Glimpses of Redemption.

  I've only been surfing twice and loved it both times.  It's exhilarating.  Of course, having only been twice, I didn't spend a lot of time actually up on the surf board.  I've probably only actually ridden two or three waves.  Much of the rest of the time was spent being rolled on the sandy bottom of the ocean hoping that I surfaced before I inhaled.  But those few times when I actually managed to catch a wave, maintain my balance, and experience a moment on top before falling off?  Those were incredible.

  This is what popped into my head when I thought about the last year and a half.  I feel like a lot of it I have spent being rolled on the sandy floor.  Between Bella's cancer, adding four kids to our family in a year and a half, emergency room visits, finding out about Tootaw's challenges and all it will take to address them, the ups and downs, downs, downs of Bella and Tootaw's case, all of the food issues and trauma behaviors, and, well, just being a mama to four (now five!) kids five and under - I've done a lot of rolling and holding my breath.

  I've spent a lot of it in snippets of prayer.
Jesus, please just give me grace for this.  Just for this moment.
Give me trust.  Just for this moment.
Give me perseverance, just for this trial.
Carry me?  Please?
I cannot do this.  Give me strength outside of my own.

  And He has.  He gives me grace enough to get up and get my balance long enough to see Him working in all of this.  To catch my breath before I inhale the water.  I get up on my board long enough to be able to see the wave from the top, to see how He is using it to move us to where we need to be.  And not only that, but also to see that He is very clearly using my time rolling on the sandy bottom to refine me, to move me, and to make me better at staying on my board.
He gives me glimpses of His work, His redemption, and shovel fulls of His grace, without which I would have long since drowned.


  All that to say, that yesterday (for the second time this week!) He gave me a view from the top of the wave.

Yesterday was the girls' hearing.  It's hard for me to really decipher if I had just given up hope of something productive happening, or if I had actually just decided to trust regardless of what happened (although one sounds so much more Christlike, no?), but I fully expected to hear that Mom had done just the very bare minimum, enough to extend the case for another unknown number of months.

But...

I got a call from our worker yesterday telling us that Mom hadn't even shown up for the hearing (or for the girls visit later that day) and that since she wasn't present, they had no choice but to

set the case for termination.

They set a trial for March 14th.  I can't tell you how unexpected that was.  Not because it isn't what needs to happen - it is - but because things so rarely go as they should in foster care.

Praise God.  A glimpse of things from the top of the wave.  Seeing Him working all things together for the good of those who love Him.  Progress.

It's difficult knowing the depth of the brokenness that exists in order for this all to occur, and the brokenness that is still to come as we continue to move forward.  This is not what God intended for families.  The brokenness of attachment is not what He meant for His children.

But in the brokenness that is our world, that is foster care, that is the root of adoption, we also see glimpses of His healing, glimpses of His deep, deep love,

Glimpses of Redemption.