I’m a pretty open person when I get to know people. I am passionate about foster care and adoption. I am passionate about my kids and all foster children. I’m passionate about giving a face to foster care, even if that “face” is my family to some small degree. I think it is important to open our journey up to the world as much as we can to help spark passion in others, because we can’t fight this battle alone. With that decision came the acknowledgement that we would have to accept the good, the bad and the ugly that comes with telling our story.
We have so many amazing people surrounding us. Our tribe runs deep and is made up of our own family, our friends, and fellow foster parents who double as friends. These people who have stood with us through thick and thin. They have cried with us and celebrated with us. They give the most deeply encouraging, undeserved, life-breathing support. Even strangers or far off friends, have prayed for us and written the kindest words throughout the course of our journey and most recently when we adopted Tripp.
But…there are others. Some who question our choices. Some who don’t understand or support our life. Some are strangers. Some are friends.
I’ve been told I am a “like whore.” I’ve been told I just do things for social media. That I just do foster care for the money. Then, there was a host of accusations about my mixed color children and my African American children. I’ve had kids not welcome in kids church based on behavior or skin color. Recently, someone said that I exploit my kids. My son was called a crack baby once. Recently, I received a comment that said I wasn’t a mom.
For every comment from a stranger or even from a person I know, I want to respond and defend myself. I want to just say, “how dare you!” I just bite my tongue. Mostly, because I don’t like confrontation, but also because those people are right.
No, I don’t exploit my children, no we don’t do foster care for the money, and I love ALL of my kids equally. I don’t even have to address the mom comment. I know I’m mom. I didn’t give birth to my son, but he is as much my son as someone else’s biological child. But that weakness you see in me, the cracks in me, the messiness seeping out, that’s me. I may not be all those names and accusations you’ve thrown at me, but I know the me that you don’t know.
I get snarky. I push people away. I am impatient. I look at the beautiful life God has given me and want something more or different. I’m a people pleaser. I value things that just don’t matter. I care about my comfort more than I care about people and their needs. I’m judgmental and elevate my own opinion. I have little self-control. I’m selfish and lazy and arrogant and angry and…
I’m a mess.
But God.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved….For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
I can acknowledge my weakness and my shortcomings and my sin, because Jesus died to cover it all. And I don’t have to defend or hide or live in shame, because Jesus died to forgive it all. Every last ounce was forgiven.
So when someone sees weakness in me, even if it’s not the accurate weakness, I can give a thumbs up in agreement. I can “boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses” (1 Corinthians 12:9) because my “sins are covered.” (Romans 4:7)
I’m a mess. But I’m a loved, forgiven, saved mess.
Koko
