Growing A Lot of Faith for a Little Boy Has life ever taken a turn that you never expected? How did you handle it? Did you turn to God? Do you have a relationship with God or just an acquaintance? Growing up, I went to church every Sunday with my family and loved going, but did I have a relationship with God? The answer is no. I believed in Him and prayed every once in a while when I remembered but I did not have a relationship with Him. I was like every little girl that I knew. My goals were to go to college, get a job, marry a handsome man, and have children, lots of children! I went to college but did not graduate. Then I found a handsome husband that was wrong for me. I lived a dark and depressing life for 2 years when I found out that he cheated on me. What? We went to church every Sunday and talked about the bible all the time. We should be living a great life, but we didn’t have a relationship with God. Once I found out about the cheating: I prayed, went to church, and spent time with my college friend that had a great relationship with God. I knew that I loved God and wanted Him in my life, but I still had no relationship with God. Fast forward several years after my divorce and I found an amazing man who had the same rough path I had walked. We got married, and wanted to add to his 2 children and live an amazing life; but, we couldn’t have children. We talked and prayed and found out about fostering. Journey to Foster Parenting Our journey had a really rough start, we were turned down in the beginning because my step-children complained to their mother about us fostering. She called DCS and put a stop to our application. Talk about a rough patch, there went all of our dreams of growing our family. This put a wrench into our family and our relationship with each other. I prayed and asked God why this was happening.  I never had a relationship between trust and true belief so I thought I got no answer. This was in December of 2012 and in April of 2013, we received a phone call from DCS asking why we stopped our application process. What!? We explained what had happened and were in disbelief that the process was continuing. For those months we thought our prayers had been heard and that HE didn’t care about us. In reality, He was working behind the scenes the entire time. In July of 2013, we became certified foster parents. Our amazing foster care specialist came to do our home study and spoke to the children. She discovered that they were just scared of the unknown and took it to their mother instead of talking to us. In late August, we got a call for 2 boys. I wanted so badly to say yes but my husband did not want to and so I answered, “no thank you.” I was devastated!!!! He didn’t like the circumstances and I couldn’t see anything but losing a chance to become a mother. I prayed and cried but nothing changed. We had a 2-week vacation planned in September. We returned and the very first day, we got another call. Again, I was so excited; however, my husband did not want to take a child on our first day back. First Placement On October 9th, I was at work when I got the call!! I was so excited and was tempted to just say yes without talking to my husband. Instead, I waited and spoke to him. We agreed we would take this little one. He had just been born and was positive for drug abuse. We got to visit him in the NICU and the second I picked him up, I knew! This was going to be our son; God was talking to me! I couldn’t believe the overwhelming feelings I was having. I felt connected to this little baby that was crying, shaking, and suffering. At that moment I thanked God for letting me become this little boy’s foster mom, but something inside me was telling me that this wasn’t just going to be my foster son. Instead, he would be my son. I just knew it. I couldn’t explain how I knew it, but I did. We went every day to the NICU and held this precious, beautiful little boy. Every day I fell more in love with him. We brought him home when he was 3 weeks old and had 2 solid months with him at home before DCS mentioned visits. We went to the DCS office to meet with the parents and have a CFTM (which we didn’t know what that was at the time). While meeting the parents I felt love for this woman even though while she was pregnant with my boy, she used drugs. I watched her hold him differently than I, burp him differently than I, and talk to him differently than I but loved her. We went home that night and I decided that I wanted her to succeed! I wanted her clean, healthy, and to be a good mom! Our Rollercoaster Ride Unlike most foster parents I know, we gave out our phone numbers to the biological parents and expected them to use them during emergent times like helping them through hard times or just letting them know we care and support them. That is not what they used it for. The biological father called me every day to tell me he didn’t want our beautiful baby boy, that he didn’t love him, and wanted the biological mother to give him up for adoption. He wanted to know if we would adopt. Of course, we would adopt! We loved him and our love for him was still growing! Fast forward