Sisters

My daughter, Mary Susannah, wrote a beautiful tribute to her little sister Angel-Leah, on the day before Angel-Leah's ninth birthday! 
Check it out, here:

http://suesuesstories.blogspot.com/2012/09/little-angel.html

When my heart's overwhelmed...

Here my cry, O God, attend unto my prayer.
From the end of the earth to Thee I cry;
When my heart's o'erwhelmed lead me to the rock that's higher,
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I

(Psalm 61:1-4)

Sometimes, life just isn't fair...  Sometimes, it overwhelms...

Last July, I got a phone call from CPS.  My son Luke's three siblings were in foster care, and the parental rights had just been terminated.  Would I be interesting in adopting them, I was asked?
Quite the question right out of the blue, but once I got my breath back, I said, without hesitation (and after asking my husband): "YES!!"

So my name was passed to the children's social worker, but before he could call me, there was a problem with the adolescent boy in the group.  A problem that made it impossible for us to take him.  I wanted too, but I had to keep the children already in my home safe.
They tried hard to change my mind.  They told me of door locks and door alarms, and not letting him out of my sight.  But I am a scatterbrained, easily distracted person, and I knew I was not able to do this.  When they accepted that my no was no, they told me simply that it was all the children or none of them.  They would look elsewhere.

I didn't hear from anyone for three weeks, then I got another call: the judge said separate the children.  Was I still interested in the girls?
My answer, again?  "YES!!"

The fact was, the older sister, who was about to turn 15 years old, had been in my oldest daughters foster home back several years ago.  I had tried to adopt her and the brother back then, but in the end, they were returned to their mother and her boyfriend.  But mom gave up her baby, who I didn't even know had been conceived when we started the process, and he is now my son, Luke.  The littlest sister, who is five, had not been born when we adopted Luke, who is now seven.  I still wanted this older girl, even though I knew she had been through terrible things since the last time I saw her, and now she was nearly grown.   And I was happy to take the younger one, too

So we were directed to a Christian adoption agency.  Soon, we were taking classes, getting TB tests and visiting an office to get FBI fingerprints done, having our backgrounds checked, taking CPR classes, and all sorts of things, at our own expense of course, but we didn't mind.

After a few weeks of this, we were finally given permission to visit the girls, and we began to have them over almost every weekend.  They were thrilled to see their brother, although the older girl had just about forgotten she had a little brother, and the little one had never been told about him.  The older girl held Luke and sobbed when they were reunited.

I won't say it was easy all the time to have them over.  They were certainly different from my own children.  But we were having fun, and bonding in the meantime.  Both girls freely expressed that they really, really wanted to live with us.  The older one remembered coming to our house and milking cows and playing with our kittens.  She had fun getting to know us again.  I was thrilled with the whole thing.

So we went through the whole process, even buying a building and adding it to our house because we needed a bit more room.  We were assured we were the only family they were looking at...

We turned in our homestudy, and suddenly it all came to a screeching halt as the girls were in the process of being transferred from the foster unit to the adoption unit.

I got a call telling me that they had moved too quickly.  That someone had made a mistake.  That we should never have been called so early...

That CPS wanted to reinvestigate putting the girls back with their brother.  That it was all on hold, even though it had been hinted to us that they might be moving in over Christmas break.

I was crushed with the phone call.  So was foster mom.  What I was told and what she was told were different things and not adding up...

As I took the girls back to their foster home last Sunday, I talked to the older girl a bit, telling her I wasn't sure it was going to work out after all, because CPS wanted to think about putting her back with her brother.  "That will take about five years," she replied.  Then she turned her whole body towards me and said, "You are the only one who wants me."

Friday, I got a call.  We had been turned down as a placement for the older girl by CPS.  Even though they were the ones who called and asked us to take them in the first place.  The adoption agency had asked CPS if they could reassess our homestudy to see if it could work out.
"Don't bother."  CPS said.
I declined coming into the office for a meeting, because I was told it wouldn't do any good.

Since that time, I have learned in a round about way what seems to be the reason we were turned down:

We are too "strictly religious".   CPS doesn't believe the older girl can acclimate to a household like ours: headcoverings, dresses only, no TV, etc...
Even though she wanted to be here, knowing us well.
Even though she seemed at ease with it all, and in fact, was already imitating us.
Even though I expected that once she had been here a while, she might rebel against it.  I had even talked with the person doing our classes, and gone over how I would handle that.
CPS was afraid rebellion against our "religious lifestyle" would cause us to disrupt the adoption.

This decision was made by people who did not know us, and had never seen us with the girls.

But the decision is made, they tell me.  We will not be allowed to adopt them.  They will look elsewhere, to strangers.  Guess the older girl won't rebel then, right?

However, they encourage us to continue visiting them so they can know their brother.  Once a month, or less, they say.

All weekend, I've been trying to make sense of it all.  I hadn't cried this time.  For the past two weeks, I have figured they were going to turn us down.  I've even talked to God in my prayers about it.  I was pretty calm, I thought.

Then this morning in church, we sang Psalm 61, up at the beginning of this blog.  As we sang this song, tears stung my eyes, and my throat closed up until I could bearly sing.
"We shall abide there before our God forever, mercy and truth preserve our souls in Him.  We shall sing praise unto His name forever, Daily perform our vows and laud His fame.  Hear my cry, O God, attend unto my prayer.  From the end of the earth to Thee I cry; When my heart's o'erwhelmed lead me to the rock that's higher, Lead me to the rock that is higher than I."

Suddenly, I knew, this might not be over.  I am still allowed to see this girl I have tried to adopt twice.  If I cannot have her in my home, where I could finish raising her and try to love and heal her, then I will do that with the visits we will be allowed to have.  Who knows if mentoring her in this way might not work better than actually parenting her?  I am disappointed, but I trust my God.  He knows what he's doing.  I've prayed enough, even fasted over this, so I have to trust that he is in this disappointing answer.

"I will abide in thy dwelling place forever, I will thee trust and e're thy covert claim.  For thou, O God, hast heard me, thou hast given the heritage of those that fear thy name..."

Pray for us...

My birthday girl

Fifteen years ago last Thursday, my world was rocked by the birth of my seventh child and third girl, Mary Susannah.  When she was born, my first two girls were ages 21 and 18, already married and mothers of children of their own.  There were four boys wild and woolly boys in between, and I was looking forward to having dolls, dishes and pretty long hair to care for again.

When my first two girls were growing up, in fact, up to my fifth child, during whose pregnancy God saved my soul, I was an immature, selfish mother, to say the least.  I loved my children fiercely, having a large family of children has always been my dream, but at the same time, I had swallowed the world's teachings of how to live, which meant I should have lots of "me" time and follow my own selfish interests.  And so I did, and at times I believe my first several children suffered from that.

But the Lord saved me during my pregnancy with my son Spencer, who is now 20 years old, and my life changed dramatically, praise the Lord.  Lots of people thought I had lost my mind, but what I had done was lost my worldly mindset, and Jesus changed my thinking, and I was a "new (wo)man!"

Fast forward a few years later, and I was blessed with another daughter, and I was just thrilled.  I determined she would be my constant companion.  That if I was invited somewhere where children weren't, I just wouldn't go.  And mostly that's what I did.  She went where I went.  We were together ALL THE TIME.  I was so careful what influenced her.  And it has all paid off.  I have a beautiful, mature, grown up acting daughter who never gives me a minute trouble.  She has taken over the kitchen, doing the lion's share of the cooking and all the dishes.  She cleans when she sees a need, not when I tell her too.  She has taken her little sister under her wing (most of the time) to teach her how to be a lady, too.

And lately, she's had the biggest trial of her life with a terrible virus in her eye.  We've been to the doctor every week for two months now, and they just can't seem to heal this up.  So far, they say, it's not sight threatening, but this latest visit told us that the infection has gone deeper, and now it has the potential to become that way.  However, the surface has healed enough that she can use steroids again, which helps with the inflammation and makes her a LOT more comfortable!

So what did my big girl want to do on her birthday?  She wanted to take her birthday money and go thrift store shopping and go to Starbucks, so that's what we did in the early part of the day.  Then we ran Angel-Leah over to piano lessons, where Mary Susannah used her birthday present, the very expensive camera her daddy spoiled her and bought for her, and took some pictures:

Here's Angel-Leah drinking her passion flower tea from Starbucks.  I added this one so you could all see my masterpiece - the sweater I crocheted for her, which took many hours!  It's a bit big still, but she had it in time for Gage's graduation from law school in Virginia last May, and this is the first time we brought it out this year!

We got a cake from Central Market because they don't have dyes in them, but also because they are just amazingly good.  But no dyes means there's not much color to them, so we stopped off at the store and bought pretty flowers with glitter on them, and Mary Susannah did a pretty good job decorating her own birthday cake!

Once daddy was home, we headed off to Babe's Fried Chicken, which sounds like a hole in the wall, but was actually an amazingly good place to eat, and fun, too.
Waiting for a seat, I was sat on:

...which is not unusual...

Mary Susannah let me take this picture.  It's a perfect example of what we have seen for the last two months, because her eye is VERY sensitive to light, and she keeps her hand over it most of the time:

We ate until we were almost sick, then came home to eat again - birthday cake this time!

I wouldn't do this blog justice without adding a picture of handsome Beau, who doesn't care how the cake is decorated, as long as it's good, and there's lots of it!

So happy birthday, Mary Susannah.  It's been a joy watching you grow up, but this birthday makes me very sad, because each year draws the time of us being constant companions closer to an end.

However, I have loved my relationship with my grown girls almost, and maybe even more, as their growing up years, so I am counting on the closeness and fun times continuing throughout our lives!