Foster Care | Part 7 Trainings 2 & 3

It's definitely been a while since I updated about our process of becoming licensed foster care parents. It feels like we haven't progressed much since our first training night back in June.

But in reality this has been what I have been doing in regards to foster care for the last 2 months...

Working through this ginormous binder of paperwork. Y'all, it's shocking! All of you adoptive moms and dads and foster parents are amening me right now. It really is a tad overwhelming. And most of this paperwork isn't just filling out that paper. It's instructions on a much larger project that has to be done. So it isn't even just this binder of paperwork, it's much more. Like, creating a scrapbook with pictures of everybody you know. It's copies of every document that claims you exist. It is drawing out a floor plan of your home and a fire escape route and a schedule of what your days will look like and a list of rules for your home. The list goes on and on and on.

However, as overwhelming as it has been, and I feel like I've just made a dent in it...it's NOTHING in comparison with what these kids in the foster system have been through. So you know what? I'm thankful to have to spend HOURS upon hours filling out this tedious paperwork in exchange for a life of enduring, up to this point, the most minimal of trials.

Heath and I will attend our second and third trainings this Friday night and all day Saturday.

Please, please pray for us. Friday night's training is the brutal of all brutal ones. Apparently, this is the training where we will hear in detail on sexual and physical abuse, neglect and abandonment cases. Along with pictures and videos.

Part of me feels guilty for the anxiety I am experiencing over this when I am not the one that had to live through the stories we are going to hear. I am not the one that experienced the absolute most horrific traumas imaginable.

But anxiety is what I have. I'm scared. I'm terrified that when I hear story after story tomorrow night, I am going walk out of there and never look back. That I am going to want to abandon this entire process and feel that there is absolutely no way that I am equipped to be able to handle it.

So please pray that I will not be overwhelmed. That God will allow me to process the information in an appropriate way. Because I know in my heart that if God has called Heath and I on this path, than without a doubt HE will equip us. Convincing my mind and emotions of that is what the hard part is going to be. Please pray that I will believe that with every cell in my body.

Thanks y'all!! I will let you know how it goes.