Thankful Thursday

Today I'm linking with with Ryan via Joy for Thankful Thursdays (even if I am a little late)

1. Today I am thankful for my salvation and my new relationship with Jesus.  I set out this year not to do the usual (lose weight though I need to lose at a minimum 150 pounds...no lie) or to save money or do better but  to build a relationship with God.  I'm learning to trust Him more, to know that He will provide for all my needs and not to worry so much and stress so much.

2. I'm thankful for the fact that I'm now 13 weeks away from graduation.  Have I mentioned the "grad-school-itis I have y'all?

3. I'm thankful for a second chance job interview a week from today. I got the call today.  I'm praying the Lord will provide for my husband and I this opportunity to use my education, my experience, and my desire to serve others as a way for us to increase our blessings so we can bless others.

4. I'm thankful for my husband's job even if it's sucking up almost every minute of his day and taking away from our time together on the weekends. He's learning new technology that will, one day, open up more opportunities that are better for our family.

5. I'm thankful for my friends, especially Ginger, Wendy, Damita, and Michelle who are helping me to become a better person, who are always there for me when I need them and who love me and I love them.

6. I'm thankful I haven't gotten that "Ferrari" stomach virus though I'm battling through some kind of something.

What are YOU thankful for??

Linking Up Wednesday

Today I'm linking up with a new blogger, Shanna, that I met via JOY

So, in what ways can I be random today?

1. Went to Foster Parent Support Group meeting last night.  I came face-to-face with the girl we gave up to try to make another placement work.  That placement was 'Lyric' and it didn't work.  Of the two girls, I have really missed 'Shay'.  I cried the day she went to a new placement.  For awhile it seemed like she had adjustment issues in her new placement that were similar to what we were experiencing in our home.  She's grown a lot in her current placement.  I miss Shay.  I am very angry with myself for giving up on her and how that must have hurt her.  But at the time our home was a powder keg and we were in the final seconds before an explosion. I had to make a choice and I made the best choice I could with the information I had been provided.

The worst thing about foster care? The children aren't the only pawns in the system.  The foster parents are pawns, too.  And the master chess players will say and do anything to meet a desired end or need.  As new FPs we didn't know this. Now, Shay's worker is looking for a forever home for her and every.single.ounce.of.me. wants to slowly S.....L...O....W...L....Y try to integrate her back into our home. I'm going to pray over this.

Yes we had our issues with her but how much of those issues where her, were because of Lyric, because of the too frequent contact with mom, and just being a teen?  After all this is the first time we'd ever been parents and we were given two girls (12,13).  We were clueless.  We still feel clueless.

2. I'm in my last semester of grad school and I'm detesting every.single.minute.of.it.  I think I'm just so ready to be done that I've developed ADHD when it comes to reading my text and completing my assignments.

3. I need to develop a housecleaning, meal planning, and exercise schedule.  Here in Fairmont, WV we've had such crazy weather it has been impossible to come to any kind of schedule.Notice how I blame the weather for not wanting to do anything??  Yesterday and today we've had temps in the upper 60's and low 70's and tomorrow it will be below freezing with snow accumulations.  My head is a mess.

4. Still trying to be a good steward of my faith.  Still attending church and will be starting membership classes on Sunday.

5. My husband's company bought a whole bunch of new expensive equipment and as the IT guy he has to know how to use/run/fix all of it.  The trainer is from India by way of England. My husband is tickled when he sees a face expecting one accent and hearing another.  I got a text this afternoon from my husband that simply said, "Oh em geee he just said "Brilliant!"  I guess it's the little things!!

Getting Real To Get Results

Yesterday was pretty awesome.  Our new church is amazing.  The church family and friends that God is bringing into our lives right now is simply amazing.  I've been jaded by the church for years.  So jaded that I have been left feeling that I'm unworthy.  I've made that comment lately, too.  Not because that's how I was being made to feel by this particular person but because that's how I had been made to feel in the past.  I've tried to live the godly way before and never really made any intention to change.  I wanted to proclaim my faith, my salvation, but I wanted to still be of the world: cursing, gossiping, judging people, hurting them before they hurt me.  I desired the beautiful of God while still finding comfort in my worldly mask of U.G.L.Y.

Yesterday, Pastor Leo preached one of the best sermons I've ever heard.  Prior to him speaking, our youth dance team performed a dance to a song that said, "there's more than I require of you."  Talk about having music speak to your soul.

Pastor began in Rev. 3:20-22 and spoke about a divine invitation we all have.  How our names are written so beautifully on heavenly paper.

He posed the question, "Are we too occupied by other things that we can't hear the knock on the door?"

Other comments he made that I jotted down (in my iPhone notes so Pastor probably thought I was texting the whole time..LOL)

~Only those who have been invited and who have overcome can sit there.
~Jesus might be knocking at your heart but He is speaking to your spirit
~There's a season of hearing what God is saying
~How do I hear/know God is speaking to me?  SLOW UP: REFOCUS

He went on to speak from Luke 4:16-19

This is where Jesus is not just reading from a scroll in the temple but showing you who He really is.

Pastor Leo said that this is YOUR Year.  A year of Purpose.

Luke 14:1-5

You can't overcome until you've been through something.

When we get to a place where we get real with God we'll get results from God.

I'm going to repeat that more for my own benefit than yours:

When we get to a place where we get REAL with God we'll get RESULTS from God.

Then he called Jeff and I up to the front for prayer.  I've been struggling with feelings of worthiness, depression, and bouts of suicidal ideation.  I've had horrendous health struggles that never seem better and doctors seek to "manage" and not "cure."  I've been depending on man to cure what only God can.

I have felt like the world's worst wife.  A burden to my husband.  Here's this wonderful man who would and often does anything I need and instead of seeing that he loves me in spite of all I'm going through thus he is also going through with me, I see myself and bringing him down.

I live in a constant feeling of despair.  I can't give him the children he wants.  I can't even commit to continuing to foster parent, neither can he though, really.  The only thing I can count on is that I won't feel well most of the time, I'll be hurting in ways that I can't describe.  I'll be angry at myself and thus at the world because my life has changed so drastically.  I'll worry, stress, and become anxious over things to the point where I can't shut my brain off to sleep.

This is a pretty miserable situation.

I keep wondering why I'm not seeing any results.  Well...I haven't gotten real.  I mean God knows how I've been feeling yet I haven't gotten real about it.  I haven't sat down and said, "Lord, some days I just want to go to sleep and never wake up again." I've never had a plan.  But it doesn't take much for a semi-intelligent person to realize that by not taking care of my health and eating whatever I want and not focusing on losing weight I'm essentially slowly killing myself through bad life choices.  That stops.

God knows how I'm feeling but until I ask for His help how is he to know I'm serious?

I feel so unworthy of anything good, even my husband.

As Jeff stood behind me in the front of the church yesterday with his hands on my shoulders letting me know that he's got my back and the pastor prayed that we were not just going to be better but that we were going to excel, I cried because I have so much dirt and ugliness to shed.

I have to face some very painful things that long since happened to me and the thought of reliving the pain has been too much for me to bear so every time I got close to it in therapy before I simply quit showing up.  But I'm not getting any better. Old wounds are haunting me.

I deal with intense physical pain daily. I can't do anything about that more than what I'm already doing but add on some pretty painful emotional stuff and life becomes unmanageable.  It simply becomes another thing you just want to stop enduring.

I have too much going for me to allow myself to fall prey to enemy antics in my life.  I'm the daughter of a King.  That makes me a princess.  I'm married to a man who treats me like a queen.  I'm the daughter of two incredible people who greatly exceeded as parents.  I'm the sister to an amazing man who treats his wife like a queen and is doing his all to raise a beautiful princess.  Why would I not want to be here to see this life continue to unfold?

So, here I am.  In this blog post for all of cyberworld to see, giving it up.

Here I am, God, getting real with You, myself, and every other person in the world.  I'm getting real and I'm ready to work with You to give me results.  I don't expect something for nothing.  I know that You are God and all You want for me is to get real with You but I have work to do here, too.

Pastor Leo said that he's read his Bible for many many years and never has he ever read a verse that stated, "You already asked me for that last week" or "You can only come to Me so many times."  He has a way of making God real to us.

So, here I am. I'm making a promise to find a way, either through counseling with my Pastors or through a counselor, but I'm going to work on making myself get real because I want results.  And those results I want are a happier and healthier life, not death by my own hand.

So, bear with me and if you're a praying person please keep me lifted up.  I know I'm struggling but I know that I don't have to anymore.  And through God's word I've found the easy way out of a life of struggle is not suicide..it's Him.

I choose Him.

Never Meant To Be

Tonight I saw pictures on Facebook of "Lyric" the 13 year old foster child we had for four months that we had every intention of adopting.  I realized that I have zero feelings when I look at the picture.

My husband and I tried desperately to get her to want to be a family member, to love us, to see us as her parents.  We wanted so badly for her to be our child.  We wanted to adopt her and ride off into the sunset of our lives with a beautiful daughter.

But it didn't happen.

Maybe it was my fault.  Maybe we weren't strict enough parents.  Maybe I didn't love her enough or support her enough.  Maybe it's because biological mom lived less than a mile from our house, walked past our house often and "Lyric" was never going to accept her present leaving her completely unable to attend to any future plans let alone putting her past behind her.

Maybe it was my fault because I indulged her in allowing her to have more authority or power than a 13 year old should.  I was the opposite of what I have been trained as a counselor to be: I was sympathetic instead of empathetic.

I bought into the narrative that any medication she was on was because of medicated compliance at a residential treatment facility.  She never accepted she needed medication and at some point I gave up the fight because I didn't want the drama of the screaming, yelling, running away, and tantrums you would expect out of a toddler not a teenager.

I felt alone.  I felt defeated.  I felt elated when she left.  I hate I felt that way.  Looking back now, over that entire four month period of my life and the two months since we asked for her to be rehoused I feel nothing like I thought I would.

I miss the Lyric she was when she was appropriately treated and her personality was stable.
I miss the Lyric who would say silly ditzy things and realize how silly it was and giggle.
I miss the Lyric I projected my hopes and dreams of motherhood on.
I miss the possibilities.

I don't miss the Lyric who screamed profanities at me.
I don't miss the Lyric who lied to school teachers/secretaries that I punish her when she's sick.
I don't miss the Lyric who called our house "embarrassing" and "poor."
I don't miss the Lyric who threw things at me.
I don't miss the Lyric who would never accept rules and structure and had to call almost every member of her "team" to find someone to sympathize with her.
I don't miss the Lyric that left me depressed, exhausted, and questioning why we had chosen foster care.

We still aren't sure we're willing to do foster care again. I know the children come with issues but I also know there are awesome kids out there.  I know we may get another Lyric and we may not. But to invest so much of yourself into something that failed so horribly isn't something my heart is open to and I don't know if it ever will be.

It didn't help, as much as I thought it would, to be told "well I thought the placement was a bad idea in the first place and I said so much to the team."  I really could have used that knowledge when I was in the thick of it trying to hold everything and everyone together.

I have never wrestled with a decision more than I have with whether or not we want to foster again. With any luck I'll be back to work in a week or two and I won't have the time away from work in order to bond with a child or run to pick up a placement.

But what really hurts my heart the most from all of this: looking at her pictures tonight that were taken yesterday and not feeling a single thing.  No, I take that back.  I do feel something.  Relief.  I wasn't the mom she needs and I was never going to be the mom she would accept as mom.

Foster parenting is so hard. Infertility is miserable.  I need help processing feelings I thought I already processed.  I, a counselor, need counseling.

If this post seems jumbled, it's because my mind is jumbled, my heart is jumbled, and my life is jumbled.  But not for much longer.  I'm going to fix this and get back on track.

My First Friday Five Link Up

1:) This is my second week of my final 16 weeks of grad school.  I applied and was approved for graduation in May.  I will have my Masters of Human Services/ Marriage and Family Therapy degree from Liberty University in May!!  I'm oh so excited.  And nervous because I owe a lot of money in student loans but this new year has found me knowing that if I just give my concerns over to God and trust in Him that He will bring about a blessing in His time.
2:) Twitter has been driving me nuts this week.  Wednesday I replied to someone about my religious beliefs (my degree also affords me the opportunity to minister) and well the three respondents did not appreciate the fact I can be a Liberal Democrat and a Christian at the same time and have been harassing me for days.  Then Twitter decided to up and unfollow about 50 people, and that's just how many I have found out about. I'm sure there's others.  So, I had to be the moron who had to go back and appear in some of y'alls mentions  as following you again.  Silly Twitter.
Because of Twitter and the three people whom I've blocked, reported as spam, asked to quit tweeting at me because it was harassment and yet still tweeted at me, I had to change my handle from Auntie_Claus to Auntie_Allison.  Hopefully people will still know it's me!!!
3:) Mrs. Joy Sowell wrote a blog this week about how some people on Twitter curse yet post about relying on God.  OUCH!  I was like THAT"S ME!!!  And while I use Twitter to be a little more carefree and free with ungodly language, the conviction was there to get better.  I would never talk on Facebook how I do on Twitter.  Why?  Pastor follows me on FB.  But why am I worried about not being so inappropriate where my Pastor can't see what I say/do when God sees EVERYTHING??
So, I thank Joy for her blog because as I work at becoming a better person and improving myself and being a better example of Christ, I sometimes need a big ol slap in the face with the obvious!!
4:) This week was Chemo week for me.  I'm not adjusting as well as I did last time.  I'm not bouncing back as fast.  I don't know if it's weather changes or what but it's been a little rough.  I got a haircut over the weekend and you can still see how sparse my bangs are. My hair is short but not 'manly' short.  I may pull out my wigs since it's cooler out.  I feel so self-conscious even if I'm the only one who notices.
5:) I had interviewed for a job before Christmas and they hired a friend of mine and another person.  I have four years of experience but I told them I wasn't willing to start until after the holidays and I guess they were looking for someone sooner.  When I called to follow up with the supervisor who interviewed me to express the fact that in the future when there are openings to please consider me. I didn't say it but in my head I was thinking because I will need a job to pay back Sallie Mae and her band of merry loan officers.  
I had been wanting to make this call for over a month but I didn't.  Something kept telling me, 'no, it's not the time.'  Well, God laid it on me to call yesterday and what do you know...there is an advertisement going in the Sunday paper and I was "strongly encouraged" to resubmit a resume for consideration.  What a blessing!!  I'm going to go ahead and just believe that this is my place and my time. :)
Well, I guess since I've reached the end of my five things I should close.  I've been horrible about keeping this blog up and I'm going to get better at it.  
I hope those of you who came from the link up will hang around.  10 followers is pretty embarrassing ;-)
Happy Weekend!!

Long Time No Write.

I've been neglecting this blog for a long while now.  It's not that I don't have much to say, I just feel slightly overwhelmed at the thought of writing down our lives.

The holidays were very good to us.  We spoiled our niece like the princess she is.  Speaking of Miss Amelia Leigh, she turns 2 on Sunday.  Today I was thinking about that long, long night/day/afternoon she was born.  I can't remember our lives without her and I'm perfectly okay with that.  She is the joy of our worlds.

Hubby had lots of time off at the holidays and when he had to go back to work..he had to go back with a crazy schedule.  His company recently bought a bunch of new computer stuff (he runs the IT department at one of the biggest newspapers in WV) and this past week he had to take training.  He literally worked from 7:30-8am until midnight each day.  I was very lonely.  I'm sure we're both happy he's finished with this week.  He has a lot to do but hopefully nothing like this.

We still don't have any foster children.  We still don't know where we will go in relation to taking in any additional children.  The agency has not called us so I'm kinda thankful for that.

We have become 200% more active in our church.  We absolutely adore our pastors and church family.  It perfect for us and a lot of the time I see the children of the church that I find myself wishing that we had children who could take part in the drama ministry.  I'm sure we'll have kids in the house soon.

I supposed I should take this time to update y'all on any resolutions I made for 2013 and honestly the only one was to get right with my God.  To learn how to lean on Him, depend on Him, and to trust in Him.  When I do all of this everything else will fall into place. Right??

That's not to say that I don't have a weight in the same number of pounds as the national debt is in dollars to lose but I need to invest in myself first.  I need to begin to see the good things about myself before I can find the strength to improve the bad, right?

The best thing I have had happen recently is watching my husband open up more to God.  It's just amazing seeing God work in him.  I'm excited to see how we both change over the next year.

I promise to be better at keeping blog going this year!!  Classes start on Monday. MY LAST GRADUATE SEMESTER EVER!!!!

Welp, it's 2:30am and I've got nothing else soooooo....

Night y'all.