The Morning Shakes

I woke up this morning, and I heard you speak to me. Your words dropped me to my knees, clenched my stomach and shook my heart. You quietly, and oh-so-clearly spoke the declarations I fear the most.
"You're alone"
"You can't handle this"
"You're not suppose to be a foster parent"
"Your baby will suffer and it's all your fault."

Fear, that nasty monster, crawls into my heart and makes it race, it twists my stomach into itself until I can only curl up holding my stomach praying it will stop.
Fear, that nasty killer, causes my mind to race with ways that I can step in and change a circumstance I don't like. Because I fear God won't.

With my heart shaking, I reached for some type of help and I found the words to a song "He can calm your fears, dry your tears, and wipe away your pain. When you don't know what else to pray. When you can't find the words to say. Say the Name."

By the time I got back up, some new thought had occurred to me. I've never been thankful for the family member Bell gets to go to today. It's someone she knows. She'll have cousins to play with. Family. And I imagine, judging from what little I know about where she's going, that it will be a sacrifice for this family to have one more child in their home. Yet they're willing to take her. Because she's family. And, I hope, because they love her.

A gentleman at work and I, have been talking about the sacrifice of praise. And today, attempting to remember to be thankful for what God may have provided Bell, is going to certainly be a sacrifice. And that is what I start this day with Lord.

Pray for me today. 5:30pm is going to come too quickly. And for the sake of Bell I just can't break down until she's gone. These are always hard, but this one is by far the hardest. I don't know how to tell you how she crawled so deeply into my heart so quickly - but I would have easily adopted this child. Easily. And of the 5 kids so far, she's the only one I can completely say that about.

Pray for Bell today. It's hard to transition - even to family. (Do you want to move in with your cousin? I didn't think so.) Pray that Gods will would be done in her life, and in her families life, and that no weapon of the enemy would be able to stand against that perfect will.

And one day, should I stumble across you in Heaven, I'll hug your neck.