Even In Brokenness, He is Good.

“Come sit down,” my husband said for the 26^th time that night. It was nearing midnight and I was anxiously peering out the peephole of our front door. How could he be so calm in a moment like this?! We were about to meet our first child and he wants me to sit down! He has a way with rationality. Apparently the car won’t actually pull into our driveway any faster if I’m looking out the peephole or sitting on the couch. Anyways, at the door I stood.

The car eventually pulled into our driveway and two Officers of Social Services carried a car seat with a newborn baby girl out into the night and straight into our hearts. My life was about to change in ways I didn’t yet understand.

I made a “deal” with God, you see. I would love any child He brings into our lives unconditionally and He would protect me from the “heartbreak” of a relationship with birthparents.

Yeah – right.

We had Baby A for approximately 21 minutes when the CPS officer handed me the phone number for Baby A’s mom and told me she’s expecting a call tonight. I’m sure he noticed the obvious deer in headlights look on my face so he gently told me, “she’s scared to.”

I have this sign hanging above the window in our kitchen that reads, “If God brings you to it, He’ll bring you through it.”

Well I did make that call to reassure Baby A’s mom that she was here and she’ll be taken care of. A short 3 days later I found myself walking into my very first visit holding Baby A in my arms and handed her to her mom for her scheduled visitation. I monitored that visit and would continue to monitor for the rest of the time Baby A was in our home.

God refined my heart through this hard experience.

It’s doesn’t take much work to take the easy road. Profound, I know.

Where I thought I’d rather save myself the pain of knowing Baby A’s mom I would have lost the experience of creating an irreplaceable relationship with a girl that now looks up to me as a mom. I learned it wasn’t about me, but was about them – not about what I would loose, but what they would gain. This is a lesson that stretches far beyond foster care, although I’ve had the difficult opportunity to learn this lesson more than a couple times as a foster mom.

So often we jump to the conclusion about how things should go – how they’ll work best. This can be so dangerous for ourselves, and ultimately for our faith.

God doesn’t promise us a life without pain, He just promises to walk through the pain with us.

Sometimes those painful moments are the most refining moments.

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May is foster care awareness month. There are so many ways to involve yourself with the foster youth in your area. Whether you have an hour to give, a day, or forever, there is an opportunity to help those that need your love the most. As always, please reach out if you need help connecting to these opportunities.

You are Enough, Mama

I am enough.

Why is it that this statement can be so hard to believe sometimes? There’s always something else, someone else, another load, another project.

Can I be honest with you? We’ve been living out of our dryer for over a week. If I would have told you this last year it would have had 10 excuses attached to the end of that confession. Attempts at justifying my “less than” actions, or “lack of actions.”

I had folding laundry on my list of to-do’s today and you know what, it didn’t get done. What I’m not telling you is the things that have taken importance in this last week or so.

If I count my success based on what’s not done, I’ll never be enough.

Sisters, you are enough.

Our girls are 10 months apart. We had our baby for a week before our 14 month old came into our home. Everyone encouraged me to get the girls on the same napping schedule. I quickly learned that this didn’t work for me. I’d rather stagger their naps so I could give them all my attention for a little bit of the day. This being said, normally a portion of their nap does fall at the same time. Today, our baby didn’t fall right to sleep so I laid on the bed with her and we “talked.” When she finally fell asleep she was holding onto my finger. My scheduled time to get things done quickly went out the window.

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Unplug

Unplug.

Ryan and I started a new little “tradition” in our family. On Sundays we decided from now on, to leave all technology off and out of the way. Our very 2016 iPhone’s will be temporarily converted to the basics of a flip phone. Phone calls only. Since it seems people don’t really call anymore, you can imagine this means our phones are pretty quiet all day.

Ryan took it seriously enough that he actually turned his phone off and left it in our bedroom all day. We did a morning Bible Study together while the girls napped and it took us twice as long because there was literally nothing distracting us and we did more than we ever have in one sitting. (Even bathroom breaks took less time for some of us, HAHA)

Can I admit something pretty embarrassing you to? The first Sunday was hard! By noon I was pretty mortified at how much time I normally spend on the phone. I guess we don’t really know how much “checking” we do be it on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. BUT Ryan and I talked ALL DAY! I told him stories I probably wouldn’t have thought important if he would have been “busy” on a devise. Our kids got our FULL attention all day long. By dinner time (which was a date night anyways) we were having major, in depth conversations and noticing all the couples on their phones around us!

I’d say about half way through the day I noticed my desire to “check in on social media” was becoming less and less. That feeling of missing something was less. Why did I feel like I was missing something on social media when all these weeks, months, etc. before I was actually missing out on the ones that mean the most to me?

We are so in tune to others little square images of life that we forget life is happening right in front of us.

This is where we are truly missing out.

The days might be long but the years are short and we don’t get the same day back again.

Needless to say, I’m truly looking forward to our weekends together now. Not that I wasn’t before, but when we are all truly present we make more memories even in the smallest of moments. We reconnect in areas we didn’t even realize we needed to. 

Mexican Chicken Quinoa Skillet

Cooking is an act of love.

My mama used to tell me this all the time. She cooked every night and I carried this desire with me into my marriage… then kids came. It’s not that my desire changed. The task of cooking and preparing a meal just became more difficult. I eventually had a heart-to-heart with myself and decided I had to come up with a game plan to cook meals for my husband and family.

This happened in two steps:

1  menu planning & meal prep

2  one pot meals

Let’s be honest – getting to the grocery store, prepping the food, and then cooking the meal is half the battle. Clean up is the worst part! With one-pot meals, the cleanup is a breeze, and this really speaks to my heart. Not only do I get to serve my family by way of cooking them dinner, but I also get to spend all that “would-be clean up time” with them! Win-win in for the mama books!

I used a skillet to cook this dish. You just need a pot or pan deep enough to hold the liquids that will eventually be absorbed by the quinoa. I’ve also made this recipe in a Dutch oven – my go-to for all things one-pot.

To get the rest of the recipe click HERE

For the Mama Without a Mama

I remember the moment she said it. She was standing at the door of my room, and I was sitting on the floor going through my closet. She said to leave her bedroom as it was for a little while in case I ever want to go sit in there and talk with her. She told me to rock in the rocking chair and feel that this separation is only temporary.

She was my mother. She had cancer, and I was just barely considered an adult – too young to lose my mama who also happened to be my best friend.

I did lose her just a few short weeks later. My life turned upside down and inside out. It was just she and I, but on that second to last Friday in May, it became just me. I found myself visiting that chair many times before we moved. My husband and I were engaged a few months later and married before a year was up. That’s when the big moments began. I got engaged with a ring like the many my mama and I had talked about sitting on the couch in our living room. And our wedding was wonderful – complete with a precious tribute just for her. But she wasn’t there, and I knew these sweet moments would only be the beginning of things I’d go through without her.

I’d be lying if I said it didn’t terrify me to become a mom without her here. She’s the one I called 20 times a day and could ask anything. There was no filter on our relationship, nothing was embarrassing, and she was the wisest of women. One of the hardest parts about her being gone was knowing she wasn’t here praying for me and encouraging me to draw closer to Christ. There came lesson number one.

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