Chapter 15: Everyone can do something

The first weekend Charlie spent with us I actually went out to an event at a nearby church for their Orphan Care Weekend 2016.  Their featured speaker was Josh Shipp, and we were able to see a video clip much like this one during our foster care training.  I hope you'll take 15 minutes to watch it.  Every time I do, just like when I heard him speak live, I am inspired.  Plus, the guy's funny.

Every child is one caring adult away from success.  If you're interested, Josh Shipp's website is www.onecaringadult.com.




So what can you do?




Are you in a position to actually take a child into your home? 




Are you in a position to volunteer or mentor a child outside of your home?




If not, are you able to come alongside someone who is doing so and help - by sponsoring an activity for the child, providing a meal here and there, offering child care (requirements vary) or help around the house?  Are you able to make donations of clothing and gently used toys and games?  (Our Charlie came into the system with a pair of shorts (no chonies) and one sandal.  That's it, folks.) 




At the very least, are you willing to pray for people you know who are fostering or adopting children?  And really, there is nothing "least" about prayer.  I am often told that people are praying from me - friends and family of course, but don't forget the kid from Chick-Fil-A (who continues to tell me each week he's prayed for me), people from my former church home, co-workers of my Ro's, Bible study partners, friends of friends, friends' Bible study groups, Jesus Himself... it amazes me... and when I think of how difficult some days are, I wonder how it would be if I didn't have the prayer and love of others to sustain me.  If you're one of them, THANK YOU!  Sincerely, thank you!


Since I'm on the subject, why don't I throw out a handful of specific prayer requests?  Things we are asking our Abba Father for:

• bonding with each family member / that we would all see Charlie as if he were a Wiggins from the day he was born
• complete psychological and emotional healing from his traumas - we don't see the affects of this on a significant basis, but we are praying that they will never be a greater issue for him again
• that what I'm teaching him in regards to reading would just "click" - he is very far behind
• that Robert and I would have wisdom and discernment in our parenting of Charlie
• that Robert and I would be effective in sharing Jesus with him
• that Charlie will come to know and love Jesus and have a saving faith in Christ
• that God would guide and bless the new name Charlie will take at the adoption
• that the adoption will proceed on schedule (this would be miraculous), and ideally around 5/25 or 5/26 (since I'm hoping family will be here for J's graduation)

Chapter 14: Welcome Home, Charlie

A few days before October ended, we got to have Charlie for our first overnight visit.  His foster dad brought him to our house with a load of his things.  Ro and I took him to the library - he said he'd never been! - and got him his first library card, under the last name WIGGINS.  That was fun.

We watched a movie in the living room and blew up the giant air mattress for Ro and I to sleep on - Charlie got the couch.  He had an extremely hard time settling down to sleep, playing quietly for a couple of hours before finally going to sleep, and he called out in the night.  And, unfortunately, he woke up EARLY - 5:30 - but the two of us made pancakes together before I returned him to the Dursleys before church.

Grace was away at camp for American Heritage Girls, so we just had this one-on-two time with Charlie.  We were exhausted by the time it was over, but it was a great evening.

The following week, we attended our first therapy session with Charlie and Mr. Dursley, a sort of passing of the baton so to speak.  Mr. Dursley again brought a load of his things over - mostly puzzles and toys and clothes... because the following day would be MOVE-IN DAY.

Charlie moved in to our home on Friday afternoon, November 4th, with a WELCOME HOME CHARLIE sign on the front door.   The Dursleys brought him over after school.  Robert and Chris were at a concert out of town that night and Josh was working, so Grace and I took him to the library again and had dinner at Good Times.

The first couple of nights, he really had trouble settling down again for sleep time.  He was put to bed before 8pm both nights (his standard bedtime is 7), and stayed up very late playing in his room.  He was still awake the first night when I went to bed at 10 or 11.  Both times he woke up at 4:30 a.m. the next morning. AYAYAY!  We're too old for that!  He did settle down after that, thankfully!

On Saturday we decided that although we were all tired, we'd still go on a hike with the AHG group.  He handled it pretty well and seemed to enjoy being outdoors, although he was pretty tired on the last leg back to the trailhead (and we only did half the hike!). 

(How I wish I could show you more pictures - the one of us making pancakes together is one of my favorites! - but he isn't ours... yet.)

You may remember that back at the beginning of this process, although we came to find out about Charlie through the family who was adopting his brother, the powers that be were concerned about interaction between the two boys.  Because of that, we decided to avoid that altogether this first week of his arrival, and we visited a different neighborhood church on Sunday.  Charlie did very well, playing quietly throughout the service with Wikki Stix.  He loves touch - I don't think the Dursleys were big cuddlers - and I noticed that some of his nervous habits and tics would disappear when I would gently rub his back or neck or head, at least for a time.

The rest of the week was spent trying to establish a new routine.  Getting three kids to three different schools at three different times (one of which is on the south side of town) (thank goodness Chris can get herself to school), mediating between the two youngest for lap time on Mama, making weekly therapy appointments and CASA appointments, getting ourselves established as new faces at Charlie's school... it was exciting and new and very, very busy, but we survived week 1 with nary a blemish.

As a family now of six.

For such a time as this

A couple of days ago I was driving Charlie to school, and somehow the subject came up about where we were born.  He had forgotten that he was from another state, and tried to recall memories from where he lived before he came to Colorado.  ("I don't think there are any cars there."  There are, son.  But your family may not have had one.)

He asked me where I was born, and I told him, and then I had the most incredible thought...

Stay with me here:

God brought us to Colorado nearly ten years ago, two years before our Charlie was even born.  I thought He'd brought us for a myriad of reasons, and they all may be part of it... but ten years ago, God brought *us* to Colorado, and 5 1/2 years or so ago, God brought Charlie to Colorado...

"For," as my friend wisely said when I told her about this revelation, "such a time as this."

Or faith?

On Tuesday morning when I woke up, somehow I felt a little bit better.  Maybe the shock had worn off.  I don't know - but I wasn't as shaken. 

As I started my day with an early shower, I remembered the verse my friend had texted me the day before, the encouraging Word that God did not give us a spirit of fear.  I had two words continue to echo through my mind as I got ready for my day:  Fear, and faith. 

I am so grateful for the friendship the Lord has blessed us with in the Weasleys.  Not only are they walking this path ahead of us with Charlie's brother, but they are definitely blessed with a gift of wisdom.  I am so, so grateful that they are partnering with us, in a sense, in this process.  I had a lunch date set up with Mrs. Weasley to discuss my meeting with Shirley, but first I knew I needed to seek the Lord.  I decided to head to our meeting place 2 1/2 hours early to spend some time with Him in my regular Bible study of the gospel of John. 

(I know the Bible well enough - this isn't bragging - that I knew I could flip through its pages and find Scripture to support either position - continuing down this road with Charlie, or listening to counsel and abandoning it.  Therefore, I asked the Lord to meet *me* where I am at - and to give me some confirmation, some peace, some wisdom...)

You know, He always answers that prayer.  Not always this quickly, but He does answer.

So on the way to the location, I was listening to Christian radio, and thinking about my study, and thinking about the day before.  The Lord was already preparing my heart, as He spoke to me through Natalie Grant's new(ish) song, King of the World:

I tried to fit You in the walls inside my mind
I try to keep You safely in between the lines
I try to put You in the box that I've designed
I try to pull You down so we are eye to eye

When did I forget that You've always been the King of the world?
I try to take life back right out of the hands of the King of the world
How could I make You so small
When You're the one who holds it all?
When did I forget that You've always been the King of the world?

I arrived at Chick-Fil-A and set up shop.  I spread out on a back table with my Bible, my colored pencils, and my notebook, and found where I had left off in John 6 some time ago.  I love love love to do the Kay Arthur method of Bible study, so immediately, just being in the Word and going back to marking and listing and connecting and processing - immediately my heart was stilled and I was able to focus quickly on my study.  After studying about Jesus feeding the multitude and then going away alone, I moved forward to when He decided to catch back up with His disciples who were on a boat headed across the sea, and who were very frightened by a storm that had come up, and saw this strange ... something ... person? ... walking on the water toward them.  Jesus said, "It is I.  Do not be afraid."

I said to the Lord in my heart, "Noted."  But really I wanted more than that.  By now I was sure that I was being asked to choose between faith and fear.  I have heard probably 365 times that the Bible says in 365 places that we are not to be afraid.  So I tried to write this off as insignificant - yet noted.

A little while later, a young employee smiled at me and sat down at the table in front of me with his back to me to take his break.  He turned around after a few minutes, nodded at my Bible, and said, "I should start mine, too."  I smiled and asked what he was studying - Psalm 119 - and I made some quip about how it's such a quick read (it's actually the longest chapter in the Bible), and we laughed and he said he'd let me get back to my study.

It wasn't long when I noticed that his soft drink cup had writing on it, but it was turned enough that I couldn't read it.  I was curious and I began to study him and his cup.  Sometimes I think I might be prone to be a stalker but I chalk it up to loving mysteries and telling myself that observation is important.  Of course he took a drink, and sat his cup back down.  I leaned in. 

And I got the message.

God is greater than your fears.

My heart began to burst, and my eyes began to leak.  I even tried to take a picture.  It's blurry so you know that my surveillance skills are, in fact, insufficient, but look:

It took me a bit to process that.  I had just recovered emotionally when he got up and began to leave.  He came back over and asked my name - he is Jacob - and we chatted for a bit.  It was funny, because he was trying to encourage me with something about how the Lord loves me, and I interrupted him to tell him that I already got the message that God had for me through him, on his cup.

He looked surprised.  He actually told me that he had considered not writing anything on his cup that morning, but felt like he should.  Yep.  He got the message, too.

Jacob went back to work and I went to the bathroom to clean my crybaby face once again before Mrs. Weasley arrived.  I got it.  I got the confirmation that I had asked the Lord for.  Those two words - fear and faith - those are choices, and it's up to me to choose one. 

God is greater than my fears.  The King of the world is bigger than my fears.  He is bigger than what happened to Charlie, He is bigger than *who* happened to Charlie, and He is big enough to conquer that trauma and bring healing and life and hope to this little boy.

He is with me, like He was with the disciples in the boat, and as I had already learned (so I thought!) months ago, when He was with fearful Gideon!  Remember that post?  I hadn't.  Obviously.  I am re-reading it today!

Incidentally, I once wrote about how the Lord encouraged me through another employee in another Chick-Fil-A at another difficult time in my life.  If you'd like to hear that story, it's here and its follow-up is here.

And there's this.  And countless other stories.

But I digress.

And this post is long enough.

Let me wrap this up to say that the Lord met me.  He encouraged me, through my friend's text, through the song, through Scripture, through a young man in Chick-Fil-A, through Mrs. Weasley, through talking further with my Ro, through another chat with both Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, and through another song!  And I feel like I'm leaving something out!

From Casting Crowns:

But the voice of truth tells me a different story
The voice of truth says, "Do not be afraid!"
The voice of truth says, "This is for My glory"
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth

I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of truth.