Dear Mom, You are Not Alone.

Two weeks ago, in church (of all places), I had just had an awkward encounter about one of my kids and behavior issues. People have the best of intentions, but don't really know how to address this sort of thing with adoptive and foster parents in a way that is uplifting and encouraging. I walked into church, feeling a little like a failure and a lot like I was alone.

I just feel so lonely, God. No one else here understands what it's like. 

Obviously, I know that this is a lie. There are a lot of people who have my back, even if they don't totally understand caring for kids from hard places. Plus there are even a couple who do know what it's like and are in the trenches too.

But in a hard moment, in an awkward conversation, in a small (or even big) mistake as a mom (whether it is biological, adoptive, or foster), it sure can feel like we are alone.

I found myself comparing myself to another adoptive mom on Instagram the other day. Her experience in fostering teenagers has been totally different than ours, which is totally okay! But it made me feel even more alone. Okay so, even the people who are doing the same thing as me are not feeling the same things as me. 

Our experience in fostering older kids and teenagers has definitely been fun, don't get me wrong. But it also has been incredibly challenging. Setting up healthy boundaries, figuring out levels of trust, handling correction delicately, building rapport, encouraging school and sport participation (but not over encouraging anything because like OMG stay out of it), helping with homework, and walking through some really, really dark and heavy things - these things are not for the faint of heart.

So yeah, when I get on Instagram and I take someone's snapshot of their life and compare it to my snapshot that feels a lot less fun, it can feel pretty lonely.

I don't really do that thing at the beginning of a New Year, where you come up with a word and let that word drive everything you do. But since Christmas with all of the talk of Immanuel, God With Us, I've been praying a very simple prayer that has reminded me of a very simple truth that I need so very desperately these days:

God, be with me. 

Because the world, in many ways, bleeds darkness, evil, and sin. (I mean, not to be a Debbie downer, internet world, but it does.) I'm sure it seems totally crazy that we essentially invite brokenness into our home. But being a foster and adoptive parent gives me the opportunity to stare straight into brokenness and tell it where the Life is.

And the Life is not in some magical parenting method, in some book, or in a special routine.

No, at the Cross, Life itself died to set me free. And then three days later, that same Life rose again to make me new.

And now that Life lives in me.

Romans 8:11
The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.

I believe that as Kingdom-of-Heaven-bringers, our job is to bring the Life that lives inside of us wherever we go. Every corner, every nook, every cranny, has some level of darkness. We certainly don't hold the power to rid the world of darkness. But we can bring light to the darkness in our corners. We can breathe life into lifeless things. We can be living, actual proof that the Gospel is real.

And we can live with the promise that we are not alone. The Creator of the Universe, the One who holds the world in our hands, the One who sacrificed His own Son, the Merciful Savior of the World, the Beginning and the End, the Almighty One - He lives IN ME. 

He is with me, always. 

Matthew 28:18-20
Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations,[b] baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Even as He ascended into heaven, He was holding true to His name: Immanuel, God With Us. He promised again at the end of Matthew what the Angel already told us about Him before He was born at the beginning of Matthew: 

He is Immanuel, God with Us. He never left. His presence is near, even when it doesn't feel like it. 

And though this is a truth that I've known for a very long time, it is a promise that I am clinging to: 

When I am tired and cranky and the last thing I want to do is have a hard conversation with my teenager, I will remember that I am not alone.

When I am overwhelmed by the hard things that my kids have had to experience in their short little lifetimes, I will remember that He is with me, bearing those hard things too. 

When I'd rather retreat instead of entering head-on into conflict resolution or extra quality time or extreme patience, I will remember His name: Immanuel, God with Me. 

For Every Ashley

You know how some people know what they want to be when they're in 2nd grade? How they start thinking about their career, planning their classes for college, etc.? That was never me. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I never knew. I always just said that I wanted to help people. This lack of direction has followed me until...well, it still follows me. I changed my major 5 times in college. I remember one specific teacher telling me that someone called her to warn her about me because I was a "switcher."

But one thing I have known: I have wanted to care for vulnerable children since 7th grade.

I mean, did I know what "vulnerable" meant in 7th grade? No. But God showed me His heart and revealed my passion to me when He sent us Ashley.

My parents met Ashley's family through my dad's work. My dad noticed that they were in need of some guidance and suggested that my mom meet up with her. I have a very vivid memory of meeting Ashley's mom and Ashley at an unfamiliar McDonald's for one of these meetings, where my mom would talk to Ashley's mom about life and Jesus, and my siblings and I would play with Ashley in the play place. I remember thinking that my mom and dad were the coolest for doing this. Looking back, I still think that they are the coolest for doing this, but on a deeper level. They were brave and courageous. They stepped out of their comfort zones to help a family that was in need. But more than that, they gave up convenience to befriend people that weren't like them. I think part of the reason why my heart is wired for foster care is because of the way my parents opened their hearts to people who were different than them. They looked for opportunities to bring light to dark places, and then they did it.

One day, we found out that Ashley was in need of a temporary home placement. I remember this exact conversation with my mom. We were in the computer room (back when we used to have those). She had just hung up our home phone (back when we used to have those).

Me: "Well, can we take her?" I asked, thinking almost assuredly that we would not be able to take in a 10-year-old-girl with our busy schedules, two working parents, and three kids.

But then she said:

Mom: "Maybe. I'm going to call dad."

The answer ended up being "yes." Though we weren't technically a foster family, my parents became guardians of Ashley.

Ashley was a fourth-grader, full of life and spunk and sass. She was small for her age, but she never backed down. She had a lot of difficult behaviors, she was kind of hard to get along with, and she was hurting.

I don't remember a lot of specifics about the time that Ashley was with us, but I do remember that it shaped me. I had grown up living in a middle-class neighborhood with a Christian family and went to a Christian school. Although I knew that there was brokenness in the world, I had never really experienced it until Ashley. My parents gave me the unique opportunity of experiencing and carrying someone else's burdens - in my own very home. Although I would've never been able to articulate it then, Ashley helped me in my understanding of the Gospel and how Jesus really did die to rescue the world and that He actually does care and that He truly is near the brokenhearted. 

 Isaiah 61:1
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me,
    for the Lord has anointed me
    to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted
    and to proclaim that captives will be released
    and prisoners will be freed.

My life was awesome. I sure didn't feel like the poor, the brokenhearted, the captive, or the prisoner. Was the Good News really for me? 

Meeting Ashley showed me the world's brokenness and then did me the grand favor of revealing mine. Ashley taught me that I wasn't the Rescuer; I was the Rescued. And if I had been Rescued, then I couldn't keep living my life on auto-pilot.  Living a rescued life meant entering into the lives of broken and hurting people and letting God restore that little inch of the world. And that through His restoration of little inches of the world, He would restore little inches of me. 

Ashley captured my heart and she changed my life. But if it stopped there, then what was it worth? If we are A Rescued People but we have no life-change, are we really rescued?

So I will choose to fight, advocate, and stand up for every Ashley: 

For every child that has faced heart-wrenching trauma.
                                who has internalized deep, hurtful untruths about themselves.
                                who has a mom or dad that needs help.
                                who needs safety, love, and care.
                                who just wants a shoulder to cry on and macaroni and cheese.
                                who needs a bed to sleep in and a table to sit at.

I stand for every Ashley. 

You can find out more about the campaign #careforeverychild here.

Immanuel: God With Us

I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be with God, or more truly, for God to be with me. It's an interesting thought. I usually am thinking about what God can do for me, or what I can do for God, or how I can improve my relationship with God, or how I can be a "better follower of Jesus."

When Jesus came to earth, He didn't consider equality with God his "right." He instead gave up His "right" to Heaven, to perfect love, to no problems and no sickness and no silly humans and made himself nothing for the sake of the world. Although Jesus probably has thousands of names in Heaven, the Angel only told Mary about two of them: Jesus and Immanuel. His name, Jesus, tells us what He was would do -- save the world from their sins. But Immanuel answered an even more complicated question. Immanuel told us who He would be -- God with us. 

Most of you probably can tell that our life right now is a little crazy. My husband, TJ, is in seminary, working to finish his Master's of Divinity in preaching. He is working at our church, The Well, as a youth pastor. I am a full-time teacher, Student Council sponsor, and a youth leader for middle school and high school. We adopted Kendrick, our first child, a 10-year-old, in August. We took in our second foster placement in October and had him for about a month. We live in Denton but do most of our life in Argyle. Kendrick plays basketball and piano. We are a part of a small group, TJ leads a college Bible study, and we are lucky if we get to make two good meals at home each week.

It's safe to say that in this season (maybe it's every season, but especially this one), we trust in Jesus as the Savior of the world, and the Savior of us. We believe in what He has done for us and what He continues to do for us. Honestly, this is not a difficult one to believe in the moment of, I forgot Kendrick's basketball stuff or I flipped on a student when I shouldn't have or I didn't do everything I could have done to reach that kid. I mean, the crazy, chaos, and mistakes of life brings me to my knees and reminds me every day that I need a Savior to save me from the mess of it all.

But Immanuel? Immanuel is a different story. Mary has an interesting story because in the middle of her crazy, God didn't just save her; he was literally with her, inside her -- a baby. God came in the middle of her normal, ordinary, everyday life and forced her to slow down, to feel him kick, to prepare to welcome a baby into the world. I've never been pregnant or given birth, but I know many friends have had babies and pregnancy can almost be a forced slow-down for some people. They suddenly realize: Oh, I can't run very fast or lift too much or stand on my feet for too long. I have to rest. I wonder if Jesus, in Mary's belly, nudged her to a different kind of rest - a rest of knowing that He would save, yes, but also that he was with her. That he would never leave her or abandon her. That he gave up everything to be with her - to be with the world.

In the middle of a chaotic week, sure, I can remember Jesus' name, the Savior. I call on Him to get me out of things, to push me to do better and be kinder and love harder.

But do I remember Jesus' other name - Immanuel? Do I remember that God wasn't just with Mary and with His disciples, that He gave up honor and glory and praise to be with me - Immanuel?

It's impossible for Jesus' names to be mutually exclusive. He isn't Jesus without Immanuel, or Immanuel without Jesus, but how often do we think of Him as the Savior of the World without mentioning that He is also God With Us?

I've always been confused about my perceived dichotomy in the Bible about serving others and loving others versus resting and abiding in Jesus. I've realized that when Jesus tells us to take a "real rest" (in the Message version of Matthew 11:28), He's not telling us to slack off and stop "laying down our lives for our friends" and "taking up our cross," and "losing our life so that we can find it." Instead, He's saying that the only true way we can lay down our lives and take up our cross and lose our life is by being with Him. We were never meant to do it alone.

That's why He came: to be Jesus, the Savior, and Immanuel, the God-with-us.

He never left. But in my over-busy, extra-ordinary, every-day life, I miss Him because I'm often thinking about what I can do for Him without realizing that I can't do anything for Him until I abide in Him.

This Christmas season, I want to push to see God and let Him be with me. I want to find those "unforced rhythms of Grace." I want to be with God just for the sake of being with him. No reason. No motive. Just His presence. Immanuel.