This Kidless Mother's Day- the life of a foster/adoptive parent in waiting

Hi there. I'm telling you right now that I'm going to try to not make this a total downer, despite the title of this post. I think I'll get hopeful, but you  have to bear with me.

Other than goddaughters (who totally count, don't yell at me M & A), last year was the first time I had kids on mother's day, and it was pretty awesome. We had our two sweet girls, who were 4 & 1, and I was so happy. Sure, dear husband dropped the ball a bit on making it special, but I loved our little family.

About three months later, the 1yo moved out, and the rest of us were devastated. Yes, she went to a fabulous home and we still see her (not as often as we'd like) and we're very good friends with her (hopefully forever) parents, but it was and still is very hard. She wasn't talking when she was with us, but I have to tell you that it doesn't bum me out one bit that for all our efforts to get her to say "Aunt Robin," I get "momma" sometimes. She knows me as one of the people who fulfill that role for her.

Then on March 14th of this year, our big girl moved out after 15 months with us. Fear not-- we still see her fairly regularly, and her situation is good. Promise. But that doesn't make it hurt much less. She was over here the other day, and while I was standing in the kitchen doing something, she kind of sighed a little and said, "I love you, momma." As I think I've mentioned before, she's down with complicated families and having multiple moms & dads. More to love!

What you see pictured up above is part of my vision board. I've always been a big fan of cutting out pictures I like and I've covered my doors and walls in pictures even as an adult, but I never thought of it as anything more than silly fun. But a friend from church who is an artist teaches classes on creating vision boards, and I was able to go to a short one a couple weeks ago. We looked through magazines and cut out pictures that called to us. I had a lot of fun and brought a bunch of pictures home with me, but I didn't start putting it together until last night, and that's when it hit me: a vision board is a prayer in collage form. (If you need help with this concept, one place to look is Genesis 30:25-43.)

Even if there weren't some biblical support for the idea, it is still a good tool for clarity. When I was looking for pictures, there were some that spoke to me for far-off, fancy dreams, but many were simple things that almost made me cry when I found them. And the realization I had when gluing/praying in the wee hours of this morning was that, somehow, over the past two or three years, being a mom has become the desire of my heart. (I'm not going to explain what everything on it means, FYI.) Look at the kids I have there: I think there are 14 in that small section, and I have other pictures that I didn't put on there. I figured I had made the point. The fact that I just cut out the word "motherhood" is a big deal to me.

So I don't know how tomorrow (Mother's Day) is going to be for me. I haven't seen my little girl in over a month, and my big girl has been sick off & on for the past almost month, so I've only gotten 3 hours with her in the past three weeks. We're making decisions about adoption and we're feeling pulled in a few different directions without having much we see that we can really do about it. How about this: just don't ask me how I'm doing tomorrow, okay? You can hug me, but not for too long. I'm so very sick of crying this week. But I know that today or tomorrow is not the end of the story. I'm going to be a mom. It doesn't look like the journey my friends are on, but it's good for me & Seth. As you've already been told: I was made for this.

Feverishly scribbled notes

Today has been a long, great day.  I woke up naturally at 5am, thinking I would just pee & go right back to sleep.  Nay.  So, I finished The Last Battle (it always makes me so sad, though it shouldn't), then tried again.  Nope.  So I decided to embrace it and enjoy being up.  We had day one of the Willow Creek Association Global Leadership Summit (WCAGLS- wickagles) today, and I was afraid I would crash at some point, but it was just to awesome. 

The friend I came out here with has never been to the summit before, so I told her to expect that we'd learn a lot, but also end up rolling our eyes a bit.  Ah, not today.  Opening video- we both teared up a bit.  Worship?  Great.  And almost all of today's sessions were about change, crisis, dysfunctional teams, and various other things that hit home so much that we often found ourselves looking at each other with an "oh, really!  I wonder who that could apply to!" look on our faces.  There was also one high-five when Jim Collins threw out, as if it were completely obvious, "Oh, and double your outreach to young people by changing your practices, but not your core values." 

The other two times I've gone to the summit, I've gone alone, so with four of us from church there, it is really great to have others go over this stuff with, to also share the inspiration you're receiving, and take it back to church.  During the first session, I realized that I kept wishing that some of our pastors were there, but we are here.  We four women, only two on staff, none of us in real positions of power right now:  God put us in that room to receive this vision and inspiration, and he wants us; he wants me to take it back and help make it grow.  I thought of it as a holy pressure.  I'm scared and excited. 

Tomorrow- day 2.  I looked at the books of a couple of tomorrow's speakers, and I'm excited by what I see.  And the four of us are going to get together and pray for God's vision and for strength and wisdom for our role in whatever God is doing.  Pray for us, please.  Our church- God's church- needs a lot of help.