James 1:27

I've kind of regretted telling anyone about this blog yet. I've had a few rough spots since my last post and I couldn't bring myself to write about them, knowing that someone might actually read this now! After thinking about it, I think in the future if I need to write about my sadness, I'll go ahead and do it, but I'll follow that post with something happy-ish. Maybe that will help me get over my "stage fright" a bit.
 It is crazy to me that sometime memories of Mama can make me smile all day, but sometimes they just take my breath away with sadness. The very same thoughts and memories that make me smile or laugh out loud can break my heart with sadness the next day or even a few minutes later. Boy, I miss her all the time! Sometimes I realize that I'm being selfish to want her here with us now. Most of the time, I am not in that frame of mind. Even believing that she is better off now, I miss her so much and wish she were still with us in this old crazy world. Of course, even writing that, I realize how selfish it is, and I am glad that she doesn't have any earthly problems anymore. It's just hard without her. I hate not being able to call her when I want to. My sister Brittnye said once that she told us everything we needed to know, and if she didn't she told someone else, so we can just ask our siblings. I thought that was pretty smart of her!
Mama and I talked a lot about Fostering before she died. She brought it up nearly every time we talked for several months. It was such an important work for her and she wanted it for us too. One of Jonathan's favorite verses about Mama is James 1:27 "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world" (KJV). She would always reach out to people who needed help, ESPECIALLY the fatherless and widows. She physically cared for more than one widow in her life. At times even letting them move into her already crowded home so that she could care for an older lady while also raising her own children. For example... We had an older aunt who lived with us when I was really young. My sisters and I would tell our friends that she was a witch and we would charge them a quarter to take them to see her. Her room was always dark and she had a chain on her bed for some reason and she would yell at us with a crackly voice and shake her chain when we would peep in the door. I think our friends got their money's worth. BUT, then our parents found out about our little enterprise and put a real quick stop to that! :)
 Before her biological children left the nest, she and my dad began fostering. They did a lot of good in the years that they were foster parents. Through no fault of their own they had to get out of the system abruptly a few years ago. After a year or so recovering from the trauma of that situation, Mama's heart was still there. She still wished that she could be a foster mom and told me over and over again what we could do to prevent the problems that she and my dad had through the foster system.  They were such good examples of "pure and undefiled religion"  this is another way that I can follow her example as I follow Christ.  In the beginning Jonathan and I were so against fostering. I have three sisters through the system, but there were scary situations that I knew of too.  It kind of reminds you of the saying, "No good deed goes unpunished". Jonathan and I have really wanted to adopt for awhile, but we did NOT want to foster. Through Mama's patience, guidance and excitement for us we became excited ourselves. Now we WANT to become foster parents and we can not wait until we are able to start bringing little ones home. We never thought that we would be excited about becoming foster parents, but we are!