FACT

10/14/2026

5 year old Dean is a little helper in the kitchen, who enjoys learning how to cook. When outdoors, he loves to ride on his scooter. Dean is currently in foster care, waiting for adoption. Will you join us in prayer that a forever family will be found for Dean?

10/10/2026

Person: Oh, she’s precious! How old is she?

Me: Eight months. She’s crawling everywhere now! 🤍

Person: That’s so exciting! How much longer will she be with you?

Me: I don’t know.

Person: Do you think she’ll go back to her mom?

Me: I don’t know.

Person: What about her dad?

Me: I don’t know.

Person: Is reunification still the goal?

Me: I don’t know.

Person: Will you get to adopt her if she can’t go home?

Me: I don’t know.

Person: Are there relatives who might take her?

Me: I don’t know.

Person: Does CPS have a plan for what happens next?

Me: There are plans. But plans change.

Person: Do you think the people making these decisions understand how attached she is to your family?

Me: I hope so.

Person: What about her brothers and sisters? Won’t they miss her?

Me: More than you know.

Person: If she leaves, will you get to see her again?

Me: I don’t know.

Person: How do you prepare yourself for that?

Me: You can’t.

Person: Doesn’t it scare you to love her this much when you don’t know if she’ll stay?

Me: Every single day.

Person: Then how do you do it?

Me: Because she deserves to be loved without having to promise she’ll stay.

This is foster care.

It’s knowing everything about a child except what tomorrow holds for them. It’s being the person who knows how they like their bottles, what makes them laugh, how to soothe their tears, and which arms they reach for when they’re scared, while having no idea where they’ll be sleeping six months from now.

It’s celebrating milestones while decisions are being made about their future. It’s loving them like they’ll stay forever while knowing you may have to say goodbye.

And it’s answering “I don’t know” a hundred different ways when all your heart wants is certainty.

Our Lou is eight months old. She’s crawling, laughing, growing, and discovering the world. She doesn’t know about courtrooms, case plans, or the uncertainty surrounding her future.

And she shouldn’t have to.

So while the grown-ups work through the things she is far too little to understand, we’ll keep doing what we’ve done from the beginning. We’ll love her. Completely. Without conditions, without guarantees, and without knowing how this story ends.

Because she doesn’t need us to know whether she’s staying. She just needs to know that while she’s here, we’re staying.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord…Jeremiah 29:11

I don’t know what tomorrow holds for our Lou. But I know Who holds her.

10/03/2026

“I am only one,
but still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
but still I can do something;
and because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”

In 2023, roughly 329,000 US children were in foster care.

Over 546,000 children were identified as victims of child abuse or neglect.

About 14% of incarcerated state prison inmates had lived in homes with no parent, one-quarter had parents who abused drugs or alcohol, and more than half did not grow up with both parents.

The CDC states that 83% of sexual-minority adults reported at least one significant adverse childhood household experience (ongoing household substance, physical, or mental abuse).

A large pub med study correlated larger family size with lower su***de mortality.

I am not a perfect parent. I get tired, wired, hormonal, selfish, and wrong.

But I can get up every day and make bacon and change diapers and struggle through algebra and kiss foreheads good night. I can do this.

God help me, I can.

10/02/2026

“I have your baby in the back seat.”

I will never forget the look on her face when I said those words.

A few minutes earlier, I had been sitting in the McDonald’s drive thru when I realized the woman in the car directly in front of me was his mama.

And her newborn son was asleep in my back seat.

For a second I just sat there.

I could have pretended I didn’t see her. I could have grabbed my food, driven home and never told anyone our paths had crossed that day.

Honestly, that probably would have been easier.

But that was his mama.

So I honked.

I got her attention and told her to pull over after she got her food.

And she did.

We pulled into the parking lot and I got out of my car.

“I have your baby in the back seat.”

She hugged me so tight.

And she thanked me.

I still remember that hug.

Then I opened the back door and there he was.

Her perfect little boy.

Her newborn baby sleeping peacefully in his car seat.

Before anyone makes this into something it wasn’t, this was the same mama I already had permission to supervise visits with. No supervision rules were broken.

But the truth?

I didn’t even think about that in the moment.

I wasn’t standing in a McDonald’s parking lot thinking about policies or paperwork.

I was thinking about a mama whose newborn baby was sleeping in my car.

For those few minutes there wasn’t a caseworker standing beside us. There wasn’t a courtroom. Nobody was talking about case plans or permanency or what might happen next.

There were just two women standing beside a car looking at one tiny baby we both cared about.

And one of those women was his mama.

I think about that day a lot because foster care has this way of making people believe there have to be sides.

Her or me.

Biological family or foster family.

Someone wins and somebody loses.

But I was never trying to make her son my son.

I wasn’t competing with her.

I wasn’t hoping she would fail so I could keep her baby.

I was the woman who had been trusted to care for her son during a time when she couldn’t.

That was my role.

And that day I had an opportunity to love his mama too.

So I did.

There is a much longer story behind why that little boy was in my back seat. There were reasons he couldn’t be with her at that time. There were hard things and complicated things that could never be explained in one Facebook post.

But none of those things changed the fact that she was his mother.

I could protect her baby and still have compassion for her.

I could advocate for him and still hug her.

I could understand why he needed to be in foster care and still understand that seeing your newborn baby sleeping in another woman’s car had to hurt in a way I will probably never understand.

Both can be true.

I will never regret honking that horn.

I will never regret pulling over.

I will never regret opening that door and watching a mama look at her baby.

Because foster care was never supposed to be about taking somebody else’s place.

It was about standing in the gap.

Loving a child fiercely while his family walked through something incredibly hard and hoping that somehow, somewhere in all of that brokenness, there could be healing.

And standing there in a McDonald’s parking lot that day, I had a chance to show someone the love of Jesus.

I didn’t quote Scripture.

I didn’t preach to her.

I didn’t remind her why her baby was in my car instead of hers.

I just opened the door.

And let a mama see her baby.

Sometimes showing someone Jesus really is that simple.

And I would do it again.

10/01/2026

09/26/2026

It is so important to be able to connect with community and seek out rest in our lives. The household dynamics of Foster and Adoptive families can create unique challenges to make these needs a reality.

This weekend I am blessed by attending an annual Foster and Adoptive Mom’s retreat. This weekend creates opportunities for Mom’s to connect with other women who have a unique understanding to their life circumstances. There’s also some times of good fun and Biblical teaching organized by our hosts, Embrace Texas and their team of volunteers.

This weekend will be better when it is covered by your prayers. Please join me in praying over the following…
-Bless our speaker Mel, with wisdom through the Holy Spirit as she speaks Godly counsel and encouragement at our sessions
-God would provide healthy connections between Moms as they share times together
-Health and Safety over our travels
-It would be a time of refreshing Spiritually, Emotionally, and Physically
-Our families at home would be at peace and all their needs be met
-Those who have yet to accept Jesus as Lord would have the hunger, willingness, and opportunity to do so
-Moms would be able to return to with hope, encouragement, and a desire to find their refuge in The Lord