Skip to main content

The Call

"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.

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.

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.





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Winter Is

  Winter Is...       Naps on the couch     Good Reads. With leaves for bookmarkers.     Lots of light saboring.       Snow Forts.       Dogs pulling a sled 200 miles.     And the musher behind them.     Coats zipped up to our eyeballs     Frozen Face. Seriously, his face was frozen.      Skiing   Falling down while skiing     Success! while skiing.       Lot's of yelling, "Do the pizza!!!" at skiing children.     Together.

Little Reminders

It is no small secret that I am forgetful....a little scatterbrained. I can't fully take all the blame for this. I think it that the "fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants" gene was passed along by the one I call mom, and sometimes Kathy Delrene to be funny because she often middle names me (endearingly of course) and I like to remind her (like she's forgotten) that her middle name is Delrene. Not that I'm blaming her, but I don't accept the responsibility either. Ok, I'm blaming her. Sorry, mom (she knows I'm kidding...well, at least kind of.) The good news is that I only forget semi-important things like birthdays (if you think birthdays are more important than semi-important we probably shouldn't be friends), what day the church yard sale is on exactly and mixing up when I need to help b/c I didn't write it down, to make a dozen cookies for the Christmas time gifts to the Airmen in the dorms (oops!), to bring the ipod with me to the gym (grrr...hate

Never Too Late for Friday Favs!

Yes, I know it's Sat. It's actually lateish Sat. evening. FridayFavs are actually supposed to be posted on Friday. Which is not today. Obviously. Oh, time management we have already decided you are one of my greatest foes. However, since the past couple of weeks have been, well pretty wonderful I thought I would share in more of the fun and favorite things we did together. These here are some of our Favs from when the laundry fairy (AKA Nana) was still in town.  Making sweet treats     And a Pinata And just for the record Pinatas are hard to make. It is a project that takes about a week. Not 2 or 3 days Unless you live in the South and can put it outside to dry in Oct.     Best. Dad. Ever.     Ironman. Meg (from Little Women). And a pirate, of course. I love them all. Well, the children dressed up as them anyway.     Yup. This here is the Cowboy at the fishin' hole.     It is quite possible that our homema