The Long Game Of Foster Care with Jason Johnson

The hardest part of foster care is not what most people expect. It’s the moment you realize you can’t control the outcome, you can’t fix what’s broken, and you’re still called to stay. Rebecca Harvin sits down with Jason Johnson from the Christian Alliance for Orphans to talk about foster care and adoption as a long game, where “success” isn’t measured by perfect progress but by faithful presence and the simple, world-changing reality that a child is no longer alone.

We dig into trauma-informed parenting and the daily work of cultivating a safe environment: staying steady when teens melt down, responding to mistakes without blowing up, and learning to parent more like a coach as kids grow. Jason shares the idea of “the thing beneath the thing” and why slowing down, listening, and getting curious builds trust and helps kids heal. Along the way, we name the surprise so many foster parents experience: the journey reveals us. Our impatience, our pride, our need to manage, and also our resilience and capacity to do hard things.

We also talk about grief and reputation, the relationships that change when you protect a child’s story, and the dangerous mental loop of “Why can’t easy things just be easy?” The conversation lands on agency, neuroplasticity, and discipleship: what we repeatedly pay attention to shapes our beliefs, our brains, and the kind of home we create. If you’re fostering, adopting, or considering getting involved, this will give you language, perspective, and permission to keep going with honesty and hope.

If this resonates, subscribe, share it with a foster parent or church leader, and leave a review so more families can find support and practical encouragement.

Find out more about Jason Johnson here: www.jasonjohnsonblog.com

Find out more about Christian Alliance for Orphans here: https://cafo.org/

Find out more about The Pure Religion Project here:  https://cafo.org/purereligion/

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!

Registration is now open for our annual Bio Kid Retreat weekend June 26-28 at North Florida Christian Camp. Go to www.havenretreatsinc.org for more information.

Follow us on Instagram:

Haven Retreats- https://www.instagram.com/haven.retreats/?hl=en

Behind the Curtain Podcast- https://www.instagram.com/behind.the.curtain_pod/

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hey guys, thanks for joining me today on Behind the Curtain. I'm your host, Rebecca Harvin, and this is where we have honest conversations about foster care and adoption. It's the month of May, which is National Foster Care Awareness Month. And so I wanted to do a little something special for the podcast this month. And I reached out to my friend Jason Johnson. He is the national director of the Pure Religion Project at CAFO, which is called Christian Alliance for Orphans. It is how Jason and I met, and I have admired his work for a long time. Jason takes such a thoughtful, gospel-centered approach to foster care and adoption. You will see in this podcast the humility that he approaches this journey with and the dedication to the longstanding faithfulness that is required for. Jason is a thought-after teacher and speaker. He regularly travels the country for speaking at churches, which teaches conferences and events for fostering back departments as well. As for those considering getting involved, prior to his work at Clayfo, Jason spent 14 years in church staff ministry, including planting and pastoring a church in Houston, which is where his family's foster care journey began. Jason and his wife Emily still live in Texas with their daughters. He's written four books, reframing foster care. Everyone can do something. The all-in curriculum and effectively engaging churches. You can find many of his resources at www.jasonjohnsonblog.com, which I will link up in my show notes here. This conversation is special and I hope that you enjoy it. Here's Jason. Jason, thanks so much for coming on behind the curtain and talking to us about your journey with foster care and encouraging foster parents.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Absolutely. Happy to be here.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

It is um it's no small thing, I think. Let's start here to be in front of the crowd, fostering in foster care and adoption and encouraging with um people looking at you all the time thinking you must have it all together. Um and I think one of the things that I loved the most that I've ever heard you say is when you said actually we don't have it all together. And like that doing this is a long game. And it's um you were talking about one of the kids that are in your home that has is a teen mom that has babies and she's been with you since she was 17, and and you're still parenting her in a variety of aspects, and you were like, I it's been harder, it's gotten it's gotten harder over the time. Can you talk about that

Success Without Fixing Everything

SPEAKER_02 3:09

a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Yeah. Um yeah, in that particular case, and so many that others can relate to, you kind of go into this thinking, okay, we're problem solvers, we are idealists. That's part of the reason that we're all involved with this. And so we got this. We can we can solve some problems, we can make things better. And then you start adding some things up, and and you realize that um at some point you realize, wow, the scales are really tipped tipped here in a certain direction, and it's not the direction that I thought it was gonna go. Um, and they're not always in that tipped in that direction, but certainly everybody at some point on this journey has got to a place where they've realized, actually, it feels like we've solved less problems than we thought we would, and there are actually now more problems than there were when we started. And so if we were to kind of weigh ourselves on a scale of outcomes and run a little competition to determine who's the world's worst foster parents, and we base that on the outcomes you're able to produce, then all of us at some point, and certainly uh in our story, we'd say, Oh, we win that award easily, because when we met her at 17, she had X number of problems, and now at 23, um, that's multiplied big time. And the good news is we're not measured in terms of outcomes and all the problems we're able to fix. That's not the measurement of success in this. And in many cases, while some issues have multiplied in this particular young girl's life, um we are still wildly successful with her because she's no longer alone. Now, she doesn't believe that all the time. She she has no, she has very little concept of what that means. And that's not her fault. That's much of how she had to grow up and survive on her own. So the idea of I'm not alone in this, I don't have to figure it out, I can actually rely on other people, I can actually trust other people, I don't have to fight and survive. Like she's not there yet. But she calls us mom and dad, she calls our daughters her sisters. Um, for all intents and purposes, we are her family, and that is a success. Uh, and so we have to keep reminding ourselves of that. And I think a lot of people do because if if you start to count it all up and weigh yourself and measure yourself and grade yourself on outcomes, boy, that's a slippery slope and a scary thing to do.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

It is such a slippery slope, and it is definitely one that we've all been on. Yes, right? Absolutely. I spent all of last year with the Lord as He was asking me over and over again to unclench my fists from like controlling the outcome. And I didn't know how many outcomes I had um defined subconsciously in my head for this is what success looks like. This is how I show up as a good wife or a good mom or a good foster mom or a good adopter. Like and he was like, Can you unclinch your fists? Can you unclinch your fists?

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Yeah, yeah. And you're like, what are you talking about, God? And he's like, Well, let me let me show you one example, and then you start to unclinch and you realize there's a whole lot in my fist I didn't realize that I had going on in there. Yeah, and it's it's it's multifaceted, it's both personal identity, this is what it means for me to be good and to be successful. It's also we project that onto our kids, you know. Um here's what success for them looks like, you know, and and um you know, we wrestle with the traditional path. This is this is the next step kids are supposed to take at this stage. And for many of us, we we have to come to grips with the fact that there's probably not a traditional path um for a lot of our kiddos. And what is the traditional path? Like, is it even the best path, you know? And actually, I think we're in a kind of a cultural climate now where a lot of that's being dismantled, you know, the idea of hey, maybe you go to trade school, not four-year college, you know, and you know, our our parents and grandparents would be like they would shudder at that. What, you know, no, do you that's kids you're just supposed to go to college? Well, you know, maybe not, you know. So a lot of that's being dismantled anyway, but it's just abandoning kind of this expectation of no, this is how things are supposed to go, and realizing actually things are supposed to go um according to the unique dynamics of that kiddo, what God's doing in their life, your role in their life. And, you know, I I our daughter was in the hospital a few years ago, and they uh it struck me they had to kind of create this environment around her that was highly controlled, and they were preventing, um, they're really working to prevent the possibility of infection. They weren't what they were doing to her body wasn't solving what was happening to her. They said we can't stop what's happening to her. Um, but what we can do is try to make her more comfortable and create an environment around her in which healing is most possible. What we're doing to her is not healing her, but we're creating an environment around her that protects her from infection and cultivates an environment where she has the highest chance of healing. And that struck me because I I related that a lot to our journey in general, that we're not in we can't control the healing or the growth or the we get the opportunity to cultivate environments around our kiddos in which healing and connection and growth and formation are most possible. But

Cultivating A Healing Home

SPEAKER_00 9:51

we can't control those things. We can't control them. And so we're just kind of in this not that this is a small thing, but we are in the business of cultivating environments around our kids in which X, Y, Z might be most possible, but we can't actually control the outcomes of X, Y, and Z.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

So it's just learning to be faithful in the cultivation.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Yes, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

What does that environment look like to you? Like if you were like the ideal environment would be what?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Well, I live in a sorority house, so all we've got is girls, all we've ever had is girls. So my answer to this is very much skewed through the lens of cultivating an environment in our home and our family that is that has a lot of female in it, you know, and so you talk to some boy mom or dad, and they're gonna be like, seriously, you should come check out our house, you know? And I get that, but for me, it's um I I uh it's a steadiness, it's a reasonableness, it's a an environment in which our girls know anything and everything is safe with us. Um you a don't have to worry about bringing something to us and we freak out on you. Because then the next time there's something hard or uncomfortable to bring to us, you're like, I'm not gonna do that. They freak out on me, you know? Um but so there's a safety there. Um there's also a regular rhythm of not necessarily telling this is a strange thing, especially as our girls get older and they're now they're teenagers and early 20s. Um your role as a parent changes. You go from you go from keeping a little 100% vulnerable baby alive, they're completely dependent on you, to you know, then you know managing chaos of toddlers and then and then they hit teenagers and late teenagers, and you become life coaches and consultants. Um, and it's very much um helping them to think through the identity, who that what their identity is, what they value, make decisions according to their values, and um, that all of this is a growth journey, and we're gonna mess up and we're gonna learn from it. And some of the best ways that we learn is by messing up, and you know, so we've got several drivers in our in our home now, and um uh knock on wood. Two, two of them out of the three currently, four will be soon, but two of the three, uh knock on wood, that number three doesn't call me later this afternoon and tell me she also has now hit a mailbox or a parked truck or run into somebody from behind, you know. And it's those moments where um, okay, they're calling and saying, Daddy, I just destroyed the neighbor's mailbox brick mailbox and my car. And those are the moments where I really have had to say, this is a defining moment for me. If I freak out on them and it's what are you doing? What's wrong with you? Why aren't you paying attention? Am I I'm more concerned with the car and coming down on them, then the next time something happens, yeah, they feel a little less safe to come to me. So it's those, okay, hey, hey, thanks for I'm glad you called me first, sweetie. Are you okay? You're okay, everything's fine. It's just a mailbox, it's just a car, those things can be fixed. Uh as long as you're okay, it's fine. Um and it's just creating this place of safety and a place where we can be vulnerable, we're growing together, and I can't control the outcomes. But I can I can guide and I can have regular conversations and I can model it. That let's make decisions that are in line with our values and the kinds of people that we want to become. Let's be very clear about the kinds of people that we want to become and then make decisions accordingly. And then when I see them make those decisions, we celebrate it. Um, you know, uh one of our girls, um uh while all her friends continued on with volleyball, she said, I just don't want to do that anymore. And we said, Well, what are you what are you interested in? She's very interested in journalism and yearbook and and just celebrating. You know what? We're so proud of you for making a decision that is in line with aligned with what you value and what you enjoy, even if it means missing out on all what all your other friends are doing right now. Yeah, that's so great. And just reinforcing that and celebrating that.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

So creating a culture and an environment where they can heal takes a whole lot of awareness.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

Uh yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's and there's a phrase that's been really helpful for me, and actually it's at the title of a book that I found to be helpful personally, but it's an idea we're all familiar with. The phrase is the thing beneath the thing. And nine times out of ten, especially when we're dealing with kiddos or emotional teenagers, um the thing that they think is the thing, or that we that's projected as the thing, that's not actually the real thing. There's something going on underneath that, and that's the real thing. And being aware enough and slow enough and steady enough and patient enough to hear what they're saying, hear what they're feeling, validate it, not say that's ridiculous that you feel that way that about this particular friend or this situation. Say, no, no, no, that makes sense, totally get it. But but I wonder if it if it's actually this thing underneath this thing. And that's where we need to have the conversation. And you can't do that if you're not

The Thing Beneath The Thing

SPEAKER_00 16:37

willing to pay attention and slow down and listen and be curious. Um and I think as the older your kids get, the more they've at least our experience has been. That just helps build trust when they know I can bring this thing that's like this is the emotionally hot thing right now, or this is the thing I'm mad about. And and I can, I can, I can lay all that out in my home because this is a safe place, but then but then I also know that this is a place where after I cool off from that, like there's gonna be some help, some guidance, and actually understanding what's the root of that. And so when these kinds of things happen again and it triggers the root of that, I wonder how how you might process it differently or handle it differently.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

I find that in order to be able to do that for my kids, I have to start doing that for myself.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

And that's why one of the one of the worst parts about this entire I can't wait for whatever you're about to say.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

I'm be I'm trying to be very um I'm trying to be very gentle in my language here. But one of the worst parts about all of this is in any foster adoptive parent, any parent, the kiddo from difficult place, or just who's experienced difficulties can relate to this. You go into the therapist's office or the counselor's office or whatever, and you're like, hey, can you help my kid? And then what you find is um actually 95% of their time is spent helping you.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Yeah.

unknown 18:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

And you're like, no, no, no. I didn't, this isn't about me. And they're like, oh, this is 95% about you.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Yeah. And so Gash.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

I'm like, I'm sitting here and I'm literally thinking through this morning in my house where there was a scenario with some with the four little kids. And um, and I'm, you know, I'm going off about whatever. And as it's happening, Jason, as it's my brain in the background, is like, hey Rebecca, the reason you're so upset about this is because the thing underneath the thing is you feel like you can never not be in the room that they're in. Like you're upset about how hyper-vigilant you have to be. Yeah. And then now there's all these tools because of all of the work that whatever, where it's like the story that you're telling yourself, Rebecca, is, and it's literally happening. And it's like the two trains are happening at the same time in my brain, and neither one are stopping until that I finally just am like, go back to bed, Rebecca. This is not, you're not helping anybody.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

100%. Oh, yeah. I mean, there are times when I have felt like I'm hearing the audible voice of Karen Purvis from the grave. Yes. While simultaneously losing control and not staying regulated and just getting frustrated. And and then and then it's then you're frustrated with yourself because I'm telling the Karen Purvis voice in my head to, you know, Karen, shut up, Karen. Not right now, Karen.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

Not right now.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Yeah. Not a good time. And she's like, no, this is the actually, this is the perfect time. Uh-huh. Uh yeah. And so actually, not long ago on a podcast, I was asked, um, I didn't know, I didn't know I was gonna be asked this. Not that it's bad, but I'm I only say that to say my off-the-cuff uh answer that I hadn't had time to think about surprised me. And after I said it, I thought, uh, as I'm saying it, I'm realizing I'm gonna have to explain this and I hope I can explain it. Um, and they they asked, what's been the most surprising part of this journey for you? And immediately my answer was the most surprising part of this journey has been me. I've been the most surprising part.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

I kid you not. I didn't listen to whatever podcast you're talking about. But this morning, when I was thinking about this podcast, I was like, I'm gonna ask Jason what the most surprising thing is.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Me. Yeah, tell me more. And at first you think, though, that's a self-centered answer. It should be about these kids and this and that. It's like, well, no, I think one of one of the unexpected, surprising, and oftentimes unwelcomed gifts of this entire thing has been self-revelation and self-awareness. And that goes two different directions. The first is I have been surprised that I'm far more capable of doing hard things than I would have ever given myself credit for.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

And I think a lot of

When Fostering Reveals You

SPEAKER_00 21:28

people on the front end of this who aren't quite sure about getting involved, they got all the questions, all the doubts, all the hesitations. And really they're all rooted in I'm I pretty I'm pretty sure I don't have what it takes to do those kinds of things. And everybody on the inside wants to scream, you have no idea what you're capable of until you're forced to be capable of it. And then you'll surprise yourself, you know.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

And I would and and the thing that you're afraid of is the hard thing, is not the hard thing.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

It's not, yeah. It's not the hard thing. There's a whole set of things you're afraid of before you get involved. And then when you get involved, you realize none of those things really matter anymore. Now there's a whole new set of things.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

And then the actual things, yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Involve me actually looking at yourself in the mirror.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

That's right. So it reveals, I think, in very good ways, capacities and strengths and resilience. And then it also reveals in some hard ways lack of resilience, lack of maturity and areas of growth. And you realize, gosh, I'm I'm really surprised by how quick-tempered I can be, or I'm very surprised by how impatient I can be. And you go, wow, I didn't really get into this to have to deal with that. But I guess here we are, you know. And so one of the things that Jed Mediphon, the leader of CAFO, who I get to work with, often says, and we talk a lot about this on our team, these ideas on our team is um God's great interest in your life is not in what you can achieve or accomplish, but in who you are becoming in him and how we are being formed in him. And anybody on this journey listening to this can tell you this journey is a formative journey. Um and it will surprisingly reveal really beautiful things about who we are and also some really hard things. And and God's going that, yeah, that's all of this is good because all of this is forming, all of this is helping you to become this is growth for you. Um and what a gift that this journey that we've gotten involved with for the sake of kids and families actually doubles back on us as growth and formation in a way that we would have completely missed out on had we not done this.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

I think a lot of people have an easier time seeing the flaws in themselves that this journey reveals, and a whole lot harder time um acknowledging the beauty in them that this journey reveals.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

For sure.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

I think that that is like taking time to go, wait, no, I actually I I remember like a couple years in when I started saying, no, I have this like niche with developmentally like global developmental delays. And when I started like saying it and owning it and going, no, I actually can really enter into with those kids, and like my patience is unrivaled here. Like I didn't know that I had that much patience.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

And the first time that I said it, I went, huh, I didn't know that that was true. Like it was like this, like very like yeah, crazy thing of acknowledging a strength in it. It's way easier for me to acknowledge, like I blew it.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

For sure. Yeah. I mean, I mean, that's human psychology. That's why all the all the clickbait headline stuff is all negative. We we we're drawn to the negative. Um but I think that it's a really cool opportunity to look for those bright spots and those those moments where you go, huh. I'm actually I'm actually really impressed with myself in that moment. And I think in the grand scheme of things, every once in a while, um Emily and I married 24 years now this summer, um we'll reflect back and say, gosh, can you believe some of the things that we've done? Like it's insane. And I'm glad we've already done them. Because if we had to actually start doing them now, not a chance. You know, like quitting jobs with little kids and planting a new church in Houston from scratch. Like, can you believe we did that? No, that's crazy. Glad we already did that. Wouldn't don't ever want to do that again. Yeah. Can you believe then in the middle of that we started fostering? And it's just, I mean, looking back and going in the and taking a big step back and looking at the grand scheme and go, wow. It's pretty, and I know this sounds strange, but for for people on this journey to say it's pretty impressive, it's pretty impressive that we did, we've done this because this is not a normal thing. Most people don't do this, and it's it's a completely different way of living. It's flipping the script, it's it's a whole different narrative of life. And we should be proud of ourselves for doing it. I I think we all know that with our kids, it's important to communicate, you know, we're proud of you, and also actually, probably even more so. And one of the things we work on with our kids is not even just, hey, we're proud of you, because we would be proud of you anyway. We'd we're proud of you for making it to the state finals in volleyball. We're also proud of you if you don't, you know. So, I mean, so those are both true. What's what's even better is um, hey, we're proud of you for making decisions that are in line with your values and how you want to spend your time and where you want to focus your energy. But even more importantly than us being proud of you, is you should be really proud of yourself, you know, um, and just helping instill that in them. We can't do that for them if we don't do it for ourselves. To to your point before. And I I was I was this reminds me of a couple years ago, I was at a round table lunch meeting at a restaurant with some foster care leaders in South Carolina. And we're at a restaurant, and across the table from me is a is a um a lady slightly older than me, and um she's super sweet, very kind, been involved. I only mentioned slightly older because she's been involved in this a lot longer than I have. I mean, this this lady's been in it for decades in different capacities. And the waitress comes with a tray of waters, and she is trying to kind of maneuver herself behind this lady's chair, in between this lady's chair, and a wall of windows behind her, pretty tight fit. And I thought I'm watching this happen, and I'm thinking, one misstep, and this is gonna be really awesome to watch, you know. And lo and behold, she stumbles a little bit, and a lot of the water falls and spills on this lady ice water. And it was it was crazy because the lady sitting across from me, who had this ice water dumped on her, didn't flinch at all, didn't didn't move at all, didn't freak out, didn't really do anything other than immediately turn

Resilience Muscles Over Time

SPEAKER_00 29:07

to the young waitress, probably 17, 18 years old.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

Mortified.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

Who's now mortified. Yeah. Yeah. And this lady's sole focus was on making sure the girl knew it's okay, it's no big deal. It's no big deal, not just it's just water, no big deal, you're okay, we're fine, no problem at all. That was her sole focus. And after the dust settles, and you know, she's now sitting wet at this lunch meeting. We were talking about how um of all the tables in this restaurant, this girl picked the right table to dump a tray of cold water on somebody because uh, and and I said this to this lady, what I saw in you was just this calm, like you are it's like you, it's like you're you have cold water dumped on you every day for the last 20 years. This is nothing, you know? Um, and the resilience and the calmness in the midst of something unexpected happening, where a lot of people would have freaked out, and it's a big deal. And oh my gosh, just calm. And to me, that's a measure of this is the table full of people who've been engaged in really hard things for a really long time. Um, dump a tray of cold water on one of us, par for the course. Yeah, you know, we're fine, you know.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

Yeah, you're not also yelling at me and screaming at me while this is happening. Great.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

You know, this is the right table to do that too. Right. Yeah, and it just it was a reflection for me of we are working out muscles that we would prefer not to have to work out. And that most other people around us are not working out. They're actually the narrative of the culture says do everything you can to avoid having to work out these muscles of doing hard things and resilience and perseverance. And now here we are, that's all that we feel like we're working out. But it's developing something in us that when the unexpected happens or hard things happen, it's not that they're not hard or unexpected or cold and wet, it's just we're fine. We're fine.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Um but that that happens over time, like you're saying, right? So when you look at the statistic that says like 50% of foster parents close their license in the first year after their first placement, you're never getting to the place with parents because where they have these muscles and they have this skill, because we're not keeping them in for long enough for them to do it.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

Yeah, that's right. Um totally tracking with you. And it's like, no, just if you stick with, I know, I know you're climbing this hill, and for most of the time, you know, you had, you know, you could breathe fine, and and and but I know you're getting in higher elevation now, and it's starting to be a little harder to breathe. And you're starting to wonder if we keep the further up we go, the further away we get from normal life.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

And this is a breaking point. And we're just we're gonna kind of and I'm not saying that for those who who foster for a short time and quit, it's they're abandoning and going back to normal life by by no means at all. There's so many scenarios in which you did exactly what you need to do for the time you needed to do it. Um, however, there are there is something to this. Is a this is the long game of working out muscles of resilience. Um and to to your point, going back to what we've where we started is um no, no, I got into this for the sake of kids, not to do work on myself.

SPEAKER_02 32:53

Well, surprise. I got into this, you know. I mean, you and I came at this, I think, in both of the I think there's a handful of different ways, but I think most people fit into one or two categories kind of neatly. Either I wanted to do this for a long time, typically the wife and the husband marries in, right? And it's like uh um, but she's known for a long time that she wanted to do something like this, or there's like a one day it becomes the the next right thing. And I'm in the category of like when I was 16, I was driving in my car and had this moment with God, and it was like, Oh, I'm I am meant to foster and adopt kids. So my husband and I had been dating for two weeks, and I said, Hey, uh deal breaker for me, just so you know what is um on the horizon if we were to continue dating. And he was like, Yep, that's fine. And I was like, Okay, great. Um, and you're kind of the on the other side of like it became the next right thing for you guys to do as your eyes were open to what was happening. But in both scenarios, there is a definite belief of like, I'm a good parent. Like we have biological kids, we're like, we're doing this, they're going to sleep on time, they're going to school on time, we're loving them, we're doing

Leaving The Better Place Myth

SPEAKER_02 34:22

all of the right things, and it's like, yeah, I can do this. What's one more kid? What's one more like we've got a bed?

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Yeah. Yeah. And I I think that's some of the greenness and naiveness going into it, I think is necessary. Absolutely. So, you know, I've been in environments where you know, maybe um an organization or an agency is really trying to pound out a lot of the rose-colored lenses or or naiveness. Um, and I get that, I understand the reasons why, but I also get hey, you kind of want people going into this a little bit green. Um, otherwise, they're never gonna go into it.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

And it was in hindsight, I'll never forget when our first placement came, and she's actually never left, she's our daughter now, but um just kind of putting myself back into where I was that evening and the mindset, it almost feels like the place I was at and we were at was okay, here's what's gonna happen. Uh, the here's this transaction that's about to occur. Um, caseworkers are gonna drive this little girl from a hospital on way down east side of Houston to way up north side suburb suburbs of Houston, and literally physically and metaphorically, and all the in all the different ways, bring her from a a um less good place to a better place, and then it's just gonna be better. And that's the transaction that's going to happen. And so we open the door, and there's a screaming little girl with just, you know, um bugged-out caseworkers who've just driven through Houston rush hour traffic with a screaming baby for who knows how long. And they almost throw her in our arms. And I realize, oh, that's not what's happening. That's not what's happening here at all. In fact, what's happening here is not we are bringing a little girl out of a bad place into a better place and now it's better. Although there's an element of that. But what's really, really happening is we are being pulled out of our quote better place into her hard place. And we are now that is now the new norm. Um, and so it I I think if you if we had known too much going into it, it would have been a lot harder to get into it.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

Uh so I think, yeah, I think and if we had known how much it was going to require of growth and you know, exposure of who I am and who we are, and unpacking a lot of stuff, you know, you know, well, I don't know. I'm not no thanks. I'm not interested in that. Yeah. So I think it's it's obviously mercy that we don't know everything when we first get into it.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

I think there's a beauty too, right? In the experience of walking it out and the the unveiling as it's all happening, right? There's this beauty um of getting to walk with the Lord through it and getting and him, like the spiritual formation that he does over time. Um, and that's you know, when we talk about spiritual formation, I think that there's like a whole lot that he's doing and then a whole lot that we get to participate in, and and sometimes we know it's happening and sometimes we don't, right? But like it's it's these moments where where he comes and intersects our story in a way that we carry now with us forever in all different capacities, right? Like I was standing at the cash register at Publix here in Jack's and um using their um Wick card for like milk, eggs, fruit, what you know, cereal. And this was our first placement. And I would at the time, every single time that I pulled it out, I would make sure that the person kneel that it was because they were foster parents. Like I would just work, I oh, we were foster parents, like I would work it into conversation somehow. Like, I don't want you to think that I need government benefits, right? Like I wanted separation, and I just remember this one day, the Holy Spirit so clearly saying, No, you are never allowed to say this again. And I got in my car and I was like, Well, what was that? Like, what was why? Like, I it's it feels very important to me that people know, you know, like the the pride inside of me. And the response was so clear, Jason. And he he was like, Did you think that you could get into this and not get your hands dirty, Rebecca? And I was like, Yep, pretty sure I did. I'm pretty sure that I thought that I could still stay sanitized. And the next request for me was from the Holy Spirit to me was like, I want

Carrying Stigma To Protect Kids

SPEAKER_02 39:41

you to go be a covering for her. Like I want you to, I want you to carry the the stigma or whatever the whatever these kids are gonna come into. I want you're strong enough for that, Rebecca. And it was like, okay, I will um and I just remembered going through so many iterations of this, right? Like when the kids are at the playground and they're wild and crazy, and you want to just be like, I didn't raise them to be like this. Oh this is about me, and this and the pride that is slowly um challenged and then dismantled, but it comes in these moments that are so beautiful with the Lord that seven years later or ten years later, you're like, I remember this moment, and now when given the choice, I put myself in between. Um any kind of stigma that could come against me, like absolutely absolutely, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

And it means it it very well could mean, and it certainly has meant um it changes relationships and dynamics that you have with other people. Um we we've had to put ourselves in between our daughter and um teachers and and authorities at schools. Um parents of uh of girls her age, friends, um, who don't understand the dynamics. Um and yeah, to protect her and to to speak on her behalf and not to defend ourselves, but um yeah, and there's it's a hard thing when you watch um it's a hard thing when you when you go to church next to people who you know, you know have talked bad about your daughter because they have daughters the same age as yours, and they used to be friends and they're not anymore, or this or that, or this or that. And you just know, you know, and um, and yeah, you know, another thing that's it's changed for us is kind of the the old the way of thinking, which is so not accurate. I understand where it comes from, but what this journey has showed us is that it's also very be very careful with that um correlation where you see the way that someone behaves and you kind of immediately project it back onto well, they must have had a really bad home life, or their parents must not be great at all. You go, no, no, no, no, no. Um that that there may I understand the the tendency to connect that naturally because it is very often true, but it's not always true, yeah. Um and um and then there's a there's all there's this uh initially there's a feeling for us as parents where oh we need to protect our reputation. Yes, and then at some point you like you're saying, you go, uh that's exhausting. Let's just protect her, and who cares what other people think about us?

SPEAKER_02 43:18

I mean, but to be fair, me, like you don't know.

SPEAKER_00 43:23

No, that's the hard part is I I care what other people think about me, but man, I can't control there's no way from the outside for me to help someone truly understand some of the unique dynamics that we deal with and help them understand in a way that still protects her. Yeah, I can't communicate to you know middle aged mom, suburban Sue, you know, down the street who's also at church. Sue is never gonna. To understand the unique dynamics of our home and how you know some of the things that we deal with without me having to throw my daughter under the bus. And I'm not going to do that. So I'd rather you think bad of me and talk bad about me, fine, all day long, um, in order to protect her. And it changes dynamics of relationships. And I'm sure a lot of uh people say, Oh, for sure, not just because now we're operating on different wavelengths, and you know, we're kind of living in two different worlds, but also because my world infringes upon yours and it's uncomfortable for you, and you don't know how to handle it. And so now you kind of there's this separation that happens. And and you're right, in that moment we feel the need to protect ourselves, protect our reputation, explain, explain away the confusion or the complexity, and and sometimes that's doable and okay. And sometimes it's it's we just have to say, you know, um, I can't do that. I can't protect myself and my reputation in this in this case. Because first off, it's not worth it. Second, in order to do that, I would not be able to protect the person I'm actually supposed to be protecting.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

I think what we're landing on is something that a lot of parents um grieve and don't feel the permission to call it grief. It's one of the losses that come in this work that we're doing inside of our homes. And it feels, um, or I think it can feel for people like, well, I should be totally okay. I should be okay protecting my kid, or I should be, you know, I shouldn't, I shouldn't care what this other person thinks. And then you realize that you do care, and you realize that you also have to live in the caring or not caring and the protecting. And then there's this like complicated grief that comes. And I know how I have handled this and how I've grown, but I'm wondering if this was an area where you had to grow in it. And I this might be something that's different for a man versus a woman. Um, but how have you had to grow?

SPEAKER_00 46:20

Yeah, I'm sure that it is different for my wife than for me, but also the same in the sense that we've had to grow together in this and also make sure that we're aligned in this. And you know, it I this conversation makes me think of

When Easy Things Stay Hard

SPEAKER_00 46:43

even like going to church. Going to church has been hard for a long time. Um getting a younger version of our daughter to walk down the hall and go to her classroom, not gonna happen. The alternative, then her sitting in the service with us. Oh gosh, no, you know, that's not great. So she's actually found she will she will fight with us, she'll fight us going, but then she'll give in and she'll go. But then she likes to go and sit in the lobby and just listen to it in the speakers and sometimes take notes. And who, you know, we don't know what she's doing in there all the time, but but she'll go in the lobby, maybe watch it on TV or listen to it, or I don't know. And we've just had to decide to make the decision. Okay, you know, and there very well could be other parents around going, look at the why don't they just make her sit with her, sit with them, or or why they let her move around so much, or go to she should be going to youth, or this or that. And you go, you know, we have learned to grow to a point where you don't understand, and that's okay. We don't feel the need to explain ourselves to you because that would then mean explaining away uh some unique things about our daughter that you don't have the right to know. We don't have the energy to tell you. We do not have the energy to tell you because because we don't know you well enough. We may be friends, but we don't trust you enough, we don't know you enough with this inform we don't have this information, and that's fine. So we've we've had to grow with we've had to grow in the sense of here's been the big thing. Uh we cannot play the game in our mind of um this why can't easy things just be easy? That's a dangerous game to play. Why can't going to church that should be an easy thing? Why can't it just be easy? Why can't brushing your teeth just be easy thing? Why does it have to be a fight all the time? Why can't this? Why can't and when you start playing the why can't why can't it just be easy game, then that leads to all kinds of um dangerous places. Why can't we just go on a vacation as a family or pick up and go to the movies or whatever? Why can't things just be easier? And we've had to grow in a lot of you know, we made a decision a long time ago that we are going we're going to forfeit a life where we have the right to say this should be easy. We gave that up a long time ago, and we're going to revisit that decision we made. It's almost like a budget. Everybody knows you're supposed to budget your money, but we don't we don't apply that same grid to most other areas of life. And one of the things I've been we've been exploring for several years now is why are we told to budget your money, but we're not told to budget anything else. And a budget is we're gonna make a decision now, and then we're going to live with that decision. It every time money comes in, we're gonna revisit the decision that we made previously, and that's going to drive things forward. Tracking with me?

SPEAKER_02 50:22

I am yeah, I am so tracking with you, Jason. You have no idea. My brain is flying behind. I'm just waiting, I'm just listening.

SPEAKER_00 50:31

So then why aren't we doing that with how we spend our time, budget our time? We're gonna make decisions now about how we're going to make decisions about how we spend our time. Then, when opportunities to spend our time certain ways present ourselves, we revisit the decision we made. And that's coming back to our values and identity, and and we're gonna make decisions in line with our our values. So on this journey, like here's a big, big thing. Five, seven, ten, twenty years into this, you're encountering, um you're encountering some collateral that has come from a decision you made a long time ago. And you can you can kind of woe is me, get buried in the heart of of the implications, and you know, why can't things just be easy and blah, blah, blah. Or you can go back to the beginning and say, nope, remember, we made decisions a long time ago, and that decision has been driving us. And we're going to trust that um when we when we revisit the fact that God called us into this and he and that what we're doing is honoring to him and worth it to him, we're going to trust that this is God's best for us. We're not going to get buried and and drown under the why can't easy things be easy. Yeah, that's real and it's human, and it's, but then we're gonna say, okay, time to move on from that. Like do your do your little kind of moaning and gnashing of teeth and wailing and then be done. And remember the decision that was made, and hold your head up high and stick, stick with it, you know. So that's been important for us as well. Um to kind of go back to the beginning where we budgeted what our life was going to look like. We had no idea what it was going to look like.

SPEAKER_02 52:35

There it is. That's the question. Like, I'm like, I feel like so many people listening might go, but I didn't know how many of the easy things would never be easy again.

SPEAKER_00 52:47

And what a gift that you didn't know that.

SPEAKER_02 52:50

So when I um show it baby showers, right? I bring a gift card every single time and I write in the card, this gift card is for later on. Don't use this now. This gift card is for after the baby has come and you have you need to get out of the house, right?

SPEAKER_01 53:12

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 53:14

So I want you to go to Target and I want you to, and I say I say this in both, I say this two different ways. But one of the things is for then, like I want you to go to Target by yourself and notice getting out of the car by yourself. Notice how easy it is. I say this before they even like this is my advice before the baby comes, is like, say goodbye to this. Say goodbye to the ease with which you move around town because you will never get this again for many years, and you won't know that you miss it until you don't one day you don't have a kid with you, and then you go, Oh, it was so easy to just get out of my car and go into the store, right? And it's it is those small like take that and place it into foster care adoption when people are like, I got into this, but I didn't know that every single easy thing in my life was suddenly going to become so difficult. I've had kids and I didn't know it could even be like amplified. I didn't know brushing your teeth could turn into this. And I've had a two-year-old before, you know what I mean? Like you it's like, yeah, and and so then, you know, it's it's all these years later for them, and they're like, there's this, there's a resentment that that I can feel that I have that I have heard people talk about, that I have watched happen in people, there's a resentment, and it's so hard to hold that resentment and to love your kids well at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 54:47

Yeah. There's a resentment, there's an exhaustion, there's a disillusionment. And my question is always resentment towards who? Whose fault is this?

SPEAKER_02 54:59

Okay, so the way that I see this play out is it's pointed at the kids. Yeah, but it's actually at yourself. Yeah. Like, right? Like it's like I was dumb. There's a there's this underneath all of it is this like you made the biggest mistake of your life.

SPEAKER_00 55:19

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 55:20

And I think one of the hard things is that people don't say this out loud. That they it's it's so shameful to have that thought. I love so much that you said, like shouldn't the easy things how did you say it? Like, don't play the game, shouldn't the easy things be easy. Oh I love it so much that it's because it's like you land it, like, gosh, Jason, you just nailed something that people struggle with so, so much. And it is the shame around the emotions that they feel when the easy isn't easy anymore.

SPEAKER_00 56:01

Because the most surprising part of this journey for most people is themselves. Right. And the thoughts they have,

Choosing Beliefs That Shape Brains

SPEAKER_00 56:11

the words they say, the resentment they feel, um, and we have to have an incredible bank of um words and language and beliefs that we can draw from to preach to ourselves over and over and over and over again. Not like self-help, self-talk type kinds of things, but like an actual groundedness and a rootedness in you know what? I really resent the fact that I ever did this right now, and I'm really struggling and I'm disillusioned, and I'm angry, and I don't even know if I'm angry at, but I'm gonna take it out on my kids and my spouse and myself. But I don't really know who I'm mad at, but this isn't what I signed up for. Um, but it is what I signed up for, and that really irritates me. And okay, now got all that out. Now I'm going to spend 10x the amount of time saying and drawing from this bank of what is true and what is right, and what do I believe? That okay, I'm gonna all of these things need to be named and addressed, and now counteracted and kind of soothed and comforted with what do I believe is true about God's invitation to me to get involved in this, who God is throughout this, what he promises on the backside of this, what what is true about what my life looks like versus what somebody else's life looks like. Well, what's probably true is um you're looking at your family going, man, I wish it'd just be easy to go to a restaurant and have a nice meal. Uh, because look at that family. They can, and then we project that family's perfect, they're wonderful. They everything's so easy for them. And probably not. Probably, I mean, it's a very good chance that that family has so many internal dynamics and struggles. It's all just being glossed over. What we've done is we've said uh we're actually going to have a family that um is impossible to gloss over. Um, and so much so much of the time we're comparing ourselves to other people and kind of going, oh, it would be so nice to be in their shoes when their shoes um are are full of complexity and dysfunction, yeah, as well. Or even comparing our it's just more hidden.

SPEAKER_02 58:57

Yeah, it's easier to hide or yeah, comparing ourselves to the life we had before.

SPEAKER_00 59:04

The life we had before, the life we thought we would have.

SPEAKER_02 59:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:07

And that's where you got go back to no, what do I believe is true? I believe God called me into this. I don't believe that God is for my harm, I believe he's for my good. I believe he's formed me and grown me. I believe that um it would have been a lot worse for these kids had I not done this. And yeah, things are hard right now and maybe hard for a long time, but imagine the alternative for these kids. Um and what is true? What do I believe? And so I believe that the best life is life with God and walking with him and the life that he's called you to live. And we go, no, no, I believe the best life is one where everything is easy and we can go to the movies anytime, and family vacations are fun, and we don't have to take two cars everywhere because one car might need to leave early with a dysregulated kid. I believe that's the best life. We go, okay. Uh here's two seemingly opposing belief structures in your head. Which one are you gonna actually believe?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:10

Yeah. Um, which one are you gonna focus on? Right. And I think that so often there is like this ability to do the one without the other, right? Like we're getting to the place now where we are able to say inside of a foster or adoptive community, it's important that you name the grief. It's important that you name the feelings, it's important that you name the feeling of shame that you have so that it doesn't eat you alive. But what we are also needing to have come behind it is that, like, but what are you focusing on? What are you seeing in the mirror? Like when you look at your kid, what are you saying to yourself about that kid when you see them? What are you how are you framing this in your mind because those thoughts become patterns, right? And those like thoughts become beliefs, beliefs become actions, feeling anyhow, the whole like stream that happens, right? And it's like, how are we um encouraging our souls in the middle of this and not outsourcing that work to somebody else, right? Like, not saying, like, well, until I go, until somebody tells me this, I don't know if it's true or not, or until like I have to go to wherever. But like the outsourcing of our own good. Like I'm I want people to have agency and now like I said, like, no, yeah, we're you're in it. We have we have choice. We have choice. This is like one of my big things after last year, and it might feel like a total like right angle switch, but it's not really because it's part of it, right? Like it's easy to get into the woe is me. It's much harder to sit in that moment and to go, wait a second, self, Rebecca. This is actually about you. You have agency right now. What story do you want to tell yourself that you're believing?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:17

So yeah, I mean, I think I I believe we need to have the ability to preach what's true to ourselves over and over and over again, and to preach the gospel to ourselves, to preach um what we believe is true about who God is, what this is, and the dynamic that's playing out here, and to hold both here's the naming of what I'm feeling, and the heart and the grief and all of these things, and then always measuring that up against what is true and what is right, and what is pure and what is lovely. Pay attention to those things. And since everybody who becomes foster parents also becomes little miniature neuroscientists, where we know just enough about the brain to be dangerous, we at least know that that brains can change and form neuroplasticity, and we understand neurological pathways and how those are formed through repeated action over time and paying attention to the same things over time. And when we do that, it changes, it changes us. And the question becomes: what do I pay attention to most? My grief and my resentment, or the hard, or to what is true and what is right, and the whatever I pay attention to most will double back on me and become a pathway of thinking and living and interacting with the world around me. Um, and so much of this, that's that's why this is a formation journey, it's an incubator of formation. This is discipleship at its core. This is Jesus doesn't say, Um, in order to be my disciples, you will sign up for every Bible study that your church offers. And I'm not saying those are bad things, right? But what he does say is, you want to be my disciple? Well, you're gonna leave your family, and and you're gonna follow me. And and then there's even this weird encounter where like they look back, like, no, I need to go take back, I need to take care of my family. And Jesus is like, nope, don't even look back. Like, you're gonna leave your family, you're gonna leave everything you know, you're gonna take up your cross, you're gonna follow me, you're gonna deny yourself, you're gonna lose yourself. This is the definition of discipleship, and that's where we're on. We're in this incubator of I'm losing myself, I've lost myself. And part of us goes, Oh my gosh, oh no, I've lost myself. And then we pay attention to what scripture says, and it says, Oh, you've lost yourself. Interesting. Now you'll actually discover what real life is.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:23

Yeah, yeah. I um I have two thoughts. Um the first one with this is at church, you know, when they sing songs about like burn me in the refining fire, and like I'm your like Jason. I hate those songs so much. And when they play them, I look around the the auditory, the sanctuary or the auditorium, whatever people are calling it these days, and I'm like, if you people knew what this song was, you would never sing it. Absolutely, you would never.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:56

Yep. Um oh, you're gonna. To preach a sermon on consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds because it produces in you a perseverance. Either A, I'm out, or B, I'm intrigued. Like, this is cute of you to do this.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:18

I sit there and I'm like, I live this actually, and I don't want to hear it preached. Like, I mean, I I think it needs to be preached, but there's like there's definitely a thing inside of me that's like when you're living this, you don't hear these things the same anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:37

Absolutely. And that also becomes can become a really hard thing. How do I now interact with the world around me,

Joy And Tragedy Held Together

SPEAKER_00 1:06:50

the church around me, the people around me who just don't I feel like I live in a different world than them. And when you talk about struggle and perseverance, I don't think we're talking about those things in the same way. And that can, if we're not careful, breed resentment towards other people, towards our churches. Um and if that then becomes a slippery slip. Or we can say, you know what? Um I wouldn't wish I wouldn't wish anyone understanding the verse in James that says, consider it pure joy when you face Charles. Um nobody wants to know what that verse means.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:50

But and and I don't know what that verse means in full, but I do know what that verse means far more than a lot of people around me. Um and I don't mean that arrogantly, I don't mean that any other way than you don't want to know what that verse means. And I feel like I I on some level I do in a way that I would have never wished on myself. But again, we go, man, I wouldn't wish some of these hard things on anybody.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:19

But I wouldn't trade them.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:20

But I wouldn't trade them because what a gift they have been to form me, to draw me more closely to the person of Jesus, to give me the ability to sing songs about refining fire and read verses about finding joy in trials, and go, Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:44

Yes, I have experienced Jesus in the middle of a fire. Yes, yes, I have experienced joy in the middle of a trial that makes no sense. And that the you know, it's it's like that whole philosophical question of like if this bad thing happened, but you gain all of this stuff from it, would you still have the bad thing happen, or would you and and people answer this all kinds of different ways, right? And I'm and I find myself in the middle of this uh often, but but here's what I know to be true is that I have experienced the kingdom of God in the in my house. Like I have a front row seat, and this doesn't mean that I wasn't a Christian before we fostered, or that I didn't know God before we fostered, that he wasn't working on my heart before he fostered it, anything like that. But from the moment that we said yes to fostering and everything that has come after that, I have had a front row seat to the kingdom of God in my house, and I wouldn't trade it for the world on the worst days.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:49

100% right, and you there's no way you would have intentionally ended up sitting on the front row had you not done this. Um, it ushered you to that front row in a way that you would have never ushered yourself, and that's a gift. And I'm reminded, I've shared this with you before, I think, and then I need to probably roll off here. Of a few years ago, we're walking through some very hard things with the with our daughter and um potentially losing her. And I came across this interview between Stephen Colbert and Anderson Cooper, two very unlikely characters, and they're talking about griefs. Anderson Cooper just lost his wife. Stephen Colbert had a tragic accident many years ago where he lost his dad, and I think his brother or brothers at the same time. Reverse that. I'm sorry, Steve uh Anderson Cooper lost his mom. Stephen Colbert lost his dad and his um brother in a plane accident, I think, years ago. But it was very raw still for Anderson Cooper, the loss of his mom. And so through tears, he's asking Stephen Colbert about grief and and loss. And he says to him, he says, You you I saw uh you were quoted as saying, I've some version of this, I've learned to be um thankful for the things I wish most never happened, or grateful for the things I wish most never happened. And Anderson Cooper through tears says, Do you actually believe that? And Stephen Colbert eloquently explains what he means meant by that. And basically what he said was, I've learned to be thankful for the things I wish most never happened because they gave me a gift. They produced something in me that I would have never had. Do I wish that they had happened? Of course not. Did they happen? Yes. Did they bring about something in my life that I otherwise would have missed out on? Yes. And so it's that strange, very intricate tension of I wish we didn't have to do any of this. I tell people all the time when I when I when I uh in many places where I speak, and actually had a guy come up to me recently and say, the first time I heard you said that, say that, I hated you. I thought, are you what in the world? And and then at the end of the, at the by the end of the event, so at the end of the event, this is like a two-day event. You said that yesterday, and I thought, this guy has no idea. Who is this guy? I can't believe he would say that. And then by the end of the event, like so, yeah, it we're really glad that you said that. It makes sense. And I always say when I'm introducing my family, this is our daughter, first placement. Um, we've lived with that tension for 14 years now of what a joy it is to get to do what we get to do, what a tragedy it is that we even have to do it. And we are unbelievably um uh overjoyed with the fact that we get to be her mommy and daddy, and we are devastated by the fact that we have to be her mommy and daddy, uh, because this should not be her story. Um we this it's it's all evidence that the world is not how it should be. It's a broken world. And we say, um, we are we are can't we are continually daily learning to find joy in the midst of those things that we wish never happened.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:24

Yeah. And that is the tension that's the tension of foster care and adoption.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:31

And I think everything that we've talked about is all these little tributaries of that. Yes. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:39

So Jason, at the end of every um podcast, we do a lightning round. We're gonna do a shorten it um today to just two questions. The first one is what books or podcasts are you loving right now?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:55

Um I'm reading a book called Indestractable, and it's written by a guy who wrote a book years ago that every tech platform in Silicon Valley used, and it was all about how to capture people's attention through technology. And then he realized um, wow, I became an expert in this, and this is all dangerous. So then he wrote a book called about how to become undistracted, uh, and it's very fascinating. So indistractable has been helpful, kind of getting to the root of why do we always feel the need to satiate our boredom and our discomfort with dopamine hits and this and that. What does that say about us core fundamentally of what's going on in us? So that's been helpful.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:57

Um, and then the second question is what's bringing you joy right now?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:02

Watching our girls

Lightning Round And Closing

SPEAKER_00 1:15:04

grow and become young adults and um thrive in their own different ways. Enjoy where they are, thrive where they are, um, make decisions that align with what they want to be and who they are. And it's fun, it's fun to see your kids thrive. It's fun to see your kids thrive without you. That's kind of the goal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:37

I've parented um towards this goal of like always liking my kids, like liking to be around my kids. And I remember when Zoe and Slade, my oldest, were toddlers. Somebody said to me, Don't listen to people when they say, like, just you wait till the teenage years, like you're supposed to that you're supposed to dread the teenage years. She said, You have a choice, and you don't have to choose that path. Like this is you can enjoy your kids when they're teenagers. And it was like, it was the first adult that had ever said it was the first mom that had told me that everybody has always had this, like, oh, you know. And I was like, oh, well, if I get to enjoy them, then I'm gonna parent in that direction. Like I want to Jason, it is so fun. Teenagers are so fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:26

Yeah, yeah. We love it. They're they're their own young humans, and um, it's just really fun to see them figure out their identity and their uniqueness and where they fit. And it's also there's some hard to that as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:43

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:44

Uh, but um our second, who's a senior getting ready to graduate not long ago, she said, I feel bad for saying this, but I'm ready to move out. You know, and we're like, no, that's great. Like, you know, and kind of gave her a hard time. Yeah, like gave her a hard time, like, well, I feel bad for saying this, but I'm ready for you to move out. And but you know, jokingly, like, no, that's a good thing. Like that's a great thing. We can see it in you, and you're gonna thrive, and it's gonna be great. And it's not gonna be without hiccup, of course, but that's how you learn. And um, it's just been a lot of fun in this season to watch. Yeah, I had a when I was we were young, young kids pastoring our church in Houston, and and an older gentleman in our church, uh, a lot of the guys on staff were were younger, and and girls, uh people on our staff was young, with young kids. And I remember him saying to us, um, you guys are at you guys are at one of the hardest stages. It's not always going to be this hard and chaotic. And kind of similarly to your your story, he was saying, um, it doesn't, you know, there's new complexities ahead, but man, it just keeps getting so much better.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:57

And it's just so good.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:58

Yeah, and it's really helpful framing of, you know, oh, watch out until they're teenagers. And our girls, you know, this weekend or last weekend was prom and all that kind of stuff, which I just kind of I'm just kind of there in the corner watching it all play out. And it's it's you know, just the necessary evil of why did we order 17 dresses and what's happening here?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:21

What about that budget?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:22

So I just stay out of it. But I do tell them all the time about these kinds of events. Um, there's a lot of parents around town tonight that are worried. Uh, and I love the fact that we just it's so good to know that we just trust you. You're gonna we know you're you're going to make decisions that are true to who you are. And that's gonna affect where you where you spend your time, who you spend your time with, and what you spend your time doing. And we trust that about you. And so I'm not, I don't, we just don't worry on nights like tonight. Part of that is um speaking, speaking truth into them. Hey, remember who you are. Remember some of that's like coaching, like, hey, don't forget, make to don't do, don't be stupid, make good decisions. But it's more speaking into identity and empowering them. And I do believe it, and it's fun to be at that age, and it's been great to watch them thrive.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:27

So fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:27

Yeah, so fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:28

Thanks for being here today, Jason.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:30

Yeah, always love chatting. Thanks.