For a few weeks I've seen the vivid blue bird that marks the glory of springtime. I've watched and admired and wondered where he was going. "There must be a nest around here,"  I thought. Why else would he be hanging around? 

Finally, last week I saw mother blue bird, who is mostly brown with just a hind of the violet blue that flashes and gleams in father bird, swoop into a little clay pot on my back porch. I tiptoed out and peeked into the pot. Sure enough, a tiny round nest filled the bottom of the small pot. 

Several days later, I checked again. There was an egg! I snapped a picture and sent it to my dad. We both love these sweet little birds. Now that my entire family was aware of and really excited about this precious nest I warned them all to stay away. 

The next day a second egg was in the nest. I was excited to check again and see if there would be a third egg on the following day. 

It's never a good morning when I have to deal with all the guests for our sweet Shiplap by the Sea who are having to cancel their reservations. I won't go into my politically incorrect views, but it literally makes me sick as I issue full refunds or rebook people for next year. And that house sits empty, waiting eagerly for her next visit. 

The pit of my stomach was already churning with knots and dread when my little Livie with bright eyes and an eager smile showed me the treasure she had come running inside to show me. She held up a small, oval bright blue egg. "Mommy! There are three!" 

As my kids can attest, I didn't just get upset, I sobbed. Sobbed. 

In Livie's whole life she's been getting eggs from a chicken coop. So she wouldn't fully understand, or even hesitate to pick up an egg. Just a few days ago, walking through the vast green field next to our house, she scooped up a baby bird she found sitting in a nest on the ground. I was horrified, but for a little girl who has held and hugged baby chicks her entire life, it was absolutely normal. 

It's been a while. The last time I wrote a post, life was very different. I feel like I've lived many years since before . And even all these days during  have been long in equally wonderful and difficult ways. 

Honestly, I could keep all my kids at home and teach them and it would be hard, but it wouldn't bother me. In fact, you may recall a proud march I took across the school parking lot October of 2017 to unenroll my kids from school. We homeschooled through the end of that school year, became foster parents,  and then I realized that I could not sanely teach all my kids and care for our first foster placement. Others better than me probably could, I could not. So, I traced my steps back into school for the next year and it was the right thing. 

I didn't anticipate myself here, a few years later, homeschooling my kids again this time with a second foster placement. I recognize that having to stay home with my kids and teach them isn't a hardship really, but it is a new challenge and adjustment. Because the truth is, I'd be absolutely loving this time if it weren't for my fifth student. I'm nothing if not honest with you all. Judge me if you like, but walk a mile in my shoes first. 

It took him hours to complete a color by number sheet- four numbers to color- because he didn't want to do it. Hours. Today we tried cutting on lines, we chopped through one line- sort of- before he and I were ready to put on some boxing gloves and go a few rounds. He is angry, he is combative, he whines, he pouts, he requires so. much. effort. to color a simple four color page. It took two hours of coaxing, prodding and urging to get him to trace his name 5 times today. Two hours. And a bunch of brain breaks. The keeping on task, the bad attitude, the fact that the most basic beginnings of kindergarten are so hard and unattainable for him. Guys, this isn't fun or rewarding, it's AWFUL. 

------------

I can't tell you how relieved I was to turn the page on Job to see I am finally through that book and into Psalms. I've been reading through the Bible for about 6 years now and I'm almost to the halfway mark, be impressed. Truthfully, I didn't enjoy Job. I got a few things out of it, but mostly I didn't understand it and it was long and heavy reading. Turning to Psalms felt like walking out into that first morning of dewy sunshine and warm temperatures after a wet, cold and dark winter.  Wait, that's a metaphor for this actual winter in Georgia. 

These last few weeks I've had a hard time getting into a routine which means I haven't been getting up early enough to have some quiet moments with my Bible and my spiral notebook and my prayers. Getting out of that routine, amongst all the angst of current life is not a good combo for then diving into homeschooling 5 kids, one of whom is exceptionally difficult.  

I made up my mind that today would be different. I got up early, read the fresh, breezy opening chapters of Psalms, pulled out my spiral notebook and began to pray. A current circulating prayer for our family is for the preservation of our small business. It's sobering to have almost all of your contracted work pulled out from under you in a 24 hr span of endless, soul quaking time. "Send us miracle work," I prayed this morning.  

Today followed the typical pattern of four did well in school and number five took two hours to trace his name and after much urging, prodding and ummm, encouragement attempted to cut one straight line. After that difficulty, I cancelled his alphabet matching and coloring for the day. We can only do so much. Know your limits, right, homeschool moms? 

Then we had lunch where #5 got mad at something, no one really knows what, which landed him in his room where he threw toys and kicked his feet on the floor. When he was done with his tantrum he came and took an hour to eat lunch. 

These are our days and they (insert words and phrases I'd like to use but won't because my mom will read this blog and she won't like them because they aren't ladylike.) It's been like this - some days better, most worse-  for the last three weeks. Or has it only been two? I don't even know anymore. 

As I was working on supper late this afternoon, that Still Small Voice - the one that I've been a little standoffish with because if life wasn't challenging enough He quarantined me with my foster AND then made me his homeschool teacher and frankly that feels a little mean- spoke a little word.  "This is miracle work," He breathed into dark and tired places in my soul.

This is miracle work. 

Teachers, this is miracle work. Mamas, hear me loud and clear- THIS IS MIRACLE WORK. Dads, it's miracle work. Bosses and employees and small business owners, there IS miracle work. I know it and I believe it. Doctors and nurses and first responders, you know maybe more than most that this is miracle work. Pastors and teachers and church staffs, it's miracle work. It looks different and it feels different but this is it . 

Friends, in our walks of life, wherever we are we have been invited by the One who holds the world in His palm, who covers us with His wings and who is our refuge to join Him in the miracle work of the Gospel story that loves and gives and serves. That smiles, and joins in the suffering of others and who always always always point to the Way Maker and declare HE IS THE MIRACLE WORKER. 

Several weeks ago I loaded my kids in the car so we could go visit some kids. As in baby goats. 

There are few things cuter than tiny baby goats. They were so cute that we all- myself included- frolicked in the pasture. And I took a selfie with one. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again that one of the hardest parts of foster care isn't the foster or the care, it's me. Managing my reactions, expectations and frustrations is a full time job. Knowing someone has a hard life- as least for me- doesn't always translate into cry-your-eyes-out compassion when the day-to-day life with someone begins to wear on you.

When you send a little kid to school and he returns with a long list of antics like running out of the classroom, hiding from teachers behind desks and water fountains, throwing pencils and lunchboxes, ripping papers off the wall and doing anything and everything else you can think of that makes absolutely no sense, it just tires a body out.  I didn't know I'd have to tell him every single thing he should not do at school. I don't mean it to sound  like he's a wild and crazy kid because he's actually not. We laugh sometimes and fondly remember our last little foster and wonder what would happen if the two of them were put in the same room. We are 100% sure that the first foster would rip an arm off of our current foster and then beat him with it. 

So, when compairing the two, this little boy is a walk in the park in comparison. And for the record, he has really good days at school too. 

But that still doesn't make life rainbows and unicorns when you are living with a developmentally delayed and emotionally impaired small child. It's just not easy. And no wonder he's delayed and impaired and walking in a daze because life has been a haze of run-for-your-life fear that no child should ever have to endure. 

As with the last one, I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what is wrong with me. Why can't I just love him for who he is? Why do I lose my mind when it takes him 25 minutes to put his clothes on in the morning? Or when he open-mouth breathes on me (note: it bothers me when anyone does that), or when he sniffs his nose even though there is no reason to sniff. Imagine silence in the car and 100 consecutive sniffs. Ya'll. I can't. 

Here I am the product of a happy family and safe childhood and one trip to Disney when I was seven and I can't meet a small boy where he is with love that instinctively wells up and overflows? 

So, what do you do in this place where my head loves by the very acts of caring for him, but even though my heart longs to, it doesn't. You sit in a conference of people who seem to have only rainbows and fluffy cloud feelings for their fosters and you wonder how you can be the only one who doesn't. Or can't or whatever it is. 

You pray for a breakthrough. That's what you do. You ask the One who holds the world in His palm, who can speak violent waves into stillness and who defeated death, to defeat your flesh too . And He will. 

You'll go to that fluffy cloud conference feeling so discouraged and down because you just aren't who you hoped you would be. That prayer from several months ago, still on your heart, "Lord, you  tell me that this is good and pleasing in your sight and I will feel satisfied to continue." Even though it's hard. And I get frustrated. And I'm tired of the internal fight to be better than I am. 

Jesus who claims to know you so intimately that he knows how many hairs (and how many have fallen out that He plans to replace I hope) are on your head, He will look down in you with love. He will show you that He is listening, that He is watching and then this: 

The key note speaker for the conference paused on stage at her concluding remarks. Her voice was warm with emotion, "I'm going to say something that I hadn't planned on saying. But I asked the Lord if it was from Him and it is, so He wants me to tell you that He is pleased with you ." 

Friends, tell Him what you need and He will go above and beyond to direct a lady from a thousand miles away to appear at a conference planned a year in advance, so He can deliver to me a personal love note for the second time using my exact words. 

And if what He is asking of you seems bigger than you? It's beause it is. 

It wasn't getting spit in the face that was the real low point for me. It wasn't all the screaming. It wasn't when he would try to kick me in the stomach when I changed his diaper or when he threw his food on the floor. It was the day when he swung his arm in a full arc over his head and slapped me in the face with his open palm. It stung, literally and figuratively. 

He'd had a cavity filled that day and the anethesia was making him angry, I knew it wasn't him. But it still hurt me to my core. In a way, I felt betrayed. All the things I'd done and all I got was a slap in return. That was our first little foster boy last year. 

Today we hit a low again.

I took our current foster in the pouring rain to an appointment I'd made for him weeks ago. An appointment to get him therapy that he desperately needs. Cool as a cucumber, one of the first things he told the lady was that "mama bear made him mad." How's that for a nice introduction? 

"Why does she make you mad?" the lady asked. 

"Because she makes me go potty." 

It sounds silly. Typing it here, it's ridiculous. But sitting in that chair as my little foster "tattled" on me, I felt angry. Now, as I've had time to digest it, I'm hurt. 

I'll spare you the details, but if Mama Bear didn't "make him go potty," Mama Bear would be the one cleaning unpleasant things out of underwear as she did for weeks when baby bear first came. Weeks, guys. Of pair after pair after pair. 

It's only because Mama Bear took the time and interest to figure out how to help him with his problem, that he now gets to sit in a chair (in clean underwear) with a nice lady in front of him throwing in my face all my hard work and effort of the last three and a half months. 

I know he didn't know what he was saying, not really. I'm sure he didn't intend it as I took it.  I know he didn't realize that his simple and babyish statement would make Mama Bear want to eat him, as mother bears are known to do to unruly young. But he really didn't know that he quantified all we've done for him into one little unpleasant sentence that is still ringing in my ears. 

Out of all these months of outings, bedtime songs and back rubs, toys, clothes and meeting upon meeting upon meeting, that's your greeting? That's what comes to mind when someone asks how you are? 

It's just a low. I can honestly say, we don't usually count the cost of foster care, we just do it, until a little boy who doesn't know any better complains to a stranger about the help we have given him. 

It's a reminder too, guys, how thoughtless words can hurt. How they can sucker punch someone who doesn't deserve it. How they can unintentionally belittle and betray and how once they are said, can never be unheard. 

I'm not sitting here patting my back on all my acts of service for this kid. My type one doesn't allow me that luxury, it just points at all the ways I could have done better and gives me a tsk tsk. It's just a rainy Monday that didn't go quite as expected. We still do our things, feed them good food, tuck them in clean sheets with cozy blankets and sing them a song you made up just for them. Four verses long. 

And we try to let it go as we remember that everything we do here is for heaven's glory and gain. This is you too, you know. Oh it's not a little kid in your care, it might be a co-worker or a family member. It might be a student in your classroom, or a customer you take care of. You love them and serve them and still, they hurt you. Or throw your kindness in your face. They betray you with their words and it hurts. But remember guys, today and tomorrow and the next, it's all about eternity. Whether you sell fertilizer or luxury vehicles, shop the Target aisles or stock them, we all live today in light and view of that grand Tomorrow when time is no more and so are tears.

But until then silly little baby bears can say what they will and get as mad as they want, because Mama Bear's going to keep making him go potty. 

Sometimes when you know, you just know. 

Today, for example, I walked past a box of Little Debbie Christmas tree cakes. I knew at that moment I was going to eat one. Less than an hour later, I did. 

Or, like I knew 19 years ago as a young college freshman that I would marry the guy I'd been on two dates with. I just knew. Four years later, I walked down the isle and into his arms. 

Then there was the time that I was pregnant with Marlee. I'd picked out her name- Marlee- but had been quite sad about it because I knew she was going to be a boy and my last baby, so I wasn't going to get to use it. After she was born and the doctor declared her a girl, I sent Tony over to verify for himself. So, I was actually wrong on that one,
but I thought I knew. 

I knew the first time I saw the perfect leather chairs sitting in the clearance warehouse that they would move in with me. And they did. 

And I knew the first time I saw my house, that it was home. I just knew it. 

Sometimes you just know. 

Draw close, get cozy, I want to tell you something. I have a friend going through a hard time. It's just hard.
And it just hurts. 

I pray for this friend all the time. A few days ago, this friend came to mind and I prayed, "God, send someone to tell my friend that You see them. That You see them in their pain and in their struggle." Instantly that still small voice of the Holy Spirit whispered, "It's you." 

Sometimes, friends, we don't need to ask the question or pray for the answer we just need to roll up our sleeves and do it. 

If you are wondering who will make that donation? It's you. 
If you are wondering who will volunteer? It's you.
If you are wondering how that financial prayer of a friend will get answered? It's you. 
Hungry kids. You. 
Mission trip. You. 
Needy family. You. 
Widow with home repairs. You.

Many times, I've come to realize, I don't need to pray for the miracle, I just need to be the miracle.  

I'll never forget the time a few years ago we heard of a family in our church who were struggling to make ends meet and couldn't pay all their bills. The minute I heard of their urgent need, I thought of the small stash of money I had tucked away so I could buy some new things for the house we had just built. I didn't even have to think about it, I knew that I had the power to help. So I did. 

I'm not bragging, friends. It still hurt a little, it cost me something. I'm human. But at the end of the day, that money wasn't mine and the whisper of the Holy Spirit saying, "It's you," was incredibly compelling. 

If you are wondering who's going to do it- donate the gifts, pour your change in the bucket, show up, go out of your way, send the text, help out, stay up late, make the call, stay longer, do a little more, be hands on and heads up when there's a need, you don't have to stop and ask. It's you. 


Have you ever had an It's You moment? Tell us about it!
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This year has been deeply segmented. The winter with our first foster. Unexpectedly selling our house, living with my sister-in-law for a month and then finally moving into our new house in May. That all seems like distant memory somehow as we have now also had a football season segment, new school segment and most recently a new foster kid segment. 

While we were living at the mercy of our family- who were absolute rockstarts to let 7 people move into their house- I took the ennegram test to see how I would score. I was equal parts disappointed and relieved to read the personality description of my number as it pegged me into every hole that I inhabit. 

Some call the ennegram type 1 "The Reformer" and others label us as " The Perfectionist." Perfectionist didn't ring true at first because well, if you saw my housekeeping you'd know better than to believe it. But if you look deeper at some of the things I do- list making, rigid schedule following, straightening, typing and retyping and typing again, you might begin to see a pattern. Maybe. 

Ones are also known for having a strong sense of right and wrong. Here's me handwaving. I always know what ya'll should be doing. It's why I sometimes yell at ya'll. Sorry about that, actually not sorry because you can do better. SEE!? I can't help it. I think I might have actually been yelling at a Bible study I go to when we got to talking about how people who are shopping for "needy" and "foster" kids are looking for the cheapest possible way to check the box, rather than buying a gift as if it were for your own child. Why do these kids deserve the plastic Wal-Marts of the world when your kids get name brand? 

*Bows head, steps off soapbox.*

What you may not know about us type 1 perfectionists, is that we also have extremely high expectations of ourselves and a surly inner critic who lets nothing slide, offers no grace and never lets up the finger pointing at all your faults. 

This blending of bleeding-heart-social-justice-foster-parent, plus being a human  that annoys easily, plus having an unrelenting inner critic usually results in a girl who can never seem to get it right. That has a bad day with her foster and can only see the numerous ways in which she is flawed and incapable of offering love for love's sake. Who wakes up annoyed with the kid and goes to sleep annoyed with herself. 

A few weeks ago I was struggling. Foster parenting was too hard and I'm too bad at it and I just wanted to quit. Sitting in my comfy chair in the dark, pre-dawn the morning after a really hard day, I still felt down. "I feel alone in the fight," I wrote. Then continued, "Lord, YOU tell me this is good and pleasing in your sight and I will feel satisfied to continue." 

Friends, He is a good Father.

Several hours later I was meeting with some clients who adopted all three of their children. We were talking about adoption and foster care and I shared some of my struggles. You wouldn't think a messenger from God would be an older man in jeans and a t-shirt with a rugged white beard and tortise shell glasses, but there he was standing before me delivering a personally written love note from God. 

He said, "God knows you aren't perfect." He paused a minute, "But He's willing to work with You and meet you where you are." 

My inner critic went silent with those words and tears sprang into my eyes. 

Such precise word selection could not be accidental. Perfect. 

Friends, this is why I wrote my little devotional sitting bravely at number 1 million-ish on the Amazon best selling list. Because all of those hours I have poured into reading my Bible and praying have developed a relationship that is undeniably personal. I have begun to learn the sound of His voice, whether it leaps out at me from the pages of His word or drawls out of the mouth of His ordinary messenger. I want this for you too. And you can have it if you will invest in growing a personal relationship with Jesus. My little devotional is a good place to start. 

He sees us, He hears us, He answers us and He loves us. Oh, how He loves. 


If you haven't gotten your copy yet, join in with the ten or so others and grab a copy! I hear it makes a great Christmas gift. 
https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Story-Ten-Days-Truth/dp/1687189099/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2SYZVA9H05TDV&keywords=jenny+smith&qid=1575596166&s=books&sprefix=jenny+smith%2Caps%2C163&sr=1-1

If you want to be among the first to find out when my NEXT devotional is coming, click connect with me to join my insiders group! 

I'm not a quitter. 

Except tonight. 

It's when I get to looking too far into the future that I want to quit. I don't want to have more days like today.

When todays happen, it feels likely there are endless more days that look and feel and yes- smell- like this. The bad daily report from school, the constant picking and fighting between my foster and the others, the endless stream of small talk that it takes to get pants up and buttoned, shoes on, backwards shirt turned around and "don't forget your backpack!".

Last night he told me his teacher gave him underwear because he didn't wear any to school. That's cool. OR NOT. 

How'd that bare bottom feel in blue jeans? I can't even. 

I thought the lactose bathroom problems were bad with the last one, but the current struggles are far worse. I didn't see that coming. 

I already knew from experience that I wasn't going to be good at this. I'm not the Instagram foster mom that takes in a group of four, loves every minute and wants to keep them forever. I'm more of a sleeves-rolled-up-theres-a-job-to-do kinda mom. Fix it and send it home. Only this one is so very broken and abandoned and yet I am bothered by the smell of soiled underwear and tired of his middle of the night calls for "sing me a song" or "rub my back" that are actually a desperate, "love me" and "make me feel loved." 

And I can't seem to. I can't seem to set aside my frustration and annoyance and just meet him where he is in the broken story that turns his eyes into blank spaces. Always, he reaches for my hand and leans into me and I pull away. It's too much touch. Yet, everything he craves. 

I can't give it to him. I can't fix him or satisfy the years of unmet needs that are unraveling before me. I can't make the people in his life do the freaking right thing. I can't make them show up. Or care. Or fix themselves. And in the process I feel like I do more harm than good when the grind of daily life with him makes me want to quit it all. 

I see you. Sometimes it makes me angry because I'm so beaten by my own failing flesh while you shop and plan and get your nails done without a care in the world. Like there aren't kids living in misery with dead eyes and balled fists and tears dripping from their chins. 

It's interesting that my Old Testament reading has me deep in the trenches of Job right now. In one chapter his life is completely destroyed- his fortune is lost, his children crushed to death and his servants all dead except the one who escaped to bring Job the news of his enormous misfortune. I'd say his life is a little more difficult than the paltry family fights and poop in the pants that has me groveling right now. 

Oh, Job. You stalwart heart and wise soul! I wish you could come over tonight and tell me that this is nothing. That my peering into the future to see a whole year of days like today is nothing but a small offering to the One who gave me breath and life and who forgives my own brokenness with a loving and gentle hand. 

"Shall we accept good from God, and not the trouble?" 

Shall we take the charmed life in my country town with stellar schools and churches on every corner. The large and comfortable house and the ability to live a life many can't even fathom, but not the swallowing of me and I and self in the service of a small boy who's wholly innocent in the life that he has been given. 

It's the truth though, isn't it? We only want the good that God has to offer and the hard and painful and refining we want nothing to do with. 

I *thought* I'd had all the refining I could take with the last foster kid, only to find out I'm still a lump of coal and nowhere near the diamond I'd imagined. 

I challenge you and I challenge me to step into the refining. To endure the hard. To tamp down the flesh day after day and to start and end the day like Job with an intrepid and honorable heart that praises God no matter how hard. 

I want to quit. But I won't . 

This Thursday is the one month mark of our new foster's arrival. It's been a learning curve in all areas- learning to live with a fifth school age kid, learning to share life with someone who does not move as fast as we do, learning to let someone learn at their own pace, learning to patiently (or not) teach someone things they should already know. Hard lessons, all of them. 

One of the first things he learned here is about our little device, Alexa, and how she magically plays us the songs we want to hear. Turns out she also plays songs we don't want to hear. When he first started calling Alexa "Aleetha" I thought we had dodged a Baby Shark bullet. Alas, he has figured it out and now Halloween Shark, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed get played on the regular. 

The other day as I was sitting at the table with my calendar trying to figure out how 5 kids plus two parents are going to do all the things next month (this month actually), Lil' Foster Fella started telling Aleetha what to play. 

"Alexa, stop!" I commanded. 
"Hey!" indignant foster said.
"I don't want to listen to Baby Shark again." I said. 
There was silence a moment and then in a small voice, "But I do." 

Guilt. 

"Aleetha, play Baby Shark." I said.  I can't stop calling her Aleetha now. 

You see, selfishness doesn't consider the other person. It only considers me. And every day we all get opportunities to choose what Aleetha plays. Only it might look like letting someone pull out in front of you even though you don't want to let them. Or choosing to be kind to someone who treats you badly. Or picking up behind someone. Or making professional decisions that are the right thing to do, if not the easiest. Or showing up again and again and again for the broken people in your life and family and community. 

Nearly every day we all get to decide who the day is going to be about. Me, or everyone else. 

Very often choosing to follow calling over comfort looks like listening to music that your foster likes even though it's offically on the "never want to hear again" list. The thing is, if "love one another" is your calling (hint: it's everyone's) then you need to start adding their songs to your playlist. In a million ways everyday, the personhood of someone is wrapped in that quiet "But I do." Who are you going to choose? 

Aleetha, play Baby Shark. 

Sigh.