Post from Altar 84's Jodie Frye...

There has been a “stirring” lately, at least in my little world, about a day that is called Orphan Sunday.  So, naturally, I have been pondering, praying, and trying to figure out how in the world to address it, and understand it, with grace and truth.

Just to get the official definition out there, especially for those of you who may not know what it is: Orphan Sunday is a global “day” set aside for Christians {the Church} to stand-up, speak-up, and demonstrate God’s heart for the fatherless.  It is “your opportunity to rouse church, community, and friends to God’s call to care for the orphan.” (CAFO)  This year, Orphan Sunday is on Sunday, November 3^rd.

Sounds amazing, right?  So what’s the stirring all about?

Why this “one” DAY?  Some may debate that other “mercy-ministry” groups within the church, such as the sojourner or the widow, don’t get a day for the Church to stand-up, speak-up, and demonstrate God’s heart for them.

I humbly believe the Father’s rhetorical response to this “debate” may go something like this: Well, why not?  At least that’s what He has pressed into my heart.  They too need champions to speak up, defend, and seek justice for them.  If someone wants to create a day for that Gospel-centered vision, I say go for it.

Personally, I need as many stirrings within my complacent self as possible…because I really do desire obedience in the whole Gospel.

“Love is not love until you express it.” (Pastor Billy Chondwe, Zambia)

Here’s the thing…it’s not about the DAY.  It’s about awareness that leads to action, among those for whom the “day” was designed to impact, the Body of Christ.  We need to be stirred.  We need to be wrecked.  We need to fully embrace every thread of the Gospel, every single day that we have breath.

But sometimes, it just takes a DAY for an awakening, whenever or whatever that day may be. Because we are such.flesh, so bent toward our self-centered little worlds and ideologies.

Just think about all the other beautiful, amazing DAYs that we celebrate and embrace. Days that we pause from the normal chaos of our worlds and remember:

Martin Luther King Day

Valentine’s Day

Easter Day

Mother’s Day

Father’s Day

Independence Day

Veteran’s Day

Thanksgiving Day

Birth-day

Christmas Day

To name just a few.

And of those few, how many truly display the Gospel  - the Holy God-man of Heaven entering into the broken sin-man of Earth, to redeem and restore and rescue her {because that is what we truly want to celebrate, right}?

Orphan Sunday was birthed in a small and humble, hard-pressed church in Lusaka, Zambia.  Pastor Chondwe and his 70 member-church simply sought to be faithful with a Gospel-stirring that God was crafting within their souls, on behalf of the widows and orphans within their own community.  And this stirring led to a {God-sized} vision.

Should we, the Body of Christ, really be concerned about one “day” being devoted to Orphan Sunday?

Yes and No.

With transparency, I must confess, I have had moments that I’ve wrestled with one day being set apart for something that should be a part of our every day … especially when that one day may be the only day that a vision is given voice, or maybe just a whisper, within the church or within the heart of the people.   We must steward the missions He entrusts us with, with passion and focus, all year long. 

Here’s the truth about Orphan Sunday, or any other day for that matter…it’s about the tapestry of the Gospel, the vision of the Father’s heart, intersecting and weaving into EVERY fiber of our lives.  We must be careful not to compartmentalize the Greatest Commandment and the Great Commission.

But…if it takes a DAY {or a whole month or year} to ignite His Bride, for whatever thread of Truth has been marginalized, then surely, it should be done.  Surely, it displays Love.  Surely, it makes disciples who GO.  Surely, it makes the angels sing.  Surely, it makes much of the Father’s glory.

There is something to be said about the sense of unity that a God-given purpose, on a given day, flames into fire. BUT, remember, it’s not about the day in and of itself.  The focus must be on moving forward with the vision of the day and the Glory of the One who inspired it all.  {And if your church doesn’t ever have a “day”, that’s alright too.  Just keep serving, right where He has you, using your God-given time, talents, and treasures … He sees, He knows, and His Bride will be all the more beautiful.}

“My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality.”  {1 John 3:18, MSG}

To understand more about the {real} vision and heart of Orphan Sunday, watch this beautiful story, “Zambia’s Gift to the World”.

And speaking of vision…maybe the {truth} is that our deepest concern should just be about what is really on the Father’s heart in all of this, and at the heart of this post: the orphan.

**This post was originally published on Altar 84's blog, Nestsongs. I'm so grateful for their willingness to share their heart and vision with us.

Clinging to Jesus ~

A Testimony...For Us All

I had the honor of sharing a small testimony of God's pursuit of us at September's Unfailing Love Retreat. After opening with Cinderella's birthday letter, I shared the true state of my heart...

Dear Cinderella,

You're four, now.

Balloons flood your hall, while pink and white streamers dance along your doorway.

And you twirl...faster...faster...faster, as if you're spinning to capture the taste, the elation...

Of peace.

And as you reach the peak of your movement, you just as quickly crash with the wails of a lover who has forgotten the very definition of love...

Because your definition of love is unreachable.

And you scream with the horror of men who stand among the bloody battle...

Because at four, you've survived your own war-scared battles...again, and again, and again.

So, I reach for you, striving with all that I am to hush away the symptoms, longing to rip away the roots of the darkness that haunts you...

But removing those roots would remove the very core of our Cinderella. Of the story you've been given.

I move towards your soul, steadily seeking you through your darting eyes,

And you roar with the anger of injustice that sees no remedy.

Pushing away the safety before you, you claw, tearing at your skin, but really...

You're shredding the scaly layers of your tale, searching to remember how you reached this point...

of sadness,

of loneliness,

of fear.

But you can't rip enough away to remove the pain of your soul, no matter how deeply you scrape.

And realizing this infuriates you, with a rage that you were never created to know...

So you turn to me, kicking, screaming, flailing against the one thing you know will cradle you when the battle is lost, when the fighting has subsided.

My taking it only makes you angrier, until you collapse. War torn and weary, you whisper,

My heart's so tired, Mommy.

And if I could, Baby, I would take the deepest cut; I would claw through the unbearable pain that haunts you in the days, and chases your dreams at night, but I can't.

I wasn't made to do that.

So I take you to the One who did it for me.

I wrap you in my arms and rock you to the whispers of, Yes, Jesus loves you. Yes, Jesus loves you.

Between your tears you cling tighter, Mommy, I'm so sorry. I just don't want to hurt anymore inside. 

Shhh...Yes, Jesus loves you...

And my heart strains to feel my Savior who is cradling me under His tender wings. My ears strive to hear the whispers of His name over my soul so that I can look into your eyes once again and tell you...

That you were never meant for this. You were made for Jesus.

~~~~~~~~~~

Isn’t Cinderella’s battle, the striving we all know on some level?

Our longing to control and secure our environment safe from pain, grief, heartache…for ourselves, our spouses, our children... because we were never intended to wade through this muck and mire, but somewhere between our screen of protection and self-preservation, we trade the beauty and glory we were designed for, for the filthy rags we believe will comfort us.

And suddenly, the good things become ultimate, and the tightness of our fists around what we will believe will provide for us allows the lies of desire to become so much louder than the melody of Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves you.

I know because I did this. I wanted to adopt…it was our heart, and it was a really good and beautiful thing, but somewhere in the paperwork and the home studies, the pursuit of a child became greater than the One who was calling us into the journey of transformation. So with tired hearts from years of paper chasing, we laid it on the altar.

There is still no adopted child…yet. But there are 30 faces that line our walls. Thirty marks that show their growth along our doorways. There are mamas and daddies at our dinner tables who have conquered lifetimes of horrors, and there’s a surrender that has brought me to my knees before my Savior…hour after hour. And though the whisper of lies is still there, Yes, Catie, I love you, and you are right where I want you…is so much louder.

Be transformed…not in the end result you are longing for, which is beautiful. It is. But know, His Gospel is going forth into the darkness through your waiting with hope, your resting in grace, the cries you utter from your knees. Your the beautiful incarnation of our Redeemer to a watching world, not just because you are called to orphan care, but also because you are trading the false pillars of strength you leaned upon, for a treasured mess of weakness, that allows Him to begin.

And to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!

~ Ephesians 3:20