Sad Monkey, Happy Flower

At nap time, "Carson" was reading books in his bed. As I wandered around the house picking up toys and doing various other chores, I hear his voice,

"Moqueek!" "Moqueek!"

I walked in his room, "Yes Carson? What do you need?"

He points to Curious George's face, "Sad! Sad!", he says.

"Yeah, you're right, he is sad Carson. He is so sad."

"So sad," he repeats.

Then he points to the yellow flower and says, "Flaow-wer".

"Yeah, that's a flower, a yellow flower."

"Flaow-wer!" he exclaims happily.

Maybe this sweet almost 2 year old has a point...

In the midst of our sadness there is beauty all around us. And if we take the time to notice it, we can be happy in the midst of the sad.

Carson definitely knows something is up. He may not be able to express it in words just yet, but he is observant and knows his room is looking a little different and toys that were once in his room at our home are now in his parent's home. He knows when we say good-bye after our 2 day visit that we are saying good-bye for a lot longer than a couple of hours. Sometimes he is so sad he cries and refuses to say good-bye. But then he sees his parents and he is happy.

While this part of the experience is so sad, we do realize that there is beauty and joy in it as well.

God is choosing to use us as He redeems families. If there is one thing we have learned about God in our own personal lives, it's that He is in the business of Redemption. He takes broken things, things that we've really messed up because of our selfish choices, and heals them with love and grace. I think that maybe it's because we've experienced this in our own lives that we are drawn to foster parenting. We want to be used to extend God's grace not only to kids, but also their families. It's usually not the kids who have made selfish choices, but they are often paying the price for the choices of their parents. Sometimes redemption looks like finding a new adoptive family for a child, other times it is the healing of a biological family. For us, this is the ultimate goal of foster parenting: that children will experience a redeemed family, and will be transformed by the love and grace that makes redemption possible.

We have no regrets. We tried to love these children like they were our own. We gave them the best family experience we could. And we had so many family and friends who did the same for them.

While the word "redemption" is not part of Carson's vocabulary yet, I like to think that moments where he can recognize the beauty of a flower in the midst of sadness tells me that he understands what it is.