Demetrius is 4.5 and Beautiful.

It's Demetrius' half birthday... yesterday. A great excuse to start blogging again.
My mom recently mentioned that she thought I had stopped because our adoptions/family is complete. But more or less I stopped because our family has just begun.

But I don't want to stop blogging. I love having these stories and moments captured in time.

In September I went to Dallas and got trained in TBRI with Karyn Purvis. She's my hero.

And ever since, every spare moment I have (which is never really spare, if you know what I mean), I have been working on developing training modules based on what I learned at TCU with Dr. Purvis. I also got my self a job, and then quickly quit.

I have a vision to help lot's and lot's of kids. By helping their parents. So I have begun developing these trainings. We will use them locally with several different foster and adoptive homes through local counties. But I also want to go to adoption support groups and other agencies to help. Mostly I want to go anywhere and help people understand how we can bring hope and healing to kids from the hard places.

So I am slowly starting this process.

One thing I want to start doing is asking for a bit of participation from my blog readers. Which I realize will require some consistency from me. But I want to start asking you for your feedback to some parenting questions I get most often, hear what you're doing, and also be available for questions you might have of me. And I am using these questions because they are apart of trainings I am developing.

So my first question is this, Do you have "food issues" at your house? And if so, do you have a strategy at going about helping solve these issues?
Please feel free to email me at the link on the sidebar, or leave a comment if you don't mind it being "public".
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Demetrius has been with us now for exactly two years.
This morning we had to pause life for a few moments, while we talked about why his Ashley mom chose not to take care of him, and chose not to keep him safe. He cried, a lot. These issues come up some times daily with him. He is in that phase of deep deep mourning. Mourning for all that he has lost. Mourning for what will never be. Mourning for what was suppose to be.
It's hard to be a part of.
This morning he asked if when he was ten if he could move back with her, because then she will be able to keep him safe.
I said no.

There is this delicate balance that we must walk. As foster parents and/or adoptive parents. This balance between truth telling and compassion, a balance between honor and realism, hope and reality, forgiveness and wisdom. It's a really rough place to be.

A lot of times we want to idealize our adoptive kiddos biological parents for them, to try and protect them from the truth. But what I've realized is that they know. We all, instinctively know our stories. And if we try to sugar coat them, to protect their precious hearts, we loose their trust.
Because deep down they know.
And they want us to acknowledge that the hand they've been dealt is hard. It is not fair.

It's much harder to sit with your kiddo as they weep those visceral sobs of lost innocence and sorrow that can overtake them, than it is to gloss over their past.

But we cannot help bring true healing and hope to them at a real level if we're not willing to go there with them.

This quote is true of my children (and yours too)... It hangs in our home as a constant reminder that they are beauty.

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

When we welcome kids from the hard places into our homes we are committing to not just "letting life happen". We are committing to being purposeful. Because if we are not purposeful in our parenting, in our words, in our action and deed. Then we will not help our children through the suffering, struggle, loss , and depths. We cannot help them find their beauty if we won't help them through the ugliness.

So as Demetrius and I sat this morning on the couch, with him wrapped up in a blanket with me, late for school, again. I cried too. And I answered his questions. Once again. And I can see the beauty beginning to emerge, but we are still digging through the past. We are still mourning what was.

And that's okay. Because I know that out of the depths comes beauty, true beauty, that is clothed in compassion, sensitivity, gentleness, and a deep loving concern.

And that is worth it.