It's okay to not be okay.

4:25am and Dave is coughing in his sleep one minute and talking in his sleep the next.   My first instinct is to be annoyed…not that he can help it by any means but I had a good 90 minutes of sleep left in me and for the first time in a few days our littlest friend slept through the night.   I toss and turn and finally pick up my all too convenient smartphone and start the Facebook scroll down.

 I find my heart aching as I read a post from a fellow foster mama whose heart is missing a past friend and knowing all too well what that ache in the middle of the night feels like.   I scroll down some more and read a new foster mama's blog as they are just beginning their journey and the feelings that come along with the countless visits and appointments  that also come with your friend along with the uncertainty of that sweet one's future and once again, my heart aches because I felt like that paragraph was written by me right now in this stage of life.    I read a message from another foster mama who struggles to understand why such behaviors are tolerated on the bio parents behalf and while I wished it surprised me, but it didn't.   And so at this point, I just decided sleep was in evident and maybe this was my cue to get up and dive into this amazing Bible study I have failed so deeply at getting into.   As I walked down the chilly hallway I felt this tug on my heart to type this blog…this blog I've honestly put off for almost two weeks ago for some unknown fear and I decided,  God obviously drove me out of my deep and a restful sleep for a reason, and this must be it.  So friends, here you have it…

It's okay to not be okay.

So many people assume that foster parents come with super powers or quite possibly a lack of emotions where we are easily able to turn our heart strings off when we take in, love on and say goodbye to a dear friend.  I could tell you endless stories on the dreaded "I could never foster parent, I just don't have the strength like you do…." I loathe that statement by the way.  It makes me cringe and I'm quite confident that my face even scrunches up at this stage in fostering when someone says it….at some point my face will probably just remold into that same expression for life.  

What so many don't understand is the pain and the whole realm of emotions that come along with fostering.   My Monday started off great and ended pretty crummy.    Although I was exhausted because my sweet friend slept about a total of 4 hours total in short increments the night before, I was ready to lock myself into my quiet office on this rainy day and be productive.   That productivity soon turned into taking 2 kids and myself to the doctor, getting chest x-rays and walking the hospital at 5:05pm looking for the last X-ray technician on duty, and picking up my own sweet boy from his after school program at 5:35pm (an hour later than normal) all to  head back to work at 6:30pm to make up for the lost time that afternoon and get ready for the start of a new month.  

As I think about yesterday my mind goes all over.   What started out as calm and peaceful turned into chaos.  If I could describe every emotion I felt yesterday it would be these:  joy, calm, anxious, frustration, bitterness, sadness, worry, anger, frustration, frustration, frustration, frustration and frustration.  

I never expected as a foster mom to be treated like a criminal by the bio family and I'll be honest, it stinks for so many reasons.  It stinks because there are days when I feel like my own son is robbed of his mama so I can be a mama to somebody else's child and then treated like dirt for doing so.   It stinks because there are days when you just don't know if this new friend is the right fit to your already chaotic family and while God has provided more than you can ever imagine, this new little friend is so afraid of being loved and accepted that he pushes you away and builds another wall.   It stinks because you lie awake a night wondering the fate of your past friends, current friends and future friends and honestly that weight on your heart makes it hard to breathe.    I'm just going to be brutally honest here…

Fostering stinks.   It does.   Anyone will tell you that.  It stinks because you are forced to be selfless in a world of selfish and you are thrown into circuses where you have zero control and all you can do is pray, cry, vent, and repeat.  

We didn't sign up to foster for the cushy life.  We didn't sign up to foster to be comfortable.  We signed up to foster because there is a need and a big one friends.   We don't have superhero powers, we don't have a lack of emotions in us, we aren't any different from you and quite frankly there are days when I have to remind myself that

It's okay to not be okay.  

It's okay to break down and ask for prayers.  It's okay to be completely transparent and show the world that you are tired, frustrated, hurting and scared.   It's okay to be angry (to a degree) if that anger can be channeled into something moldable, something that can make a difference.   It's okay to ask your peers and family to pray with you on this often times shaky journey.   It's okay to just say "I'm tired of this".   It's okay to miss your old life.  The life where while it had its tough days, you weren't forced to know the struggles that these kids face each and every day of their life.   The fear of being loved.  

It's okay to not be okay.

It's not okay to continue to not be okay though.

And that is where I'm at this morning pleading for your prayers in our time of weakness and exhaustion.  Not just prayers for our family, but prayers for the other foster families and the brokeness of our system.    We feel them.  We do.  

Welcome to our circus friends.