8 months

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 Tonight is our last night with our extra kredit kiddos.  Tomorrow they transition out of foster care placement and they will live with family.  This is a good, good thing!  They are loved and wanted and will be well cared-for.  But they don't know that.  They are just 5 and 7 years old and they have been here in our home with us for 8 months.  8 months is a lifetime for a 5 year old.  My heart is heavy tonight for them because they just do not know what they cannot know.....that even though everything changes tomorrow, it will be ok.  It will all be ok.  They will be safe and loved and delighted in and treated with respect and goodness.....tonight I had to tell little miss that I promised they would be ok....that I would not let them go if I didn't think it would be ok (nevermind I have no actual power in any of this but its ok if she thinks that I do).  

Foster care is a strange and shifty beast.....the first night with a new placement is so hard.....and then you settle in and find a new normal as a family that looks a bit different....and then change comes so you begin to prepare for change.  When it's time to make the change, we as foster parents are ready.  Not everyone can say that but for us, we are ready.  Tonight we are more ready than they are....but for tonight there are more yes's than usual.  Special treats after school.....a long and indulgent bathtime and some favorite snacks and a movie before bed, I think.  

For me, it is harder to support kids when they go, than it is to adjust to welcoming them to come stay.  We have been called to this ministry of foster care.  I know it beyond knowing....because before we give a "yes" to a placement call there is always a restlessness inside of me, a wondering and waiting and impatience that is hard to explain.  So far, we have only said yes twice in the 6-ish years we have had a foster license.  Our first yes resulted in helping xK find a forever home just down the street.  This yes is also answered by a transition that will be close enough to see these kids whenever we or they want to.....for now.  Later, their forever home is even better and a place we can go on vacation when the winter gets unbearable here.  What can I say?  I told them I would come visit.....I can't break their trust!  I will have to fly south and visit once they are there.  

God.  Is.  Good.  

Life.  Is Hard.  

We can do hard things......we can....and we will over and over as long as He asks us to 

but for tonight.....there is some extra lovin' to do and tomorrow will be a heartache.  

Then we move on. 

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