EMILY
As it turned out, I really didn’t have to worry about being a foster family without foster children. The need for foster parents is so great that long waits between placements never happen. Ever. The day we said goodbye to Trevor and Ella, we were asked to take on a short-term placement for a two-year-old boy and his newborn baby brother going through drug withdrawals. At the same time, we also committed to taking in a three-year-old boy with behavior problems.
The two-year-old came to us first—his brother was still in the NICU. I visited the baby in the hospital for snuggles and love as often as I could. The two-year-old had his own struggles. His caseworker warned us that he was extremely small for his age and most likely malnourished. I had a sandwich, cookies, and chocolate PediaSure shakes waiting for him the day he arrived. As soon as he came into our home, we could see the tiny boy’s ribs through his shirt. He barely said a word but looked around wide-eyed, quiet and withdrawn. He clapped and smiled when he saw the food but still could barely even pick at the cookie.
The three-year-old came the next day. The first few days he was pretty good, but we had a feeling we were in the “honeymoon phase.” This is what they refer to when you first get a foster child. They are on their best behavior because they aren’t yet comfortable enough to reveal their true feelings and behaviors. After the honeymoon period, maybe three days, this boy blew around our house like a tornado. His caseworker wasn’t kidding about behavior problems. Multiple times a day he went into full-blown screaming, panic mode. He hit, scratched, and pulled hair every day. Once, he picked up a Pyrex glass bowl and launched it at the two-year-old’s feet. I was grateful when the two-year-old and his brother were taken to a different home, solely because I feared for what could happen when the three-year-old was in one of his destructive moods. He had to have our full and undivided attention, which meant we could not take on any more placements.
Within a month the three-year-old’s behavior started to calm down. We saw small changes, along with far less physical aggression. Day by day he started to trust us. He stopped fighting as much. Let me also add that the little guy’s behavior did not shock us, nor did it scare us off. We knew that kids who need the most love ask for it in the most unloving ways. Every child who finds himself or herself in foster care has gone through trauma. They need love and stability in their lives even though they often don’t know how to respond to either. When the three-year-old lashed out at us, we knew it wasn’t about us. He’d been through a lot. No foster parent in their right mind ever expects a child to come into their home and behave like a perfect angel. I knew from experience how God loves me when I am at my worst and how his love can change a life. That’s why he called us to be foster parents, so that he can love hurting children through us.
Once the three-year-old’s behavior improved, Chris and I felt God leading us to do more. We’d already been contacted about taking on more placements. Before saying yes or no, we always prayed over each call. We said no to a few that didn’t feel right while we were working through our little boy’s behavior. We wanted our next placement to feel as though it was part of God’s plan.
We went through a few weeks where we received no placement calls. Rather than fret, we waited for God to bring the right children to us. Then a call came about a sibling group—a one-year-old boy, a three-year-old girl, and a four-year-old girl. Chris and I looked at one another and instantly knew we would take them. I was very surprised when Chris was willing to say yes to this placement. He was starting to love foster care as much as I did.
The thought of caring for three more kids in addition to the three-year-old already living with us was very intimidating. Even though Chris and I felt ready and willing to help other kids, every placement brings a new set of challenges and unknowns. What will the kids be like? How will this affect our three-year-old? How will our lives change? Do we have what it takes? We kept reminding each other of a message we had recently heard at church: “God doesn’t call the qualified; he qualifies the called.” Both of us had peace that if God wanted us to do something, he would equip us with what we needed and would take care of the details.
The only problem was, we didn’t have a vehicle big enough to carry all our new children. Both Chris’s van and my car only had three seats in the back. But that wasn’t a problem we couldn’t overcome. “We are going to get a bigger vehicle,” I told the caseworker. “We’ll take the two oldest kids, then get the younger brother as soon as we get the car.”
We drove to a car dealership as soon as we could and bought a giant used SUV that fit eight people. We then went on a shopping spree and practically bought a new wardrobe for each of our new foster kids. Since Christmas was right around the corner, I also hurried to shop and wrap as many presents as I could so the kids would have a nice holiday.
The kids hadn’t lived with us for a week when we found out an aunt had stepped forward to take them. We had everything ready to care for four kids, and now they were leaving. Even the Christmas presents I’d bought were left behind.
Somehow, I wasn’t discouraged. “This was not a waste,” I said to Chris. “I know God had us do this for a reason. I just have a feeling that we’re going to get another placement that will make all this work worth the effort.”
CHRIS
By the end of the year, my apprehension toward foster parenting had completely evaporated. I had given up on my idea of only taking in one child under two long ago. Caring for the three-year-old with behavior problems gave me the trial by fire I needed to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Our lives became like foster parenting boot camp. Emily read child development books and offered me tips and ideas to help us cope with the boy’s destructive behavior. Saying yes to the three-child placement was a huge step for me. Had we received that call even a week or two earlier, I don’t think I could have said yes. God still had work to do in preparing my heart.
When the three kids went to live with their aunt, Emily and I left our three-year-old in respite care and joined Emily’s family on vacation in Turks and Caicos. We had just arrived at the beach and were in the middle of transferring me out of the car when I noticed Emily checking her phone.
“Chris, you need to take a look at this,” she said, her voice serious.
I grabbed her phone and noticed she had a text message from our licensing agency. “Sorry to bother you on vacation,” she said. “We had four girls come into care, ages one, four, six, and eight. Can you help at all?”
I gulped. “Four is a lot.”
As much as I had grown comfortable with living outside my comfort zone, the idea of having five kids in our house scared me. Plus, caring for school-age children was not what I had in mind. Besides taking care of Whittley, I had zero experience with kids older than three and before that had zero experience with kids under three.
“I don’t know, Chris,” Emily sighed. “It sounds like these kids really need help.” Our caseworker gave us more details about their case. The children’s mother had passed away, and now their grandpa who had taken them in was dying. As Emily read these details to me, tears welled up in her eyes. I could tell she was doing her best not to cry, but it wasn’t working.
“I know they need help,” I said, trying not to seem heartless, but I had some real concerns. “I just don’t know anything about how to raise school-age kids. I don’t know how parenting them from a wheelchair would even work. We’d have to figure all that out while we’re also trying to get the hang of juggling five kids.”
“Okay,” Emily replied. Emily received a message saying they think they found placement for the oldest child. The look in her eyes told me her mind was racing. “Well, what if we take the three younger kids? We were going to have four kids anyway before the other kids went to live with their aunt.”
“I can live with that,” I said.
Emily whipped out her phone to text our caseworker. “Wait a second,” she said a few moments later. “I recognize these names.”
“What?”
“The caseworker just told me the three youngest kids’ names, and the name of the six-year-old sounds so familiar.” Emily frowned, deep in thought. “There was a girl with that name when I worked at the group home.” Emily had since quit the group home to devote herself to being a full-time foster mother. “I doubt it could be them, but I’m just going to ask her for the eight-year-old’s name.”
“There’s no way it could possibly be them,” I said. “That would be nuts.”
Moments later, Emily burst into tears. “Oh my gosh, Chris, it’s them.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “But . . . how could this happen?”
“It’s Cali and Sara,” she sobbed. “You know when I quit that I was sadder about leaving them than anyone else.”
I held her silently as she cried on my chest right there on the beach. It was hard not to believe that somehow God had arranged all this, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that caring for five kids was more than we could handle.
“We can’t let them separate these girls,” Emily said, looking up at me. “We’ve got to do something. We’ve got to take these girls.”
As much as it killed me, I had to put my foot down, or as I like to say, put my tire down. “Absolutely not, Emily,” I said. This was how our relationship worked. Emily followed her heart; I followed my logic. “We cannot take in four kids. Especially not four kids who have been through so much. We would be crazy to do that.”
I thought Emily would nod in agreement and acknowledge that I was right. But instead, she stood back and stared at me in disbelief. “How can you not want to help them when you know they need us?”
I had every reason to say no. “It’s not just the extra four kids. I love fostering, but taking care of all of them with my physical limitations … Emily, you would have to take care of all of us, cook seven meals, get seven people up in the morning, grocery shop for seven, drive everyone everywhere they need to go and, oh, on top of that, take care of our dog just for starters. I also feel guilty because when you need a break or get overwhelmed, I can’t take over for you, to say nothing of the stress it will put on our relationship and how little time we could spend together.
“Our families live in Iowa, and we are in Florida,” I continued. “Think about how it might impact me and my speaking career. That’s what I love and what gives me purpose. We are months away from our wedding. We still have a lot of planning to do. I just don’t see how this can work.” After I finished, I thought to myself, How could anyone disagree with my logic?
Emily looked at me, completely disgusted. “I can’t even talk to you right now,” she sobbed before she turned and ran down the beach.
EMILY
As soon as I heard those girls’ names, I felt in my bones that we were supposed to take them. It all made sense. God had clearly placed me at the group home at exactly the right time so I could meet them and bond with them. And it wasn’t a coincidence that months earlier, I had this feeling that God wanted us to take on more kids. Literally the night before, Chris and I had been outside, looking at stars, when I told him I had this strong feeling God was about to use us in a huge way. I thought we might get a call about twins, a drug addicted baby, or a sibling group of four kids. At that moment, Chris obviously thought I was crazy. But I thought back to the night before and just knew this was God’s plan. Why else would we have bought the eight-passenger SUV or all those Christmas presents with no one to receive them? All our preparation was to get us ready for these girls. But Chris didn’t see it.
I cried hysterically as I ran down the beach, eventually collapsing to my knees. I was devastated to hear what these girls had gone through since I last saw them. My heart was shattered, thinking about all the pain and loss they had endured in their short lives. God, I know in my heart you want us to take these kids, I prayed. Please give Chris strength to know that we can do this and give him peace that this is all part of your plan.
I saw my older brother Michael running down to the beach toward me. “Emily, what’s wrong? Let’s talk.”
I told him about the text I’d received. “Chris doesn’t want to take in the four kids. He thinks it’s too much.”
“You’ve got to do this the right way, Em,” Michael said. “Don’t fight him. You need to go down there and explain to him more in depth about how much you care about these girls and how connected you are.”
I knew Michael was right. My mind-set switched from devastation to action. I was going to do everything in my power to help these kids heal and know God. And that began with talking to Chris and trying to change his mind.
CHRIS
I felt I’d made a convincing case until Emily took off running down the beach, crying. Then I thought about one of the key verses at our church, Isaiah 54:2 (NIV): “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.” The verse sounded so inspirational before. Now it sounded convicting. It was as if God was asking me to stretch out my tent and trust him to take care of the rest. I realized I wasn’t saying no to Emily. I was saying no to God.
I thought back through my winning logic. I said I was worried about Emily, but I had already witnessed the incredible transformations in kids’ lives she’d already made. I had no doubt God made her for this. Then why did I say no? Plus, Emily had been so right about Whittley, and every other child we had brought into our care. I needed to step out in faith once more.
Emily returned a few minutes later, much calmer now. She laid out her case for me. Rather than shoot her down, I took a deep breath and said, “If you think we can do this, then I think we can too. Let’s do it.”
EMILY
We returned home from Turks and Caicos just three days before the girls were set to move in. Chris’s parents were in town celebrating Christmas with us, and meanwhile, we had to round up the supplies we’d need for our exploding family while also caring for the three-year-old already in our home.
One particularly pressing need was bunk beds. We didn’t have enough places for everyone to sleep, and there wasn’t enough time to order beds online, where they were much cheaper than the local furniture stores. I posted in a Facebook group for local foster families, asking if anyone had a bunk bed I could use, not really expecting a response. Within an hour a woman texted me saying she had brand new bunk beds sitting in her garage that we could have for free. I felt chills down my spine. This was confirmation from God once again that we were following his will.
The girls arrived on December 26—Cali, Sara, Sam, Haley. The only clothes they had were what they were wearing. All four each only brought one Christmas present. They left everything else behind. I found out later that their aunt purposely didn’t send anything for fear that whoever they were placed with would steal their belongings. Luckily, we already had piles of presents waiting for them. We expected them to be emotional messes after leaving their family, their grandpa passing away, and all they had endured. We braced ourselves for the worst, but surprisingly, they were excited to be here. When the two oldest, Cali and Sara, got here, they screamed, “Miss Emily! Miss Emily!” and ran to give me a hug. Cali, the oldest, was used to being the mom. When the caseworker left, the youngest, Haley, screamed and cried, so Cali quickly picked her up. Haley was feisty—she hit, scratched, and would spit at you if she got mad. Sara had a loud and big personality. Sam was sweet, quiet, and much more reserved than her sisters.
The next few days were an intense rush of finding clothes that fit everyone and getting the girls settled in their rooms. The girls’ grandpa had died on Christmas Eve. A few days later, I drove the girls nearly four hours so they could be there for his funeral. I had to bring the girls to the funeral to let them grieve and be with family. I thought back to losing my Grandma Max, and my heart ached even more for these girls.
All of this was just the beginning. There was no getting around it—having five kids was crazy, but I loved it. There were so many moments when I threw up my hands and prayed, God, I need you right now because I absolutely cannot do this alone. But even in the midst of the insanity, I felt this overwhelming sense of peace. I knew God brought us these girls for a reason, and I was determined to give them all the love and help they needed.
CHRIS
Before we brought foster children into our home, I thought parenting younger kids from a wheelchair would be next to impossible. I couldn’t pick them up to comfort them or even yank them out of harm’s way. But in time I realized there are also major advantages. They’re too young to give my wheelchair a second thought, beyond getting excited about riding in it with me.
When the girls moved in, it was a different story. I don’t know if they had ever met someone in a wheelchair. They looked at me with an attitude of “You’re weird. You’re in a wheelchair.” They made blunt, offhand comments as if they were nothing. “Why are you marrying him?” they’d ask Emily, even though I was right there. “He can’t even walk.”
The first few years after my injury, while I was searching for self-worth, I certainly would have been offended, but I have learned walking isn’t the most important thing in life and wasn’t important to a woman like Emily. I brushed it off because I knew they didn’t know any better. I also knew we could use this conversation to show how your adversity or circumstances don’t define you or dictate your worth, which these girls needed to know, given what they had been through.
Once, in the middle of a conversation about Halloween, I mentioned how much I loved trick-or-treating. The oldest girl put her hand on her hip and scowled at me. “How can you have fun?” she asked scornfully. “You can’t walk.”
I told her, “The best part of trick or treating has nothing to do with walking. It’s about dressing up, spending time with family and friends, and getting candy. How you get there is irrelevant. I focus on what I can do instead of what I can’t. You don’t have to walk to have fun.” I think it clicked for her.
Once we got past their shock of having a new foster dad who couldn’t walk, my being in a wheelchair gave me something in common with the kids. I understood what it was like for life to be unfair and to experience a terrible situation I didn’t deserve. I was living proof that adversity doesn’t have to define you and that, with God, you can overcome anything life throws at you. The kids’ reactions to my wheelchair also gave me a healthy dose of perspective. I looked at their situations and felt they had it worse than me. They looked at me and thought I was way worse off than they were, hands down.
Because of my limitations, I was forced to get creative. I became an expert at describing how to dress yourself, or how to adjust a toy or open a jar. I learned that if I built strong relationships with them, they would listen and obey, even though I couldn’t physically force them to do anything.
I came to see myself as the family cheerleader who tried to stay upbeat as much as possible, which is actually what I felt I had to be, since my injury, with Emily, family, and friends. Sometimes, though, I found myself wishing I could play with the kids in the pool, or wrestle in the living room, or toss a football in the backyard. It was easy for me to fall into a victim mind-set, even after years of life in a wheelchair. Once again, I forced myself to remember that lesson I’d learned in the helicopter, struggling to breathe. Don’t focus on what you can’t do. Focus on what you can do.
EMILY
Becoming a foster parent was the best thing I have ever done. I finally found my purpose and reason for being alive. After so many years of pretending I had it all together and relying on myself for everything, I now didn’t have a choice but to put everything in God’s hands. Taking in kids who needed help removed any charade of knowing what the future held or controlling my own destiny. We had five children with challenging behaviors and no clue when or if they would be reunited with their families. I had to let God take control, because there was no way I could navigate these waters on my own.
Not so long ago, that kind of surrender would have been impossible. If I had attempted to foster while I was in the throes of my depression or before I gave my life to God, I would still be grasping for any shred of control I could get. I could not have continued to be a foster parent if I carried the weight on my shoulders like I used to. I knew God had me wait for exactly this moment. As crazy as it might sound, I was actually grateful for my experience with depression because it prepared me to let God take the reins.
Parenting school-age children also revealed that God allowed me to go through my depression for a specific purpose. I remembered what it was like to bury my feelings and refuse to talk about my struggles. I had pushed away everyone who cared about me. When our oldest foster daughter did the same thing, I saw right through it.
One night I was hanging out with Marisa in our living room and listening to music when it turned into a dance party, as music often does when you have kids. Out of nowhere, the two oldest girls broke into dance moves they must have seen on TV or from an older girl, because they were inappropriate for girls their age. All I said was, “You can’t dance like that. That’s not appropriate,” but I might as well have told them to get out of my house, because the oldest completely freaked out. She became so upset, I could not reason with her. I could tell from the look on her face that she had shut down and entered full-on fight mode.
I took her in the other room as she screamed at me, “I hate you! This is the worst place I’ve ever been.” There was a time those words would have stabbed me in the heart, but I didn’t flinch. I knew exactly what she was trying to do. “I bet if I hit you, you wouldn’t love me anymore,” she said, her eyes flashing.
How many times had I put Chris through crazy ultimatums? I knew better than to take her seriously. She was trying with all her might to push me away, but I wasn’t having it. I kept my voice completely calm. “It doesn’t matter what you do. I will always love you. I’m always going to be here.”
My foster daughter didn’t know what to do. She was used to her words cutting right through and getting the response she wanted. She’d never seen anyone refuse to react, so she took it up a notch.
“I bet if I cut off your head and buried you, you wouldn’t love me,” she sputtered, the pitch of her voice rising. Her eyes locked with mine as if to say, What are you going to say now, huh?
“I would still love you,” I said calmly. I knew she wasn’t a violent person and didn’t mean a word she said. Everything she said was meant to push me away. “You can’t say or do anything to make me leave this room,” I said, gripping her shoulders in my hands and looking into her eyes. “I will not leave you in this place. I know what it’s like to push people who love me away. I know what you’re trying to do. But I am telling you here and now, I’m not going anywhere.”
She didn’t say a word, but I saw tears welling in her eyes, and she squeezed them shut, willing the tears not to fall.
“You’ve been fighting this for too long,” I said gently. “But you don’t have to fight this by yourself anymore.”
“No,” she insisted. “This has always worked. I’ve always been able to push people away.” She was trying to protect herself from being let down again. Why would she trust me and let me in? She had built a wall around her heart because she had been hurt too many times.
“Honey.” By now I was sobbing, but she still held back her tears. “You are not alone anymore, and no matter how hard you try, I will never let you push me away!”
Then, somehow, the two of us had our first heart-to-heart conversation. We opened the Bible, and I read her verses that had spoken to me when I came out of my depression that I hoped would be powerful for her. The Holy Spirit was in the room that night. God spoke to both of us so clearly as she finally dropped her defenses and opened up to me.
That night alone didn’t solve her problems. More often than not, she told us she was fine when she clearly wasn’t. But because of my experience, I knew not to take those answers at face value. I learned to keep asking the questions and to help her dig deep.
As horrific as my depression was while going through it, I would go through it again in a heartbeat if it meant I could help more kids like my foster daughter, Cali. My experience allowed me to understand her in an intimate way that has transformed my life. Chris always says of his injury that given the way life has turned out, he would not change a thing. After my conversation with Cali, I realized for the first time that I could love these kids where they were—with walls arounds their hearts—because I had been there too.