Getting Real: Standing At a Cross Roads.

Our first morning as a family of six.

Do you ever have those moments where you stand at a cross roads? A moment that changes what everything from here on out will be like? Holding your child for the first time, moving across the country for a new job, or walking across the stage for graduation. I feel like we are standing at one of those moments right now.

Recently, we made a decision that brought both sadness and relief in one fell swoop. We choose to surrender our Foster Care License. This means, that by our own free will we choose to give up the license that allows us to be foster parents. The license we took nine weeks of classes for. The license we did physical, background checks, and piles of paperwork for. The license that brought four children through our doors, three forever. 

So much of me feels like we have abandoned a community that we have come to deeply love and appreciate. Foster parents are some of the most incredible people I know.  I feel like we've turned our back on a community of children that desperately need people to love them. I feel like we are "giving up". 

I do know though that our hearts are still in the foster care world. We have been forever affected and changed by the last three plus years. These kids need a voice.  People need to hear their stories.  These parents need support and love. And there needs to be more done to keep these families together before it ever escalates to foster care. Once they reach that point it is hard for families to go back

We hope that God will allow us to speak up and speak out for these kids, these families. We hope God will allow us to come along beside them before it's too late. We hope that our time in foster care is not over, just different. What that looks like? We really don't know. Tony recently told a friend, "I feel like we are standing at a cross roads. We know we have to get somewhere. We know we have a deadline. We just don't know where we are going or how to get there." 

For now we wait. I've seen over and over and over again that the wait is hard, the wait is tiring. However, God always works in the wait. He always prepares, guides, and teaches. As much as I dislike the wait, it's what we need for what He has prepared on the other side.

Are we done having children, our family is "complete"? We don't know, we are open to adoption in the future. Will we foster again some day? Maybe, but we know it will be a long enough wait that it's not worth keeping out license open. This decision is NOT because our hands are "full".  This is because it is what is best for our family overall.