Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Each episode will feature a conversation between host Rebecca Harvin and foster/adoptive caregivers or members of the community who support foster care and adoption.
Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Foster Care: The Altar of Motherhood
Jessica Miles shares her raw, powerful story of loving through the hardest seasons of foster care, demonstrating how her own difficult childhood prepared her to show up authentically for children experiencing trauma. She offers profound insight into what it means to love intentionally when behaviors are extreme and systems are failing.
• Loving children the way she wished she'd been loved as a child
• Creating safety and protection as foundational parenting values
• Learning each child's unique love language and needs
• Suffering hearing loss from years of managing extreme behaviors
• Finding self-care in small, tangible ways during crisis seasons
• Processing personal trauma while parenting traumatized children
• Wrestling with faith questions while standing firm in commitment
• Using personal pain as a source of empathy and understanding
• The transformative power of being known and truly seen
Share this episode with anyone walking through hard seasons who needs to know they're not alone. The hard is holy.
Welcome back to Behind the Curtain honest conversations about foster care and adoption, the space where we tell real stories of hope, healing and the messy beauty of saying yes to hard things. Today's guest is someone who has walked through the fire and chosen to love anyway. Jessica Miles is a foster mom and a dear friend of mine that I met in this world of foster care, and a dear friend of mine that I met in this world of foster care. She is somebody who deeply inspires me by the way that she shows up for her kids, even when it costs her everything. In this episode, jessica opens up about a particularly hard season in her journey, one where loving well wasn't easy, but it was the choice she made. Again and again, her story is raw and real, and at the heart of it is something powerful. Jessica chose to love these children because she wanted to give them what she didn't have when she needed it growing up. If you've ever wondered how to keep showing up when things fall apart, or what it really looks like to love from a place of deep healing, you're going to want to lean in.
Speaker 1:Here's my conversation with Jessica Miles. This has never happened before, where we have recorded and this is a new thing that I'm actually like really, really excited about how today is going to go, because I've never had somebody text me afterwards and say, hey, I didn't honor what this podcast is. Give me another shot. And not that you didn't honor it the first time. I like looked at the text and was like that's insane. We'd had a great podcast the time before, but you were like you asked me a question and I held back and I want to. I want to come back ask me the question again. Yep, and so, um, I was like yeah, 100. So the question is jessica, you love so well in the middle of really hard things, you love in a way that I have rarely seen in the world of foster care and adoption and motherhood in general, and I'm so curious to know how you do that.
Speaker 2:All right, let's do it. So you're right, I asked for a redo. I give a lot of those as a mom, so I was like maybe I could ask for one. So thank you.
Speaker 1:Listen, we're all about trauma-informed care over here.
Speaker 2:So that's how I well, trauma is exactly what I felt when you asked that question and I had a lot of things come up. So, before I answer, I had my own insecurities surfaced in that moment where you called out what you see in me and I was like, oh, like no, I'm not, I'm not all that, like I'm not enough, I'm not like maybe I didn't love well for all the days that I thought I didn't love well, and so, like I'm thinking about this for days, right, it took me probably what a week.
Speaker 1:I have no idea.
Speaker 2:Time means nothing to me, sometimes A lot of time passed before I was like, screw it, I'm just going to ask for a redo. So one my insecurities. Two this isn't insecurity-based. I think it might be pride-based, but not in like I feel like I'm better than everybody else, but like I take so much pride in being a good mom that I weirdly don't want someone else to think I'm feeling different about their motherhood. So then I freeze in that question because I don't want to make someone else not feel like a good mom. Sounds insane. No, it doesn't sound insane.
Speaker 1:It's like my good mom-ness could affect how you feel about yourself as a mom.
Speaker 2:Because I actually do this job really well.
Speaker 1:That is the textbook definition of everything it really is.
Speaker 2:It is, and then everything feels so private about that season because, I know the season you're talking about, when you're like how did I don't know how you did this? Honestly, there's days like I don't know that I knew how I was doing it, but when it comes down to it, I do know how to answer that question. Yeah, okay, so I worked through a lot of therapy.
Speaker 1:Did you have to take me to therapy with you?
Speaker 2:In my mind I had to go home and be like, oh my God, I've shed so many tears Anyways, so all right.
Speaker 1:Gosh, I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. It was a long. It was a long two. I'm so proud of you, thank you. It was a long two and a half years of therapy, but here's how I loved Will. Yes, it comes natural to me. That's what I said before. Right, like this is just this innate thing inside of me that wants to be a mom. From the time I had doll babies, like I cared for them like they were real.
Speaker 2:I would make sure they were swaddled, I would feed them like they were real, I would make sure they were swaddled, I would feed them like everything was perfect, and so my motherhood journey has not been everything is perfect Like it has been none of that. So in the season that you're referencing of really hard, so from 2021 to 2024- or five now current, probably just a little more relaxed.
Speaker 2:I loved like I wanted to be loved. It's that simple. I needed my children to wake up in the morning, no matter what behavior they gave me, no matter what whatever. Like mother had looked for me that day, which was normally loud, chaotic and messy, and I would just have to remind myself every moment. So that means I would take deep breaths, I would be like this isn't working and my whole body would be dysregulated. But I would be like what would I want?
Speaker 2:And I remember feeling young and putting my things to the side and saying like, okay, I'm just going to do this for my mom or I'm going to do this for someone else. And so I think that's what makes me able to stand in those really hard seasons is I've done enough work behind the scenes to love exactly like I want to be loved. So that means child raging in my arms for hours and me reminding myself every second that I lose track like, okay, but she's safe here in my arms. Right, everyone is safe because I'm holding her in my arms, and this is what I wish someone would have done for me, although I never would have done those things right.
Speaker 1:Like.
Speaker 2:I just want to love like I wanted to be loved. So it's intention upon intention upon intention.
Speaker 1:I have this keychain that says be the person that you needed at the beginning of your journey. And my friend, she saw that in a store and she took a picture and she sent it to me and I was like I need this keychain, like I need you to go back to the store. She was like I'm not at the store anymore and I was like the next time are you going to be at the store? Like I need the keychain and I'm like be the person that you needed at the beginning of your own journey.
Speaker 2:So, because you've spent so much time thinking about this ahead of time and even then after, like I asked you a traumatic question. I didn't realize. I was so triggered by the question.
Speaker 1:It's fantastic no-transcript. So safety and protection is my favorite, because it's something I always wanted.
Speaker 2:Because you weren't safe. Yeah, oh, that's heavy and that's all wound together.
Speaker 1:So wound.
Speaker 2:Because I don't feel like I have one thing in my life that's like separate.
Speaker 2:Like I can't, and I think I realized that in that really hard season is like their trauma was triggering my trauma, and so then there we all are, with like some of the family members are gaining new trauma, and then I'm just reliving mine. I think that, yes, I want a child to be safe and protected. I want a child to know they're loved no matter what, and I think love is communicated differently and it's received differently for every child, and so, as a mom, I have to and my family's a little complex.
Speaker 2:We got adopted not adopted but chosen. We got bio. Everybody has their own thing that they're bringing to the table, but love would be the next thing. I want them to experience that, Because I don't think love and protection are the same thing.
Speaker 1:No, they're not the same thing. Protection is an aspect of love, but you can protect somebody and not be loving towards them, and you can say that you love somebody but you don't protect them, and then, um, yeah, and we know what that's like. Yeah, um, one of the things that you just said, though, is um, everybody gives love and they receive love differently, and so your job as a mom, what are you looking for in that? Like you're learning your kid and you're like, okay, this kid receives love this way, like I have a kid who is a solid words of encouragement, words of affirmation kid, and it's so evident, it's like you could take a billboard out.
Speaker 1:We were hiking, not hiking. We were on horses in Jackson, wyoming, and this child pet their horse the entire time, and the whole one hour horse ride, you just hear them say you're such a good horse, you're doing such a good job. You're doing such a good job walking on this trail. You're such a great horse, great job, you're doing such a. You're just walking, you're walking and you're doing such a good job. Look at you walking down the hole for one hour, for one hour, and I was like, oh my gosh, but that to me like I could do a whole lot of things for them, but if I have not said to them hey, who's my favorite six-year-old in the entire world, that does something entirely different for them than come sit next to me here on the couch. They want to sit next to me here on the couch, but more than that, they want to know yeah, what's the one thing that I want to hear today? You're my favorite, you're my favorite, you're my favorite. Okay, so safe and protected, loved in a way that they understand it.
Speaker 2:And deserve it.
Speaker 1:And deserve it. What else?
Speaker 2:To be known. I want my children to be known, deserve it and deserve it. What else To be known? I want my children to be known and so, like, I have conversations with one of them and she'll always be like how do you know? Like I just hollered your name, how did you know I needed a blanket? And I'm like well, I don't know, I've studied you. Like.
Speaker 2:I know what you need and I know that when you go sit down in a corner to read a book like, you're going to need that favorite blanket to like cozy up with it. So when you said from the other room, jessica, I knew that you needed a blanket, like it just was. It's there. But it comes from studying, it comes from observing, it comes from taking the time to slow down. Like in that season where everything was upside down 24-7, I was losing sleep. I'm fighting through hard therapy right.
Speaker 2:Remember I said trauma triggered trauma. So I'm like I did the only thing I knew to do and went back to therapy. So like I'm I don't know that I fully processed that those three to four years, to be honest.
Speaker 1:No, there's no way that you could have processed them by now.
Speaker 2:Like, maybe when I'm old I'll be able to look back and be like, to be honest no, there's no way that you could have processed them by now Like, maybe when I'm old I'll be able to look back and be like hey guys, let me tell you about the complexity of this season, but I think it was such a life-changing season that it's a season that.
Speaker 1:So when I say no, you couldn't possibly process it, what I mean is really no, you're going to be 50 and still processing this. You're going to be 70 and you're going to come back here and you're going to need to process more things.
Speaker 2:Yep, but I think what saved me through all of it was that therapy to where I could go and either dump all my emotions or go in and be like and it probably took me a good six months or more to be willing to go in and be like all right, this is where I really am.
Speaker 2:I'm not just angry or whatever, and that's another thing too about knowing your children is what they're giving you isn't always what it is, and it took longer for the children that were more quiet than it did for the children that were out loud about their feelings. Does that make sense for us me and my husband to really zero in and be like, hey, what's going on feelings? Does that make sense for me and my husband to really zero in and be like, hey, what's going on there?
Speaker 1:Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:And that would be like that's always our conversations, right. When they're not around, it's hard not to talk about your kids. So then you're like, hey, this was weird the other day, right, and so in order to know them, it just takes a lot of slowing down, a lot of processing through what you're hearing them say. I still wonder some days if I got it right with some of them.
Speaker 1:Don't y'all? I mean that's like forever.
Speaker 2:Maybe they'll sit on a podcast one day and be like I had this one foster mom.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you what it felt like. She studied me. So after our podcast, I went home and I thought about this. I thought about this question and about how I asked it, even before you texted it, like it was a moment for me too.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:It was a moment where I just was like that was an interesting question that I asked. Yeah, it was loaded Because, on my end, behavior and love are very tied together in my family of origin. Curious and curiouser right, that somebody could experience a season of such intense behaviors that are not going the way that you want them to, that the child is not responding to any form of parenting that you're doing, all of the good parenting that you're doing on the outside. The world is caving in on you. The system is horribly unjust in this case. Objectively, the system is horribly unjust in this case. And so you're experiencing grief upon grief upon grief, and then in your home, and then in your home, you're experiencing behaviors that last for hours at a time and not like they're throwing like a temper tantrum.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love when parents are like what do I do when they're stomping their feet? I was like, oh, you let them stomp their feet, Turn on some music for it.
Speaker 1:Like, just let them do that we're talking about. Like I need you to stop punching your own self in the face.
Speaker 2:That one.
Speaker 1:That one, that one, we're like I. We're talking about extreme behaviors here and all of the parenting that you're doing isn't, isn't I'm going to say it like it's not working.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what it felt like.
Speaker 1:Okay, and still you were able to show up and love, and so I was like wait, why was that such a? Why was that a question that I asked like that, and it was like oh, because that's A where I didn't experience love as a child and B where I struggle as a mom myself. Is separating these things right, like separating first you behave, then you belong, then you're loved, and it's like no, first you love and belong, regardless of behavior. Actually, the behavior doesn't even play into this equation, which I experience on one hand with my biological children, and not the same. I don't experience this the same in adoption, and so it was like I felt like a field scientist. Do you know what I mean? Yes, like in that moment. Yes, it was like that's where the question came from inside of me was I didn't experience this. I never experienced love in the middle of bad behavior. Air quotes around bad behavior because, certainly I wasn't doing those things.
Speaker 1:I can imagine, and it's just interesting to me in a way of like look at that odd species.
Speaker 2:Who me? I'm the odd species. Am I the odd species?
Speaker 1:Yeah, in that sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what makes her tick? Yeah, in that sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what makes?
Speaker 2:her tick.
Speaker 1:How does she do this? How does she show up and how does she love? How does she? How come? Behavior doesn't affect love, and you were an example of that that I had not. I've seen it in other places, but I've not seen it to that extreme, to the extreme of the behaviors. It never shifted your love, and so it really was. In that moment I was asking like Maybe I'm crazy. Well, I think we're all a little bit crazy, maybe.
Speaker 2:I'm just crazy. I think we're all. I think there were times where I would, and to very few people. You got a window into my life.
Speaker 1:I did.
Speaker 2:A couple other people got a window in my life. My neighbors got like a wide open door because that was on display.
Speaker 1:It was a total Because they could hear it from the closed doors.
Speaker 2:Yes, there's a couple neighbors that know me Know me Only like they were looking at me a while back and they were like they couldn't figure out who I was. And my hair is longer and I have gained weight probably since the last time they saw me because all that walking that I did around the neighborhood with her helped a lot, but anyway. So they were like wait, I know who you are. You're like the kid that screams all the time.
Speaker 1:I was like oh uh-huh, yeah, that's me. I mean, the side effect of this season is literally, you have hearing loss.
Speaker 2:I do.
Speaker 1:Like you have a hearing aid Actually yeah, two.
Speaker 2:So when I finally went to schedule the appointment have I told you this before? When I finally went, she goes through the testing with me and she's like, well, this looks like it's genetic. Well, so who in your family has hearing loss? I was like, oh, I don't know. I mean, I think we started the podcast with both my parents aged out of foster care. So I know bits and pieces, but like that amount of trauma on both sides has shaped our family into something that really isn't pretty to look at.
Speaker 2:And definitely not one where we talk to each other, unfortunately. But then one is genetic and I couldn't answer that. And then she's like well, did you work around like loud machines? Do you have a factory job? I was like, no, just a stay-at-home mom. She's like, no, I'm not talking about kids yelling and being loud. I was like, well, no, I don't think you can explain it?
Speaker 1:How do?
Speaker 2:you explain it. I mean even one of my. Actually I won't say what their role was in care, but we FaceTimed at one point in the middle of a really bad night where we had been told to take by the psychiatrist on a Zoom visit to take everything out of the room. So here we are middle of the day taking everything out of the room. Like how much trauma did that child incur while screaming and raging and hurting herself, watching us take away everything out of her room?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the goal at that point is to keep her safe.
Speaker 2:So then the bunk bed came into play and my husband just straight out told the psychiatrists I am not taking that bunk bed apart today. And my oldest daughter slipped me a little note and it said and I still have this note, we are not a psych ward. And I was like oh, and that was a hard moment for me, because not only was like, my mind was like one how do I regulate a child who's so dysregulated? Two, I have a caseworker watching it on, like we have phones everywhere at this point, right, because everyone wants to see. It's like a, it's a show at this point, and so I'm trying to protect her. And then, like my husband's working, so I'm trying to keep it away from him. And then there's still a couple other kids in the house and so the neighbors are taking them.
Speaker 2:And it's just, you're in this season of like everybody needs help and you have to deal with the one thing. That's, I guess, getting the most attention in the moment. Right, because I couldn't just walk away from her. But when she gave me that note, I was like you're right, that's, that's right. And so I read the note, I showed the psychiatrist the note and I told the caseworker. I was like let's get off the phone and let's talk, like we need a plan and if a bunk bed needs torn apart and a mattress is all that can be in that room, then I'm going to need the department or the agency or someone to decide what this child needs, because I have four other children in my house right now and like that felt hard too.
Speaker 2:Like it's hard to feel, like not feel like I'm failing someone in that lineup of children, right, or my husband, because I'm outside all day walking around the neighborhood with a screaming kid and he's cooking and doing whatever else. Like I got lost answering that question. I took a rabbit trail that's okay where were we?
Speaker 1:when you just said I got lost, I was like right now in conversation or in motherhood.
Speaker 2:I never got lost in motherhood because it's always what I wanted to do, which has made this season really weird, because there's not a lot for me to do.
Speaker 1:Did you lose yourself in that season?
Speaker 2:Almost, almost. So probably the first year, the therapist would always we would go in and I would just spill out all this stuff. That's going on and this is what this looks like. How do I navigate this situation? She would always bring it back to okay, how are you doing? I'm like, oh, I'm good, like I'm fine, what do I do about this? And so there was a learning curve, like one day she handed me a piece of paper 100 ways to take care of yourself. A hundred, a hundred.
Speaker 1:I have it Not with me, it's at home somewhere.
Speaker 2:A hundred. I have it Not with me, it's at home somewhere. I kept it because it's funny, it's a funny piece of paper. A hundred ways and I was like, oh cool, in the middle of all the chaos in my house, let me just put these on the fridge and check it off.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Go for a walk without a screaming kid Like what are you doing? A hundred ways. Anyway, I got the message she was trying to say Like Jessica, you need to take care of yourself. You're not taking care of yourself.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that this is like the conversation that goes around you have to put your own oxygen mask on first, right, and that sounds all well and good in theory, but in practice, like I was at lunch the other day and somebody was like, well, you have this and you know you do, and you have your to really intentionally carve out space for myself. And some are simple and some are very difficult, and I think we've talked before about like nails are one thing for me, like if my nails are done, I can look down and one thing in my life is going correct so pretty it's there, it's contained, it's controlled and it's beautiful, it's not your skin it's.
Speaker 1:It's great, it's not touching you like this is nice, it's really funny, because it's this thing that's like okay, the agreement, when I look down, is that I like my nails. So on the day where they get too long for me to type on my computer which is not very long in my world, I do not like long nails it becomes this like psychotic obsession inside of my brain. I'm like I have to go get my nails done. I have to go get my nails done. I have to go get my nails done.
Speaker 2:Is it still self-care then? On that day it does feel like self-care that day.
Speaker 1:It really does, but I think the thing is, though, is that it's like no, this is the thing that I do for myself, and so this thing can't go awry. I can't imagine a list of a hundred things.
Speaker 2:She's seriously the best therapist, but that list was. She knew how I felt about it by looking at my face.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a hundred things would have frozen me. What did you do for yourself in that season?
Speaker 2:I actually started getting my nails done. That was the season that I did that, and then I would always go and get my hair cut. I stopped getting my hair cut Ironically. I love a pixie cut better than anything else, and so I say ironic because it's like halfway down my back now.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:So I got tired of the upkeep of it, though, because you have to go every four to five weeks.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I wanted to go get my nails done and not get my hair done. So I wanted to go get my nails done and not get my hair done. So I kind of made some switches in that I played more Candy.
Speaker 1:Crush yeah.
Speaker 2:Because typically I feel like a bad mom if I'm on my phone. I don't know why and I don't think other people are. I just feel that way, like I should be doing a puzzle or playing a game or teaching someone their alphabet. Don't ask me, it's crazy. So, anyways, played more Candy Crush. So, anyways, played more Candy Crush. Watched my favorite shows, like sat on the couch and did it with the kids all around me, like it's okay for me to do this right now, unless, of course, someone's screaming. And then I was handling that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was on.
Speaker 2:I couldn't do self-care in that moment. I started gardening more. That brings me a lot of joy Trying to think. I think that might be it. I wrote a lot of things in that season, a lot of things yeah, writing is an outlet and I will share them one day.
Speaker 2:They're still, they still feel really raw and vulnerable. I think the reality is my role and vulnerable always helps somebody. So I just have to feel like I have to feel okay letting everyone read that, because most of what I, everything I write, is something I'm okay with someone reading, like I've come to terms with that. So this stuff, stuff from that season, I don't. I've not put it anywhere because it just feels so it's just raw.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I've done it yet on this podcast, but I'm about to quote Taylor Swift.
Speaker 2:Oh, go for it. I'm not a Swifty, but my daughters are, so I know a good amount of it. You're not, but your daughters are. It's such a great connection.
Speaker 1:The oldest one started it and then the younger one followed, and now I'm literally driving down the road yelling out better than revenge yes, I think that one of zoe's like favorite things that she has accomplished in the last couple years is that she's turned all of the kids into Swifties. But Taylor Swift talks about how she writes a song in the moment to help her process and then when she releases it into the world, it becomes something different and she's like and now, like, these songs belong to you, and then also now they belong to us and then also now they belong to us.
Speaker 1:And so now, like when we have, when we're here in this concert, right, I was so lucky to get to go to the Eros tour. She was like this song will now forever be our song from this night. Like this is. Does that make?
Speaker 2:sense. Yeah, it's a big thought.
Speaker 1:When I'm struggling with vulnerability and I think it's fair to say for me that vulnerability doesn't feel the same way. Right, right, yeah. Having a deep conversation, having an honest conversation, those things don't feel vulnerable to me. Expressing a need feels very vulnerable to me. Showing up in a hard conversation and staying authentic to myself and not like disappearing and becoming what people expect me to be in that meeting Very vulnerable. I listened to Taylor Swift's All Too Well.
Speaker 2:Smart.
Speaker 1:I like Smart, smart, yeah, and I remind myself that this is perhaps, until Tortured Poets Department came out, her most vulnerable song that she's ever written.
Speaker 2:Don't tell my girls. The other day Nora was like. You know every word. I was like oh. She's like of the whole album. It's a great album Shh Shh.
Speaker 1:It's a great album 's. It's a great album. But until that, until that came out, like I think, I think ttpd is her most vulnerable work, but before that it's all too well. And um, and I listened to the 10 minute version and I think about a girl. She's a girl when she writes it. She's 22 years old when she writes this song. She's writing it about a very personal moment in her, in her life, and she puts it out into the world and it becomes her most popular song. Right, and I'm like that. That's what vulnerability does.
Speaker 2:That's a thought, when you said that too, I I was like, okay, hold on my mind immediately, was like wait a second. Right now it's mine and it's heavy still. What if it would be just a little lighter, if I didn't carry it alone?
Speaker 1:And that I have shared publicly. And even still, I was recently. I was in Cambodia and the way that this one like we'll call it a meeting was going, it became very apparent to me that I needed to stand up and I needed to share some parts of my story, parts of my story that I do not share publicly. If I share no problem. Sitting across the table from somebody, I can mention this. It's not a place in my story where I experience like pain or suffering anymore. It's a place of like tremendous healing, but I still am not sharing it from a stage. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And in that particular moment I had to share from a small stage, but from a stage with 50 eyes looking at me. And later Sarah and I were in. We were in the town for lunch and everybody kind of had gone back to the place we were staying and Sarah and I were just sitting there and she looked at me and she was like vulnerability hangover. And I was like, yeah, big time, like I wasn't, I wasn't anticipating sharing, I wasn't. I don't share this from a stage, yeah, yeah. And she's like, yeah, I get it Participating, sharing I wasn't.
Speaker 1:I don't share this from a stage, right, yeah, yeah. And she's like, yeah, I get it, what do you need? And I was like I need to just walk for a little bit. But in that sense, like what happened later that night is through the day. People came to me and they were like I share your story. And so I got to that night, pray over people and say I promise you this is the thing that I can promise you is that no pain goes to waste. I can promise you that everything that you have experienced, everything that you are experienced, when you hold that open in your hand to God, he uses every single piece of your story and when it's redeemed, he uses it to heal people.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And not even like I don't even think he waits until it's fully redeemed. Sometimes, lot of times, he asks us to, in a healthy way, um, share our experiences, even even prior to, like, full and complete healing. Right, there's so much about what we're doing here. That's like just sharing, just talking about it. It helps somebody else know that they're not alone and it redeems pain on the way here when you said something about not being wasted.
Speaker 2:I don't like country music, okay. So, however, the message likes to play Ann Wilson.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I don't either, because I literally change it to something else. Okay, and I will not read this whole thing. But on the chorus it says Will you touch this heart that's breaking. Come and catch these tears. I've tasted. If they're in your hands, I know they won't go wasted. And I'm like driving down San Jose in the stupidest traffic, like having this moment with God where every word of the song I was like I could relate to it.
Speaker 2:So I'm glad I left it on and didn't skip as soon as I saw her name, and I think I'm still coming to terms with that, though, and that's why I think, when I finally fully come to terms not with the spiritual side of it, but with how the spiritual and physical go together for me, and walking it out loud, for other people.
Speaker 2:And who knows, maybe that song is the beginning of something for me and walking it out like out loud for other people, um, and who knows, maybe that maybe that song is the beginning of something for me in this conversation about not holding all my raw, hard words.
Speaker 2:So get ready listen, I'm here for it I all come out because this is the path that I seem to be on, but, um, yeah, it's not wasted, like anytime that I visited a hard thing and I talked to someone about it and that's what I was saying. Before I asked for the redo, I talked to a couple foster moms and I was like I sold a couple of these people short when I was talking because I couldn't have made it through those hard seasons without them, but then I also thought they're in hard seasons right now that I'm not.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That I've walked through.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so if I sit back and I'm quiet or if I'm just like that's the way God made me, then I'm not really being super helpful. It's like when I talk to my sister she has four kids. She's like all things good in a mom to this day, even to she's a grandma now too, but she's just. She looked at me when she was in town recently and I might have said something not nice about somebody she's like, but she goes look how much you've changed, Look how much you've grown. I was like, oh dang it, you have to make it personal. But seriously, look how much I've changed and look how much I've grown. And some people may never know right, Because my stint here in Florida is like 10 years, but you know, for the ones that have got to be there from the beginning on, I think foster care is probably the most transformational maybe.
Speaker 1:I love that Nothing goes to waste, even in our own lives. On that same thread, when I think about the life that you lived, when I think about your childhood, and I think about this idea of like nothing goes to waste, the reason that you're able to show up the way that you do is because you weren't loved when you needed to be loved. You weren't safe when you needed to be safe. You weren't protected when you needed to be loved. You weren't safe when you needed to be safe. You weren't protected when you needed to. About that and you're also talking about, like, a relationship with the lord, and you could very easily be like why didn't you protect me? Right, right, yes, I was supposed to be protected here on earth, but you didn't protect me. Um, how does that play out in your brain?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's an interesting thought process because I have it often actually Like I had a very similar thought driving down San Jose today and I talked to my dad this morning. I want to clarify my dad loved really well. I think from his deficit of love, he had a lot to give and so he worked really hard all day and the time that I had him in the evening, like from the time he got home he was mine or ours until the time we went to bed and he was always there to like tuck me in a certain way, one of my favorite things. I tell my kids if they're cold. I'm like just hold, really still.
Speaker 2:Because, my dad would always say he'd like tuck me up, like dad, I'm cold. He'd be like just hold really still It'll be warm. I'm like that's not true. You lied to me like bring me five more blankets. That's a lie, but he tried so hard. Anyways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess. Let me clarify that. When I say like you weren't loved the way or you weren't safe, you weren't protected. That's not always from your parents, yeah no, I knew this.
Speaker 2:But I thought about it because I just talked to him today and I had that thought when I was driving down the road. So like it's kind of a culmination of a lot of thoughts for me if I attempt to slow down and have that whole thought, because there are times I'll have the thought itself and then I just move on. I think there's been seasons where I feel differently about it than I do now, but in a season where life is really still and really quiet.
Speaker 2:I think it's been harder to question the goodness of God than it was when I was constantly realizing I couldn't do it alone. And so you know, when you're left with all your thoughts and you're left with all the memories and you're left with all the trauma and you're just sitting with it, like I really have to challenge and be intentional myself, to be like, okay, god, like I know you'll use this for your glory Maybe you already are Like I don't always feel like it. There's been times, especially recently, I go to church, I just stand there and cry and everyone around me is worshiping. It's not that I'm not worshiping, but like that's all I have to bring to church.
Speaker 1:Like I think I cried for like two or three years straight.
Speaker 2:A church. Yeah, Like, what do you do? Like I'm just here today, Like I'm here.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We're here and then everyone wants to shake your hand and you're like just look, I want to talk to you. Like talk to someone. I'm like I don't want to talk to anybody. I really want to be here today, like me and God have been wrestling, but I'm here. I don't always love to hear that nothing is wasted, especially when it comes to my childhood trauma. Um, but the day that I was standing upstairs and I heard my little girl's disclosure, that was the day well, I started therapy that day, um, but that was also the day that I was like okay, it all makes sense.
Speaker 1:There's a reason she's here.
Speaker 2:Because if I had never experienced the abuse that I did then I don't think I would have been able to hold her through that season. And it sucks because there's days I'm like man, I just want to hold her today and I'm certain she needs me on those days. Maybe I'm crazy and she doesn't. But okay. So I had an appointment with church.
Speaker 2:We started going to a different church in the middle of this chaos, because we couldn't make the drive, because the drive itself was too triggering in the car, apparently, so like found a church really close to home and we go into this church and all along the walls there's like stained glass in the front and then all along the walls there's these banners that are hanging and they feel really familiar to me and like comforting, but also like my body didn't feel really good. Does that make sense? But it was also baby dedication that day and you know I marched my foster kids right up, right up there when it was time to pick anyone up. I was like me, me pick my family, me. Like I know that I might not always have them.
Speaker 1:The point was still adoption.
Speaker 2:But like I was like right here right now, like I'm gonna surrender this really hard thing to the Lord. But I go home and we go back the next week and I sit down in the pew and I look around again and I'm like I know what it is. So I was homeschooled for a while and I would often be with my abuser's family, which was family. So when we were over at their house there was a lot more places where you could be hurt than there were safe spaces. But in the middle of this big campground situation there was a tabernacle and so the doors of it were always like wooden and popped open. Like even talking about it, I can feel the safety that I felt there.
Speaker 2:So like I would go and I would just crouch down, I would hide in there across the top of the church as peace be still. And then they got all these banners hanging down everywhere and I'm like, holy crap, like I'm going in this one place where I love the pastor, I love the worship and I'm really safe, like and it's not really where I'm at so much about who holds me and who's always with me and trust me. That's hard Now, living in a daily grief of not having our youngest with us anymore. But yeah, I'm held, and so there's not a lot of theology right now. Right now I'm just daily like okay, god, she's yours, I'm here, I'm yours. Okay, god, she's yours.
Speaker 1:I'm here, I'm yours. There's this verse in the Bible that says I will call you out into the wilderness and there I will speak tenderly to you and I think about this verse often in the desert seasons of my life, and you're in a desert season and I think about it when people want to pray away a season like this.
Speaker 1:So many people want to pray away the hard things in life and while I don't want all of the hard things, in life what I have found in my walk with the Lord is that it is there, in those hard places, where I learn more about his character than I do anywhere else, and it is in the desert seasons, like the most expensive words that I have in my Christian faith is that God is good, and I didn't learn that on top of a mountain. I learned that in a desert. And there's so much life. There is so much life and it doesn't feel like it, which is like this, really like juxtaposed experience. Right, it feels empty, it feels lonely, it feels like I don't even know where my theology is these days, and then, when you get to look back at it later, you're like, oh, but I know that I was held, I know that I serve a God who holds me in the same way that he teaches me to hold these kids. That really, what I'm doing is just transferring the love of God in this moment.
Speaker 2:I would turn on Cece Winans when things got really bad Like.
Speaker 1:I remember.
Speaker 2:Brian came home from work one day and Cece Winans was like blaring on every Sonos in the house, right Like you can't move an inch in the house without hearing that God is good, he's got us and everything's going to be okay. Brian walks in, he's like, oh, one of those types of days I'm like, yeah, you might want to go work out or like go run around with your buddies or something. You might not want to be here.
Speaker 1:Zoe knows when I only play worship music in the car, zoe's like what happened. Anyhow, jessica, thank you. Thanks for asking for a redo.
Speaker 2:Thanks for giving me one.
Speaker 1:Thanks for coming and doing it. I find tremendous value in watching the way that you show up for the people that you love. I find tremendous value in watching you lay down on the altar of motherhood and being willing to be sacrificed in a way that not many people would say yes to, and that there, on the altar of motherhood, you somehow managed to still say yes and amen To showing up in not just the way that society would expect you to, but in a way that is full of integrity and full of personal dedication to this idea of loving when it is really, really hard. So now that we're both crying, we're going to skip the lightning round and I'm just going to say thanks, it's an honor to call you friend.
Speaker 2:Same.
Speaker 1:Wow, what a conversation. Both Jessica and I were surprised at the ending, and I'm sure that you were too. I'm so grateful to Jessica for showing up with such honesty and heart. Her story is a reminder that loving well doesn't always look perfect, but it does look like showing up, staying present and choosing to give what we may have never received ourselves. If today's episode spoke to you, I hope you walk away encouraged that even in the hardest seasons, love still matters. It still changes things, and you're not alone in the hardest seasons. Love still matters, it still changes things, and you're not alone in the fight to love well. Make sure that you share this episode with someone who needs to hear it, and don't forget to subscribe, leave a review or reach out. We love hearing from you. Until next time, keep showing up, keep loving bravely and remember the hard is holy.