Family

I spent some time tonight with a friend who is a foster parent. She and her husband should be the poster family for foster parents. She is a huge part of the reason that we want to foster. Right now she has four boys and is pregnant with a girl!!!! How her life has changed in a year. If anyone deserves the happiness it is her.

I was talking to her about fostering instead of adopting one day and told her that we really didn't want to foster because we didn't think we could let them go. She, who is 15 years younger than me, says with wisdom "What if they are saved while they are living with you? What if you are suppose to introduce them to God?" How do you answer that? Ummmm...no thanks. So yeah we started thinking about it again.

Her boys are wonderful. I know that the stereotypical foster kid is mean, and doesn't mind, is adhd, add (and all those other initials.) Her kids not so much. The oldest is eight the youngest two. They are well behaved, the four year old sat through church last night and didn't make a sound, respectful, and if she told them to do something they did it. It was great to watch. All of them called her Mom. She told me that she didn't think that she would ever hear anyone call her Mom and she started crying.

Tomorrow the adoption of one of the boys is going to be final. He is going to change not only his last name but his middle name too. His middle will be the same as his dad's because he wants his dad's name. Tomorrow he will be their son. I asked him tonight what that meant and he said that they would be his mom and dad and stay forever and ever. He was going to be part of their family.

Earlier in the evening we were talking and she asked me what age kids we wanted. We have different opinions. Hubby wants younger kids, from 7 to 13, I want teenagers. We will take whatever God gives us.

Let me tell you about why I want teenagers. It's because they want a family. If they are in the system that long they don't really want a mom and a dad, but a family. I know it will be hard, but teenagers are hard, they are trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be, they are testing their wings, learning to fly. Let me ask you some questions; Who do you spend the holidays with? Who did you call when you were going to get married? Who did you tell when were going to have a baby? Who do you call when you are hurt? Who do you call when you need help? Most of the answers to those questions are family. Imagine not having family because for some reason or another you spent your life in foster care and were shuffled from one house to another. I want to give them a family, I want to give them security.

So what is a family? A bunch of people who are related by blood and marriage who see each other at weddings and funerals? What about people who are connected who are connected in a deeper way. How about that lady at church who tells me I am loved and I have talent and somehow has figured out what one of my secret dreams is? Hasn't she just stepped into the role of my mom? What about the man who is about my dad's age and gave me a bed he made for his daughter so that maybe one day my daughter would sleep in it? Isn't that what a dad is suppose to do?

Rethink family and think about who is really in yours.

So I don't have a song this time but I am going to put the definition of family from Websters on-line dictionary. Read it and pay attention to ALL of them, not just the first one.
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¹fam·i·ly

Pronunciation: \ˈfam-lē, ˈfa-mə-\

Function: noun

Inflected Form(s): plural fam·i·lies

Etymology: Middle English familie, from Latin familia household (including servants as well as kin of the householder), from famulus servant

Date: 15th century

1 : a group of individuals living under one roof and usually under one head : household
2 a : a group of persons of common ancestry : clan b : a people or group of peoples regarded as deriving from a common stock : race
3 a : a group of people united by certain convictions or a common affiliation : fellowship b : the staff of a high official (as the President)
4 : a group of things related by common characteristics: as a : a closely related series of elements or chemical compounds b : a group of soils with similar chemical and physical properties (as texture, pH, and mineral content) that comprise a category ranking above the series and below the subgroup in soil classification c : a group of related languages descended from a single ancestral language
5 a : the basic unit in society traditionally consisting of two parents rearing their children; also : any of various social units differing from but regarded as equivalent to the traditional family b : spouse and children
6 a : a group of related plants or animals forming a category ranking above a genus and below an order and usually comprising several to many genera b in livestock breeding (1) : the descendants or line of a particular individual especially of some outstanding female (2) : an identifiable strain within a breed
7 : a set of curves or surfaces whose equations differ only in parameters
8 : a unit of a crime syndicate (as the Mafia) operating within a geographic area

Marriage

I am in no way saying I am an expert on marriage. I always think that I haven't been married long enough. I look at people I look up to and they have been married 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 years...WOW!!! (I do have a point please be patient.)

Many of the people I know have been married multiple times. Many learned from their mistakes and have strong second marriages, some not so much. We knew several who have lost count. What makes us so different? Did we tap into a secret? Do we knew something that others don't?

Well, we watch and we learn from others-

I have two older brothers who I thought set the sun and moon. When they married, I gained two wonderful sisters. Since our parents divorced when I was 13 or so I have watched my brothers with their wives to see how it's done. (They don't know this...yet) My oldest brother has been married to his beautiful wife for over 25 years. They live away and although I haven't been there all the time I know that they have been through some trials, things that I would not want to go through, but on this side of it...They love each other. My brother treats his wife like a princess and my sister-in-law? She treats my brother like a king.. Watching them I have learned that you don't run at the first sign of trouble, you ride through the rapids together, often it's easier with two people.

So my point...

Tonight I got to share with a young woman about marriage and "the one" and how you know who that is.

So what did I tell her, how did I know that hubby was the one? I just knew..I couldn't come up with anything else. I knew after spending the day with him that this was the man that God created for me. My young friend said "He filled your gaps" I had to laugh cause we quote a lie from one of the Rocky movies that goes something like "I have gaps, she has gaps, we fill each others gaps" but nothing could be more truthful; where I have weaknesses he has strengths, and vice versa. It's not easy , we have had good times and bad times. There have been days when we didn't like each other, there have been days where we couldn't imagine loving each other more. Through it all we stuck it out.

I wanted my friend to know that God created marriage and it is a wonderful thing but it is hard work. We talked about how people like the sugar coat things but folks need to know it's hard work and it's a daily decision to carry on, so that means that for the last 5,915 days I have had to make a decision to work through whatever the problem was and work through it. I would not trade any of those for anything.

Now I did learn a secret early in my marriage; Not long after we married the church we were attending at the time has a lot of people who were celebrating their 50th anniversaries. After a particularly hard week at home I asked the wife if she ever felt like killing her husband and she immediately said yes, not thinking she understood me I asked a different "If you could have gotten away with it would you have killed him" and again she said yes. I thanked her very much and walked away knowing that I what I was feeling was normal. The feeling doesn't stay and I would never act on it but it's one of the ways I know we will make it.

One of the things that we have in common is music. He introduced me to Hank Sr and Cash. I am introducing him to Glee. There is always a song to go with any situation. Today it's "Go There With You" by Steven Curtis Chapman
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I know you've heard me say these words before
But every time I say I love you the words mean something more
I spoke them as a promise right from the start
I said death would be the only thing that could tear us apart
And now that you are standing on the edge of the unknown
I love you means I'll be with you wherever you must go

CHORUS
I will take a heart whose nature is to beat for me alone
And fill it up with you - make all your joy and pain my own
No matter how deep a valley you go through
I will go there with you
And I will give myself to love the way Love gave itself for me
And climb with you to mountaintops or swim a raging sea
To the place where one heart is made from two
I will go there with you

I see it in your tears - you wonder where you are
The wind is growing colder and the sky is growing dark
Though it's something neither of us understands
We can walk through this together if we hold each other's hand
I said for better or worse I'd be with you
So no matter where you're going I will go there too

CHORUS
I will take a heart whose nature is to beat for me alone
And fill it up with you - make all your joy and pain my own
No matter how deep a valley you go through
I will go there with you

BRIDGE
I known sometimes I let you down
But I won't let you go - we'll always be together