Jesus said whoever gives a cup of water to one of His disciples, in His name, will be rewarded for it (Mark 9:41.) After attending a special Mother's Day Tea at a local church earlier this month, I have to believe that goes for cups of Earl Gray, as well. Not only was I immensely blessed by the show of love from the church, but the event also led me to discover a company that does much more than give water, all in the name of Christ. 

Lewisville Baptist Church planned their tea party for the weekend before Mother's Day and extended an invitation to all women and girls in the community. I'm so glad my daughters and I went. There was such a sweet spirit of love and Christian fellowship, and the tables were all so beautifully decorated. The ladies of the church had gone to great lengths to ensure their guests had a special experience, even printing beautiful menus that described all the varieties of tea being served. And the food! What a spread!  

Now, I enjoy tea, but I'm no connoisseur. For most of my life, tea usually meant throwing eight bags of Luzianne orange pekoe in a pot of boiling water (4 if you had the family size) and after a few minutes, dissolving a cup and a half of sugar into the dark liquid in a gallon jug, then filling the rest of the jug with tap water, giving it a stir, and serving over ice. That's still a great way to do it, but the tea party my daughters and I attended reminded me there are so many varieties of tea to be explored and enjoyed.

I chose the "African Chai" at the party and ended up drinking three cups! (Plus, a cup of coffee, because I'm almost always going to get coffee when it's available.) I was so impressed with the flavor of the tea, and since the pastor's lovely wife told me where they'd purchased it, I ordered some online just a couple days later.   

Not only is this tea amazing, but the company that sells it, New Creation, is a faith-based non-profit that works to counteract the human trafficking trade around the world. From their website: "Every item in our shop is created by the hands of a survivor or a vulnerable person that is at risk of being trafficked. We believe this ethical work is a key element to breaking the cycle of poverty + human trafficking."

I purchased two tins of loose-leaf tea, that each came with an adorable, hand-carved wooden teaspoon, and I also bought a book about prayers to change the world (they sell lots more than tea.) This was a fun purchase for myself, and I've been enjoying my tea in a new mug I bought recently, too (from Amazon, pictures below.)

I don't usually post about products, and there are zero affiliate links in this post. I'm just excited to share about a great company I've found and how I'm now enjoying at least a daily cup of hot tea, and how, when I do, I think of the new friends I made and remember feeling the love of God at a tea party. God is so good to us with these continual blessings. Often, we just need to open our eyes to them.

The ladies of Lewisville Baptist Church, as well as the New Creation company, bring to mind these verses: ​"There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all."  1 Corinthians 12:5-6

How has the Lord called you to minister? Maybe it's to make a mom feel special and loved, or maybe it's to rescue people from desperate situations. Maybe it's to pray for someone the Holy Spirit brings to mind. There's work for all of us to do every day. May we seek those opportunities to be a blessing!   

A tingling sensation rises in my chest, accompanied by a gentle pressure and a bubbling up of emotion that lifts my shoulders and brings a smile to my face. The tingling spreads to my arms and I find myself singing a familiar song: I just feel like something good is about to happen. I just feel like something good is on its way.

Excitement. Sometimes, it overwhelms me. I'm usually at work, doing an ordinary task when, for a fleeting moment, I'm struck with jubilant anticipation. The feeling is almost always accompanied be the song, and it makes me want to jump to my feet and shout. Maybe these bursts of excitement are from too much caffeine (I drink an awful lot of caffeine,) but it feels more like the springing up of an eternal hope, like a hug from the Holy Spirit.

Am I alone in this, or do you feel it, too? Do everyday moments ever feel like the night before Christmas, or like there's one more number to be announced on a prize-winning ticket and all your numbers so far have been a match? That's what it's like for me. I just feel like something good is about to happen. I just feel like something good is on its way.

Granted, there are plenty of times where I feel anxiety or sadness in much the same way. But those occurrences seem more in line with my human nature. The excitement I experience has a supernatural sense to it. Maybe I feel it because the Lord is getting ready to drop a new idea into my spirit or reveal a new ministry opportunity. Maybe a personal dream is going to come true or someone in my family will accomplish something great. It sometimes feels like, at any moment, something unexpected and wonderful could happen to me. The next email I open or phone call I receive could be about marvelous, life-changing news. Any day now, the Lord could grant one of my heart's desires, simply because I delight in Him. (Psalms 37:4)

Or maybe the excitement is about something greater. I liken it to the feeling Zacchaeus must have had as he climbed down from the tree, knowing he was about to break bread with Jesus. It's the feeling I imagine in the parable of the ten virgins, for the ones who were ready for the bridegroom, when the cry was made at midnight, "He's coming! Go meet him!" The sensation could very well be my spirit "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." (Titus 2:4) That's definitely something good that's on its way. 

Whatever the cause, I'm thankful. Even if it's because of too much caffeine, I just feel like something good is about to happen. I hope you do, too.

Here's a link to the Gaither Homecoming version of the song referenced in this post. (Jessy Dixon's part in this gets me!) And another great version is below.

I was so glad to be able to share on PJNet.tv recently. Mark Prasek is a gracious host.  We spent most of the time discussing my foster care and adoption experience, and we talked some about what it means to me to be a Christian Fiction author. Highlights of the interview are below, or you can watch the full interview here.

Someone who made a dramatic impact on my life passed away recently, though I’m sure he didn’t know how important he was to me, how much he’s responsible for the person I’ve become. I hope I get a chance to tell him in heaven one day.

This special man was a businessowner, hardworking, dedicated, and successful. Close to twenty-five years ago, he took a chance on hiring a teenager whom he didn’t know, to work in his office, and that opportunity helped set me on the career path I’ve followed ever since. That “afterschool job” became the foundation for the work that pays bills and helps support my family, even as I pursue my passion for writing and ministry.

I worked several jobs as a teenager, sometimes more than one at a time, while also dual-enrolled in high school and community college. I think I was seventeen when I stopped in at a jewelry store in my hometown to ask if they were hiring. The answer was no, but the nice lady behind the counter told me the insurance agency where her daughter worked might need some help. An insurance agency? What could I do at an insurance agency? But this was in the days of paper files, and there were tons of documents to be alphabetized by client name and stored in metal cabinets.

I don’t remember the interview process or how much money he offered, but I remember that David Sloan took a chance on me. Right off the bat, his hiring me taught that courage pays off, that it’s worth it to try.

Eventually, my responsibilities in the afternoon expanded to answering the telephone if everyone else in the office was busy. I couldn’t do much more than place callers on hold, due to industry restrictions. To answer policy questions, I’d have to be a licensed agent. So, David made the decision to send me to classes in the evening and then pay for the test I’d have to pass to be licensed. His investment in me gave me confidence that I can do hard things.

I was eighteen years old when I became a North Carolina Property and Casualty Insurance Agent. I was so proud of that little card. It felt like I’d accomplished something big. Because of David, I learned that accomplishing big things feels good.

David was a good boss. He was stern when he should have been—helping to shape my work ethic and sense of professionalism—but lenient when I needed grace. Though I couldn’t see all these things then, that first office job, and the commitment it required, helped me grow as a person.

But it wasn’t just about the work. David treated me with respect. Along with the two other employees there, he cared about what went on in my life outside of work. At Christmas, when he and his wife hosted a party at their home, they invited me, the teenage part-timer. He taught me the value of being part of a team.

I worked parttime at the office for around two years, I think, before I moved on to a full-time job at a bigger agency in another town, with David’s full support. Within a year at that job, I was promoted and transferred to another city, where I would eventually meet my husband. I floundered somewhat in the job world during my early twenties, still maturing, and finding my footing as an adult. But my background in insurance eventually led to employment with a company where I discovered new skills as a Business Analyst. Moving to an Information Technology position opened doors I never imagined, and even now, in my current work for a software development company, I can trace every career advancement back to my start as a filing clerk at that little office in my hometown.

So, where would I be had it not been for David Sloan? Would I have met my husband? Would I have a good job now? Would I have the ambition to pursue a writing career and an Information Technology career while raising four kids? Maybe. You see, I know it really wasn’t David, but God, Who shaped my life. God had a plan for me long before I knew it, but David is the person God used, along with many, many others—my parents, church, friends, other generous employers (two, in particular, that had a similar impact as Mr. Sloan)—to put me on this path. I’m so glad David is part of my story; I’m so thankful for his kindness; and, in his memory, I’m inspired to make a difference in another's life, should God give me the opportunity.

Who knows the impact one person can have on another? Positive. Negative. Lifechanging. It may be impossible to tell, but the effect of our decisions can extend beyond ourselves and shape the lives of others for years to come. May we all attempt to live graciously, to offer help and opportunities to those who need them. May we strive to see value in others, to take a chance on investing in someone else's life. May we all have a heart like David.

My sincere condolences to the family and close friends of David Sloan, who passed away March 13, 2022.

Click here to read more about his life and legacy. 

This is not a typical blog post from me. Trust me, this one is a little “out there”. Definitely off brand for my writing. But I’ve been chronicling an oddity in my life, and I want to share, partly to see if anyone else has experienced anything similar, and partly to record about it for the future. So, here I go…

Do you ever have something pop into your mind with seemingly no trigger and no related conscious thought? Maybe you’re watching a show about dogs and suddenly an image of a purple rocket ship is in your brain in perfect detail. Or you’re cooking dinner and the words of the preamble to the Constitution forms instantly in your mind, like someone held up an imaginary flashcard that you weren’t expecting. For the last few months, I’ve frequently had a similar occurrence, sometimes many times a day, only it involves tastes and smells. I experience very vivid and very specific tastes and smells, in my mind, at random times. I’ll be going about my day and suddenly, I'm acutely aware of the taste of popcorn or the smell of gasoline. Sometimes, I find the event interesting. Other times, I'm befuddled, and I question if I’ve somehow tipped the scales of normal brain processes.

I don’t call the tastes and smells memories because they aren’t associated with a specific place and time, but they are memories in the sense that my brain recalls a particular taste and/or smell just before it identifies the specific food or item to which the taste and/or smell is associated. These tastes and smells are so vivid and sudden that I've been tempted to call them sensory hallucinations, but I am able to distinguish that I’m not actually smelling or tasting what my brain evokes.  

There are two life events that I can loosely connect to the onset of this phenomenon: 1) Contracting and recovering from Covid, and 2) Changing to a low carb/keto diet. When I lost my smell with Covid, it was only for a few days, but it nearly drove me crazy. I cried because not having any sense of smell felt overwhelmingly strange. Around the time I got better, I completely changed my eating habits. Could the phenomena be a brain quirk caused by the virus? Maybe my diet has altered my brain somehow; some (certainly not all) of the tastes and smells could be triggered by normal cravings for foods I've given up. Or maybe I've developed a form of synesthesia, but I haven't identified the triggers for the sensory perceptions. 

There was a day in early January where the tastes and smells occurred so many times that it started to get on my nerves. It had crossed the line into distraction. To try to make some sense of it, I decided to document what I was “smelling” and “tasting” and the time of day it happened, to see if there were any patterns. I did this for one month, and the results are fairly interesting (at least to me.) 

• I documented a total of 69 sensations, on 18 out of 31 days, with the largest gap between occurrences being 6 days. 
• The highest number of occurrences documented in one day is twelve (but I didn’t start writing them down the first day until afternoon.)
  
• Some specific tastes/smells were recurring.
• The taste/smell of cucumbers was most frequent, occurring on four days.
• The sensations often occur in a cluster--many of them in a short period of time.
• The sensations are not associated with hunger.
• There were more food-related tastes/smells than non-food-related tastes/smells.
• Many of them do involve high carb foods, mostly forms of potatoes and fruits.
• There was a higher frequency of these sensations during more relaxed periods of the day.
• The sensations are not accompanied with a sense of nostalgia.
• Most occurrences in the same day are very different from one another.
• The occurrences steadily declined over the month of tracking them.
• During the six-day gap between occurrences, there were some vague perceptions of random tastes and smells, but it felt as if my brain was too busy to realize them.

I'm tempted to share my log for the month, but that might be too much. Let's just say, there are some odd things documented. Some of the items on the list I haven't actually tasted or smelled in years. Deviled ham? A tanning bed? Chinese donuts? Dried tobacco? Others are common for me, like ketchup, ranch dressing, and apples. Some of the tastes/smells are very specific, like Ivory Soap, Smarties candies, and Fruit Stripe gum, while some are more general, like toothpaste.   

Are these perceptions here to stay? Will they become less distracting over time? Maybe they aren't so odd. Perhaps there are lots of people with the same experience, who don't talk about it because it's their normal. 

The human brain is an amazing thing. No doubt, we are all "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14,) despite our quirks or differences, or perhaps evidenced by them. As we change and get older, we learn new things about ourselves, and that's one of the things that makes life interesting. 

I never really seek a word for the new year, but some years, one finds me. In 2019, the word that came to mind was momentum. I felt it applied to my writing career getting off the ground and picking up speed. In 2020, the word that found me was bigger. I didn’t know it then, but I think it had to do with the need for my faith to be “bigger” to handle the trials of that year and for me to understand that God is bigger than our situation. I don’t remember feeling a word for 2021.

This week, as the thought of a New Year’s word passed through my mind, I felt several forms of a Latin word settling into my spirit all at once—Solus, Soli, Sola, Solo—all which mean alone or only. It's the English word sole. I believe it speaks to what should be my sole aim, my sole goal in the upcoming year: To seek Him first. Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Sure, I have goals and ambitions for the new year, even resolutions. My “word for the year” isn’t a vow to forsake anything that isn’t specifically of eternal value. But I hope it will remind me that my priority should be to please God alone and to draw closer to Him, and that any goals I achieve should be for His glory alone. If I keep those things in focus, I believe I’ll be successful in 2022.

Seek Him first. Then everything else will fall into place as it should.  

​The roar of motors and rushing wind rivals other noises in our house—kids laughing, kids bickering, television blaring, dogs barking. Three high-powered fans sit in the floor of our dining room-turned-office and the kitchen near the laundry closet. A giant dehumidifier with a hose draining into the nearby bathroom sink is there, too, working to dry out the subfloor after a faulty gasket on a newly-installed pump in the washing machine caused a leak, which we discovered when we returned home from the beach last week. Floorboards in the dining room had buckled into mini mountain ridges.

It’s a small thing, really—an inconvenience for a few days. And soon we’ll have new floors and a great appreciation for homeowner’s insurance. But we have to leave these very loud fans running for a few days, so we’re yelling to speak to one another and trying to not let the noise drive us crazy. In a nice way, it reminds me of my childhood, when our air conditioning was a couple of window units at either in the end of the house and we used floor fans in between. The roar of those motors was a regular sound of summer.  

More childhood memories came this week in the form of a pair of wingback chairs. I purchased them through an online auction—I was outbid on everything else—and they were a bargain, especially considering the sentimental value they hold. My parents were kind enough to pick them up for me, and my dad helped me load both into my minivan after church on Wednesday night. The former owners of the chairs are both deceased, but it doesn’t seem so long ago that I was in their home, with my parents and sisters, having dinner. This couple from our church were gracious hosts, kind and welcoming, and their home was a showplace. Now the pink, formal chairs that I remember in their fancy sitting room, are in my not-so-fancy house. They are unlike anything I could probably find in a store today, and they are totally out of place in my home, but I love them, and so do my kids. The chairs remind me of friends and hospitality, they smell like memories, and they are much more comfortable than they look. I hope to rearrange my daughters’ bedroom for the girls to each have one, but for now--until we have to move everything into a pod in the yard while the floors are being replaced--one of the chairs sits in our living room, not far from my work desk, in the middle of the all the chaos.

Work has been especially challenging this week. For part of it, along with the noise of the fans, we've had all four kids at home. It’s hard enough with three kids being on summer break, but when I found out that an outbreak of the virus at preschool meant shutting down the four-year-old’s classroom for a time, I admit, I panicked. I half-jokingly screamed into a pillow. I pretended to bang my head against a wall. Then, I remembered to count it all joy. My four children, whom I love, are under my roof all day. That is a blessing. A hardship when I am on phone meetings for hours, yes, but still a blessing. We have a comfortable home in which to spend our days, exposed subflooring and all. And we are well. Thank God, we are well. I’m praying for friends who are sick right now. And I pray for those who may be struggling to find childcare.

Other than work, dealing with repair people and claims adjustors, taking kids to instrument lessons, church, guiding kids through the day so they’re not constantly on devices, making sure the refrigerator and pantry are stocked for six people, preparing meals, and cuddling our four-month-old kitten who enjoys being held like a baby while I’m at my desk, I’m also finalizing plans for Vacation Bible School. VBS kicks off in a little over two weeks, and I'm praying that the Lord will use it to draw people close to Him.

Since I’ve attended my church for all but the first two years of my life, I have lots of great memories for VBS there. I pray my children love going to VBS at our church as much as I always did, and still do. But directing takes a lot of time. There's much to be done. So, I’ve had to realize that, with everything going on, writing the newest novel should wait; completing the short story I started should wait; and, even helping someone dear to me edit their first book should wait, for a little while. To everything there is a season.

So, why am I taking time now to write about renovations and furniture, work and kids? It helps me process emotion and clear my head. When all the thoughts and feelings start jumbling together, I let them out, so my brain can work better. And the extra benefit? It boosts my faith. When I write about life, the written record proves the goodness of God. His blessings are everywhere--including at funerals and in minivans on country roads--which He showed me this week.

Around 9:30 Thursday morning, while the man was here ripping up our floors, I closed my work computer and left to go sing at the funeral for my friend's father. Alex stayed home with the pets and the kids and the demo guy, and there was no doubt which of us had the easier task.

The funeral was a sweet tribute to a man who loved the Lord, his family, music, and writing. (I only knew of him, but I think we are kindred spirits.) It was an honor to celebrate his life, to grieve the family's loss, and to worship God with them. There was a beautiful peace in the room--the stillness of a loved one's race now finished and the blessed hope of a reunion in the sweet by and by.

Driving home, I could see that the interstate was backed up as I approached the exit, so I kept going, traveling on country backroads instead. The longer route could have been an inconvenience, but it was exactly what I needed. The sun was shining, and the color of the sky and brightness of the clouds was mesmerizing. Seeing the cows and horses, farm ponds, old barns, and the seemingly endless green fields, brought me joy. God was there with me. And there were no loud fans. In the quiet of my minivan, I thanked Him for His blessings. 

It’s not been an average kind of week, but there's joy to be found in all of it. I'm waiting and watching to see all the good things God will do, and above the roar, I say, "I’m blessed."

I made a mistake this week. For days it has haunted me. It makes my stomach twist and tighten and my chest ache to think about it. Agonizing—that’s what living with my mistake has been like. All over a social media post.

When I shared on Facebook about our house search, and that we’d had to back out of a contract for the home we’d fallen in love with, I thought it was innocent, just telling friends about the journey. The post was set to private, after all. But the owners of the property somehow found out about it and weren’t happy with what I shared. When I got a phone call confronting me about it, I was devastated. I was embarrassed. I cried. I wanted to hide from the world (and I tried for a little while.) I probably should have known better than to share what I did, but my post wasn’t meant to cause harm. I didn’t mean to mess up. And my impulse was to swear off social media forever.

My reaction might seem silly, but I can’t stand it when people are upset with me. And I hate to make mistakes. Every time I share on social media, I read what I’ve written multiple times to make sure there isn’t an error that will make me look foolish, and especially that I haven’t said something that might hurt someone’s feelings or make them think less of me. So, when I do the very thing I’m so cautious to avoid, it’s torturous to my psyche.

Years ago, I was healed of anxiety issues. Sometimes, the panic tries to sneak back in, and I have to remind myself that I’m healed. It’s when I’m faced with conflict or the consequences of mistakes that I have to do the most reminding. After my social media flub this week, a barrage of stupid mistakes flooded my memory. They piled on top of one another. Thus, this blog. The memories won’t leave me alone, so I’m facing a few by writing about them.

When I was in my late teens, I was by myself in the office on a Saturday at one of my part-time jobs. The phone rang and I answered. The caller sounded like a nice old man. He asked for another employees’ phone number. The list was printed and posted on the wall next to me, and I wanted to help the man out. Next to the lady’s name and number was printed, “Do not give this out.” But the man sounded so sweet. He convinced me that he was her friend. I was young and naïve. I gave the man the phone number, only to find out later, from my very unhappy boss, that the man had been harassing the lady and she’d had to have her number changed because of him. Because of my mistake, she had to have her number changed again. It’s been over twenty years, and I am still sad about what I did.

At twenty, I worked in a different office as a receptionist. One morning, when I got dressed for work, I questioned the outfit. Was the top too lowcut for the office? I stood in front of the mirror, turning and leaning, scrutinizing to decide if the shirt was appropriate. I decided to go with it, only to be approached by the office manager at some point in the day and told never to wear it to work again. I was mortified. I had tried to make a good decision because I did care about how I looked. I didn’t want to be dressed immodestly. I just made the wrong choice.

Not long ago, I did a small task for someone that I loved, thinking that I was being helpful. Instead, the person was offended by my action. They thought I was trying to take over their responsibility, and they haven’t spoken to me since. My mistake this week brought back the hurt of that broken relationship so strongly. The feeling of helplessness. Of confusion. I meant no harm. But somehow, my actions did damage, and I can’t fix it, though I tried.

This week, I was reminded again how quickly things can go from fine to not, from calm to gut-wrenching. Yes, it may seem like I’m overreacting, but the fear of being reprimanded for the next mistake is very real. I often worry, did I thank that person for the gift or compliment? Did they know I was sincere? Did I forget to speak to so-and-so? Did I slight someone by accident? Were they hurt? Are they mad? Did I sound boastful? The questions are endless because I genuinely care about people, and I care what they think about me (maybe too much.)

There are tons more mistakes I could talk about, some bigger, some smaller than the examples here. And I haven’t even talked about sin. This blog will be much too long if I start down that path. So, what’s my point? Is it all hopelessness? Of course, not. That’s never the point.

A few days ago, when I was crying over an action that I couldn’t undo, there was one thing that brought me comfort. I said to myself, “Jesus loves me. Jesus loves me. Jesus loves me.” The Bible says, “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38, 39) I’m pretty sure that includes my mistakes. Regardless of what others think about me, He loves me, and that’s all I need to know.

​I’ll make more mistakes, for sure. (Writing all this down and sharing it could be a mistake, just like the Facebook post that started it.) But I can handle the fear of messing up again because my mistakes will never change His love for me. I struggle with anxiety sometimes, but no matter what, Jesus loves me. I don’t always get things right, but Jesus loves me. I do foolish things sometimes, but Jesus loves me. I mess up, but Jesus loves me. Jesus loves me. Jesus loves me. Jesus loves me. And He loves you, too.

The night before the adoption ceremony, I felt nervous. We had waited so long for the day—to make this beautiful, affectionate three-year-old our son—yet, I had this jittery feeling, and that led to guilt. Was I second-guessing our decision? Wasn’t I absolutely sure that I wanted to parent this boy for the rest of my life? Then I realized, my nervousness wasn’t because of doubt. It was the same kind of feeling I had the day I got married. It was very similar to the case of nerves I experienced the morning of my scheduled c-section with my second child. It was the same as any other time someone stands on the edge of forever and is about to take the next step.

I’m not sure when God planted the seed of adoption in my heart. Maybe it was when He adopted me into his family when I was a child. But I had the dream, the desire, the life goal to adopt, for a very long time. My heart cried out at the words of James 1:27. Every time I saw a website or a television spot about children in need of a family, I wept. For years, I read profiles on the Children’s Home Society of NC page and ached for the children. But when was the “right” time to do something about this longing?

Thankfully, my husband, Alex, had the same desire to welcome a child through adoption. After we had two precious girls—Elizabeth in 2007 and Sarah in 2010—we thought, “Okay, we’ll adopt the third child, one day.” Then in 2013, Daniel was born, and we had to say, “I guess we were supposed to have three and adopt the fourth.” That’s when the vision for the future really started taking shape. I had the idea that we would wait until our kids were old enough to be involved in the process—the youngest would be around seven—and, as if I could actually manufacture the scenario, we would adopt a three-year-old. The child would be a boy, because the two girls were already sharing a room, and when I envisioned him, this fourth child of mine had darker skin than me.

In November of 2017, when the tug at my heart was so strong I couldn’t ignore it anymore, I suggested to Alex that we go to a local children’s home—a Christian agency that also does foster care licensing—for an information session. He agreed, though he’d always felt like God would put us in a situation to adopt, outside of the foster care system. After speaking to the licensing specialist for forty-five minutes, we left with an application and paperwork for foster care training in-hand. In the parking lot, Alex said, “So, are you going to fill those out today?”

We began our classes in January 2018, and, long-story-short-- after a tedious process, rife with frustration—we were finally licensed in October of that year. Little did I know, the waiting had only just begun. (Note: we met some remarkable people during the process that we are so glad to have in our lives now.)

I don’t remember when the first call came, but sometime between October and March, we said yes to NINE placements. Do you know how many of those children we helped? Zero. (I wrote about the waiting in this post.) For whatever reason, those children all went other places. When we finally got our first placement in March (I say finally with hesitation, because, while we were eager to help, foster care always means a child has had to experience trauma) it was a seven-year-old boy that we knew would be with us for a short time. I didn’t know it would only be six days. Even though he wasn’t with us long, we cried when he left, and I think of him often.

In May of 2019, I shared with new friends at a writers’ conference that I was anxious to do what I felt God had called us to do. I didn’t want a child to need our family, but I knew there was a child somewhere that did, and the waiting was gut-wrenching. Multiple people prayed for me at that conference, and for God’s will to be done for our family. The next weekend was Memorial Day, spent having a great time at the beach. On the drive home, Sarah made the statement that she felt like someone was missing (which I talked about in this post.) And someone was. The next day, we got the call. The social worker from our agency said that a two-and-half year old, African American male needed a home. She spelled his name but wasn’t sure how it was pronounced. She told me he had asthma (he doesn’t) and that he was non-verbal (he definitely wasn’t.) She was able to give me a few other details about his medical history, and she said that he was coming from another foster home. Around 7:30 pm, he arrived.

I’ll never forget the site of him--this angelic-looking little boy in a dinosaur t-shirt, pulling his tricycle from the county social worker’s car to our front door. She told us that he was very independent. To our surprise, as both social workers (county and licensing agency) sat in our living room going over information, while he played with a toy truck on the couch, we learned that a court hearing to terminate his biological parents’ rights was already scheduled. He had been in foster care, basically, his entire life.

From the beginning, this was not a “typical” foster care scenario. There was a very strong possibility that we would be able to adopt this child. Even though we had trained our minds and hearts to believe in and champion the unofficial foster care motto—"Reunification is always the goal”—that wasn’t the direction his case was headed. And it finally made sense—all the waiting and rejection. The entire time, we were expecting our son. There was no one else that was supposed to be part of our family, either temporarily or permanently. It was always him. From the moment he was born, God knew he would be my son. My husband and I were foster parents, but not really. We were just his parents. God spared us the heartbreak of wondering if we would have to say goodbye, though we still had to go through a long birthing process of waiting.

Just over a week. That's how long we've been a family of six. For the first three days or so, it was hard to grasp. It's an understandably difficult concept to go from being the parent of three children on Monday- picking out three sets of clothes, making three snacks at a time, tucking three kids into bed at night- to being the parent of four kids on Tuesday. But very quickly it became "right". It wasn't even our new normal. It was just the normal we were always supposed to be. Our "finally" normal.

Even as I express how relatively easy this foster care transition has been, and how right it feels, I fully understand that at any moment things could change. We're only responsible for this two-year-old boy for as long as someone else will let us be. Somewhere between one more day and forever, that's all we know. But for now, he's part of the family.

So, how does a stranger become family so quickly. Is it because he's adorable? No, though he is. Is it because he's a "good" baby? No, though he is. Is it because his laughter makes all our hearts melt? No, though it does. My children have taken him in as a brother, and my husband and I have taken him in as a son, for only one reason: GOD. It’s supernatural. Beyond our capabilities. God makes that kind of thing possible. Not us. Psalms 68:6a says, "God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains:"

The day before "A" came to us, my eight-year-old daughter said, on the ride home from the beach, "I feel like we're missing somebody." All of us were there in the van, including our two dogs. She wasn't talking about Grandma and Grandpa that we left behind at the beach. She was talking about "A", though we didn't yet know who he was. And I knew exactly how she felt. God had been stirring anticipation in our hearts for many months.

On our refrigerator, we have our names linked together, written out in magnetic Scrabble tiles. Just as easy as it is to add our foster son's name to our five, that's how easy it has seemed to make him one of us. He slipped right in like the letters of his name on the board. And it's a perfect analogy of what God has done for us.

In Romans 11, Paul uses the example of an olive tree. The natural branches he speaks of were the nation of Israel, God's chosen people. But we- believers who aren’t descendants of Abraham- being the wild branches, have been grafted into the tree. He added us into the family. He has made us a part of Himself.

Galatians 4:4-5 says it plainly. "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons."

How can someone become part of a family so quickly? God. With our foster son, it’s God’s love in our hearts and a divine plan that makes it possible. For the seeking soul, it’s a measure of faith and God’s grace by which they can instantly be made His child.