how it's been since he left.

I feel like I'm walking through some form of grief.  Not at all the sort that comes from actually losing a child, no, no, no, hear me straight.  I know we are not going through anything close to the pain of a death.  But I do say a form of grief because there is a sense of great loss, of defeat, of surrender, of questions unanswered, and the missing of a human soul that used to fill up your home with life.  And all these things leave me crying unexpectedly and often.  It feel like grief because I feel stuck in the pain of him not being around, and I don't have good answers to comfort that pain.

See, I can so easily feel that we failed him.  I'm horrified by the possibility that his coming to us and leaving so suddenly would be interpreted in his little, developing soul as abandonment.  Yet again.  And, statisticly speaking, abandonment does not produce good things.  If we have a chance to see him again, I am just scared to death of what emotions it would stir up in him --would he see me as the woman who abandoned him??  Who didn't stick it out with him?  Who said she loved him but was never really there for him when he needed her?  Yet, I know the devil would love to use this to stop us from doing good.  Fear motivates us.  It keeps us from helping the needy.  I know it was good for him to be in the safety of our family for that time and our friends and family have been so good to remind us of that.  I'm not looking for " 'atta boy's".  But this is the cycle my thoughts are in right now.  While I trust God called us to him and has begun a good work in that little guy and will be faithful to him, I struggle with fear and questions of his future and I struggle to leave it in God's hands.

For now, I just miss his sweet spirit and the noise that filled up this place with him around.  And, when he comes up in conversation, or I see something it the store I wanted to buy him, or when I'm cleaning up toys and find another one of his knock-off Matchbox cars that his dad had given him which he would carry around, one clenched in each fist, I totally fall apart.

About a week ago, it was late at night and Augie had fallen asleep so I picked him up and was carrying him into bed.  In his half-asleep stupor, Augs asked me, "Where's ______?" (blank being our foster baby's name, of course).  Broke my heart.  In half.  We've talked about the whole thing over and over with the kids.  But, really, how is two-year-old going to understand?

I worry about how my kids interpret his absence.  And I worry about how he interprets that one day everything in his own life changed, that he never returned to our house.  I just pray that God gives grace to him and to our kids and helps everyone understand our hearts.  I pray for healing and that our actions will lead him to see Christ.

Please pray that we will have future contact with him!  I have written a note to the grandparents and am planning to write another.  I gave them my number and said we would love to meet up sometimes to see him again and that we would babysit or help in anyway we can.  I haven't heard anything yet, but I am still hopeful.