It's a.... MAN!!

I can’t believe I am JUST NOW getting to BLOG about this! Well. Last month I had three kids and this month I have FOUR! (And I don’t mean I got a four legged creature EITHER). I have an 18 year old son now! Due to confidentiality, I am not allowed to post pictures or use his name.  So of course I am DYING!! I thought I'd never be able to blog! BUT then I decided to get creative.  I pixilated our new son’s eyes. Unrecognizable, right? Kind of? AND I renamed him for my blog. I will call him AJ (Another Johnson)). Here is our new and improved HaPPy Johnson FAMILY!!

All I have to say is going from three to four kids was WAAAY easier than one to two or two to three. Mainly because I usually have to wait 9 months to get a kid and this time I had to wait 3 hours. And getting an 18 year old comes with perks. Already potty trained, through the terrible two’s,  through the horrid teenage years, he can cook, he can clean, etc. He’s a hard worker, too.

And I’m sure you are wondering WHAT in the WORLD is going on. So DO LET ME TELL!

Fostering children has been on my personal agenda since before I got married. And since Starling is the most awesome human being EVER, he ALSO wanted to foster care. WELL then we HAD kids. And we’ve been in gut house, rebuild house, move to next house, gut house, rebuild house, etc… limbo for.ever. And we are still in the rebuild house phase of our current home. Two weeks ago, I got a phone call from a social worker asking if I’d be willing to take an 18 year old. “Sorry, our house isn’t ready and we are only taking kids 4-8.” And I hung up. And then I told Starling about the call.

I then had a distinct recollection of one of my prayers offered up AGES ago where I was on my knees praying about fostering a child and saying, “I just don’t think I have it in me. I am so MOODY and I can’t keep it together with the two kids  I have NOW!” Following my semi- melt down, I felt a stern, “Have faith. Welcome all the children I have prepared for you.” And it was such a powerful feeling that I immediately said, “I will pray about every child and if You tell me to take him/her into my home, I will.”

Even though I was very dead set against the thought of bringing an 18 year old male into my home, the memory was so vivid, I looked at Starling and said, “I think we should pray about it.” And he felt the same way so we did. And we both felt very strongly that we should meet him. I didn’t know why God would have us want this child knowing our house was FAR from ready, but I felt that I needed to call back the DHS worker and without questioning the matter further, I did. And the very next day we met the social worker and AJ at Mugshots, ate lunch and talked, visited our house, and agreed that we would finish our second bathroom in a week so that AJ could move in. And then AJ and his worker left and Starling went straight to the bathroom and got to work. An hour later AJ’s social worker called and said that AJ had met with her supervisor, plead his case about being old enough to be around construction, and old enough to HELP Starling finish the bathroom, and that she had consented to letting him move in with us right then. So less than three hours after meeting AJ, he moved into our home.

I won’t say that I wasn’t nervous, because I was. I have not only never fostered before, but have certainly never raised a teenager! I’m 26! When AJ was born, I was turning 8. But, the one thing I know about parenting is a parent must LOVE first. So that was my first dilemma. How do you go about loving someone you JUST met a few hours earlier? It seems easier to love a baby because they are all fat and mushy and needy and how can you NOT love a baby? But an 18 year old? Wow. AJ is a man! Well, on my knees again (been spending a lot of time on them) I remembered a previous prayer when I was asking the same question. “How can I ever love a foster child as much as my children?” It seems utterly inconceivable. And the answer came quite simply. “You didn’t think you could love Brighton as much as Brooklyn. You will love the child like your own. Have faith.” I figured it would just take a while and EVENTUALLY I would learn to love AJ like my own.

Well, God works fast when He wants to, I suppose. I don’t know if it’s all the praying, all the heart to hearts, or just a darn miracle, but our family bonded and fell in love with AJ by day 3. I felt it plain as a stomach ache. We read scriptures together as a family, said our family prayers, put the 3 little ones to bed, and AJ, Starling, and I stayed up to chat. We had a heart to heart about some things. And when I walked into my room to climb into bed, I said, “Wow. That didn’t take long. I can’t believe I already love him.”

The heart is DEFINITELY a muscle. When exercised, it gets BIGGER and STRONGER and craves more exercise. My hearts done got the elephantitis! I feel so great having AJ in our home, I want to save the world and all the kids in it. I’ve started finding joy in interacting with kids I found barely tolerable a month ago. I can’t believe how much stronger our family has become in the last two weeks. I think everyone should pray about foster caring a child. Who knows what little miracles await!