Love Each Child

Respite Care Update

by steve

We still have about 21 hours to go in our first respite care experience, but I just needed to post a brief update to thank those of you who have been praying.

We have been having a blast so far, and I don’t want it to end. My heart is already hurting at the thought of having to give this dear little one back to the foster mom tomorrow! Is that selfish of me??

Like I mentioned in my last post, we are being careful about what details we divulge, but I can tell you this much, Little Girl has stolen our hearts! (Christy said it was probably ok to divulge the gender, even though I’ll leave the other details out. She is somewhere between 10 and 18 months old, just to give you some idea of her age.)

Brief synopsis so far:

• Little Girl arrived Friday morning around 9:00 AM. She cried for a few minutes when her foster mommy left, but she quickly settled down in Christy’s arms.
• I had to work some, but since I had 90 minutes free at lunch, I raced home just to see her again.
• Last night, she slept for 12 hours! Foster mommy had said that Little Girl wasn’t sleeping very well. But she also told us that the trend has been for Little Girl to sleep well during respite care. I’m not sure why this is, but it has been true for us, too.
• Even after sleeping for 12 hours, she still took a 3-hour nap this afternoon! When she’s been awake, she has mostly been content to be held by one of us. Occasionally, she has played and moved around the house, but mostly, she loves being held. We sure don’t mind complying with that!
• For a short period of time this afternoon, we took a ride in the car to go see some of the leaves in the area. (This week was the peak week for leaf colors here our part of the Blue Ridge mountains, and so we wanted to get out and enjoy that.) She absolutely loved riding in the car and proceeded to “talk” and “sing” almost the entire time!
• Tonight, we hosted our home fellowship, and it was a great time. She quickly won the hearts of others in the group, too.

I’m sitting here watching Christy rock her to sleep since it’s about bedtime for her. And my heart is full of all kinds of emotion. Tears are right below the surface as I take in all that is going on here. (Actually, I’ve already had to wipe a few away.)

I asked you to pray for our weekend. Now I’m asking for prayer for the strength to let her go tomorrow. There’s a chance that Little Girl will be eligible for adoption in the near future. We didn’t have any idea about this when we agreed to keep her this weekend.

Is there a chance? I don’t know. But if you asked me now whether or not I would want that, I know what my answer would be. With no hesitation.

Lord, only you are able to be there at every moment for Little Girl. Hold her in your arms. Protect her. And whether or not it ends up being ours, prepare the perfect home for her when the time is right. Thank you for giving us this weekend with her, and for using her to confirm the desire in our hearts. Bless her foster family for all that they are doing for her. And prepare their hearts, too, for whatever happens.

Goodnight, Little Girl. Sweet dreams.