"I think I may be crazy. You have four kids, Kari. Your life is hectic and crazy, so you are the person I thought to call," said a dear friend on the phone. I know her heart. It was a compliment. Not offended in the least, and a bit dumbfounded she would think to call lil' ol' me I said, "What's up?!" "The agency wants to place 3 kids with us. They are all under 5 years old. And I'm, well, not getting any younger." Her voice is sure, excited, and questioning. "What do you think?" she asks. "Why not?" is what I think I said, but I can't be positive.
The night the kids show up at her house, I arrive too, with jammies in hand because they did not come with any other clothes. They came from school. They are foster kids.
I see a boy. Small. With fierce blue eyes. He looks away, scared, when I say hello. The girl is blonde and blue eyed too. She is the kind of beautiful you find in magazines. She is bopping around like she had a candy bar for snack time. She says hello, and runs into her new room. And the littlest. He too, with ice blue eyes and brown hair. Just learning to walk, and unsure of his new home, he clings to his social worker as if to say, "Please don't leave me!"
After marrying Justin, I was almost certain all my children would have brown eyes. After having Hunter, our only biological child with blue eyes (like his Nana), I thought God had a since of humor. I'm now convinced that He does.
That was almost two whole years ago. The foster/adopt process took just over a year. Often when walking through a hard season, you know that it is hard but it takes looking back upon it and reaping what you've sewn a bit to see just how difficult it was. It takes just a step ahead of the hard pressed times. Right now, that is where we are a lot of the time.
I look back and think, "Whoah! That was hard!" And I'm grateful. I'm so thankful that it was hard. I'm so thankful that when people ask, "How do you do THAT?!" I can say in all honesty....it was (or is) not me or my husband...it was Jesus. Every single bit of it was His grace working in our lives.
You see, I used to think that God used people that he thought capable. I just sorta laughed as I typed that, but it's true. I actually thought that God used people because they were ready for it or that it was hard and He just knew that they could get through it. No, no, the truth is that he takes the worst of people because then He gets all the glory.
He has used that woefully ignorant sideline cheerleader and given her three more children just (in part) to teach her that it certainly is not because she has it altogether, and shown her with out a shadow of a doubt that she can not do anything with out the work of His Spirit inside her. And for that girl? For me? It has had her, on my face...a lot begging for grace.
At least once a day I look out my window and tell Him that I can't do it. It's such a relief to admit. I can't do it. I'm not enough. I'll never be enough, do enough, give enough. But thanks be to God for His indescribable grace and gift in His Son....He, has done it. All of it. I don't have to be enough. He already is. I don't have to be confident in myself in my own self but can trust that he is and is also at work...taking all of my weakness and getting the glory.
Why not?
I ask, as sure, excited and questioning though extremely ignorant and not really knowing it.
We usually don't know when we are do we? Ignorant, I mean.
We usually don't know when we are do we? Ignorant, I mean.
That was almost two years ago.
We hang up.
I'm pretty sure she should have called someone else.
Someone older.
Wiser.
Not me.
The night the kids show up at her house, I arrive too, with jammies in hand because they did not come with any other clothes. They came from school. They are foster kids.
I see a boy. Small. With fierce blue eyes. He looks away, scared, when I say hello. The girl is blonde and blue eyed too. She is the kind of beautiful you find in magazines. She is bopping around like she had a candy bar for snack time. She says hello, and runs into her new room. And the littlest. He too, with ice blue eyes and brown hair. Just learning to walk, and unsure of his new home, he clings to his social worker as if to say, "Please don't leave me!"
After marrying Justin, I was almost certain all my children would have brown eyes. After having Hunter, our only biological child with blue eyes (like his Nana), I thought God had a since of humor. I'm now convinced that He does.
That was almost two whole years ago. The foster/adopt process took just over a year. Often when walking through a hard season, you know that it is hard but it takes looking back upon it and reaping what you've sewn a bit to see just how difficult it was. It takes just a step ahead of the hard pressed times. Right now, that is where we are a lot of the time.
I look back and think, "Whoah! That was hard!" And I'm grateful. I'm so thankful that it was hard. I'm so thankful that when people ask, "How do you do THAT?!" I can say in all honesty....it was (or is) not me or my husband...it was Jesus. Every single bit of it was His grace working in our lives.
You see, I used to think that God used people that he thought capable. I just sorta laughed as I typed that, but it's true. I actually thought that God used people because they were ready for it or that it was hard and He just knew that they could get through it. No, no, the truth is that he takes the worst of people because then He gets all the glory.
He has used that woefully ignorant sideline cheerleader and given her three more children just (in part) to teach her that it certainly is not because she has it altogether, and shown her with out a shadow of a doubt that she can not do anything with out the work of His Spirit inside her. And for that girl? For me? It has had her, on my face...a lot begging for grace.
At least once a day I look out my window and tell Him that I can't do it. It's such a relief to admit. I can't do it. I'm not enough. I'll never be enough, do enough, give enough. But thanks be to God for His indescribable grace and gift in His Son....He, has done it. All of it. I don't have to be enough. He already is. I don't have to be confident in myself in my own self but can trust that he is and is also at work...taking all of my weakness and getting the glory.
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