Motherhood

Just Look How Far You’ve Come

| anitalucascmc
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

A couple weeks ago I took all three of my children on a hike in one of our local state parks.  Hiking is one of my most favorite things to do outdoors.  The bucket list of hikes I would love to take is extremely long and gets longer and longer instead of shorter.  This was our foster child’s first real hike ever I am quite sure.  There was severe whining and complaining the entire hike.  This was a very short hike compared to what this momma really loves to do.  All along the way there were little break throughs amongst the complaining and threats from our child.  “I can’t go any further!!!  Oh look there is the same kind of bug you and I saw that one time mom!”   “Oh I hate spider webs!!   Oh my legs are worn out!!!  Oh look at the cool butterfly!!”  All three children missed the beautiful deer that crossed our path right in front of us.  All the way were opportunities to teach about God, His creation, His love, and that in life we need to stop, listen, and look otherwise we miss the greatest blessings from Him.  As the hike grew more intense with inclines so did the complaining.  The story of the Little Engine that Could (one of my favorites)  came in handy that day.  With each step I encouraged “I think I can…I know I can!!”  At one point I turned and looked at our child to keep encouraging and I saw just how far we had come.  I said “Turn and look and see just how far you have already come!!  I know you can do this!!”

We reached the top to see the awesome view and the first response was “wow!”.   Then that hard shell of pride and survival methods from a harsh life went back up.  The guard had been let down just for a moment showing a glimmer of hope that love was winning this child’s heart.  The opportunity presented itself to explain that the reason I love hikes so much is that they are hard.  The girls started telling him how they have even watched me fall down on hikes. It is a goal that requires physical, mental, and sometimes emotional work.  All along the journey God provides little views of His Glory and His Blessings.  Once we have persevered and reached the goal then we get to see something beautiful that we never would have seen had we not made the long journey.   Each hike I have ever taken I have gotten to see more and more of God’s glory, His beautiful handiwork of His creation.

So it is with life and definitely parenting.  Anything truly worth anything takes a lot of physical, mental, and emotional work.  As God directs and leads down new paths it is so hard.  I stumble, hurt, cry, feel like giving up and then He shows little snipits of His glory.  Each new hurdle in life God reveals more and more of His Glory to me that I would have missed had I not listened and taken the path He directed.

Not only was this hike a teachable moment for this young precious child it was one for mom as well.  Just keep looking at how far you have come I can hear my Heavenly Father encourage.  Just keep taking one step and one day at a time and trust me.

It is always good to look back and see what God has brought us through and the prayers that have been answered.  The past is not a place to dwell, but to learn from and press on.

So a message to all parents and especially foster/adoptive parents.  Just look at how far you’ve come!!!

Psalm 16:11 “You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”

 

 

I Love You Because you Exist

| anitalucascmc

There are daily life lessons to learn as a foster family.  So many I really can’t share.  Many things I have known, but God is driving a deeper and deeper understanding within me.

What a messy world we live in.  It seems that so many people desire to completely change who they are and are never satisfied within their own skin.  There is a desire and push within this world to completely change the things about ourselves that are clearly defined when we are born.  It is hard enough to figure out things like what school to go to and what career to choose let alone the things about us that are actually very cut and dry.

God continues to reveal to me the deep problem of humanity and what His cure for the problem is.  The greatest need of every human being is to know that there is at least one person that loves them merely because they exist.  A love that has no condition, a love that has no selfish goals, a love that is there even when we are underserving of it.  From the day we are born we are in need of this kind of love.  You cry I will be there, you cause me to be unable to meet my own needs at times…I will be there, you lash out at me…I will be there…   I will still look at you and smile, my eyes will light up when you enter the room.   We all need this kind of love and fewer and fewer are receiving it…even as a small helpless child many never receive this kind of love.

Love like this opens our heart to realizing that we exist because God cared enough to create us and plan our lives.    It opens our hearts to realize that God gave us free will because He wants us to love Him in return because we choose too.  Love like this opens our hearts to understanding that God sent Jesus because He loves us despite our wickedness, flaws, and our unworthiness.   God loves us just as we are because He is.

No matter the struggles and challenges the answer to the deep dark pains of this world is LOVE.   God is helping me love and understand on deeper levels daily…sometimes minute to minute.  To look at every human being with eyes of love merely because of their existence.  Because they are a creation of God.

Our Journey has Officially Begun Foster/adopt#7

| anitalucascmc

sheep

For the sake of privacy and protection I can’t share too much at all about this amazing last week we have had, but I can share what I am learning.  As I have watched the divine plan of God and His perfect timing unfold in our journey I am not surprised that this happens to be the seventh blog on this subject.  The perfect number.

God has chosen us to be the part of something so amazing and so much bigger than ourselves.

When I gave birth to our first child I remember how as a new mom I would look at her and feel like my heart would just burst with love for her.  I had never felt a greater pouring of love into my very soul like this before.  Our second child came along 3 years later and once again the love poured in.  The love doesn’t run out when it comes from God.  This unconditional I would give my life for you kind of love grows and grows when we forget about ourselves and allow it.

This has been my first experience now of parenting a child that was not given to me by birth.  God strategically laid the foundation within my heart and the rest of the family to prepare us for the blessing brought to us this past week.  As I look back at the lessons, challenges, delays, and how this calling actually began now around 7 years ago I can see the work of God’s hand.

Once again as I look at this life handed to me to care for and nurture I feel this huge pouring of love that makes my heart feel like it will burst.  As complicated and broken as life can be sometimes it is amazing what peace and assurance God brings.  It is amazing how God orchestrates lives to cross paths  showing  just how much He loves every single human being He created.  He will and does go to all sorts of planning  for even one lost sheep.

Luke 15:3-7

“3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”

Ugh When I Feel the Mother Hen in Me Trying to Unleash

| anitalucascmc

chicken

Every so often and sometimes far too often I am reminded of the battles my oldest child and I have trudged through together.  From the very beginning even her time coming into this world has been a battle to overcome.  I seriously could write a battle book for her from the day I found out I was pregnant with her until now nearly sixteen years later.   There will be many more chapters to add to the book that will grow in greater intensity.  Somehow these far too frequent and early battles will have prepared her for what God has planned for her.  Since the day I knew I was carrying her I have felt this overpowering desire to protect her from a world that loves to tear down who it views as weak.

Her shyness and quiet spirit is all I can account to the reason why others have singled her out and  left her out from day one.  Usually it has been people who should be in her corner backing her that I have watched leave her out and mock her.  Most of the time it has been the  most appropriate for me to sit back and immediately treat her wounds with encouragement, positivity, and instruction how to learn from the world’s harsh reality, rather than confronting the source directly.  Oh there have been times I have had to pray, choose my words wisely, make phone calls, send emails, do research, present her case, and stand up for her as well.  There have been medical battles, school battles, sports battles, child bully battles, etc…

Yesterday I was reminded as she was in goal for an intense game of soccer that I still have that mother hen.  As she was making an appropriate choice to keep her post in goal and let her defenders do their job I hear a scream “COME ON KEEP” from behind me.  It was a tone that if I were a child and yelled at in that manner I would have been crushed and cried.  The tone was like fingernails down a chalk board to me.  The tone said “you are terrible and not doing your job” to me as the mother.    No goal was scored and my daughter had chosen wisely.

With  Easter having just been this last weekend my thoughts went to Mary the mother of Jesus.  In all her humanness I can’t imagine what her own “mother hen” felt like watching her son being mocked, tormented, falsely accused, cursed, beaten, and murdered on the cross.    I can’t imagine being in a crowd that is screaming “CRUCIFY”  and having your one small little voice saying, but he has done nothing wrong…he has done nothing to deserve this…he has never done anything wrong…   With those three words I mentioned above screamed harshly at my own child every nerve in my body stood on end.  I can only imagine with each strike, whip, and each hammer of the nails how Mary’s nerves would have been completely frayed.  She was there at his miraculous conception, his birth, and witnessed so many instances in the life of Jesus that clued her in to the fact that He indeed was the Son of God placed in her womb and entrusted care.  Her Son has the ultimate battle book and fulfilled God’s ultimate plan to fight life’s ultimate battle death.  He alone conquered death for all of mankind.  Mary in her humanness as she watched her boy hang from that cross being cursed at and mocked still did not understand the extent of God’s plan, but kept a mental record of it all.   “She pondered it all in her heart.”

There is nothing we can face or give in this life that is greater than what Jesus did for us.

As a mother I know God loves my children even more than I do and that every challenge faced is to teach them and prepare them for the next.  As a parent God continues to increase my wisdom on how to build up, encourage, and go to bat for my children out of love.  Even with our next journey in life with fostering I feel this mother hen in me desiring  to protect children who are weak and have no one to battle for them.  Sometimes it will be taking a stand for them and sometimes it will be providing the encouragement, love, and instruction to help wounds heal…   I really don’t like the feeling of my mother hen rattling the cage, but God has put this drive and fight within me for a reason…

 

Would you take in a Child that Claims to be Homosexual? Foster/Adopt #6

| anitalucascmc

This is a question that was asked of me this afternoon.  I have no clue of the perspective of onlookers , but from my own it felt like my words came with little hesitation.   The question was worded actually as “Would you take in a LGBT teen?”  My first response was no one over twelve as we want to keep the birth order as a priority, but ultimately yes to a child within our age range.  All I could think was that child needs love and a family as much as anyone.  Also what came to mind is that it is sin that throws a child into this crazy foster care system to begin with.  Whatever means the child has been sinned against the abuse, sexual, physical, mental, emotional, and/or neglect (many times all of the above) that child is going to be messed up and confused no matter what.  For me to judge and say no I will not love you and care for you defeats the purpose of the very ministry our family is being called to do.

My authority is God and His word.  His word tells me ALL have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. (Romans 3:23)  I am a sinner.  My own sin is no better and no worse than anyone else’s.  It may look different than another person’s, but sin is sin in God’s eyes.  Jesus carried the weight of ALL sin of ALL mankind on the cross.  He paid the payment of ALL sin so that ALL can be forgiven.  When Jesus walked this earth who did he minister to?  He ministered to those that the “holier than thou”, “self righteous” religious leaders of the day called “sinners”.   It was those religious leaders that Jesus truly had the hardest time with because they did not realize their own need for Him. Jesus met each person that was willing to trust Him and receive Him right at their deepest need.  He met them where they were and provided physical healing, spiritual healing, emotional healing,   forgiveness, grace and mercy.  He never condoned the sin nor  said it was ok keep on doing what you have been. He loved them healed them and said “Go and sin no more.”   John 8:11 being just one example. Jesus met them at the core of their problem and healed them from the inside out.  That is the example God has given us to live by.   To meet others at their need and love them.  Then we can point to the one that can truly bring about change and healing for a person.

Another calling on my life has been nursing.  For over 21 years now I have cared for criminals, addicts, contagious disease baring, suicidal, abusive, ungrateful, all sexual lifestyles, psychotic, mentally disabled, physically disabled, bitter, helpless, weak, etc… My calling as a nurse is to provide care, healing based on human abilities, empathy, and to meet people in their time of need.  The calling has been that I take whoever God places in my care and that I do not have the right to pick and choose.

I guess when it comes to this next/additional calling in life I feel called to the same standards as Jesus’ example He gave us in the Word of God.   We will have questions to ask case workers and have the safety of our own girls to keep in mind of course.  The fact that a child may question their sexuality I do not feel is a compromise on God’s word by us taking them into our home.  Saying that any kind of sin is “ok” IS a compromise to God’s word.  Also not loving someone because I think their sin is worse than my own is a huge compromise to what God’s word teaches.

What I do know is that I am already praying for God to give us discernment, protect us from being sinned against, protect us from sinning, for our children to flee from temptations,  for God’s protection of them,  for us to trust God with all our hearts, and for us to love unconditionally.  We are being called to meet a child/children and their families at their time of need.  We are not called to judge them we are called to provide love, safety, forgiveness, and point them to the only one who can provide true healing…Jesus.

 

Foster/Adopt #5

| anitalucascmc

008

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

| anitalucascmc

056

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?

| anitalucascmc

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.”

 

“But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.”

| anitalucascmc

One thing I love so much about the bible is that every word and sentence has a distinct purpose for God including it.  As a mother reading the four gospels I often find myself paying close attention to Mary.  A simple young woman that God planned to use to change the world.  Just recently I mentioned to the middle school girls in Sunday school how much I loved the verses that say “Mary pondered and treasured these things in her heart”.   There is a specific purpose for Luke chapter 2 to mention that Mary intentionally paused, pondered, marveled, and took time to treasure distinct happenings in the young Jesus’ life.  She knew that his conception was of God and that there was something special and miraculous about this child she bore.  She didn’t have the full picture and understanding until this child grew to a man, died, and rose again of what God’s purpose was for this child.

Little by little Jesus grew and revealed himself and his purpose to Mary.  Each special moment, each little hint of who this son really was, Mary stopped and recognized it.  She kept these moments in her memory until eventually God revealed to her that the son she bore was God in the flesh who had come to save the world from sin.

These scriptures are a reminder for me to stop, ponder, marvel, and treasure the moments in my life that God reveals himself.  Each answered prayer, each “perfect timing”,  each time I see His divine protection, and with every miracle.  He is always there and patiently waiting.  He reveals himself and his plan little bits at a time, as much as my maturity and faith can handle.  I am so grateful for the blessings of those moments.

Luke 2:19 “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”