Fosterhood :: Listening for Gods Direction During The Quiet Sadness

"I am after Love that last, not more religion. I want you to know God not go to more prayer meetings." 

Hosea 6:6

Hosea 6:6 in the Bible had me asking myself, "did I know God enough to recognize His work in my life?"  You see, I had no doubt that God lives and works, but I was wondering if He had time to live and work in me. After finding out I could not father a child through natural means, I started asking God for a supernatural intervention. 

I started running in 2011; the turmoil in my life had caused me to gain a lot of weight and not only did running help me start to lose the weight, but it became therapy for me. It started out with me running around my block, one time around and then another and then another. I still had a lot of questions and I felt like I needed the answers before I could move on. Regrettably, I felt there was no one in my world that could relate and could be a sounding board. I have come to refer to this feeling as "The Quiet Sadness." 

It is the feeling of sadness you carry not really knowing that it is in fact sadness. It is the frustration and doubt in your spirit even when your intellect is trying to rightly convince you of the truth you know. It is the most curious of feelings and emotions and it can consume you unless you begin to do something to refocus.

Running became my time to refocus and talk with God. It became a time for me to listen for Him (see my very 1st blog Runners High). I will admit, sometimes I do wish God would speak louder. I don't think my wife actually knew how therapeutic running became in my life. All I can say is that I did not want to burden her more. Our home was going into foreclosure, the bank kept preventing us from short selling and we still had not fully recovered economically to make needed repairs on our roof. Our home was broken into and not only did we have to deal with the loss of things but also the loss of security.

It seemed like with every new stress and strain, my runs got longer and longer. I started to run the Rickenbacker Causeway. I'd get there before sunrise and time it so that just as I got to the summit of the bridge I would see the sun coming up over the horizon. Every time I ran, my thoughts, my conversations with God would go deeper. 

My request before God, for Him to supernaturally heal me, make me well and whole so I could become a father, had yet to be answered by the close of the 2011. So as 2012 started, I was inspired to have one of the longest conversations with God I had up until that point. On January 7th I had my wife drop me off at the southern most point of South Beach and I began to run.

The first three miles took me through great moments in my city. Beautiful moments filled with beautiful architecture, beautiful people and beautiful weather, yet Quiet Sadness was still with me... almost chasing me. As I began mile four my sadness turned to anger. At first I thought my anger was towards God. "How could He be doing this to me?", I asked.   Then my anger shifted.  As I crossed into mile 8, I ran and I realized I was angry at me.  I was upset at myself for being scared to trust God, for the fear that I had allowed to consume my thoughts and for the lie that had become my shadow: that I was less than a man, broken. 

Each mile a new moment with God, a new revelation into me, a cutting away of the quiet sadness. 14 miles run a little less than 1 to get home and I was done. I was tired of the quiet sadness between me and God. I reached out to God, He listened to me, and I felt Him. By the end of my run, my feet hurt, my legs hurt and I was tired, but I had never felt so at peace. 

I could stop running... I was ready to see all the doctors I needed to see and do what ever it took to become a father.  I was determined to have a "Go Plan" for 2012. 

This was not the last time the quiet sadness would come into my life, but when it does, I know what to do...

Fosterhood :: When Later is Now

Prolog :: In January of 2014, I and my wife became unintentinal Foster Parents.  I have kept a journal of some of the more interesting events of this time in our lives. I did not activly blog about them out of concern/ respect for the privacy of my foster son and his biolgical parents. Yet I have come to the decision that Kalvin (not his real name) and others might bennifit from this story.

"I expect to pass through this world but once.
Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness or abilities that I can show to any fellow creature,
let me do it now.
Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."
- William Penn

     I'm not sure of the reasons why families make the decision to become foster parents. Honestly, before becoming one myself I had this thought that I and my wife would foster children much later in our life... much, much, much later. My thinking on the subject was simple, would it not be totally the right thing to do, to care for a child who is hurting and alone ( que the Sarah McLachlan music) when we had more time and money and experience, when we were in our 50's and not our 30's. Even though I know there are children in need now, I would be so much more useful later.

     Later can be dangerous. Unintentionally we all can become really well accuanted with Later. Sure, the obvious laters are decions about weight-loss and wardrobe, marriage and home purchases, children and retirement. Choosing later can create a false sense of control, having symptoms and warning signs of serious illness and ignoring them because of the odd belief that not knowing is better than knowing (smh). Honestly, I find my self sometimes choosing later because it is convenient, it is easy, it is "SAFE". I have come to the determination that living in later is actually dangerous, it can keep you from experiencing some amazing moments right now.  "I have learned that being reckless with my heart, for the sake of some one else, can actually create a very safe place"!

     My wife and I have been trying to start our family for about 8 years. When I turned 25, after being married for 4 years, a magical switch in my head was flipped and I had this compulsion to become a father. After 3 years of trying my wife and I went through fertility testing to discover that I had fertility issues. I think back now on why it took me 3 years to get tested, I can only say that "later" was protecting my from learning I could not do something that was fundamental to being a man. The long story short is that just as I came to terms with this set back and was set to do what ever it would take to become fertile life threw us a curve ball. 

     First my wife lost her job, so we focused on making sure we were debt free to overcome this set back, but within a few months she found a new job and we were ready to get back on track. Then the week of my 30'th birth day, 5 days after setting an appointment to go deeper into discovering what might be the cause of my fertility issues, my architectural firm shut its door as in 1 week the economic mess of 2008 had finally caught up to us.   It took 3 years and 1 conversation for us to get to the place were we could hope to start reviving our dream of children. 

     My Pastor took me out for coffee and reminded me that faith is a muscle and if its not exercised it shrinks, atrophy sets in. As we talked he shared his and his wife's story of struggling through issues of infertility. He reminded me that the dreams of a 28 year old can be realized by a 31 year old if acted upon by the same faith. So fo the next year I meet with a Urologist to see what could be done. I know a year seems like a long time, but between being tested and waiting for results and being treated then retested and waiting results... this cycle went on for a year until every possibility was exhausted.

     When nothing could be done to improve my fertility, my wife and I decided that we would adopt. We both knew we were called to be parents. We believe God was inviting us to say yes to his invitation to become parents to the parentless.  There was a lot of things that transpired to get us to the place and decision to foster. We started our parental journey wanting to go through a privat adoption agency, but here is the thing...

"Sometimes what you want is hidden in what you need and you wont understand that until you make yourself available."