Why everyone should be a foster parent.

First I Have to say that Heidi and I were pretty sure that foster parenting wasn't for us. Heidi was a substance abuse counselor for years and worked with lots of people who lost their children to the state. There was no way that we were going to deal with those kind of people in our private lives too. We are crazy enough people on our own, we don't need any extra drama in our lives.

We also were of the thought " I don't use drugs so any child I was able to create on my own would not be drug effected, why should I settle for adopting a drug effected child." or "Those kids have a ton of baggage that I don't want to deal with!" Or "They could have been sexually abused, I can't have them around my kids!" Or "Someone else would be better equipped to deal with them than I would." These are the kind of things I thought before we discovered what we have now learned.

Being a foster parent is hard work:

• It is unpredictable. 
• You don't have the luxury of controlling the things they have been taught
• They may be sexually reactive, even if no one knows that until you report it.
• They may horde food (cheese sticks that have been under a mattress for months are nasty!!!)
• They might not have good personal hygiene.
• They might have irrational fears (like: police, closets, or their own bed.)
• You will know more than the caseworker about these kids after one week in your home.

That being said it is the most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life!

• You still get to teach them the things you would have taught them
• You get to help them find peace and overcome their past
• You get to be the people they trust to meet their needs.
• You get to help them care about themselves
• You get to share (and in some cases learn) the value of things like police officers.
• You get to know them for real and be an advocate for them.

Ok, even if you never, ever have a child come into your home from foster care, you can benefit from signing up to be a foster parent. You will attend 32 hrs of training, in which you learn more about child development, shepherding children along the desired path (instead of driving them with a cattle prod), and meeting their needs. This training is the school about how to raise kids that you never new about. We all talk about how kids don't come with a manual...this is it. Fabulous!!!

As if that weren't enough you get to continue getting training, in fact it is required. You get to keep learning how to be an even better parent. If you don't need classes in that, can you come teach some classes in that?

Once you do become a foster parent, you get to meet all kinds of other foster parents. people who are going through the exact same things you are. It is absolutely amazing to pick up the phone and call one of your friends to describe a crazy situation and have them absolutely understand. It's even better when they dealt with it last week and can tell you there experience about what worked, and what didn't.  Finally you have within your tools a great organization of therapists, and clinicians who can help you out...So even if you already have kids, this is a great way to become a better parent to them, and to broaden their experience and understanding.

The most important reason to become a foster parent though is because there are kids out there who need us. They need to know what it is like to live in a family that takes care of them. They need to feel love; real, heartfelt, honest love. We have that love in our hearts. It aches to send them home sometimes, but it only aches because they have been loved. Some day 20 years from now, they will be in a relationship with someone, trying to make a "family" work, and they will recall what it felt like to be in your home. They may not attribute it to you, they may not even remember that it was you, but they will remember what it feels like to have been really loved! In that instant you have not helped one child, but generations of children to come, because all of them will feel a portion of your love that has grown, with interest.

You see, we are all foster children. Our Heavenly Father has placed us in (foster) foster families so that we can learn, some good, some not as good...His love pours down on us every day. Should we not share that infinite love with our brothers and sisters, especially those who have not felt it because of circumstances beyond their control.

Leprosy of the soul

I don't really know where this is coming from, last night I was listening to a radio drama about the life of Christ and heard the story of the leper of Galilee. It hit me like a ton of bricks how this disease caused exile, it caused men to forsake their families, and all they had dear. This morning I couldn't shake the feeling so I wrote this:

Leprosy of the Soul

In ancient times there was a disease so awful, so contagious that mere contact with a person who had it could exile you from society. One touch could cause you to become untouchable, and for you to become a walking decaying scourge. The skin would begin to break down and even shed. Fingers and toes would decay, and sometimes be reduced in length as the disease progressed. Even in modern times there are two to three million people permanently disabled because of leprosy.

Such a scourge exists today. Pornography once experienced cannot be forgotten. It can be set aside, hidden, but it will forever be recorded in the annals of the mind. This makes pornography a pernicious foe. The adversary can with the slightest temptation, trick us into bringing those images to mind, and can ensnare us even when the object is no longer in our possession.  Not only is it a scourge, but once consumed pornography, becomes a battle which has to be won in the mind for the rest of time.

Pornography attacks the family at its core. Pornography mingles feelings of pleasure with guilt, and loathing. It masks the true purpose of that pleasure by minimizing spousal bonding. By experiencing the exhilaration and pleasure of sexuality with other “fictional” beings, pornography weakens the devotion and that sexuality should engender in our most sacred terrestrial relationship. If all of those things weren’t bad enough, it causes feelings of inadequacy, resentment, shame, betrayal, and impotence in a spouse. “If my spouse has to go somewhere else for that pleasure, does that mean I am not good enough?”  These feelings of inadequacy and shame engender anger, and can kill the seed of love. It is no surprise then that Satan has gone out of his way to make this scourge easily obtainable, making it available 24 hours a day in nearly every family in the world.

Like leprosy; exposure to pornography and its infection; is full of shame. In modern times it is common for those infected with leprosy to go undiagnosed, and as such have lasting effects even though positive treatment has been available for nearly three decades. People are afraid to admit leprous symptoms, or the full extent of their exposure because of the shame that even the name of leprosy invokes. In a similar manner, many of God’s children do not participate in the glorious powers of the atonement because of shame. They minimize their sin and in so doing take from Christ the sin that he has paid for already. For if the sin is “not really that bad” then his drops of blood already spilt are ineffectual. They are not willing to “lay it all on the altar” so that the atonement can work in their lives. Fear of the reaction of loved ones, or the shame felt in disappointing them drives the infection deeper within the soul where it festers until it seems there is no hope of return.

But there is hope! As Christ put forth his hand and cleansed the leper in Galilee, he can cleanse our lives (Matt 8:1-4).  “… And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand and touched him, saying I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed…” We must lay our pride upon the altar, and cry out to him as did the leper “if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean!” We must forgo the strength that we possess, and hand our lives over to him. It is simple to write the words, yet difficult in practice. “For the natural man is an enemy to God…unless he submit to the enticing’s of the holy spirit…and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord…” (Mosiah 3:19.)  Leprosy is a disease that was “terminal” even though it was clearly known from the days of the Old Testament until the 1980s, and only then healed by the arm of the flesh. Yet Jesus healed it many times on two continents during his short 3 year ministry. The truth is, that if we do not repent, and lay our stained garments upon the altar for him to cleanse, then no amount of suffering we do in this life or the next will be able to bring us back to the warmth of family. There will be no “man made” cure in 2000 years. There will only be suffering without refuge or recompense (D&C 19:15-18). He who created this earth can cleanse us. He who healed so many can heal us. He who is our elder brother, and loves us beyond understanding, can save us from ourselves.  May we accept his sacrifice and when we see that we are whole, turn back and with a loud voice glorify God, giving thanks (Luke 12:11-19.)

I'm not sure why this should be here, it helped me t write it but I can't help but feel I need to not lose it, so here it is.