The Unexpected Friend

It was late one Thursday night last fall when I found myself standing in the sporting goods section at Wal-Mart.

A lot could be said about just that fact alone because trust me, I am the last person you will find out on most week nights. Especially at Wal-Mart and sporting goods?

Oh my. That is just not my niche but duty calls so there was I.

The truth is that I was struggling. Not the kind of struggling that involves questions such as which basketball do I buy or the how quickly can I get the least amount of things I need and get out of here kind of struggling-no I was struggling for real.

When the husband and had I decided to become foster parent's we knew we were called and we knew little else. One of the worst things for this non detail oriented person that I am to deal with, was just the overwhelming amount of information that was presented to us every week.

Every Tuesday night after a class we would get in our car, look at each other and kind of say.....really? And then before we could make it to the interstate we always came back to the simple fact of WE WERE CALLED THEREFORE WE WILL MARCH FORWARD.

So that's why I was standing in sporting goods on said Thursday night.

Our home study was wrapping up and after the kids were in bed I decided to head to Wal-Mart and buy the last finishing touches of safety proofing our home. Tim is a hunter so I needed some gear from sporting goods to secure his hunting equipment.

I must have looked halfway as confused as I felt because when I went to ask for help I was greeted by a blank stare and the help of a woman who knew way more about this kind of thing than me.

She warmed up to me after I started talking to her and when I told her why I was there in the first place she got a clouded look on her face.

"I was raised in foster care," she said. "So I want to thank you for what you're doing."

An hour later I'd heard about more pain than I ever cared to know existed in the world and I'd made a friend.

Sometimes all people need is someone to slow down long enough to listen.

When I asked for her biggest piece of advice she didn't hesitate and said, "Don't ever make any of them eat dog food." She wasn't joking.

I cried, talked to her some more and kindly thanked her for cheering me on as I had overcome yet another hurdle in the process. I told her I wished her well and tried to share the love of Jesus and went on about my way.

That was then, this is now.

For the last two weeks we had the privilege of our first little precious one in our home through foster care. It was ten days of absolute fun. To say that our hearts are prepared to love again and love big would be like saying that the ocean is made of water. Or the sky is blue.

And when that little one was suddenly out of diapers and baby food one evening and it was after five pm....you guessed it.

I loaded up the little one and together we headed to Wal Mart.

A woman on a mission was I and we had our list bought in no time. As I headed from the check out counter to the front door I looked past the big beautiful blue eyes staring at me from the front of the shopping cart and stared straight into the face of my friend from sporting goods.

I could tell she didn't remember me but I wasn't deterred. "I'm the lady you helped one night when I was struggling with getting everything together for our home study!" I'm sure I was a little overly excited and more than happy to share with her the little guy I was toting along.

"This is the first sweet one we've had in foster care," I told her. She looked at him and then at me and she said, "I'm so glad it's going well for you ma'am."

I hugged her tightly and she walked away with big tears in her eyes. The last look I got of her face was like that you'd see on a runner after finishing a marathon. Or someone at the top of Everest.

It looked a bit like redemption.

Foster care has already been a blessing to us in so many more ways than one. Loving on a child, well that's not hard for me. That's just what I was born to do; be a mom.

When you add to that the bonus of encouraging someone along the way? Well, that's also what I live for.

We go to church every Sunday, attend bible studies through the week and have the best devotion apps on our phones.

But sometimes its in the oddest aisle at the grocery store that you can encounter the heart of God. I'm so glad I made an unexpected friend.

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Redemption

Have you ever had the weight of brokenness settle on your shoulders and stay there for a while?

I bet if you've lived longer than a few years you have.

And it doesn't sit there like a fluffy comfortable pillow either. It's a hard, heavy, cumbersome sack of a thing and carrying it around is not fun at all.

It settled on me Tuesday.

Here's the back story-
As our first foster experience we were given the opportunity to provide respite care for a sweet couple while they were away working for the Lord. So that meant two weeks with little chubby cheeks to kiss and love on. Every person who knows me knows that when it comes to anything like that, I'm in.

But the sweet kisses and cuddles and the fact that we even get to do this at all-means that there was at first brokenness somewhere.

This week of Passover that we're celebrating as we anticipate Sunday and the celebration of the glorious empty tomb....it means that at first there was a whole lot of wrong and a whole lot of hurt for the need of such a price to be paid.

And I think if we miss the heaviness of the sin that required such a sacrifice-we miss the beauty of the Cross.

As I sat Tuesday and fed a sweet little man some peas and banana baby food while waiting for his birth family to arrive for a visit, only to sit there a bit longer and longer and finally realize that they weren't coming-I felt the heaviness of the sin infested world we live in settle on my shoulders.

I looked into big bright blue eyes that don't even understand rejection yet and thought about the circumstances on both ends.

I wasn't mad, I was hurt.

Don't be fooled for a minute, but for the grace of God-that could have been me on the other side of the table Tuesday.

I could have easily been the one struggling, not showing up, not being the person that I need so desperately to be to the family I have around me.

Because it's not me-I get to see the other side of the spectrum and look straight into the face of the ones that the sin trickles down to and ends up affecting.

The enemy never sets out for just one. He is in it to kill, steal and destroy whole families.

And that's where it would end if Jesus hadn't ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey to the shouts of "Hosanna, King of the Jews." and willingly laid his own life down-

And because he was both God and man you know that although He knew what was required of Him as part of the triune God-head, he felt every lash of the whip with his man flesh that He so gloriously put on to be like us. The sting of the thorns on his head, the spear in his side and the nails in his hands and feet felt just like it would if that were you and I on that cross.

Deathly.

He did it so that every bad choice, every wrong move, wrong turn and the weight of the whole world's sins could be atoned for with one drop of His precious blood.

As I rocked sweet little foster babe yesterday I was more thankful than ever for the precious blood of Jesus.

I don't want his life to be lived in brokenness-and you know what?

It's not going to be.

Because of the cross. Only because of the cross.

Redemption can come to heal and bring restoration to people in unsafe, unwanted, unhealthy situations because the price of our Lord and Savior paid.

Sunday I will wake up three precious littles instead of two and walk into the sanctuary to praise my Jesus for the redemption He so graciously gave us.

It was needed, the sin debt could never be paid without it.

It wasn't cheap, He suffered beyond human recognition.

And it isn't wasted now, I hold a sweet new little redeemed by the power of the Cross.

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Mundane Saturday

So when I realized that on Saturday we had nothing to do...

Well, I was excited. I might have did the Hallelujah dance. Or maybe not. I'm just pitching that out there.

Because besides watching Kentucky play basketball that evening, there was nothing I'd have rather done with our day than stay in our pajamas and chill.

We've got another sweet little to love on for a while so resting and getting used to his routine was a bonus to our lazy day.

You thought I was kidding about the pajama thing....

(And it's a onesie no less!)

It seems that the theme of slowing down (which kept hitting me like a ton of bricks on spring break) has stuck.  Let's hope it last's longer than a week. (Big smile.)

Hearing my littles say things like, "You know what the white egg presents? (That's kid language for represents.) An empty tomb!"

Why yes it does sweet girl. Those words were priceless to me.

I love spring. Especially the resurrection week of spring.

I've noticed on social media that a lot of people seem to be doing cleanses, fasts and the sort.

So this is my spring fast.

I'm taking a break from the fast and focusing on at-home activities as we head into summer.

And just like that white egg I aim to be empty, poured out completely.

So that He can fill my days, my time spent and most of all my mothering, with Him.

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Expactations

The weather was just beautiful and as a lover of sunshine,  I had our evening all figured out.

It involved a lot of being outside.

Dad's away on a work trip this week so I would bake the three of us a fine family meal of chicken nuggets and fries because we like to keep it healthy when he's gone. 

We would then take said healthy meal out to the front lawn, spread out a picnic blanket and enjoy the weather through dinner. Listening to the birds sing and watching the wind blow through the trees sure beats the four walls of a kitchen anytime.

That would be followed up by bike rides, games of horse, and maybe a walk around the neighborhood before going in for the day.

All of this playing outside would work really well in my favor of the old routine of putting the kids to bed an hour early when dad's away on a business trip.

(I dread the day that they figure out that I do this. It's worked really well in mama's favor while it's lasted though.)

So that was the plan anyway.

Until we had to make an unexpected errand run after school. It didn't take long and the kids were well behaved. I had a proud mother moment or two, walked us back to the car and we were on the way home when it started getting oddly quiet.

Not like they're up to something quiet-just plan quiet.

I glanced in the rearview mirror and could see sleepy eyes but we don't live even a good ten minutes across town so no big deal.

Then I pulled in the driveway, opened up the garage door and more quiet. They were out.

With all the graciousness of an elephant on a tight rope I managed to carry them in and lay them on the couch one at a time, thinking surely I could make enough noise and move them around enough that they would wake up.

Well, no. That didn't happen.

So when they were both inside sleeping soundly on the couch and the garage door had been closed behind me, I looked around and thought shazam. Time for something productive.

That thought left my mind about as quickly as it had entered and I curled up next to them and was probably sawing logs in no time.

Now, let me just explain to you something about my littles. THIS NEVER HAPPENS.

When the babies turned into big kids, naps went out the door. I grieved a little and quickly realized I was going to have to turn into an early to bed, early to rise woman if I was going to survive.

Oddly enough for a woman who worked night shift for years, it worked wonderfully for all of us. But as a result of that I'm sort of like a mean drill sergeant about bed time.

Now you see where this story with seemingly no point is going.

Bed time at the usual time-it was NOT happening around here tonight.

And you know what, that's ok.

I looked at those two precious little sleeping people on the couch today, panicked for a minute or two about how this is going to make our morning look tomorrow and then refocused.

My littles were tired. They needed to rest.

And if that means our evening routine got all out of whack? So be it.

If tomorrow morning is full of grumbles and sleep walking children because of a late bedtime tonight, we will survive.

I had to let go of my expectations this evening and just let them be.

A lot of what God has taught me about life through motherhood is to let the expectations go.

More often than not we're trying to live up to something that's unfair or unattainable anyway.

Now-don't get me wrong-I'm not saying that a regular routine is a bad thing. I love our routine. Our routine is good.

What I am saying is that time and again I've just got to learn that one odd day isn't going to kill us. Roll with the punches.

And more than that-enjoy them.

We had the oddest evening which involved running to Weigels after dark for a fountain drink. I guess staying up late makes one a bit thirsty. But you know what? It was fun!

We giggled as we drove and the kids were singing every lyric on the radio as we made our way back home.

That's something I would have missed if I hadn't  let go of my expectations and embraced the unexpected.

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