Foster Care is a Roller Coaster (and Happy Valentine's Day)!
We are late to the party, but Happy (belated) Valentine's Day! We hope you all had a special day with friends, family, or that special someone. Our Valentine's Day was great, and special as we got to celebrate with a precious baby.
God has a way of calling us back into foster care. But He always writes the best stories.
At the end of January, we received a call for a 6 week old baby. Heather was onboard immediately with the desire to say yes. Matt on the other hand, let's just say he really had to hear God's voice on this one.
Our tendency is to stay comfortable, that is how we are wired, to be comfortable. All I (Matt) could think about was sleep, our schedule, my schedule. I liked to get good sleep every night, babies don't. I liked freedom in our schedule, our kids are just about old enough to be relatively self-sufficient, babies are not. And frankly, we just have a lot of stuff to do.
But God. His voice was clear - say Yes. So we did. And it turned out to be such a sweet month loving on that baby. Our kids were ecstatic and loved on that precious baby like no other. It was really sweet to see them come around him, love on him, and step up to hold him whenever needed. He was never short of hands to hold him, that's for sure!
It also led to us building a sweet new friendship with his family - one of the underrated aspects of foster care. It doesn't always happen, but when those doors open, and you can build that relationship, it is one of the sweetest things we have experienced in our 10 years of fostering.
That said, our precious baby moved to his family in late February. It was a bittersweet move, we miss him dearly, but our overjoyed at his reunion with his family. I will say that I sure won't miss those midnight feedings, but they sure were worth every minute of lost sleep. We thank God for these placements and these reunions.