What is Good?

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The longer we wait for our Foster license the more little projects I am finding.  When a woman is pregnant it’s called nesting.  I have no idea what to call it when waiting for the completely unknown.  It’s a whole new kind of nesting.  Each item in this room has been carefully thought out and  inexpensive monetarily speaking.  A lot of time and love has been put into it.  Each item can also be reused or repurposed elsewhere in our home if need be so nothing is lost or wasted.

This little chair has been my latest labor of love.  This chair was literally getting ready to be thrown in a fire and my husband spotted it and saved it.  I’m sure he is now getting an eye for “what  Anita would love to paint and restore”.   I sat looking at this simple little chair this morning after putting a sealing coat on it and thought. “I like it.  It looks good, well at least to me.”   My thoughts then turned to God as he created this amazing earth and all the galaxies.  After each day of creation “He saw that it was good.”

God planned each and every person, plant and animal before He even spoke it all into existence.  My thoughts then turned to how my heavenly Father looks at me.  He planned me before sin entered in.  He knew all the good He could do with my life and my existence.  He had a purpose in creating little me.  He has this much love, thought, and planning for every human being.   Others may not look at what God has created and think it’s any good or like it.  Every human being is not likable and pleasing to all other human beings, but to God…  We were all created for something beautiful.  Of course sin entered and that beauty becomes distant and separated by our sinful nature that opposes all that God created us for.  We search to find our own purpose, meaning, and salvation to no avail.  On our own separate from our Creator we are destined to be used up and thrown into the fire.   God provided a Savior, Jesus, to snatch us from the grasp of that fire.   He looks on us with love and sees His original purpose, plan, and beauty.   As we submit to being saved and give up trying it all on our own we begin to change.  Beauty and restoration happens and God looks upon us and sees that Jesus has covered our entire being.  God can once again look at a human being that is covered by Jesus and say “it is good”.

I am so thankful for God’s love.  As I am so far from perfect He continues to teach me how to love, forgive, and live.

Genesis 1:31a  “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good”

2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone,  the new is here.”

Life is More than a Vending Machine

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vending machine

The other day my youngest daughter and I had dashed out of the house without eating any breakfast.  Our place of destination that morning happened to have a vending machine full of junk food that could provide a very short lived satisfaction to hunger pains (with no nutritional value I must add).   My daughter asked if I had change so she could get a snack until we can get some “real food”.  With those big blue eyes softening my heart I of course  caved and told her to go ahead and get some change from my wallet for  a snack.  Her first try to obtain a snack of her choice the tasty treat became entangled in the spiral mechanics of the machine and would not drop below to her reach.    Upon her second try for another choice the snack once again became stuck between the spiral grasp and the glass door of the machine.   After the second try  the only thing being fed was the machine with mom’s change instead of her belly so she decided to call it quits and just count her/our losses.

 

This encounter reminded me so much of the world we live in.  Some give and give yet never seem to get ahead or become successful according to the standards of our world.  There are some who may give a little and get what someone else paid for and lost.  There are some who may just shake life and make demands and the demands are granted without any work or effort.    Sometimes worldly systems work  sufficiently and one can get what they have worked/paid for.  Life can really seem unfair and meaningless.

Life of one who has a relationship with Jesus provides so much more than the give and take of this world we live in.  The things that are so fleeting and superficial, beauty, money, power, fame, attention, etc… start to become just that, superficial, as one’s relationship deepens with Jesus.   A quote caught my attention in Dr. Warren W. Wiersbe’s Bible Commentary of the New Testament.  “God’s love for His own is not a pampering love; it is a perfecting love.”    It seems all anyone wants to hear is what God will give give give.  Our lives are so much more than what we can get.  The world is so focused on “self” and what God and others can do for “me me me”.    God’s plan for us is to perfect us.  Not in a way the world sees perfection.  It is a perfection of faith and love.  The more He perfects our faith the more of His light and love can flow through us.   The stronger our faith the more God can work through us to love others perfectly.  The stronger our faith the less we let ourselves get in God’s way.  Sometimes deepening our faith means we have to go through a lot of pain, suffering, sorrow, and mistakes in this life.  When it comes down to it I would much rather be perfected than to have everything perfect.  When I look back on what may seem a complete mess in my own life I can see God’s perfect plan and how it evolved and refined my faith.

Romans 12:2 “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is– His good, pleasing and perfect will. “

Foster/Adopt #5

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It’s funny that this is now my 5th blog on this subject and we are actually still just waiting for our license.   We live in a broke and back logged state so there is no surprise in the waiting.  Our room sits ready, clean, and a bit sterile until personalities fill it with life and color.  As we wait I continue to see how God is working within my own heart to prepare me as well as my husband and children.  He continues to provide people of support, stories, testimonies, and articles to read to build a foundation of love and wisdom.

Our family continues to lose loved ones.  Tomorrow we say our earthly good byes to the man that was my last earthly father figure remaining, my maternal grandfather.  All the loss lately of fathers, aunts, uncles, friends leads me to a deeper level of empathy that can only scratch the surface of the loss that any child placed in our care will have endured.

As a child one of my greatest fears was to lose my parents.  I am not sure if that is a normal fear of a child.  Having been a pretty weird little kid now grown to weird little adult it is goofy stuff that I remember best.   When I was age five my parents went on a retreat of some kind I am sure for pastors.  A couple from our church kept me for about a week and another family kept my baby sister.   What I remember that week is that I never stopped crying.  The couple I stayed with were very sweet and loving.  They were at their wits end as to what to do to make me happy and to stop crying.  They bribed me with buying toys to no avail.  I am surprised I didn’t dehydrate from all the tears.  I wanted familiarity, normalcy, and security.  I felt scared and alone even though I was with nice people in a nice home.   The highlight of that week was getting to see my baby sister at church.  She was my family and someone I had a true bond with.  It was the longest week of my life.

Having been born to a very loving stable environment I really don’t know what it feels like to have the people that should be your rock and support fail you.  I don’t know what it is like to suffer through the death of a parent while still a child.  I have not been beaten or have had to watch anyone beaten and abused.   I have not had to watch sexual immorality or people getting high as if that is a normal everyday activity for a child to see or experience.   There is a loss of family and a loss of innocence for so many children and it makes my heart ache.  What I know is that week without my family even though I was safe and cared for made me so very sad.  I know that as we continue to lose more and more family my heart grieves and I am forever changed.  My prayer is that God will keep these feelings alive in me so that His love and compassion will flow through me as we press on with this journey.  He continues to prepare us and ready us for who He has planned.  It is hard not to get impatient in the waiting.  He reminds me that Noah didn’t build the ark in a day.  David had to wait to be king.  The Israelites were slaves for 400 years in Egypt.  Throughout scripture God refined and strengthened His people, prophets, and disciples through the process of waiting.  Then the glory of His perfect plan and timing was revealed.

“Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.”  Psalm 27:14

What was I Thinking

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Upon hearing of the weather predictions for snow as I left work yesterday I made the statement “Ah I hope they don’t call school off tomorrow.”   Planning to do some deep heavy duty cleaning and purging on my ever so precious day off for this week I selfishly wanted nothing to stand in my way.

This morning my youngest came barreling in to say “Mom school is cancelled!!!”  My first thought turned to “Thank you Lord for knowing what is best.  What was I thinking yesterday?”  As a nurse there have been very few times on inclement weather days that I haven’t had to drag my children out of bed and drive them to a sitters so I could go on to work.  Nurses don’t get snow days unless a school nurse.  This is actually a rare gem of a day, a bonus day in our ever so busy schedule that the girls and I can stay in our jammies and not have to rush here and there.

I was reminded that our first thought, snap judgments, what we think we want, our selfishness, and our pride get in the way of God’s perfect plan.  He always knows so much better than I do.

Proverbs 19:21 “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”

Now off to do some cleaning and hanging out with my precious blessings on our bonus day together!!!

Are You Just Running Through Life Like a Ladybug?

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Several Sundays ago as our pastor preached a sermon about God’s purpose for our lives this lady bug pictured above caught my eye.  The insect was on the back of the chair directly in front of me.  He walked along the top of the back of the chair one direction and started down the side then the next thing I noticed he had climbed back to the top and went on across to the side from where he just came.  He repeated his trek multiple times.  Back and forth back and forth.  At one point the bug paused and looked straight towards me. We stared at each other for what felt like minutes.  Our pastor preached on Deuteronomy 11:10-24 stressing how God’s word teaches us to  serve and love God with all our heart and soul.  He pointed out that when God is our focus all aspects of our lives fall into place with His provision, presence, promise, and protection.  God gives us direction and a purpose in this chaotic world.  The lady bug seemed to be placed very timely and specifically for me in that moment.  He seemed to just be expending all his energy for nothing.  He was just working and walking with no goal, no focus, no point.  I was reminded of the passage in Ecclesiastes 1:1-18 mostly focusing on King Solomon’s words “Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless!  Everything is meaningless!”

My mind then wondered how often I look like and feel like this ladybug.  Just running in circles, going back and forth, trying to solve the world’s problems, my own problems, and do everything on my own.  God never intended this for His creation.  His intention was to have a personal relationship with each and everyone of us.  For our lives to have very significant meaning within His purpose and plan.  As people close to me lose family members, friends have children battling cancer, as I see people I love overcome with grief and loss, a family in our area just lost their eight year old to cancer, young fathers and mothers battle life-threatening illness,  the world seems over run with hatred and violence, all forms of government seem to be in a complete mess, people are missing,  people are starving… I feel helpless within my own strength to be of any help.  Helpless within my own power to make any sort of difference.

But when I turn my focus to loving God He reminds me of His love and power.

I can’t cure cancer, but I personally know the one who can.

I can’t bring peace and hope to a grieving heart, but I personally know the one who can.

I can’t cure the evil and the devastation evil acts bring upon lives, but I personally know the one who can.

I can’t save the world, but I personally know the one who can.

I don’t even have a clue how I can juggle service ministries, motherhood, work full-time as a nurse, care for our home, and now deepen my role as a mother by becoming a foster parent, but I personally know the one who can.

My prayer is for my eyes to look to Jesus and focus solely on Him.  To fully trust the creator, my Savior, my Redeemer, my Father, my best friend, my protector, my organizer, my time keeper, my patience giver, my strength, my everything…   without Him everything is meaningless…

Philippians 4:6-7 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

 

Hug Like it’s Your Last

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Joes grandma

We can learn a lot from this sweet lady pictured above.  Her name is Donna.  She is my sister’s husband’s grandmother.  Great grandmother to my nephew and niece.   When I think of the definition of “Fun Grandma”  she fits the description perfectly.  My sister’s picture captures her character as you can see.

How many grandmas do you know that play volleyball into their 80’s?  She is the only one I know.  Donna played volleyball regularly unless her health held her back here in these last months.  She even played up to about a month ago.  Donna is a cancer survivor having battled cancer in her 40’s.  It took another 40 years before it reared it’s ugly head again.  In the meantime she LIVED.

Being a distant non-relative  I know her from just a few family gatherings, the stories, and the impact she has had on my sister and her family.  Living 9 hours away she was able to make one last visit back in early November and was present at my niece’s birthday party.  As she was leaving that evening and saying her good byes she stopped right in front of me.  What she did next has truly made an impact on me.   Donna turned looked me right in the face and in the eyes and said the sweetest most sincere good bye.  She then hugged me so very tight.  This 87 year old volleyball player could squeeze tight let me tell ya!!!    I knew she was saying her goodbyes to everyone and she made this “non-relative” even feel significant by her sincerity.

A few weeks ago while she was still physically able she wrote in a card for my nephew’s birthday and the family waited to mail it for her so it would arrive on his birthday.  She passed just the evening before Ben’s birthday.  What a treasure her sweet words of love and encouragement in that card will forever be.

Donna has got me to thinking “What if we lived everyday like a cancer survivor?”   “What if we treated every good bye and every hug as if it is our last?”  We don’t always know when our life on this earth is coming to a close.  None of us know when our last breath will be.  None of us are guaranteed tomorrow.

This Christmas hug your family tight.  Look each other in the eyes and say kind and sincere words of love and encouragement.  This Christmas have fun and laugh!!  We just never know when it is our last.

A Strong Clue That You Are Following God’s Plan Foster/Adopt #4

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In all of our sixteen years of marriage Mike and I have never felt more under attack since we decided to take the step of faith to become licensed foster parents.

As a nurse I have cared for the drug addicted, mentally ill, abusive, and suicidal. I have cared for children on the receiving end of all sorts of abuse. I have cared for the broken, lost, and angry who lash out at those who are genuinely trying to help. God has given me the strength to love patients and families throughout my career. He has helped me on countless occasions to not judge and show compassion. I am not 100% perfect in non-judgemental, loving compassion of all humanity ALL the time, but it has grown easier and easier through the years with God’s help. That being said it is one thing to take care of the broken at work. It is a whole other ball-game to invite the broken into your home. Not just inviting the broken but the government as well.

It has been knowing what foster care would truly involve that has taken me over six years to surrender to taking this step of faith. After that sermon from our youth pastor mentioned in the first foster/adopt post my husband and I discussed finally moving forward with licensure. His statement to me was “I have always been good with it. It has been you that has struggled.”
Ok fair enough. Now as we have completed two thirds of our pride foster parent classes he has developed some of the same fears I have faced over the last six years. These classes can be sobering and emotionally draining as many worst case scenarios are shared. How the tables have turned as I feel a stronger determination not to give up and also that I want to not give up on any child placed in our care. As well as help that child’s family if at all possible. Mike on the other hand is questioning and he mentioned the word fear several times. We have both been stressed, cranky, and overwhelmed. Attacks by Satan worse than ever on our own personal attitudes and patience. In our discussion I mentioned that fear is Satan’s strongest tool to prevent people from taking steps of faith. It is only fear and our own selfishness that truly makes this decision hard. God provides scripture at the most critical times as the story of Peter walking on the water to Jesus came to mind. I reminded Mike that as soon as Peter started to become fearful of the storm and waves he sank. (Matthew 14:22-33)When we stop looking toward Jesus and look at all the dangers around us we will never truly follow the path God has for us.

The image of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane so often comes to mind.  Being fully human knowing the pain, suffering, and the weight of bearing the sin of the entire world Jesus prayed “not my will but yours be done”.   Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good of all humanity.   Brings the sacrifices made to make a difference in at least one young life into a whole new perspective.  (Matthew 26:36-46)

2 Timothy 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

Foster/Adopt #3

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The movie “War Room”, many scriptures, sermons, bible studies, and our first two foster parenting classes have inspired me to start praying in our spare room for the potential children and families whose lives God has planned for us to help through the resource of that room.  Words flow the best for me when I sit and type them out.  My plan of action is to write my prayer for all future children and families as well as write individual prayers as God introduces new people into our lives. Also to frame and hang this prayer in this room and the individual prayers for the current resident of the room. These prayers with permission of caseworkers and families I hope to give to the children and their parents so that they can keep them and know that someone is praying for them.  I won’t be able to share the individualized prayers, but I can share the first prayer publically.

Dear God.  Thank you for the blessing of bringing our small family together.  Thank you for our home and for the resource of this extra bedroom.  The circumstances of how we have this room alone is a lesson in how short and precious life is.  God you have helped me to understand that you created every human being and each child is a gift directly from you.  Help us as a family help every child that comes to live with us to realize that they are first and foremost a very precious gift with a purpose you have a plan for.  Help us to come alongside the parents to realize this gift and to learn how to best care for them.  You created the establishment of family and our prayer is that you use our family to help bring restoration to families that are broken.  Depending on your plan Lord our family is willing to grow when restoration is not possible in families that are in need.

No matter where each child’s permanent home will be, I pray that they will know that they will always have a permanent place in our hearts.  Most of all God I pray that they will know that you provide the greatest permanence and home.  Your desire is to have us all in your family.   Your love is everlasting, unconditional, sacrificial, self less, and pure.  Please help us all to love the way that only you can love.  Help us to have kindness in only the way you can show kindness.  To have goodness in your pure form of goodness.  To have joy that only you can provide.  To be patient at all times which is only possible through you God.  To have a peaceful home and live in the way that only you provide true peace.  To be faithful to you and to each other as you are ALWAYS faithful to us.  To show gentleness just as Jesus gave us the example of gentleness.  To always control ourselves, our emotions, our selfish tendencies, and our words with a strength that you can only provide.  Dear God use this room, our home, and our lives to make a difference.  I love you dear precious Heavenly Father and in your Son’s name Jesus I pray.  Amen

When God’s Voice is Louder (Foster/adopt a child 2)

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Our journey to become licensed foster parents has barely begun and we hit our first road block.  Our above ground pool is an issue.  There are all types of rules to having a pool when a foster parent.  The rules are understandable and basically we need to turn it into Fort Knox or build the Great Wall of China around it.  Earlier this summer as I wrote in the “Just Five or Six More Summers” blog we were faced with replacing the liner of the pool.  At the time I felt God urging me that it was the best stewardship to just repair the pool rather than take it down.  So we invested in the necessary repairs and went on.  Little did I know how much stronger God was going to place this burden of foster care on my heart just a few short months later, but God knew.  There was also no awareness that our pool set up would be considered “climbable”  by a small child.  I am not sure my five foot five inch build could climb it, but a strong-willed, strong-bodied, beef-cake toddler could very well prove it unsafe.  As I received the news from the case worker Friday I found myself back in an “arguing with God” moment.  Exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally from the week I yelled out “Why on earth would you put this on my heart if we can’t do it!?”  “Why would you give me the green light to invest in fixing the pool just to tell us to take it down!???!!”    After I prayed/said/asked my piece and started to listen God started to provide the answers.   One answer He provided was actually a question right back at me.  “What is a greater sacrifice Anita,  to give up a broken pool or to give up one that is fully restored?”

As I have said before I am just a sinner and I often try to fix things within my own strength instead of trusting God first so after my frustrated cries out to God I thought, measured, and researched prices of fencing.   The financial reality that the price of the fence and it’s lack of true function for our set up was just too great a cost for what the pool is worth.  By that next morning I had completely surrendered to fact that the two options we have as a family were to take the pool down and foster children or leave the pool up and not foster children.  My heart was now in complete submission that whatever we need to give up I am on board and that the life of any other human being is far more important than anything material.  The next question was what did the rest of the family feel God was telling them?  The first conversations were just between my husband and I.  After he had about twenty four hours to digest everything and pray he had come to the same point as I,  “We can just take the pool down.”   Initially a family meeting with us all together was what I thought was in order.   With the timing of a busy weekend this really wasn’t a possibility.  Separately I spoke with each daughter about the decision we were facing.  When I spoke to our youngest about the decision we faced as a family I explained the options including the ones  to get the pool to the requirements necessary.    Her words were  “that would look really dumb” when explaining how we would need to fence it or change the railing of the deck.

After allowing the girls about twenty four hours to think and to pray I asked them separately what their thoughts were about the pool.   Each of them separately said “We need to foster children.”  With each response from the most important people in my life my heart grew fuller and fuller with love toward them, toward God, and toward who ever God is planning to place within the care of our family.   He is doing an amazing work in all of our hearts.  There are so many scriptures that in my own bible study time, shared by friends on social media, and bible study/sermons at church that keep pointing us toward this decision.  It is funny that the one that has been on my heart the most has not been presented in any other way than through God bringing it up from the depths of my heart.

Matthew 25:35-40 “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat,  I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me,  I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.  Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go visit you?’  The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'”

What God keeps repeating to my heart over and over is…”I was a stranger and you invited me in…”