Oh Wednesday. That awkward
in-between, the chasm between weekends, knee deep in middle-of-the-week stuff:
dishes, laundry, dinners (why do they have to eat EVERY night???), packing
lunches, messes. And the real
hum-dinger. Visit day. It’s appropriate that it’s on a Wednesday. Because visit day like no other day presents
my awkward reality, my in-between of life, knee deep in the emotional
exhaustion and roller coaster of foster care.
I coast along the rest of my week playing happy family of four, figuring
out how to manage two ducklings at the grocery store, how to get two kids out
the door, smiling at their emerging sibling relationship. As soon as I get in a rhythm, feeling like I’m
firmly in the mom-of-two club, I’ve got
this under control, there it is again. WEDNESDAY. Between visit drop off and pick up I have
approximately 6 minutes of interaction with birth mom. Yet those 6 minutes somehow color the majority
of my day. For the rest of the week, I
am Mom. I am the one to report to others
how T is doing, what she needs. I make choices
for her food, monitor her eating and sleeping schedule, take responsibility for
her development. I am the authority on
her. Except in those 6 minutes. In those 6 minutes, any well-intentioned information
I try to share is met with someone else’s
authority on T. Someone questioning my choices for her. Someone who has much more claim to her than I
do, and yet is much less present in her life.
This incongruence triggers my own defensiveness, insecurity, and anxiety. I leave with a mixture of indignance and
guilt, seething over the small comments that represent her failures, and yet
guilty over how I should show her grace, offer more information, try to engage
her more. But I find myself, in those brief
interactions, able to muster up no more than a smile and a nod. And this in itself is a monumental effort…this
in itself is grace. I pray for the ability
to pray for her, and for humility to value her input, to respect her God-given,
life-long role in T’s life. I know there
are foster-parents extraordinaire, who manage to come alongside the birth
parent and mentor them. I know this is
the goal. I am trying, seriously. This is me trying. I am just not that evolved.
The gray area is killer.
I could handle repentant, help me, I-want-to-learn-to-do-this-mom. I could handle absent, dismissive,
never-shows-up-for-visits mom. But this
in-between… I don’t know where she
stands, where the case stands, where I should stand. (Insert trite answer here… I should stand with T? I should stand with Christ? Both true, but…what does that really mean in
those 6 minutes??? ) Oh, this is so not about me. Truth be told, I wish it were. I leave on Wednesdays watching mom make her
way to the bus stop, and I think, no matter how hard this is for me, it’s
harder for her. Just because I don’t see
it, or she doesn’t show it, doesn’t mean that either now or at some point in
her life, this circumstance will have tremendous impact on her life, her
well-being, her soul.
It’s on Wednesdays more than any other day that I think, I can’t
do this. I don’t want to do this
anymore. I feel trapped. Already in the thick of it, no easy way out
no matter the outcome. Tremendous loss
and years of healing follow any or all involved parties at this point, regardless. All I can tell myself on these days is: hands
and feet. The big picture is too big for
me…Be the hands and feet. I can focus on
T, and keep submitting my heart to the Lord for help with Mom. Keep loving, doing, and do it again. Change a diaper, read a story, tickle a belly,
pour a cup of milk. Hands and feet. Here we are Lord, faithful to our call. I do wish the call was more glorious or
well-defined. But maybe sometimes the
call is just to be the hands and feet of Christ. Doing the dirty work, on a Wednesday, and hopeful
in Christ’s redemption that promises a weekend will follow.
