Inspiration

- Oh Happy Daze

I'm getting a new heart, no surgery required.

God moves in us. He loves to restore us and heal our hearts. His love and mercy are new and freely given each morning  (and noon and night). Only He can release us wholly from the things that keep us from being free and truly living with a new, tender, loving heart. The addiction, the fear, the resentment, the anger, the self-doubt, the short fuse, the guilt, the selfishness… will turn your heart to stone. I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure a heart of stone will kill you. Just sayin’.

Chris and I had the chance to participate in a weekend leadership event with our church. And for the first time in a long time I actually feel healthy. And I don’t mean on the outside, though that is a work in progress too. It’s the inside that is healthy.
Over the past month God has been calling attention to a particular area in my life that has literally been turning my heart to stone. I’ve been dealing with a short-sightedness, of sorts, and also ego and fear issues. It’s incredibly embarrassing to put this out into the world and I’m ashamed, but I’m also incredibly thankful. Thankful for the mentors and leaders of our church who are all in for God and who have diligently maintained focus on the purpose of THE CHURCH (meaning the body of people who have put their love and trust in Jesus), which is to share the news to every single person they can track down (in a non-stalker way) that there is a way to live that is steeped in mercy, forgiveness, hope, and love and that it is available to everyone. God has used several strategic people to lay down some truth in my life recently. And it was painful. And I ran from it for a bit [picture Indiana Jones and the giant boulder chasing him down; that was me]. It wasn’t pretty and it was difficult to be honest with myself that the feelings I was harboring were toxic, even though they were from a place of honest, good intentions. Something can be good and still get in the way of God’s best. 
I’ve been struggling with a bad attitude towards our church expanding to another campus as well as our campus growing to include two services instead of one. You probably gasped a little there and gave me a little tongue cluck because of how ridiculous that sounds. “Who wouldn’t want their church to expand?”And it is ridiculous (which God has clearly showed me over and over in the past weeks), but in the moment, my feelings felt perfectly justified and wise and right to my little brain. And my brain’s negative train of thought started to poison my heart and turn my heart to stone where this issue was concerned. Of course I want our church to expand, but I was so focused on what that would mean for me and my tasks on Sunday morning that I got lost and strayed from my purpose. And let me tell you, I was lost with what seemed like good intentions, so it was incredibly hard to realize I was lost.
I help keep our little kids teams running on Sunday mornings. I love kids and God has given me a crazy passion for helping them grow in confidence and love in order to live a genuine life knowing Jesus. I oversee equipment and cleaning of toys and teacher-child ratios and safety concerns and scheduling and ALL THE THINGS. And I want to make sure all of those things are done with excellence. It’s an obsession, of sorts. What I struggled to understand was that excellence is different from perfection. Our Next Generation area at church will never be perfect. No area in our church will ever be perfect. I was living in this fear, though, that some imperfection in our Next Generation area would be the one thing that would cause someone to walk out the door and miss out on knowing Jesus. And then their kids miss out on knowing that there is a God who has a crazy love for them. And my mind took that fear and ran with it and the fear and the self-centered vision poisoned my heart, making me blind to all the amazing things God was setting into play for the people he loves. All this culminated in me becoming frustrated and terrified that our church was spreading itself too thin. That I wouldn’t be able to keep things together and do my tasks with excellence. “We can’t even do one service at one location with excellence,  how are we going to pull off multiple locations and multiple services with excellence?”
I was smacked in the face with the answer when God told me “you aren’t going to be pulling off those services with excellence. I AM”.
God will be known. The Holy Spirit will move. Regardless of whether or not I am tagging along for the ride. If a moment of panic overtakes me, carrying the thought that I will mess up or that something isn’t perfect enough, God will remind me that I’m just not that powerful. I can’t ruin his plan. I will do my best and He will WIN; not because I did something awesome, but because He is the creator. The hope dealer. The heart healer.
God, heal my heart. I want a new one and I know it’s in your power to give it to me. I want one that is capable of the kind of love and compassion and generosity and bravery that you created me for. And you’ll come through for me. Because you are trustworthy. And you are capable of restoring any heart, no matter how stony.

- Oh Happy Daze

This is for me. But I hope you'll join in too.

This January I’m revisiting an adventure I first embarked on 3 years ago; essentially following in Jen Hatmaker’s footsteps, which she outlines in her book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess. She explains it best:

I started praying about what God wanted; what would move me closer to His agenda and further from mine? How could this be meaningful, not just narcissistic and futile? What areas needed the most renovation? How am I blind and why? Where have I substituted The American Dream for God’s kingdom? What in my life, in the lives of most westerners, is just too stinking much?

  • Food
  • Clothes
  • Possessions
  • Media
  • Waste
  • Spending
  • Stress

Seven Months, seven areas, reduced to seven simple choices. I’m embarking on a journey of less. It’s time to purge the junk and pare down to what is necessary, what is noble. 7 will be an exercise in simplicity with one goal: to create space for God’s kingdom to break through. I approached this project in the spirit of a fast: an intentional reduction, a deliberate abstinence to summon God’s movement in my life. A fast creates margin for God to move.  {Taken from 7’s introduction}

Three years ago I adopted Jen’s approach and did my own little 7 experiment, tackling each area of excess for one month. You can read all about the start of it HERE, the first days of Month 1 {purging possessions} HERE, and follow along with subsequent posts from January – December 2014 if you want to see how things went for me.
You guys. Creating space is life changing. Space in your home, space in your closet, space in your finances, space in your calendar…. it changes you, because it essentially creates space {physically, mentally, emotionally} for God to move and bring you in the direction of his greater purpose for your life. It’s a purposeful choice, though, to change directions and focus rather than continue barreling through the days and weeks on our own agenda, completing our own tasks to move us towards our self-appointed goals in life.
Three years ago, after completing only the first month of experiments {possessions}, I felt PHYSICALLY lighter. Like a weight had been lifted off of me, simply by getting rid of STUFF. I can’t wait to do it again. So far, my intention this year is to tackle only possessions, but I may end up fasting from media again as well. Cutting back on Facebook is never a bad thing.
Want to join me? Starting January 1st, get rid of 7 items each day. Honestly, the first weeks are probably going to be ridiculously easy for most of us. Three years ago, in my initial adventure with purging possessions, I made it through a month of purging 7 items each day without breaking a sweat. But I understood the purpose of this experiment, so I extended the length of time I was focused on possessions to two months. And just a word of warning; don’t cheat yourself out of this experience by phoning it in. Be diligent. Be consistent. Be thorough. Be hard on yourself. Make tough decisions. If you read my blog posts from three years ago, you’ll see that I didn’t allow myself to coast through this by counting each article of clothing individually {which would have resulted in the first month of purging being focused solely on clothing, I’m sure} or by keeping items simply because I had the space to store them. Nobody needs two cake stands. I’m not the Pillsbury dough boy. I don’t even really bake. When it comes to possessions, allowing yourself to gloss over a hoard of stuff just because ‘you’ve always had it’ or ‘it’s not taking up much space’ is really defeating the purpose of this experiment.
The purpose isn’t just to get rid of stuff. It is to GIVE UP stuff. Stuff you may even love. To create space for something GOD loves and has in store for you.
john-3-30
I like starting with possessions, rather than one of the other 6 areas of excess noted in Jen’s book, because freeing up our hold on our earthly possessions is more about our mental and emotional priorities than it is about actual items in our homes. It’s about our focus, about our heart’s focus…. and I think it’s the hardest one for us to be truly honest with ourselves about, because everything in our home is ours. It’s for us. To make life easy or so we can feel good, feel like we’re enough when compared to our neighbor. I’m ready to kick comparison out of my life. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
I’m so excited for you to join me on this adventure this month.
Less of me, more of him.
XOXO,
Ashley
 
 

- Oh Happy Daze

There is no 'winning'.

I’ve been struggling with something over the past month and I’m a bit nervous to share my feelings, but I read something this morning that put words to my exact feelings. So here it goes.
Last month, Peep’s parents signed an entrustment; basically signing over their rights to him. It was honestly the most brave, selfless act. That day, and recently when it was approved in court, we got so many congratulations. They ran the gamut from “He is so lucky to have you” to “Thank God he gets to stay with you”. And all of those are true, I think. We are able to provide a safer environment for him and God has provided us with more resources for helping him battle his developmental delays. And I was incredibly happy to be one step closer to having Peep be a permanent part of our family, because we love him dearly and no matter what I will always be his mama. But I could not enjoy the happy congratulatory phrases. I had such conflicting feelings battling inside. Outwardly, I was happy and celebrating in the fact that Peep was moving towards permanency with our family. Inwardly, I was mourning. For his parents. When you aren’t an active part of this process, it is easy to view the the situation in terms of “us” (the foster parents) and “them” (the birth parents). But I can’t. And we shouldn’t.  We did not win that day.

“Terminating parental rights is a very serious thing, and even when it is best interest of the child, or requested by the child, it doesn’t make it any easier.
NO ONE WON TODAY. There were NO “winners” in that courtroom today. No one cheered at the outcome. No one was excited. There was no joy. It was a somber day for all involved. Everyone knew what today meant and it weighed heavy on all of us in the room.
Parents walked out without a child.
A child, no matter the age, walked out without a parent.
There were no winners today.
Today was tragic. Today was hard. I am sad in my heart tonight for all parties because I am human.”
– from Humans Of Foster Care facebook page

There is joy in this process. There is happiness and relief and hope for Peep’s future. But God calls us to also share in the sorrowful burden his birth parents are carrying, and only God can provide true healing and peace for all parties. I hope you’ll take a minute to pray for that for Peep’s birth parents; and then take it a step further and include all parents, kids, social workers, attorney’s, and judges involved in these types of situations.

God will heal and mend. It is who He is and what He does.
blog signature

- Oh Happy Daze

A Q&A on Foster Care {pretty much more than you even wanted to know}

We’ve been on our journey as foster parents for almost two years now. Just as all foster parents, we’ve certainly had our ups and downs. We’re still super new at this. I feel like I know maybe 1% of anything. Maybe next year I will know 2%. Most of the time we have no idea what’s going on or what to expect for our next step; as is the way with the foster care system. We get so many questions and comments about foster care and I absolutely love answering them, because there seems to be a shroud of secrecy (or fear, depending on who you speak to) and a whole lot of mis-information floating around out there about what it means to be a foster parent.
I’ve been hesitant to put this out there because… fear. I’m afraid of hurting feelings by being blunt. I’m afraid of stepping on toes. I’m afraid of my words from my heart being read through the filter of someone else’s heart and misconstrued or taken in the wrong way. I’m afraid of my own self-serving nature. I’m afraid this may come across as a slap-in-the-face for some of us, because so often truth stings in a similar way. And that’s why we sometimes turn our head and try to ignore it.
But I will press publish on this post, because God is good. I’m afraid, but God is good. And the lives he creates are good and deserving of love, no questions asked.
I’m loving these words from Rebecca over at No Hands But Ours. She wrote them as they apply to adoption, but they can clearly be applied to so many aspects of life and how even when A or B or C happens, God is still good.

“You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees.”

Psalm 119:68

“So I can question His promise and character, or I can open my clinched palms and accept that He is good, and His work is good. I can let go of my expectations, efforts, timing and struggling. I can look beyond my adoption and parenting challenges, and remind myself of the profound truth. He’s always at work, and it’s always good.      

Adoption sings His name, all the time, in its beauty and in its stretching. Both the bitter and the sweet are saturated with His goodness. 
He is good. Let’s make that the cadence that we train our hearts to beat to.

good:


1. right, proper fit


2. morally excellent, righteous, virtuous


3. satisfactory in quality, quantity or degree


4. of high quality


5. kind, beneficent, friendly


6. honorable or worthy”

 
So with the mindset of “training our hearts to the cadence of God’s goodness” and the action of loving others because we are loved, let us begin this Q&A.
I hear some of these comments and questions almost daily. Maybe you’ve uttered them to me. or to someone else. or just quietly to yourself in your head. These are not the answers from every foster parent across the globe. These are my answers to tough questions and comments. This is a look into the hows and whys for the Baker family:
“I don’t know how you do it.”
Speaking from a true, honest place – I don’t know how I do it either. I don’t know how we do it. I don’t know how all foster parents do it. Being a parent to a child who is not your own {and probably won’t ever be} is hard. It truly is; I won’t sugar coat it. I don’t know exactly how we do it but I do know that even on my very best days, there is not enough compassion, love, selflessness, forgiveness and non-judgment in my body to accomplish the task of a foster parent. But God. God has given us his Spirit, and with the Spirit comes things that we have no hope of accomplishing on our own: love. joy. peace. patience. kindness. goodness. faithfulness. gentleness. self-control. {Galatians 5:22-23}.
And I don’t know how I will handle the things to come. God does, though. and He will sustain me emotionally. mentally. physically.
As far as the day-to-day operations go, we are able to do it because we have a team. Our teammates are fosterparents-by-association, and they are so so important to us. Teammates are all over the place and come into our life in all different ways.
My mother and father-in-law who watch Charlotte at the drop of a hat so I can make it to appointments for myself and for kiddos {as in…. sometimes with just a few hours notice because I’m so bad with planning-ahead}.
The mom-friend who had a bag of appropriate sized/seasoned clothing waiting on our doorstep before we even get home from picking up a child.
The teacher friend who kept her Spring break schedule open to help me shuffle kiddos around from here to there.
The church friends who take turns holding/feeding/changing a baby or holding/feeding/playing with Charlotte so other things can get done.
My private clients who don’t mind that I bring our littlest kiddos into our speech therapy sessions until I can arrange permanent child-care.
The girlfriend who picks up my slack and overlooks the rest, or brings me a latte because she knows I may not have birthed the babe, but I’m still dealing with all the things that come along with a fresh baby {like sleepless nights and quadrupled laundry}.
Our family members and friends who love on our visitors unconditionally.
Our team has been strategically placed by God. Our team is everything.
“I couldn’t do that.” 
Lies. That is actually a lie you tell yourself. You could do this. A more appropriate phrase would be “I don’t want to”. And I don’t blame you, I’ve said it before in regards to so many commands, whispered or shouted, from God. And sometimes I still say it daily, usually under my breath so God  won’t hear me: “but… I don’t want to”.
Fortunately for us, there are no parameters to God’s command to “care for the widows and orphans”. He doesn’t provide an ‘if’ clause. “Care for the widows and orphans if….. you have enough money. if you are married for at least 2 years. if you have your own children first. if you have a spare bedroom. if you can be a stay at home mom. if you are under 40. if you’re empty-nesters. if you have your whole life together”.
Remember me? I can’t plan ahead. I never finish laundry all the way. I’m not really in to the whole ‘cooking dinner’ thing {though I’m trying}. I dust never. I recently started my own business…. so I make practically $0. It’s a win in my book if I hit my snooze only twice. My gas tank is almost always less than half full {don’t tell my dad}.
and yet God uses ME! And fortunately for you and me, children don’t need much. Really, they don’t. They need food, water, shelter, love, and snuggles. They need someone present in their lives. They need time. We all have all of those things.
“I’d get too attached.”
Honestly, that’s kind of the point. I recently read this from another foster parent and I love how she just lays it out there. Attachment is the point of foster care. It’s why the United States uses Foster Care instead of Orphanages; to allow for appropriate attachment and bonding in a family environment. If you don’t get attached, you’re doing it wrong.
Research shows secure attachment in infancy results in better social and emotional outcomes later in life, and the inverse of that is also true: insecure attachments result in destructive outcomes. Having a caregiver who provides consistent, loving, responsive care (meaning they consistently meet a child’s needs) helps children learn to regulate their own behavior and emotions, as well as satisfies their innate need for feeling loved and lovable. All of these are good, necessary things for a functional, quality life. Many children in foster care have experienced disorganized (aka: dysfunctional) attachment as a result of abuse or neglect from their previous caregiver. It is possible (and necessary) for a child to build secure attachments with a surrogate caregiver (aka Foster Parent) if their birth parents are not currently able to provide them with that crucial developmental experience.
“Aren’t you afraid?”
Yes, absolutely. But, God has given me a spirit of power and love. not timidity. not fear. {2 Timothy 1:7}. What truly frightens me is the thought of living my life for only myself. For all of my thoughts to be spent on only myself. For my money, and time, and possessions to be hoarded for only myself. That is what I’m afraid of, because that is most definitely not what the creator of everything created us and redeemed us for. There is so much more life out there beyond the small confines of the Baker home in Chesapeake, Virginia. Lives in need; and children in foster care are a portion of those lives who have great needs {sometimes very great needs}. Needs that we can meet.
I am also afraid that I am not enough. I am not enough of a mother, or a therapist, or a compassionate and patient person to be what some of these children need. Chris and I don’t yet foster children over 4 or 5. Those are the boundaries we have requested, based on our space and time and abilities. And any long term placements we have had so far have been little fresh squishes, the ones that are needy but also cuddly. We have not yet entered into the realm of foster care that is the older child. The one who is needy, but maybe resembles a porcupine rather than a cuddly puppy. The one who has experienced more life {and the terrible parts of life, at that} in a year than we have in all of our years combined. When the time comes, we will most likely experience that aspect of foster care as well. And we will be afraid. I’m actually more afraid, though, of not cuddling that porcupine. They are ‘the least of these’; they have the greatest needs. If we don’t, who will?
“Are you worried about Charlotte?”
Yes. I  worry about Charlotte. Every.Single.Day.
She’s ingesting GMOs. There’s BPA in that water bottle. She skinned her knees. When did I bathe her last? She doesn’t know all her letters. She won’t stop picking her nose! I didn’t put sunscreen on her. I raised my voice at her. Are we parenting correctly?
But I know what you’re really wondering. No, I’m not worried that our involvement in foster care will hurt her in some way. I’m actually excited for her to have these experiences. We protect her from as much in life as we can, and we will protect our foster children from as much in life as we can. That may mean parenting or scheduling or abiding a little differently than we have in the past.
She does suffer, though, in the same way an only child suffers when the attention is no longer only on themselves. She shares her toys. her food. her mommy and daddy time. and it’s good for her. She was born with a big heart and her experience as a big sister to other kiddos is making it even bigger.
Big Sister Charlie
I’ve had this ‘big sister’ shirt sitting in her drawer for a long time; it was passed down from a friend but Charlotte hasn’t had the opportunity to wear it yet because we haven’t expanded our family {and won’t, at least biologically}. It occurred to me, though, that she is very much a big sister to all of the kiddos that we get to love on, and will continue to be to be a big sister to so many, whether it’s ever made official or not.
Just speaking from a real place here: I know foster care isn’t for everyone. We all can’t do all the things! But we each can do some things.
Thank you for asking those questions. And for being open enough to ask them. Thank you for reading this and for considering what your next step may be. It may not be foster care, but it will be something. Will it be a step towards providing for yourself? Or will it be a step towards providing for someone who isn’t able to help themselves?
He is good. Let’s make that the cadence that we train our hearts to beat to.