Update

Update

Since my last post I was able to share with some state officials some of the ways that Foster Parenting could be better supported so that they would not continue to lose so many families, like ourselves that stop providing a foster home due to reasons that are fixable. In our case it was having reliable respite care in the case of an emergency situation. I was also able to share the grief piece and talk about how important and central that truly is when you are working with these children. It was a good day to be able to share and give input to an need that is so great! I hope that it helps, we certainly do need families that are willing and equipped to open homes for our displaced children. Lord please help us in this area.

Foster Parenting

Just by the length of time that has gone by since I put anything in this Blog should let one know that I have been very busy.  And by busy I mean two foster sons busy.

We had an experience foster parenting for a while and now that season of my life has been completed.  What a wonderful, frustrating and heart tearing time that was...

I re-read a post when I was still house sitting for someone and shared how I didn't' like that I could not invite anyone to come stay with us...well we got our own place so we could and we did.  I learned many things while foster parenting.  One thing that I most certainly realized was that I have quite a temper.  YES! Huge temper.  I do get mad easily...just one more reason I need that Grace freely given to me, boy do I need grace.

I do have a strong personality, although I try and temper it and to some degree am successful or no one would ever want to be around me.  I am glad for my strong temperament it creates change in the systems around us.  I was able to share boldly and without apology some of the ways that our local agency makes it difficult for foster parents and some ways they could be more supportive and some changes have happened. Positive changes for all the foster parents that will come after us. For example the availability to have support for the loss of foster children.  Yes, you do become attached and yes it hurts when they leave.  I am grateful that I could help bring about improvements although making things better for others has always come at a great cost to myself.  Mostly because I do not understand until I live it.

Time

It has been some time since I wrote anything as my days have suddenly been quite full with other activities that have needed my immediate attention.  I don't have too much to say and yet I have so much happening.  I am grateful of the goings on in my life right now.  It seems I went from manufacturing things to do, to having so much to do.  Details...details and emotions.  So many emotions.

Just really wanted to write something, anything.  My soul is longing to communicate my hands have been busy and decisions need to be made.

It is better being busy, but I still need to find the balance of outlet for mind, body and spirit.  It seems I always have an unnatural balance.  Right now I have things to do with my hands, but my heart is feeling low.

I have nothing to be low about.  Everything is going extraordinarily well, just need to have some fun.  So, this is fun.  Writing is always fun.  Even when I don't say anything worthwhile.

So I find myself surrounded by HIS grace.  and at the same time, missing those I love who don't believe.  My hope is in the future and I believe even those things will be righted I must not despair.

Kindness

I am trying to be more kind in my day to day dealings with people.  I am uncertain how I am doing, but I am trying.

One of the ways that I am trying is by listening better.  I need to hear what people are really saying and allow those spoken emotions become real to me.

I have had a couple of conversations lately that I still feel like I am talking toooooo much!!!!!

I need to be more attentive to the needs of the person that I am with.

This brings me to a story that I read last night, written by a medical physician.  He was speaking to the fact that sometimes physical pain is really emotional pain that is being made manifest in our physical bodies and that really nothing is wrong with the body, but the pain is real.  He began to listen to his patients and let them talk, without prescribing a bunch of pills or what not, because he figured this connection out, this was after he had done every test to determine what was wrong and they came back negative every time, the person was fine.

I have met many people who are like this, seemingly healthy and yet not healthy.  I am grateful for the ability that I have to take things to the LORD in prayer.  But there was a season when I was angry with God and I was sick the entire year.  My body could not regulate itself and I even ended up in the ER room.  After I realized I was angry at God and admitted it, i recovered and my body did regulate itself.  I think that is why I have been so blessed with good health, because my spirit is good.  This is not to say that everyone who is sick is not well in there spirit, because that would be untrue.  Job was well in his spirit and very sick.  I am just saying that i think when someone suffers from chronic pain or other malfunctions of the body, we should consider the possibility that something is not well in the soul.  And until the individual is willing to address the issue that is the real problem, grief, anger whatever the pain will continue to manifest itself somewhere.  I think some people can deal with the physical problems easier than the soul problems, because then we are not weak, we are just sick, and someone can figure that out surely and fix it through our modern medicine.  So many of us take medicine for issues that the LORD can and wants to heal in us.  I know He has done it for me.  And for that I am super grateful.

Movies

I watched a movie today. It was a good story and the message was good, but it was really gory in parts.  I don't really like it because of it.  The story I think is addressing the problem that we currently have in USA with illegal immigrants.  I had just read a story about an illegal immigrant that was in the Bellevue Hospital in New York and it chronicled the tragedy that was her life. So, it was interesting to watch the movie from that perspective of just reading the story about this woman.  i just wish they wouldn't be so graphic.

I don't know what the answer is about immigration reform, but I do know that many people are trying to figure it out.  It is difficult, because we have so many different interests that need to be taken into consideration.  the issue is certainly not black and white...of course human interests and needs never are, it is alway complex.  I wonder if sometimes we try to solve problems from a position that is too high in the government.  But when you take the crime, drug use, smuggling and violence into consideration, I am grateful that we protect our borders.  AHHH we need the LORD's help with this, it does not have an easy answer.  Really I think what it always boils down to is the criminal element that is in play, and criminals come in many shapes and sizes, but it is easy to blame the poor.

Birthday

Today is my oldest son's birthday.  happy birthday!

Psalm 24:1-2
The earth is the LORD's and all its fullness, The world and those who dwell therein
For He has founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the waters

Genesis 1:1-2
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,  the earth was without form and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

It is wonderful to know that the earth belongs to the LORD.  I just read a chapter in my book 12 Patients that was about a young woman who suffered many unspeakable things in her short life.  She was suffering from heart failure as well.  Yet she was humble and everyone wanted to help her in the book.  Many people moved on her behalf for her to have a new heart, yet when she got it she died.  i am glad she is in a better place than here, she suffered so much violence.  I pray that her children will be well cared for that she left behind.

There will be a day when the world will be a peace and not suffer this level of violence that we see today.  When the LORD rules and reigns in His kingdom.  He is coming soon.  It is our hope.

Come quickly LORD JESUS!

Exercise for the mind

today i don't feel like i have anything to say at all.  maybe that is a good thing, i have been trying to keep myself busy by organizing my time with studies and doing a food cost analysis, etc

so I am just going to write because this is my self appointed assignment to write something everyday, even if it is nothing at all

I did go to the grocery store today and get some ingredients for homemade hummus and a dish that is similar except you make it with eggplant, these will be the receipes for this weekend with troy

we have decided to do cooking together as part of the University at Home project
it does a couple of things, it provides food, which we need and it gives us a project to do together that cost little money, we are trying to save money for my trip out to the west coast

my food cost analysis is proving that we spend so much money on food and fuel...but we certainly have been eating healthy and i think in the long run that saves us on medical expenses, which thankfully right now are at zero for us both, i really believe the good food helps

okay, it wasn't much exercise, but at least it was something and something is always better than nothing,