Encourage One Another: Hope for Adoptive Families in Crisis

Some families look fine on Sunday and feel like they’re falling apart by Monday morning. That gap, the public calm and the private chaos, is where a lot of foster and adoptive parents live when trauma hits hard. We sit down with Ashley Mason, founder of Encourage One Another, to talk honestly about what “crisis” can really mean: unsafe behaviors, constant hypervigilance, the painful decision to pursue out-of-home treatment, and the shame that keeps so many parents quiet.

Ashley shares how her own adoption story led from two moms meeting in a coffee shop to building a nonprofit that supports foster care and adoption on the back end, when the needs are intense and the bills are real. We dig into why “you asked for this” is not help, why free services often miss the root of trauma, and how families can pursue safety and healing without framing treatment as rejection. We also talk about the pressure to get an A in parenting, the misconception that perfect trauma-informed parenting guarantees connection, and the surprising freedom that comes from releasing control of the outcome.

We end with practical, lived-in rhythms that make long-haul parenting sustainable: grounding yourself in the present, protecting your marriage, putting nonnegotiables on the calendar, and building small pockets of rest that keep you regulated when life is loud. If you’re parenting kids from hard places, share this with someone who needs permission to tell the truth, then subscribe and leave a review so more families can find these conversations.

We know that foster care and adoption present unique challenges for your marriage, so we created this Same Page Checklist as a conversation starter for you and your spouse. You can download it for free on our website at https://www.havenretreatsinc.org/couples-free-resources-1. Enjoy!

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Transcript

Why Family Crisis Stays Hidden

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, thanks so much for joining us today on Behind the Curtain. I am your host, Rebecca Harvin, and this is where we have honest conversations about foster care and adoption. And today I am so excited because we are going to have a very honest conversation about something that is not talked about often. And that is when families are in crisis. My guest on the show today is Ashley Mason, a friend of mine that I met at CAFO, so Christian Alliance for Orphans. She is the president and founder of Encourage One Another in Arlington, Texas. She and her husband, Matthew, have been married for almost 30 years, and they have 10 kids, four bio kids in their 20s, and six children that they've adopted from ages three to 29. They run their nonprofit, encourage one another together. And at their nonprofit, they support foster and adoptive families that are in crisis. And when Ashley told me this at KFO, I thought you don't start a nonprofit like that without needing a nonprofit like that. And Ashley said, Yep, that's correct. And so I'm so glad, Ashley, that you are here and that we are going to have this conversation because it is a very real topic that families absolutely face crisis and they don't know what to do. So um, welcome.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

I'm excited. Yes, I'm it takes a special person to be excited about such a hard topic. Excited about what the Lord has done. Yes. And I think that I think what I saw in you that I loved so much at Caifo is that you walk straight into the heart and you trust the Lord to meet you right there. And that He's gonna do so much more than you could hope for or imagine, and that He's writing this really good story. And the faith that you walk with in that, I'm telling you very quietly. I inside I was like, I want to be like Ashley when I grow up. Um that truly, truly, and this is not, I'm not a person who like blows smoke up anybody's butt. Like it's just it's very um, it's it's a unique calling to be able to run into the heart. So can you tell us a little bit about um not not just your like foster care and adoption story, but like how you came to know that this was needed?

Saying Yes To A Teen Adoption

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Well, um back in 2009 um was when um we felt the Lord calling us to adopt a teenager. So she was 13 and a half when she came home, and our biological kids were six to 10 years old at the time. Um previous to this, I would have said out loud, actually, I did say out loud many times, I would never adopt older than my kids. All the reasons you can imagine, that's not anything I'm ever gonna sign up for. Um, I was always open to babies. Like, you know, if the Lord had babies for me, then I'll take a baby. But um to walk into, you know, someone older than my kids, uh, that seemed scary and not safe and not smart. Um and so um that right there was a big leap of leap of faith that the Lord led us to. Um, and so bringing her home, I was able to connect with um if a friend of a friend who also had adopted a teenager within the last few months of when I did. And she had younger kids as well. And so in 2010, we started meeting at a coffee shop once a month um on a Sunday evening and just really just the two of us at first, just to be able to, you know, navigate this together as we're bringing in teenagers. We've never parented teens. We also are bringing in adoption issues and trauma. Um, and she actually was the one that was like, well, this is kind of selfish. I bet there's other people like us out there. And so it just grew and grew. We just would invite people. Um, I can remember her being at a bookstore once and seeing um a white mom with all kids of a different color and thinking, I bet she probably is an adoptive mom, but it's so weird to go up to her at Barnes and Noble and be like, hey, you know, and so she did. And that lady ended up being a part of our ministry for a long time. Um, just random acquaintances that the Lord brought to our group. And so we um, I can remember the last time we met in a coffee shop. Um, you know, the group had grown somewhat and it was big enough that people in the coffee shop could probably hear our conversation because we had to talk loud enough for the group to hear. And, you know, people are just typing on their computers in the coffee shop and they're hearing basically stories of, you know, a sibling that had sexually abused the sibling for years. And that, and I could just see these people typing, looking over like, what kind of group of ladies is this? You know, and I thought, okay, I think this is our last day at the coffee shop. Um, and so we moved it into our home and started doing dinners in our home probably about 2013 or 14. Um, and then we would go to um several of us moms would go to Created for Care. I don't know if you ever heard of that, but they did conferences um in Atlanta for many years. Um and so we went to those together and they at Creative for Care challenged us, you know, to bring it back to our own area and do something like this in our own area where we could connect with people locally. And um, and so before we were a nonprofit, I put on our first retreat in 2016 um and had people write checks to Ashley Mason, which was a little scary. Um they all came to this bed and breakfast and we hosted a retreat um there. And then we got connected with um a ranch that hosts us for our retreats um that year as well. And so starting at the fall of 2016, we've been doing that out there, and that's when we became a nonprofit.

From Coffee Shop To Nonprofit

SPEAKER_01 5:59

So um really it just started out of my own hard walking with our kids who um came from a lot of trauma. Um, our 13-year-old also had a biological brother that we adopted when he was 10 from Ethiopia. And so living in an orphanage since he was one, coming into a family. Um, also she had been in two families that had given her up in the US, um, and then also in Ethiopia and watched her mom uh die, lived in a government-run orphanage. So lots of trauma coming into our home and just um needing to walk alongside other people that you could be honest and share what was going on in your home without feeling crazy or judged, like, you know, well, you signed up for this because you hear that kind of, well, this is what you you got into, you know, instead of be able to walk alongside other people to encourage them. Um and really the heart of our ministry is um encouraging families so that they don't end up in a disruption. I think watching the pain of what it's done to my daughter that's almost 30 and 30 this next weekend, um, even still, you know, we're coming up on 17 years of her being in our family, but being given up twice in families that were Christian families that said that they would keep her, um, it's just done a number on her. And so anytime things get too close, it's still that feeling of like, this is too good to be true. And so just helping families know even in the worst of the worst situations, we want to walk alongside you and help you get your family, your child, everybody the help that they need so that you can stay a forever family no matter what. Um, so that's kind of where where it came out of.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

That's amazing. And I, oh my gosh, my my head has so many thoughts in it right now. The first one is in 2010, nobody was talking about adoption. There were not adoption groups, there was not support groups. This is like before even TBRI is like a household. Yes. In 2010, we're still not where not where adoption was in the 90s, where it was like no knowledge whatsoever. Like more people were adopting, but this is still not like a common thing. So to start the group, like I listening to I'm like, oh, you call your nonprofit encourage one another because that is literally how it started. Is like we we just need somebody that we can be honest with because it is so hard. I I joke often that my life is not suitable for public consumption, and people will be like, Hey, what does that even mean? And B, that's not true. Like, we can we can handle it. And I'm like, no, like I I assure you, and this is this is literally, it's why the podcast is called Behind the Curtain. It's like, let's pull back the curtain and say the things, say the quiet parts out loud that are not said, like um that you can't say in in normal civilized conversation of this thing is happening, but it's not even just this thing is happening in my house, it's and I feel this way towards it, and the feeling becomes also not really understood, right? Like, um man second thought, I had a person, this is during our third placement, so like the hardest placement that we had. And there was a there was a kid in there in the in the siblings that I struggled with so much, and the drive to church every single week, Ashley, it was like you can I'm I'm sure you know exactly what the drive to church was like. Like it just was like by the time I had got to church, I had lost all of my religion somewhere between my house and and the the church parking lot, and just been absolutely like I mean, or or it was so chaotic in our cars, and this guy was a greeter at our church, and he opened the door every single week and he looked at me in my face and he said, Remember that you asked for this. And I was like, Okay, yeah, thank you for your encouragement. I was just walking and and it's like you it's a it's a fact of my life. Like, I don't know, I don't honestly truly hold offense towards this anymore. But it's like these things happen, these things like where people look at you and they say, Well, you you adopted this kid who has been um just like adoptions have been dissolved and and she's experienced all of this trauma before the age of 13. So you had to have known what you were gonna get into.

When Love Does Not Fix Trauma

SPEAKER_00 10:54

And I bet you any amount of money that you're like, no, I did not know that 17 years later I would still be answering the same questions that I was in year one.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

No, we were pretty naive. Um, I think she had been in those two families a little bit over a year, and really I thought, like, if we get to year two, like she's just gonna know we're gonna stick it out. You know, like surely she's gonna understand, like we made it double the amount of time. Like there's no way to, you don't need to look back, you know? And um, just the naive thoughts that, you know, our love would heal everything. Um, I think, you know, not knowing that some of that was she's an in like a bucket with a hole in it. And it's just like you can't fill it up no matter how hard you try. Um, and she even said she ran away at 18 and didn't have contact with us for about three and a half years. But in that time when she came back, she said, and that five years that I was in your home, like basically there was nothing you could have done to make me trust you. Like it was up to her, you know? And I think that's the weight we put on our shoulders as adoptive parents. Like, if I do this right, if I do TBRI right, if I do, you know, the connection right, like then the response is going to be they will respond that they will connect. And God was so gracious. Um, on my 40th birthday, I was sitting in my son's class, my um son from Ethiopia, because he was acting up, and it was like not the first time I had had to do it. And I can remember just having a pity party that morning, like crying out to the Lord, you know, it's my 40th birthday of all birthdays, and I'm having to sit in his class because he's acting up. She had already run away at this point, and I was just griping how weary I was of raising rebellious children. And um, the Lord brought me to Isaiah chapter one, um verse two says, Hear, oh, hear me, oh you heavens, listen, earth, for the Lord has spoken. I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its master and the donkey its owner's manger, but Israel does not know. My people do not understand. And I felt like in a kind way, in a little bit sarcastic way, he thought, Really? Were you really? Are you tired of raising rebellious children? Like, I don't understand that times way more than you could ever imagine. Um, and I think more than anything, it's brought me closer just to an understanding of his love for me, his pursuit of me and my rebellion and my ugliness. When I brought nothing to the table, he still came and pursued me, went to the cross for me. And so um, only because of that understanding would we want to love people that don't love us back. And a lot of us have kids that don't love us back, you know, and um, but just that long suffering, and he's long suffering with us. And so, anyway.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

And so you take um, you get strength from that, you get endurance from that for the long run. Um, one of my good friends, a therapist here in town, talks about her um relationship with her daughter, and and it was that same kind of like how did this go so sideways for in this in a chunk of years, right? Like I did it right. I am an attachment therapist, I know how to do this, I've and I've and I know that I have done this, and it was the same concept of wait, God is a perfect father. He's he is he is a perfect father, and and not all of his kids have a relationship with with him, and some have said, like, hey, you didn't do this right, and and walked away and and just like if if God is not exempt, what makes me think that I am exempt and as not a perfect parent? And that that realization helped her to understand that she wasn't actually in control of the outcome. It's very freeing too. It's very this is my whole last year. Is this like, oh, I can't control the outcome. I I actually have limits. And one of them is my feet are here in the present, and they don't get to control the future, and and it doesn't matter. Now it's not that it doesn't matter, my faithfulness to the journey matters tremendously, but it doesn't guarantee an outcome. Yes, and when you look at it like that, you get a there's a whole lot of freedom that comes because the burden is gone. Like the pressure to get an A. Right? Like the do you do you have the the pressure to get an A? Do you ever feel that?

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Like the Um, I don't as much anymore because I think he's shown me, like you said, that it's not it's not up to me, and I'm not gonna be able to, you know, control the outcome no matter how hard I try. But I sure did, you know, and I made some mistakes in that for my other kids, I think, because focusing so much on the one that you're gonna do it so perfectly for that one, like I said, that is a bucket with a hole in it, you know, like there's nothing I could do to fill it up made me give so much time that I neglected some of my other kids during that season to try to get an A in this, you know, like make sure that she connects and that she does all this. And so, and some of it was not healthy for her either to think that the world stops and I'm gonna constantly put my eyes on her at all times. That's not how the world works, and there are other people in the world. And so, um, so yeah, so I think there was some mistakes made in that viewpoint um for sure, because depending on the Lord for it um is freeing and it just gives you a different perspective on how to handle every day and how to respond to when they don't respond to me the way that I wish they would, or that they don't love me the way that and it isn't really about me, you know, it's about where they're at. And so then I can go to the Lord, like he's the only one who can change their hearts, you know, and he loves for me to come and depend on him for that, you know, instead of me depending on me to change their hearts, which is what I did for several years for sure.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Um what I hear is that through this journey, you have gained a lot of wisdom in in um. Yeah, not even in anything. You just gained a lot of wisdom that that really helps you understand like your beginning and end, de-centering yourself as the main character in in stories and in your children's stories, right? Like um, I was the main character and I thought I was the main character in everybody's story. Like I it's a it's a wild thought to me now. And it's honestly it's still one that like I'm still close to that section, right? So like when you're that close to it, you're like, oh, I can still easily kind of fall into these behavioral patterns again, but I can catch myself now. And and it feels like you are much farther away from that concept, like that you've learned that and that you learned it a while back.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Yes. Um, and even so, I feel like lessons still come up. You know, we had um our son um ended up coming and living back at home after living away for a while this past January, and he lived with us for eight weeks. Um he's diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder, all the things that science would say he'll never be able to connect in a way that you hope for. You know, he might be able to be a functioning member in society, but probably not ever going to be what you hope for it to be. Um and so he came back, lived with us for eight weeks. He ended up getting baptized during that time. Like the Lord, I had seen in him something I'd never seen, you know. Um, but over the eight weeks started to stray back to his old ways. Um, and so ended up having to leave, not on the greatest terms. And so that roller coaster would have sent me into just a spiral years ago, you know. And now I just I've watched the Lord's faithfulness. I have so many stones of remembrance of what he's done. And I know he's not finished. And it's not the way I wish it would have played out. I wish we could have just kept going on, you know, on this amazing high. Um, but I know that he's not done. And so um just gives me more to pray about and just think it's just another, you know, another moment in time, but it doesn't mean it defines like how everything's gonna go for the future.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

And um you only get that perspective from from endurance. Like that is when I think about like at Haven, our mission statement is to create sustainability in foster care and adoption. And when I try to talk about it, I'm like, the first time that something happens, it feels world shattering. Every part of it feels world like it, it you your whole world comes, it gets really small, and and you're you're in this crisis. And the third time that it happens, you start going, this is important, but maybe it's not a crisis. And like the fifth and the sixth and the seventh, by the seventh time, you're like, oh no, I've seen this play out. I know that I can show up with a different energy level. And that's the difference between like foster care is really hard and and closing a license in the first year and being four years in. Foster care is still hard, four years in adoption is still hard, 17 years in. I'm sure that you would say, like, no, it's still this still stretches me, and this still, this still requires more of me than I have to give some days. But I know that I'm gonna go to sleep tonight, I'm gonna wake up tomorrow and I'm gonna have energy again for the race. Like, yes, I know to manage my energy reserves now, where before I didn't know to manage my energy reserves. So, in light of that, how do you find yourself walking beside families in

What Crisis Looks Like In Homes

SPEAKER_00 21:00

crisis? Like a mom comes to you and they are in, I mean, they are in it. And I am sure that you have heard every story under the sun of what crisis looks like. So maybe I guess the first question would be can you give us an example of what crisis might look like for a family or what a family, like what what we inside of foster care and adoption actually know as crisis. Yeah. And then how would you walk beside that family?

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Mm-hmm. Um there's huge crisis like that we deal with that means that the child, you know, has behaviors where they're gonna have to live outside the home for at least a time. Um, either something has happened between them and another sibling, or um, just they're a danger to themselves or others where it's just not safe and they can't have enough eyes on them at home to be able to keep them safe and keep everybody else safe. Um, so that's the huge crisis situations we deal with. Um, and so we do. Walk alongside families when they're looking for help outside the home. I do think that the free care that we get with Medicaid or foster care Medicaid, and some of these families are private adoption. They don't have that, but even with foster care Medicaid, a lot of those programs are medicating them as much as they can medicate them to calm them down and send them home. They're not really getting to the root of their trauma. And so the free care is not really helping them to be who they want to want them to be as an adult, to know, to know Jesus. Like that doesn't have anything to do with the walk with the Lord or anything. And so private care is extremely expensive. You know, um, programs that take care of kids that are very severe are at least $50,000 a year. So these families come and it's like, well, I can't do that. So we don't want them to disrupt because they can't get their child the help that they need. So we walk alongside them in that way, helping financially when they need help. Um and then in a, you know, the smaller way, I think just our support group. Um it's it's weird because I do believe sometimes in groups it can turn into just a gripe session where everybody just wants to gripe about everything. And so, how do you have it be where you can be honest, but also leave encouraged, you know? And I do feel like the ladies that come here always say, I don't know how that is, because we're all in a mess, but somehow I leave encouraged. And I think walking alongside other people that are honest about where they're at, um, sometimes your struggles don't seem as big to when you're walking along somebody outside, somebody else and watching their faith and watching like them walking with the Lord in it. And you're like, I thought I had it bad. And then when I listened to that lady tonight, I thought, I don't really have it that bad. And to watch her encourages my faith to say, if she can do that, like I can, yeah, I can continue and what the Lord has me in, you know.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

I just had this experience at dinner with friends a couple of days ago where I was so frustrated with one of my kids that has been so dysregulated. And my friends started talking, and I was like, Oh, yeah, no, our dysregulation is not at this at this level. No, it has been in the past, but it gave me the right perspective to go. I'm still frustrated. I'm still like, I and I and and that's valid. And also, where am I on this line actually? It was such a great perspective marker of going, oh, that's not my kid. This is hypothetical. This is not happening in my house. My kid cusses me out every day, and I don't like that. Your kid is throwing punches at your husband every single day. That those things are different, and and we can accompany they're not okay. Neither one is okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

But knowing where you are on that line really does help. Yeah, absolutely. But then, but then leaving encouraged and and with hope. So, how do you how do you work the conversation that way?

SPEAKER_01 24:53

I think um, like I said earlier, just going back to um what the Lord has done for me, what the Lord has done for us. Um, we can't ever really say, oh, poor me, look at all this I'm having to deal with from someone who doesn't love me very well, when you really do grasp what he's done for you. So um I think obviously if you're walking with someone that's not a believer, it would be different because they don't have that um relationship. But most of the people that we're walking with are believers. Um and so I think that I can speak into those things because I've lived in it and say the hard things. Where if I had, so we have six adopted and my younger ones have been a lot easier as far as attachment. So if I only had that, I do think um they wouldn't listen to me the same because they would just think you don't understand, like you just have it easy, you know. But when you understand that somebody's walked through a lot of hard and stuck it out, um, then you're like, oh man, I can't really not take what they're saying as much. You know, we all listen to people who are in it with us better. Um, and so um I think really going back to just what the Lord's done for us, I think that's really the only way that we um can leave encouraged to know that um that he is the one who's gonna help us to be able to do what he asks us to do. And he's not asking us to do anything more more than what he did for us, you know, nowhere close.

Shame Around Out-Of-Home Care

SPEAKER_00 26:17

How do you um manage or guide people, guide your families through the shame that is associated with choosing out-of-home care for a child that you have adopted? I would I'm imagining that that is, or I've seen even in my own community, that that is a huge piece of what they struggle with. And and even a reason that it's extended for so long inside of the home is what are people going to think about me?

SPEAKER_01 26:53

I think um for our group, they do know each other, which helps. So I just think having other people that have been in the same boat. So we were the first ones to place our son outside the home within our ministry. That's what led us to want to financially raise money to help families in that situation because um we actually looked around. We we actually went to talk to someone at CAFO to say, hey, we're in this situation. Do you know people who help on the back end of adoption? And they said, uh, sadly we don't, not like that extent, you know, counseling and other things, but not these big costs. Um, and everybody's excited to help on the front end of adoption, you know, do a garage sale, but no one wants to help when your kids sexually acted out in your home. Like that just it is like shameful to go tell everybody why you need the help to see, do they even want to help this? Do they feel like it's hopeless because they don't know how that's gonna turn out? Would that be a good use of their money? Um, but I think um, you know, over time, just knowing that they have each other, that other people are in it. So they're they're encouraging each other as well. Um and then, you know, no matter what, like if our kid had cancer or whatever else, we're going to get them the help that they need. And so just knowing that you're doing what's best for your family and you're responsible to the Lord for what you're doing. You're not responsible to all of these people and their responses. They don't understand. Um, and that's a hard line because I'm a I'm big on like open book and I hate being, I don't want to be deceptive in any way. But then also to hold your family's story to where you're not just airing it all out for everybody to see. So it it can be a challenge too, I'm sure, for some of them to know how much to share with people, how much not. Um, because if they shared the entire situation, I think people would understand, oh, oh yeah, you do need to get this help, you know, or but they don't want to necessarily tell all the stuff to everybody, you know. So I um yeah, I do think that there is can be some shame. But I don't know, with a lot of the families that we've walked with, um I don't know, maybe having each other, I think just knowing other people in it probably helps them.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

And that those people in it actually know what's happening behind the scenes, right? Yeah. So I think that so much of it is like uh that a lot of times the the child who is behaviorally unsafe is really doing that at home behind closed doors. And out in public could be very charming, very, very delightful, a favorite of people. And so there's this weird thing that happens for parents in that situation where they are trying to express what is happening even even carefully, even like not even all of the details, just some of the details. And it's being discredited because it's not the experience of say your mom or your uh, you know, like your your best friend with the the child that you're talking about. And it's it's it's like then you start almost gaslighting yourself of like, am I experiencing this at home? And then you're like, no, no, no, I I am experiencing like then it happens again, and you're like, oh, I am. And then and then like the cycle repeats, and then you're like, oh, I have to um I loved what you said about like focusing on like if you had a kid who had cancer, you would you would get them treatment. And so just focusing on the mental health aspect of it and and the behavioral health aspect of it, right? And going, no, what we're actually looking for is the treatment that we are not capable of providing in our home, not uh not an exclusion or a or a consequence of or anything like that. We're going, we're looking at at this kid who we love and saying, hey, we don't have the necessary things here to to help you. And it matters that you receive the care that you need.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

We've walked alongside um families for sure, that we've actually gone with a family to leadership at church because in their home group, their child could not be just free to go with all the kids. She couldn't just go upstairs and play with kids alone. She couldn't go out in the back. And like you said, they saw a different side of this child, the home group, and they thought they were being way too strict, which we get that a lot as parents. If you walk with kids with attachment disorder of certain levels, you are going to seem like you're a strict parent. And they need that. They need that structure and that firmness. But parents on the other side, they're like, what wow? They always single them out, you know. So this child would have to sit with her headphones on, you know, listening to whatever they had or listening to and kind of drawing and coloring at the table while they had their home group. She couldn't go off with the kids. And it got to be a big explosive thing within the home group. Just they were like, she was having an episode, they were going to take her home. And the home group wanted to follow them home to see how it played out. They wanted to, they didn't believe them. They wanted to go see it. And it was just like, so we went with them to go talk to the leadership at church to say, we've walked with this family, like this is true. I know you don't understand it, but they're not doing anything of ill will to their daughter. They're actually keeping your kid safe, you know, like they know what's going to happen if they do this and they're trying to do what's best for your kid. I mean, it'd be easier for them to let her just go off for their own sake, you know.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

They would want that actually. Like what they want is actually to not have to see her for an hour and just have freedom. And for it to just for her to be like for everything to be normalized and for it to be okay, and for them to not feel this hyper-vigilance of if I let her go upstairs, is somebody gonna come downstairs and say that that you know whatever happened.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

Yeah, she did something inappropriate to one of the kids or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Yeah, and then like all of the things, or yeah, and yeah, it's like no, what this parent wants more than anything is to not have to have a plan when they go to home group. They want it's exhausting, yeah, to be a police parent.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

It is exhausting, and people think we enjoy that. I think from the outside, it's like we hate it. Nobody wants to have cameras all over their house, checking their cameras at night, looking to see who woke up, where did they go? Did they leave the hallway? It's exhausting. Um, and so I don't think they're doing these parents, aren't doing it out of they look really controlling and crazy, but they're doing it out of trying to keep people safe and do what's best for everybody else as well. Like, you know, as much as they're able to keep people safe.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

I um I hate it when when we have had seasons where I have had to do this in our home, I actually I hate it. Like it does something inside of the core of who I am. Like I and I'm like, I I yeah, yeah, I I can't, I truly, it it truly um gosh, this is a really good example of this.

Hypervigilance And Police Parenting

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Uh we had a recent experience with some more uh food hoarding in the middle of the night, right? And this is a child who has an alarm on their door on the outside of their door, not not a lock, but an alarm so that if it opens, because there's been things, right? Like there's all all different all different kinds of things in the middle of the night. And not not the least of which is going and waking up siblings and having parties at 3 a.m. And that is not when you want to meet me as your mom. Like that is not I am it is a worst version of myself. And so, anyhow, we have not had to use we've not had to use this as like a safeguard and for a while, and she and they were um we realized that it was happening again, and I I approached it one way at night, and I didn't like I I can validate how I approached it at night, but I didn't like it. I didn't by the time that we were in it, it was a it had turned into a power struggle between me and this child. And I try to avoid that at all costs, actually. Like I with with them. Like I am like, I'm not, I'm not getting into every fight that I'm invited to with you, actually. Like this is not, it's not, it's not worth my time. Um the next morning I came into work, and I think this is one of the beautiful things about working at a nonprofit that is for foster and adoptive families, is like some mornings I come in and I'm like, hey, I'm I'm the control group today. Like, what are we what are we doing with this? I need to process this out and started talking about it. And and I said this sentence that I it felt um it felt so awful. And I'm gonna say it here because it mat like it matters. And I I said, if I have to choose between an eating disorder later on in life and me setting this alarm and feeling like their jailer right now, I'm gonna choose the eating disorder later on in life. Now, a couple of things about this statement. One, my brain is making a prediction about a future thing that does not exist currently at all, right? But it was along the path of it. But it was like to the I hate it so much. That that's really my point with this. Like the feeling of that hyper-vigilance. I could get woken up in the middle of the night by this alarm. I I hate it. And um, we found this really connected. Like I as I kept verbally processing everything, I was like, Oh, I have a refrigerator in my room. I'm gonna put protein rich snacks in there. I'm gonna bring her into my room. I'm gonna say, I'm gonna bring them into my room. I'm gonna say, if you are hungry, if you wake up in the middle of the night and you're hungry, no problem. That happens to us all. Here's this food, eat it right here. Leave the trash so that I can make sure that the trash is thrown away because that's actually my real problems. I don't want food trash in your room, right? And um, but it's a win-win, right? Like it's this like I'm I'm meeting the need that that my kid has. I'm meeting my need to not do this, and I'm actually asking them to subconsciously turn towards me when they're in the middle of this food hoarding mess and um and trust that I have food right here for you, that it's available anytime, right? It ended up being good, but that moment in the middle of it, I had to be okay with that moment. Like, and that's like the releasing of the outcome, right? Like, how can I show up faithful today in a way that I care about as a mom? And not everybody has this luxury. We're not talking about a safety thing here. We're not talking about, like, I want to be really clear about that. That there are parents who are talking about safety things in their house, that children are actually in danger if they don't have this alarm on the door.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

That's and that's what we're dealing with a lot with in our ministry. So those are different situations because you're not gonna just say, oh, well, hopefully nothing happens.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Hopefully, hopefully you don't wake up your brother, anyhow. Yes, totally different situations, but the feeling is the same. Like I have it, it's it's to such a small degree that I have because I don't have to do this all of the time, but that hyper-vigilance, that police parenting, God, it's exhausting. It is and it just I think that for parents, it can also feel like this is actually not what I signed up for. And for parents who were parents before they got into foster care or adoption, it's this identity crisis of this is not who I am.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

Yes, yes, it takes away a lot of the joy of parenting. You feel yeah, um, yeah, like you want to enjoy them, but if you're always wondering what are they doing, are they doing something they're not supposed to? Are they harming anyone? Yeah, it's just it's hard to um to have the joy in the middle of all that. Um it is so how do you how do you do that?

SPEAKER_00 39:27

How do you how do you um experience joy in the middle of parenting?

Daily Practices That Restore Joy

SPEAKER_01 39:34

Um, I think um definitely daily time in the word is crucial, you know, um relying on ourselves, which we all tend to do, it um just you know definitely depletes all that joy. Um, but when you're in the word daily, um the Lord just meets you in that. And when we are in suffering and crisis, there's just a closeness to him that we don't have if we didn't have that suffering. Um, and so I think um there's so many times that I know that I'm in the word and it's like he's telling me exactly what I needed to hear that day. You know, that brings that joy to know like he's with me. I'm not doing this by myself. Like he goes before me. Um, and so um I think without that, our joy is gonna go really quickly and turn into, you know, bitterness or resentment and all the things instead of the joy of doing what he's asked me to do and that he's gonna give me the strength that I need for today. You know, he just promises the mana for today. And sometimes we look ahead to the future and we're borrowing all this trouble that it's not even here right now instead of just trusting him for today. Uh, we don't even know if we have tomorrow, you know?

SPEAKER_00 40:46

Yeah. Do you have do you have any practices that you do that help like ground you in today? Like, is there anything that you um have found as daily practices aside from being in the word?

SPEAKER_01 41:03

Um I think, you know, um making time, you know, for yourself is important. Sometimes we feel like we're being selfish if we do that, but we definitely are better moms if we don't just pour everything into our kids 24-7 without a break. Um so I I love to walk. I walk probably an hour a day. Um, I get up in the morning sometimes when the sun is rising and walk and pray. And like, what it just starts my day so different than if I just roll out of bed to like all the demands that I have to meet today and everybody's stuff. And I've got to figure it out really quickly about how I'm gonna handle this and how I'm gonna handle this. But I do believe that starting, um, starting my day that way um is crucial.

Protecting Marriage With Ten Kids

SPEAKER_01 41:46

We uh my husband and I too, like our marriage is is a priority. And so people wonder like, how do you make your marriage a priority with 10 kids? And um when we had our our one of our kids here that lived at home, he doesn't anymore, but he wasn't able to be outside of his room, even though everyone else was able to stay home alone and we could have left to go on a date. He couldn't, we couldn't trust him to be out with everybody else without us home. So he had a camera in his room that we could actually speak to him over the phone in the camera. And we had a list of things that he had to do when we were gone. So he had to build, I mean, he he might have been 14, 15, and this was still what he was doing, but build three things with Legos: a medium, a big, a small. Um, you know, he had a highlights of magazines, he was like looking fine, looking for things. He had, you know, stuff he was reading and answering questions, some other stuff. So it gave him some stuff to do while we're gone. We regularly walk together, we walk and pray together. So if we were gonna do that, he was in his room, he had his list of things to do. Everybody else was fine to be out. Um, and you know, we're a phone call away if we had to run back. But um, and then he had kids here that were older than him, but just did we didn't want them responsible for following him around, making sure he wasn't doing things he wasn't supposed to. Um we make date nights a priority. Um, it's pretty rare that we don't go on a date once a week, which you know, people think I don't know how that happens. And so it's just whatever we put into on the calendar, because we put all these other things on the calendar and they happen somehow. They happen because they're on the calendar. But that getting up in the morning and spending time with the Lord and going walking and praying and then making those date nights a priority and making sure that we're gonna go walk and talk. I say this, and my husband's probably gonna be like, Why are you saying this on a podcast? But we have a large bathtub. Maybe I said this to you girls there, but we take a bath almost every day, not in a sexual way, but we have conversations back there because it's two doors we have to get through to get to our bathroom. And so they can't hear what we're saying when the water is on. And so it's one way that we connect and talk about our day. Um, and so just making those things that work for you that you make sure you connect with your spouse. So connecting with the Lord and connecting with my spouse for sure is going to help me to get through everything else I've got out of my plate.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

I'm so glad that you started talking about your marriage because that was like that was absolutely Absolutely going to be my next question was I watched you guys together and you guys are strong, and you don't get to 30 years and have a strong marriage without doing something to um to make that happen. And you don't have 10 kids and a strong marriage and joy in being together if you have not actively invested in that. So I'm so so so glad that you started talking about that spontaneously because the fruit is evident in in just being around you guys. The fruit is evident. Um also I'm actually very glad you talked about the bathtub because because he may not be, but well, you know, sorry, you can make it up to him. But but I think that it's like what you gave people is a way for them to think outside of the box. Like Brad and I have Brad and I take shower, like we'll take a shower together. Again, not in any kind of sexual way, in a like, um, no, we're just here, and there's nothing else distracting from the conversation that we're having. And we actually have a rule that we establish at the very beginning of our marriage that there's no fighting in the shower. So no matter what is happening, like this is a sacred space, and you don't come in, like you're not not that fights aren't sacred, but you don't bring that fight into the shower. And so um we've and we've had great, we don't, we don't do it every day. That's actually like really um that's how we end our day, isn't that crazy? I love that. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 45:41

And sometimes, like so we have a three-year-old and we have older kids, and it might be it might be 6 30, like we just had dinner, and we say, You guys watch the little kids, we're going to take a bath. And they know, like it's just normal around here. Mom and dad are taking a bath, you know. It was funny because one of my girls not too long ago, we were at dinner, and somehow it got into the conversation about how we were both in the bath at the same time. Like, I don't know where they've been that they thought that we were taking turns. So one of them was like, You don't know they're in there together? What do you think they're doing? And the other one turns red and she goes, I thought they were taking turns.

SPEAKER_00 46:13

I thought one of them was just like sitting by the sink and the other one's taking the bathroom. How do we do it? And you're like, Okay, well, marriage is different and the bathroom is good.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Yeah, I know. We redid our bathroom about three years ago, and that was one of the things we made. No, my husband's walking in. He's gonna go, What are you talking about? You're talking about the bathtub.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Um, like redoing our bathroom is on the list and the soaking tub is on is on my list.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

Soaking tub is crucial to us. It's yeah, crucial to our marriage. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:42

And I'm like, oh, I didn't even think to look for a two-person soaking tub. That is, I love this.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

But we would put that, we would put that fifth, you know, that 14, 15 year old in his room with this stuff if we were gonna take our bath and everybody else could be out. Now he's not here, but we have younger kids, a three-year-old, and we'll still say, all right, you know, give us 20 minutes, we're gonna go take a bath, y'all watch the little kids. And they do. And so just but people think they can't do that. It's like, oh, I can't do that now at 6:30, and all the kids are here. I have to wait till they're in bed and I gotta wait. No, you don't. No, you know, everyone can chip in. When you got a big family, everybody can take a part and it's good.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

It's good. And if it's not a danger, like it's yes, I I am very big on that kind of stuff, like looking at looking at the margins of your day, looking at the cracks of your day, going, how can I get um, you know, we use in our house that our younger kids are in extended day at their school for a variety of reasons. Um it's better for everybody that this is that this happens. Um I was reminded this week why it is better for everybody that this happens. Yes. But one of the benefits and one of the things that I that I um am keenly aware of in when I, whenever I talk to somebody about like supporting the biological children in your home while you're doing this work, right? Is those I have an hour and a half when when Zoe and Sled get home from school of uninterrupted time to connect with them before I'm again a mom to six kids, because a mom to two kids and a mom to six kids is a very different way that you're showing up when you're like guiding people through a routine, right? And we all experience this. It's it's why, like, if you just are one less kid, it feels like a vacation when you to the store. Like you're like, oh, normally I would have four kids with me, but now I only have three. This feels so easy. Yes, really, all you did is change the relational dynamic there, and it doesn't matter which kid you remove, and you reduce the number that you're like, you now have margin as a mom. And so Zoe and Slade get that time with me very intense. Like, I'm very intentional. We are together during that time, and yeah, and I'm absolutely guiding them through their homework and like whatever, but it's like what you have time in your day, and you're you're here like no, Matthew and I at 6:30 or 7, it doesn't matter what time, intentionally stop and go put each other first. I love that so, so, so, so, so much. I love it so much. We also work out in the morning. The morning is is totally um when I'm talking to a family or mom that's in

Nonnegotiables That Prevent Burnout

SPEAKER_00 49:28

crisis. One of the first things that I talk about obviously is same as you, like like our hope is in Jesus, it's in eternity, it's in like this. We're gonna root ourselves here, right? Like he's we're gonna bring him right here next to us. But next, I need you to start thinking about yourself. You have you cannot do this. This is exhaust. This is such a huge output of energy if you are not intentionally finding energy fillers and moments, um moments of emotional safety inside of your day, right? So, like I have a couch in my room that I go to that I sit in the corner of the couch and it's it is my corner, and everybody wants it. Everybody wants it in my room. They come in and they're like, Oh, I want that corner. I'm like, no, no, no, this is my corner on my couch. I can look out the window, I put my feet on the floor and I have a routine, but it's like, but in the middle of chaos in the middle of my house, I can slip away. If everybody's safe, I can slip away and go, I need five minutes and I'm gonna sit here. I have a I have a routine that I do, but like I, you know, become present, right? I feel my feet on the ground, I remind myself that I'm safe, there's no lion that's chasing me, that I in my amygdala can calm down, if it was adding to the chaos that's in the other room, which is a possibility. And then I have a daily prayer app on my phone and I open it up, and what if it's morning, if it's midday, if it's evening, there's a different like, and it takes you through this like routine prayer. And I didn't grow up in liturgical churches at all. Like, I grew up, like if you're reading a prayer that somebody else wrote, it's not an actual prayer, right? Um and have found this beauty in liturgy and this beauty in like the in written like communal church prayers. But the aside from from immediately anchoring me back to Jesus, it is also this like it's a routine that my body does that says, Hey, I'm stopping and I'm anchoring myself back in. It's an energy, like it's like this like energy fill of you have to have you have to have these big ones that you do, these steady ones, these routine ones. And and then it's also like look at the morning. If you are waking up to chaos, I promise you, you're not starting like that. Yeah, that's a horrible way to start your day in the middle of crisis. Yes. If you are the more chaotic and crisis y our house gets, the more regimented I get with these things. Do you find yourself doing the same thing? Like the more it's like, oh no, I have all of these tools and I am, I'm not playing around. Like when we get to the when we get to level eight out of 10, I'm when we get to six, I'm paying attention. When we get to seven, I'm starting it. When we get to eight, this is this is these are unflinching parts of my of my day. Like, no, I will be waking up at 5 30 because I have to have that distance between my brain and the chaos that's gonna come. I will be going to the gym and lifting heavy weights or running on an elliptical until I'm not in my brain anymore. Those things are vital.

SPEAKER_01 52:48

They're yeah, yeah, yeah. For me as well, I um so I go to Bible study fellowship, like a Bible study every week.

SPEAKER_00 52:55

BSF?

SPEAKER_01 52:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 52:57

What book are you guys doing this semester?

SPEAKER_01 52:59

We're in the old testament and a lot of different books. So we've been in Nehemiah recently. So next year's Romans. Um awesome. But um, but I usually um go to Bible study and then um in the afternoon I go to the coffee shop and do my Bible study for the for the next week. And so I spend that time just there with the Lord. And um, but it's just something that's on the on my calendar, like and non-negotiable. It's just what I do, you know? And so I think being poured into in those ways or how you're gonna be able to pour out to other people. We have Wednesday nights at church for us is a night of prayer. And I think I talked about this a little bit with the ladies, but um, so it is an hour and a half and it's worship and prayer for an hour and a half. Um, and it's just again, just that middle of the week focus, and that's the same day as my Bible study in the morning. So, like my Wednesdays, I just love my Wednesdays. You love Wednesdays. You're like, I just like a Sabbath on Wednesday, even though I get it on Sunday, yeah. So um, anyways, I think that those, if you're not making a way for yourself to be poured into in the word and and rest and in relationship with your husband and all of those things, it you cannot do what he's called you to if your day is like full. And it becomes full when we say yes to everything that's asked of us, you know. Like I've been asked to be a leader at Bible study multiple times, and I just feel like that's not where the Lord has me. I'm pouring into all these families in ministry, and that's where he has me. And it's so it's okay that I can't do that, you know. And I feel like when I go to Bible study, that's where he's letting me be poured into at Bible study, you know. But sometimes we get, you know, just that guilt complex, like, oh, they asked me, so I should say yes, you know.

SPEAKER_00 54:34

Yeah, I'm no, I don't, I know that a lot of people have that. When we started fostering, I immediately stopped working in the kids' ministry at church. I was like, absolutely not. I'm doing this inside of my house. I'm not doing this on Sunday morning here. I need, I have to. It's like understanding what is vital to you as a person and going, I will protect this at all costs. Like I I love that you've talked about scheduling it on your calendar at least three times now. So that has to be like huge.

SPEAKER_01 55:06

I'm a little type A organized person.

SPEAKER_00 55:08

Okay, but it's working.

SPEAKER_01 55:10

Like I feel like that's the only way it happens because otherwise the week goes by and you're like, oh yeah, I was gonna do that on that day, you know, or it just something else fills it up. But when it's there, you just know. Oh no, when someone asks you, you're like, oh no, I can't do Wednesday nights. We go to Wednesday night prayer. Oh, I can't do that time. I go to the coffee shop to spend time with the Lord after Bible study. So I can't meet that day. I can meet another day, you know.

SPEAKER_00 55:31

That's so funny. I have to have like little mantras that remind me of like, um, and I have to like sit and and decide what the thing is gonna be so that I know to for my brain to pull it up when somebody asks me. Like Friday morning, this is not the same Friday morning. I respond, I make sure that my inbox is clean. Like, so it's like, oh no, I can't, I can't schedule something there. But more than that, it's like there's a certain list at home. This is totally off topic. There's a certain list at home of like Zoe and Slate have to do certain things before they can ask to go to the store or to go to like whatever. It's like, is your room clean? Is your chore done? Is your homework done? Is I had to literally actually, I had to write that list in my kitchen on a whiteboard so that I would know as the parent to ask, have you taken care of your responsibilities? Because when somebody suggests a fun idea to me, I say yes, and I don't um I don't think about responsibilities first. I and then I am in the middle of it and I go, Oh god, there's a whole list of responsibilities over here that I was supposed to do. But but it's things like that where it's like, yeah, where you just know you you know that this is this is the thing. I I love that so much.

Lightning Round And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 56:49

Um okay, at the end of every episode, we but we do a lightning round, but we've kind of talked about it. Like I taught, I asked what is bringing you joy right now, and you answered that question. And um yeah, what is you said that you're type A. So I'm gonna guess I ask people what's on their nightstand because it's I feel like it's such a fun question. Um, but I'm gonna guess that your nightstand is very clean.

SPEAKER_01 57:15

It is.

SPEAKER_00 57:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:17

I have a lamp, I have a magnetic phone charger, I have my Bible, my journal, my pen, and my glasses for me to grab really easily in the morning, and that's it. Yeah, I I oh I do have two coasters there.

SPEAKER_00 57:30

Okay, cup of water at night. So sometimes a water, yeah. Sometimes a cup of water. I um have this this like adrenal support stuff. I also get really big into supplements in in uh heavy seasons.

SPEAKER_01 57:47

Like, yes, I definitely am a big fan of supplements and I take a lot. My kids think I look like a drug dealer because I pull out my little baggie of pills at dinner time and they're like, Mom, how many of those are you swallowing? I'm like, This is what's keeping me grounded insane in my brain with all this crazy another thing. On top of the Lord, he also gives me these supplements to fuel my body.

SPEAKER_00 58:06

The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, right? I brought my little like plastic baggie of supplements to work one day, and one of my coworkers looked at me and she was like, How does your brain do this? You know, yeah. Oh, I'm just looking for like it was like a couple days worth. And I was like, I'm just looking for the things that look the same, and I know how many of those I take every day, and I've measured out how many days need to be in this bag. She was like, I can't, I can't take this. I'm buying you a pill organizer. And I was like, Oh, I tried to get a pill organizer, but it's like they didn't all fit. And she was like, I'm buying you the actual pill organizer. Um, I do not use the pill organizer because that's too organized for my brain, and I forget, but but that's a total side note. I have this adrenal support nighttime restore, like, because you're, I mean, you have to take in account like the physical ramifications for your body, right? Like my adrenal glands are overworked all of the time. Just standard. Like, just assume that your adrenal glands are tired. I forget to take it. Every it's sitting, it's literally sitting beside my bed, and I go to sleep with a cup beside me every single night, and I do not take the supplement.

SPEAKER_01 59:20

Isn't that crazy? That is crazy. I'm like clockwork, and mine are in little pill baggies, so they're a decent size and they're reusable pill baggies. A friend of mine who had cancer actually, she's knew about my pills, and she goes, Why do you not get these? So I can throw it in my purse if we go out to dinner, just take one that has all my stuff in it. But um, yes, I'm like clockwork. Um, I don't miss a day.

SPEAKER_00 59:41

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 59:41

But that's the there comes out my type A.

SPEAKER_00 59:44

Um, when we are done recording, I need you to send me a list of what you take because this is a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 59:48

Yes, I'll give you an Amazon link. You can put it on this podcast that all the moms are gonna get the filmbacks.

SPEAKER_00 59:55

This is not um health-related advice or a commercial, but this is what we take. And so she, as a grown adult, decide to take these, we find them helpful, the stability in our brain. Um Ashley, thank you so much for coming on and for talking and being so honest and open and and encouraging about what it is when families are in crisis and how um how to take it day by day and release the outcome. I think that that's like one of the biggest takeaways is like this understanding of knowing we're not res we're we can't control that. Um but we can still show up and be faithful.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:36

Yes, to what he's called us to, for sure. Yeah, so much. Thank you so much for having me on. I really enjoyed it. Yeah.