Battlefield of the heart!

Ya know how I say being a foster adoptive parent isn't for the faint of heart? Well I haven't quite explained to the extend of how much it really is a battlefield! How much I struggle internally with mothering a child I have to share.

As a foster parent it's highly recommended to engage in what case workers call "co-parenting" that is where the birth parents and foster parents work together to help the child. This isn't exactly easy. It's not easy to ask my child's mother questions about parenting her child or watch her hold her, play with her or try to teach her to walk. I don't want her to want her birth mom more than me. I feel like the stepmother and some days I don't want to "co-parent". I don't want to share my child. She became MY child the day we got her! I AM her Mom and I deserve these milestones! Most days my heart screams "leave MY daughter alone! You don't get to be a mom one hour a week and steal milestones from me! I'm the one who holds her when she cries, feeds her, sings to her, rocks her, teaches her, guides her, changes her diapers, dances with her, plays with her, prays with her, takes her to her Dr appointments and loves her more than I love myself!" It's not fair that I am so attached and in love with a little girl that I have to share! She is the only child we have ever been blessed with that calls us "Mama" and "Dada" with a woman who (*insert* I can't tell you because it's confidential) and it makes me so angry at times!

Most days you would NEVER know these feelings because I don't let them show. I don't let my heartache show because I know better than to wear my emotions on my sleeve. My Momma raised me better than that! Most days I feel like I am either making excuses for my child's mother just to prevent my own heartache or being bipolar and befriending her because my heart knows she doesn't know any better! She's a child trying to find her way with three kids! Living the life she was dealt to the best of her ability! I can't hate her even if I tried to!

My heart doesn't feel strong enough some days to fight this battle. Its not easy when the only child who has ever called me Mama is someone else's daughter too and I have to share everything with her. I don't have children of my own who I can run to and say "well I saw their first steps! I cut their 1st birthday cake!" She's all I've got so I hold in my anger, my judgement, my fear and my jealousy because if I let it show; it effects the very system we are suppose to be building upon to help these children. So I climb into the shower and I cry. I cry out to God and ask him why? Why would you allow these evils to happen to innocent children (I already know that answer! It can be summed up with two words FREE WILL! But still I ask as if His response would be some divine information to change the world haha I can set out into the world saying "I HAVE THE ANSWER!" ;-) hahaha) and most importantly....why would He lead me here knowing how I am and that it would make me angry and heart broken!? Why us God? I don't feel equip for this......and then the very moment the words escape my mouth God reminds me that I am! Somehow in some way; I just can't see it yet. I am so clouded with the emotions that my feet seem to be guided without awareness.

No MAPP training or any other form of foster parenting training can actually prepare you for this battlefield of the heart. I have felt emotions I swore I never would and some I wish I could erase. I cant not love her like my own and I don't quite know how to let her have two mothers. There are days I want to go AWOL because it is so emotionally draining but somehow; someway I press on and keep fighting the good fight! I can take this heartache so she doesn't have to! (*READ AND REPEAT*) because Jesus has me covered, even on the days that I can't feel Him near me or when the enemy invades the battlefield to stir up more emotions than I already battle; He WILL fight for me when I am weak and fight with me to win this battle for the least of these! So, for those of you reading please keep me in your prayers as I battle through my heartache and uncertainty. I will keep marching. I may be weak but He is strong.....and so is prayer! ;-)

Keep marching weary Christian soldier! You are covered by grace and love!