THE MANY FORMS OF MOTHERHOOD

  • I was sitting in church one day when an announcement blurb came on the screen. It was about making big or small changes that would impact our community. One blurb came on about a foster family in our church body. It was about five minutes long and then the service continued.

    In those five minutes, I so clearly felt the Holy Spirit pull on my heart. I knew I was meant to be a foster mom. I was 22 at the time. I had been married just at a year and had no children of my own. We hadn’t even really talked about kids yet let alone being foster parents. The thought seemed crazy but it was there.

    After service, my husband and I chatted. We had both felt the tug from the Holy Spirit. This is what we were supposed to do. Great. I was hoping he would talk me out of it. But no, this was the path God was placing before us.

    A little over a year later we were a licensed foster family. We’ve now been fostering for seven years. I’ve been a foster mama to kids age 7 to 18 years old. Fostering isn’t for the faint of heart. It is HARD. I’m not going to sugar coat one bit of it. It’s emotionally and physically exhausting. Each kid comes with his blessings and challenges. Each case is uniquely different.

    It’s tough work, but through the fire, God has molded and shaped me. He has grown me and given me a deeper love than I could ever imagine. He has taken my quick temper and do-it-my-way attitude and softened me quite a bit. I’m still quite tenacious. And I will fiercely stand up and for what’s best for my kiddos, but the Lord has also helped me learn how to be gracious and tactful.

  • About a year and a half into my marriage, I started thinking about having kids.

    I’m a planner and even though I wasn’t ready right then, I knew that I wanted to be a mama. I also knew that I was scared to death to give birth and I DIDN’T want a birth like I had seen or heard from so many. Ya know, those Hollywood screaming while cursing the father deals. In my mind, God created birth. He designed the female body to carry a baby to term and to deliver. My body, like any other mammal, was designed to give birth. In the animal kingdom, we don’t see mammals delivering in excruciating pain.

    As I girl, I had watched my mama dog give birth to puppies. She clearly wasn’t super comfortable but she was calm and pup by pup she birthed them, licked them clean, and just followed her instincts. I will never forget it because this was her first litter. It’s not like anyone was telling her what to do. There was no doctor pup in the corner saying it’s time to push.

    So with that in the back of my mind, I started to dig. I enjoy researching, reading, and learning. I KNEW that there had to be a better way to give birth than the conventional western medicine route that ended with a 30% cesarean rate.

    The first thing I stumbled upon was a water birth. I can’t tell you how many YouTube videos I watched of women giving birth in a tub. One night, I turned to my husband and blurted, “I’m going to have a water birth.” He looked at me like I was crazy. We weren’t pregnant, nor were we even trying to conceive…I’m sure this came out of left field (at least to him). My paramedic/firefighter hubs (who was totally medical minded) thought I would probably just have a baby like “normal” people did in a hospital with an OBGYN.

    I hadn’t quite shared my heart that that would NOT be happening. I wasn’t a fan of the western birth design. I knew it wasn’t right for me. And when I know something isn’t a good fit, I’m going to search until I find my fit. So although I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted, I knew a hospital birth was out.

    I knew the hubs would take time to come around to the idea so at 24 years old (almost 2 years before giving birth), I planted the seed that I would be doing things my way…a different way. I still had lots of research to do, more to learn, and God had a mighty work to do in my heart over the next few years…but one thing I can tell you after having three babies is this…birth was designed to be AMAZING.

  • When my first biological baby was a year old, my husband and I decided to start fostering teen boys. I know! SCARY!!

    We had been fostering younger kids but knew that God was leading us to foster teens. So with much dragging of my feet, we said yes and opened our home to teens. Our third teen boy grabbed my heart from the moment he entered my door.

    I took one look and I knew he was meant to be my son. He didn’t know it and I couldn’t just blurt it out for fear of sounding like a crazy person, but yes, I knew he was meant to be mine.

    Less than a year later we adopted that handsome young man. He was 16 at the time and just 11 years younger than me. Is it a bit unconventional? Sure.

    But I’m positive God isn’t worried about being conventional. His plans aren’t for us to fit in. His plans are for us to be set apart. And who am I to argue with his plans?

    (side note: I argue with God a lot. Most of the time His plans are scary and I don’t like them. Second side note: God always wins the argument.)(second side note: if you want to know more about our story or the 6.5 years we fostered, just message me. I’m an open book and would love to share more with you!)

  • I started getting my feet wet with one small 4 x 8 garden in 2018. I had tried in the past to grown things, but needing to focus on grown healthy babies always took more time than I had to give a garden.

    However, in 2018, I decided to give it another go, and low and behold, things grew. I had some dumb luck, I made mistakes, but more than anything, I learned.

    The next year, I added two more beds and grew more veggies. I learned about companion planting, soil health, and square-foot gardening. Again I had wonderful success with certain crops and also learned from mistakes.

    The world was blessed in 2020 with a government shutdown (insert eye roll), which meant I had WAY too much time on my hands.

    My tiny garden of 3 beds exploded to 13 beds + many circular containers. And in 2022 chickens graced our yard.

    Now in 2023, I’m learning about permaculture and food forests, and dreaming of the day I have more than half an acre to grow on.

    My best advice to you if you want to homestead. Is to start learning now. Start in a container on your back porch. Start where you are with what you have. Make mistakes and keep trying.