On being set apart . . and a little success story

Well, after two months, we are officially "in-between" kiddos again . . for a week or so anyway. We just said goodbye to Ariah, after she'd been here for two months, which is the longest we've had anyone, other than Darius and Xavier. She went home, which I'm hoping is going to work out to be a good thing. It was a difficult goodbye, as we found out this morning that she was leaving, and she literally came by with her social worker for about 1/2 hour after school, got her stuff, had a few hugs and tears, and she's gone. That's part of this gig, though, as sad as it is.

The story I really wanted to share, though, happened about a month ago, but I just haven't had the energy to write about it. (See more about that down below . . ) One night, about a month ago, Ariah made a comment while driving home from somewhere that she wanted to "become a Christian." So, when tucking her and Vicky into bed that night, we talked to her about that. She was as serious as I have ever seen her in the two months she was here. She had a lot of questions, which we did our best to answer. We have always tried our best to show the foster kids here a glimpse of Jesus and tell them how to ask Him into their hearts, but we tell them that if they want to, they have to initiate it, and we make them come to us, so that we're not forcing it on them. (Which ended up being really important with Ariah especially, because her social worker found out and wasn't very excited about it at all . . . but when we assured her that it was completely Ariah's decision and that we basically just prayed with her). When we started to pray, she started crying, and got embarrassed a little about that. We assured her that it's ok to cry in that situation because it means that she knows just how serious the decision is. It was definitely a very special moment for her and us.

A few weeks later, we got to be confirmed about our desire/attempt to be "set apart" for the Lord here at our house. As Christians, we are commanded in the Bible to look different, act different, BE different than the rest of the world. As much as Jeremy and I try to do that, I know that we fall short, and we always wonder if these foster kids can see if we're any different or not. We're not perfect, and we certainly do not parent these kids in any perfect way. We get tired and impatient, and we don't always have our lights shining for Him by any means. However, something must have stuck out here at our house to Ariah.

She went to her visit a week or two after she had accepted Christ and told her mother about it. Her mom's response was "Oh, yeah. I did that, too, when I was a teenager or something." At this point, Ariah confronted her, which I guess she never does in a visit. Her response to her mom was very real, candid, and innocent, "Really? You are a Christian? But you live with your boyfriend and you do drugs sometimes and drink and stuff." She was really honestly questioning her mom about this, because, to her, it just didn't add up.

A few weeks earlier, Jeremy had a conversation with the girls about Jesus always being there for them and how He is the only one they can depend on to not let them down. He went on to say that even he and I let each other down sometimes, and Ariah was surprised by that. She said, "No you don't. You and Laura never fight or yell at each other."

Like I said, we are nowhere near perfect here at our house, but it felt so good to have a nine-year old affirm for us that, at least in some ways, we are "set apart" for Christ here, and our home does look different than the one she just went back to this afternoon. Now our prayer is that she can bring some of that back into her mom's house, and that she can reintroduce her mom to Christ somehow.

P.S. Most of you already know this, but, for those of you who don't . . . I haven't written much on this blog in the last month because I have felt like poop most days, due to being about 11 weeks pregnant with TWINS! I'm sure there will be more on that later. :)