Beach Day

We went to the beach today..
   We don't do birthday parties.. instead we do a family memory day.
           So Elizabeth had a birthday today and she chose to go to the beach.
                It was the perfect kinda day.


Matia asked if we could go to the beach for her birthday. I decided I was ready to try another beach trip. It's been awhile. I don't particularly like hot, sandy beaches. I don't like lugging stuff up and down the beach. But I do enjoy a nice cool day on the beach.

So we decided to go to Slaughter Beach. I remembered that somewhere around 6 years ago we had done a daytrip to Slaughter Beach. Would you believe that despite being extremely directionally challenged and always getting lost, we made it to Slaughter Beach and parked at the same spot we did 6 years ago?

Slaughter Beach is not a nice fancy touristy beach. It is a quiet, dirty, little beach. You park by the fire house.. if you go early, you will have the beach to yourselves. It's not that clean, but it has clean bathrooms. It is handicapped accessible and it is only 2.5 hrs from my house.

We picked up Miss C, my mother's helper. She was excited to join us on our trip. I wanted an extra set of hands to help with Nesiah. I was so thankful for her help. It totally lightened my load.

WE had the most delightful day. The child we were celebrating has had some struggles recently. We are working hard at having healthy relationships.. But today was just the perfect kinda day.

We picked up Miss C at 8:30 am. We never made it to the beach until 11 am. But the beach was empty when we got there. We parked, unloaded and unleashed antsy kids.

The kids had such a  total blast playing in the waves. The water was just perfect and this momma could relax. We had a picnic lunch and dinner packed.  The kids had brought a stack of books, they played catch and football..

I got to sit back with  Nesiah while Miss C played with the kids. Later I got to play with the kids while she sat with Nesiah. I laid down and almost dozed off.. yes, with 6 kids at the beach! I took a long walk down the beach with 3 of my kiddoes. We found horse shoe crabs and lots of fun rocks.

At the end of the day, after we had eaten dinner and everyone was doing one last thing on the beach.. I walked down to the edge of the water, to breath, to pray, to just be.. (you know with 6 kids that doesn't happen very often). I love to see the powerful waves, the beautiful blue skyline and just marvel at our Creator's beautiful design. I imagine heaven will have beautiful waters and skies..There is something about the ocean that is good for the soul.

Jumbled Thoughts...

I have been mulling over a lot in the past couple days..

Do you know that there are actually quite a few stories in the Bible of how God provided for the widows? God used the widows to do his work? They are prominent women that God chose to use for His glory..  As a widow with a lot on her plate at the moment, that has been very comforting.

Lately, I have been mulling over the stuff my kids went through before they came to me. It is their story to tell, not mine.. We live a "normal" life.. a life where we do things like normal people do, we are a little weird maybe? Ha. But reality is, every one of my kids has endured things, seen things, suffered things that I can't even imagine. Some things they remember, some things they don't, some things they heard/felt in the womb, some things they talk about, some things they refuse to talk about, some things fester, some things brew, some things bring healing, some things are best forgotten, some things are best worked through...
 It is my job to discern who needs what and when.. to help them talk through it, walk through it.. I am a matter of fact sorta person. Life is hard. Deal with it. Pray, talk, process and let go. Life is to short to hang on to baggage. Unfortunately each kiddoe has their own personality type and this makes it hard to meet them where they are at..But with wise counsel and lots of Holy Spirit guidance, we are making progress..

All that being said.. I am often in awe of everything my kids have overcome. They are the statistics. They are the kids that were in the system. They are the black kids, that spend their early childhood years abused, homeless, moving from foster home to foster home, older child adoption... Now being raised in a single parent home... They are the kids that should be doing drugs, making babies and in trouble with the authorities. But they are not. They are strong, country kids. They spend their days playing with animals and playing legos. They dream of wild camping adventures, visiting amish relatives, being the next president, being missionaries.. I have put up some strong boundaries. They are going to be happy, carefree children as long as I can possibly let them. They are going to dream big dreams, they are going to be able to be anything they want to be..


 Father's Day.. For some of my children this day is hard. For other's it's a sad reminder.. For others it brings anger.  They hate church on Father's Day.. I used to get them to make their crafts/cards etc.. for their mentors or grandpa. They don't want to do that anymore.. They don't want to do Father's Day.  So.. we won't do Father's Day. We will take the day off, we will talk through their emotions, if we feel motivated we will do something fun, if we don't we will just be home.... some of my kids have birth fathers out there, we know where they are, and we know why they are there.. others have no identified birth fathers.. others we don't know where they are.. Fathers Day seems to bring up birth dad discussions.. One of mine seems to think his lives with the Lone Ranger... He also was quite proudly telling all his friends where his birth dad "lives". SMH
There is sadness cause they wish God would not have taken away Mesh (my late husband, who died before they came to live with me). They wish he was here to be their father.. Some are angry cause momma refuses to look for a new daddy for them. Ha.
There is Jesus in Heaven, who provides and loves them.. He is their father, and they must wait until they get to heaven to have a daddy...

I watch my friends with housefuls fo little ones, fostering, praying for their adoption dates etc..I remember those days. I remember the older wiser foster parents telling me, it only gets harder.. it is true, it has been harder then I ever imagined it would be. But reality is I would not trade all this for all the world. I am so thankful for this journey I am on, I am thankful that I get to parent these kids. I am officially the mother of one teen, another one soon to be a teen. We have been through a lot together, no matter where we go in life, I want to remember the slow days of summer... the summer days where playing with dogs, legos, cats, goats, swimming in the neighbors pool, or at the pool with friends, going to the library, listening to hours and hours of Jonathan Park, and just being home together.....

When God is Your Daddy,..

Fayth is my girly girl. My sweet girl that is often left behind because she does not like animals. She is not a tomboy like her older sister and her momma. She enjoys girly things, pink, frilly, fancy things..

Fayth is also my sweet girl. She often helps me care for Nesiah. She has a special relationship with Nesiah and makes many sacrifices to help care for Nesiah.

Fayth loves to play dolls and had this special 18" doll, named Taryn. She loved Taryn and took her everywhere with her.  So when we came home from our trip to the bay and Taryn was missing. I was not too worried. She would show up. Fayth did not fuss much, but every couple days she would comment again about Taryn being missing.

Finally about 2 weeks after our vacation, it registered in my mom brain that this doll was really missing. She was not just hiding. So Fayth and I started discussing what our options were. Fayth decided to buy a new doll with her babysitting money.

We had some discussion about buying a brown doll vs a white doll. I usually buy her brown dolls, but all her friends have white dolls.... This led to an interesting discussion on fb regarding which doll she should buy..

This is where the story takes a turn..

A friend fo mine on FB, ironically name Faythe, messaged me that she would like to buy Fayth both a  white doll and a brown doll. My first reaction was to refuse, telling her that Journi could buy a doll with her babysititng money and I would buy another one for her birthday. But I felt like God was prompting me to accept. That quiet voice in my heart said "Let me show her my love. Let her know that God is a daddy that cares."

So my friend Faythe and I had discussion on what dolls to get Journi. At the end Faythe shared that she felt that God wanted my Fayth to know that He is a Heavenly Father that cares and He loves her. It was an incredible moment to share with her that God had told em the same thing!

Meanwhile a friend had offered to sell Fayth a doll at a very discounted price. Fayth was so excited to get this used doll with her babysitting money. She felt like this doll was an answer to her prayers. This doll had thick brown hair and pretty light tan skin.

Several days later, a package arrived from Target. I told Fayth they were for her and she could open it...Inside were 2 beautiful dolls. One white. One black. She could hardly believe her eyes when she saw her two new dolls.

I told her that these dolls were a gift from God, that a friend she does not even know listened to God's promptings and obeyed. She is a loved daughter of the King.

It took her  a couple days to fully grasp the magnitude of this. Of God's great love for Her. That just like an earthly daddy might buy his daughter a gift, her Heavenly Father was sending her a special gift.

She came to me and asked me if God really cares about dolls, cause He is a man and men don't care about dolls... It was my pleasure to explain again that God cares about the things that are important to us. Even dolls.

The best part is that God has blessed her abundantly above what she could ever imagine. She now had 3 dolls, 2 brand new dolls, and one used doll. She kindly without hesitation gave her used doll to her sister who only had one doll.