tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76680506489190461222024-02-21T07:10:11.127-05:00Waiting for HappyLearning to praise God, even when it hurts.boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.comBlogger865125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-36130073388306350122021-03-08T17:20:00.001-05:002021-03-08T17:20:25.500-05:00International Women's Day<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>It's been a while since I've had a moment to have a thought and it has been quite a while since I have come here to share them. Life with a half dozen living children is chaos and beauty and all the things in between. That said, today I was thinking about International Women's Day and feminism and what it means to be a strong women and I wanted to get my thoughts down so that my own girls could maybe read them one day.<div><br /></div><div>"I'm grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life." Maya Angelou</div><div><br /></div><div>When I think of strong women, I think of leaders, of fighters of go getters and of women out in the world making a difference. I picture a woman who knows who she is and speaks her mind and makes herself a priority. I picture a woman who goes after what she wants and doesn't let anything stop her. I think most of us think of a similar picture.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then I think of myself and the example I am setting. I dreamt of being a teacher for as long as I can remember but when I had Luke my dream shifted a little. My dreams have shifted so many times with each child who comes into our family and with each hurdle we jump over. I am a stay at home mom. I am not utilizing my college degree in the way I imagined I would, I am not out in the world making a difference, in fact I barely leave home. The woman described above IS a vision of strength and I admire her but she isn't the ONLY vision of feminine strength. </div><div><br /></div><div>The thing is, a strong woman doesn't look like any one thing. Being a strong woman can mean you are the VP of the United States, a Supreme Court Justice, a lawyer, a teacher, a CEO, a homemaker, a barista, a mechanic, a foster mom, or anything else your heart desires. Being a strong woman means using your strength for others. It means being true to yourself. That looks different for each of us and that is exactly what feminism was meant to do. We have a choice. Admittedly we have to more often than not work harder than our male counterparts to be recognized or deemed successful in the world but strong women are out there being champions for each other and for others.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, maybe your strong looks like fighting court cases for the people who need a voice, maybe it is educating our youth, maybe it is a mission to Mars or creating a vaccine, maybe it means making sure your family has a warm meal on the table or folding socks, maybe it is leading our government or making coffee. Maybe it is being a shelter for kids who need you, maybe it is healing your own hurts so the cycle ends with you. It could be sweeping crumbs or managing a business. Maybe and quite possibly your strong looks like a myriad of things and it shifts and changes with life. Whatever your strong, sisters, I salute you. We are doing it. All of the things we are doing big and seemingly small are changing the world. </div><div><br /></div><div>"I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples." Mother Teresa</div><div><br /></div><div>Just remember strong means building your strength and then using it for others. Put your oxygen mask on first. The 2021 International Women's Day theme is "Choose to Challenge". We use this day to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women, and I challenge all of us to do better this year than last, and better next year than this. Let's strive to challenge ourselves to be better versions of ourselves each day, let's strive to challenge ourselves and each other to speak out when things aren't right and to not accept things just because they are. Let's challenge each other to keep challenging each other and never settle. Here's to strong women everywhere. May we be them, may we know them, may we raise them.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Feminism isn't about making women strong. Women are already strong. It is about changing the way the world perceives that strength." GD Anderson</div>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-87076739792028017282018-05-12T17:19:00.002-04:002018-05-12T17:19:37.999-04:00EVERY Child Deserves a MotherOn the cusp of our pending adoption of our newest blessing, I've found myself reflecting on motherhood. Mother's Day is tomorrow and it is always a bittersweet day for me. It tends to bring longing for what isn't as well as gratitude for what is. As we completed our autobiographies for our most recent homestudy, I found myself digging deep to put words to why we've continued to foster kids and subsequently adopt them should the need arise. <br />
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At nine years old my world as I knew it stopped. My mother made the choice to end her own suffering, inadvertently magnifying mine. Thirty years later, as I've worked through many of my feelings surrounding this time in my life I look back and I see a young girl who is lost. She is burdened with worries and circumstances too heavy for her to carry, in an effort to make sense of what she is feeling, she simplifies things in her mind. </div>
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You see, though I know my mom struggled with mental illness, I saw her suicide as my own failure. Deep in the pit of my soul I longed to know why I wasn't enough. Why wasn't I worth living for? This set me up for a lifetime of fighting for my worth. I've heard it all before, I understand mental illness, I understand brain chemistry and the agony of depression and anxiety, I am aware of the way trauma from one's childhood can haunt them all their life and that was for sure true of my mom, but as a nine year old girl, all I could see was that my mom did not love me enough to stay for me. If she didn't, who would? </div>
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I spent my childhood overachieving at most things in hopes that it might be enough to keep me from being an orphan. I was painfully lonely. My adolescence was much the same. As time went on, I built a wall. I'd fight to be worthy of love but I'd not allow anyone close enough to hurt me so deeply if they left. My college years were much of the same. I looked for love in all the wrong places and continued being independent enough to count only on myself. </div>
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Two years into college, while home on break, I met a guy who stayed. I was just looking for a fun time and maybe a few dates, but a few dates turned into him calling from the pay phone just outside my apartment nearly three hours from his home. He was different. He wanted to know me. I was terrified for him to know me so I continued to maintain the wall as long as I could. Eventually he broke it down. He continued to show up even when he didn't have to and even when I didn't deserve it. He made me believe maybe someone could love me without my striving to earn it incessantly. As each brick from my wall fell and he saw what was truly behind it, he loved me harder. I'm sure I'll never know just why he fought for me. No one had really ever done that before.</div>
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Howard and I walked through some tough stuff in the first years of our marriage and seventeen years into that marriage I am still a work in progress. Insecurity still sometimes gets the best of me. Here in our home I feel loved and safe, even at my worst. I never really felt that as a kid, not because my dad and grandparents didn't try, but because I was wounded and that wound became a thick and callous scar and I didn't let them. When I think of other kids out there, fighting for their worth, fully knowing how exhausting and agonizing that is, I can barely stand the thought. The foster care system is full of kids just like me. They feel abandoned and unworthy and seek love where they can find it. That trauma begins often times prenatally. It shapes our brain networking, and continues through generations unless it is dealt with and healed. </div>
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It's taken me a long time to heal my wounds and I'll probably be a work in progress for my whole life, but every kid deserves a mom. They deserve someone who loves them in spite of themselves, for who they are and not who anyone else wants them to be. If I can be that mom for my kids, it all somehow seems worthwhile...all of the pain and suffering wasn't for nothing. If I can use my pain to lessen the pain of someone else and be the mom I didn't have, that will be the greatest honor of my life. I am far from perfect, but I am one hundred percent devoted to making sure my kids feel acceptance, love and belonging. I need for them to know how valuable and wanted they are. I want them to know, especially my kids who came to me through adoption, that while the default may be to feel abandoned and unwanted by their first moms, that was never ever the case, I will speak of their families of origin with love and respect and I will forever fight for them to know how amazing they are, just as they are.</div>
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Foster care and adoption requires a lot of hoops to be jumped though, hoops that aren't typically required when you birth children of your own. It is a lot of work, it is exhausting mentally, physically and spiritually. It is a battle, and frankly all kids deserve a parent who would go to battle for them, who would jump through every single hoop necessary and who won't stop no matter what. Not all parents can do that. Sometimes the trauma runs so deep that healing cannot happen quickly enough to not drag the child down too. The first parents of my youngest three kids are amazing people. We love them, we honor them, we speak highly of them. They are still working on healing themselves. It was never a matter of them not wanting their children, it was a matter of them not wanting to pull their children down with them as they fought for their own lives. </div>
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I consider it a great honor to stand in the gap for a day, a month, year or lifetime and help heal the cycle of trauma. I didn't have that. I didn't get to have a mom, but I sure do get to be one, and as long as there is breath in me, I will love and fight for each of my kids with all that I have. </div>
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Mother's Day can get me down. This year I am choosing to just see it as another day of battle. I will allow all feelings to be felt, I will miss my mom and some of my kids will miss their first mom, I miss Isaac and Asher deeply and I will be sad as I think of all that might have been, but I will also choose joy, and hope and grace as I get to do the most sacred job of mothering each of my children. The mere fact that I've come far enough to be able to do that is enough. I can't fight for my worth anymore. I am tired and I am worthy and I am a mom. Even a pretty good one. ;)</div>
boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-17028791455405318132018-05-12T16:13:00.004-04:002018-05-12T16:13:35.158-04:00The Basement<br />
January has been a tough month for me so far. It marked three decades since I've called someone mom. That hit me a little harder than I anticipated. 75% of my life has been spent motherless and I am not even 40 yet. I think back about my childhood and I have very few memories of my first nine years. I've come to learn that growing up with and being cared for by a mother who is suffering from undiagnosed mental illness doesn't really lend itself to a ton of happy, picture perfect memories.<br />
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I've shared before that while my mom loved us, she wasn't able to really be present, ever really. She was almost always checked out or cleaning something furiously. I find that I struggle in making sure I don't walk that same road. When I think of her marriage with my dad, I think of it as a nine year old. I am not really sure what I was seeing. I know that they loved each other. I know that my mother struggled to love herself and that made her tough to love. I know that my dad tried his best. I know that for her, that was never going to be enough.<br />
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A memory that has been kind of haunting me this month is of my dad digging a basement. We began life in a mobile home, and my mom wanted a house. My dad made that happen. He built on to the trailer as we lived in it, and you'd never know it was once a trailer. Next she wanted a basement, I can remember them fighting about the basement and upcoming garage project. There wasn't money to do these things, but my dad wanted nothing more than for my mom to be happy. Maybe if he dug that basement, she'd finally be happy.<br />
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So he dug. He dug, and he dug and he dug, under an existing house, he brought the dirt out by the wheel barrow full. Every day he'd come home from work and he'd dig. He would wake up on weekends and he'd dig until dark and then he'd park the car so that he could dig in the light of the headlights. As a kid it was glorious. There was dirt EVERYWHERE. He dug the entire thing by hand until he could start hauling in the concrete and block, because of the existing house above all of this also done by hand and wheel barrow. I can only imagine now as an adult his sheer exhaustion, I do recall them arguing, but I don't really ever recall him complaining.<br />
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Once the basement was done, he began the garage. The garage was going to have bedrooms above it. My sister and I were excited that we were going to get our own rooms, brand new rooms painted in our favorite colors. Mine would be pink and hers purple. Those bedrooms never got finished while we lived in that home because one night, my mom made a plan to end her suffering. She sent us to the neighbor's and she walked the steps to that basement that my dad dug with his hands in hopes of making her happy. She entered the ceramics workshop he'd built for her so she could spend her time doing things she enjoyed. She picked up the gun she had recently bought for him that he'd had out on the table down there for cleaning and she ended it.<br />
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She ended all of it. EVERY bit of life as we knew it. Nothing would ever be the same again. She would hurt no more, but the rest of us? We'd live with her choices for the rest of our lives. She used the space my dad painstakingly dug in hopes of helping her to finally be happy and I guess in a round about way she found her peace there.<br />
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I try so hard not to harbor anger toward her. I understand depression, I understand mental illness. I wish she'd taken time to understand the scars she imposed on every person who loved her. EVERY person who thought back and tried to figure out how they missed the signs, how they could have helped her, every person who to this day lives with guilt and feels partially responsible. She doesn't suffer anymore but 30 years later we sure do.<br />
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I wish she understood the simple blessing of just showing up, of being present. Her presence has been missed so deeply. The truth is that there is NOTHING anyone could have done to make her happy. Her unhappiness was rooted so deep, largely from her own childhood trauma that no one could reach it and in her desperate need to put on a facade of perfection no one REALLY knew. I am only learning now that I knew. She shared a lot with me, burdening my young heart with things it did not understand. I carried her truths with me after she lost the battle. It has taken me three decades to process most of the first nine years of my life, her trauma becoming my trauma in a dark and suffocating cycle.<br />
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The good news is that the cycle ends there. I will not follow in those footsteps. I will continue to be self aware and ask for help when I need it. I will NOT be ashamed for taking medication that balances my brain allowing me to live a healthier life. No one else is responsible for my happiness. That responsibility is my choice. Some days I do a better job than others and all days I struggle, but I refuse to allow that cycle that has been continued through generations to continue with my children. It ended in that basement. I will fight with my every breath to do better for my own kids.<br />
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I know my dad beats himself up and punishes himself daily for what he perceives as his failure, for not saving her. I hope one day he'll see that while he wasn't able to save her, and while he'll always ache for her, probably regretting ever even building that damn basement, I don't know because he won't speak of any of it, but her death in that basement may be what saved me. Without her ever getting help, and continuing the way things were going, I am not entirely sure I would have been able to shoulder it all. We can't change the past but we sure can do our best to know better and do better and I will continue that quest for all of my life. <br />
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<a href="http://www.mylivesignature.com/" target="_blank"><img src="https://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54487/230/61F8854994E8CF84315276DCA72B3CFF.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0;" /></a>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-90756738483194811562017-11-04T17:53:00.000-04:002017-11-04T21:40:38.500-04:00The AnswerIt's been quite a while since I have come here and share anything. Life has been busy, my heart has been busy and frankly I've been struggling to figure out what I even believe about anything anymore. Religion has become something that makes me uncomfortable, not to say it's all bad but I look around and see people doing things in the name of religion that go against the very teachings of what they are supposed to be about and I struggle to make peace with that.<br />
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The truth is I have been struggling to make peace for quite some time with Jesus and with myself. It seems in my life I have had many ebbs and flows when it comes to Jesus and even myself. Today I feel like I am making my way back to peace and while I still have no answers I've had a bit of a red letter day.</div>
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Thirty years ago this winter, my mom died. My heart ached, my soul ached and I could not make sense of the world. That following summer a teacher who was and is very dear to me made it possible for me to go to summer camp. There is a little gem of a camp on the edge of Lake Erie, on the western border of Pennsylvania it is supported by the local Baptist Church. I was so nervous to attend this camp. I'd gone to church my whole life but had no real idea who Jesus was or what following his teachings really meant. I cried in my bunk my first night there and in the morning after a prayer time I made my way down a narrow road to the Lake. I remember standing there, tears falling into the lake, looking out at the magnitude of the water and the waves and wondering where on earth I fit in this world and why any loving God would take my mother. I didn't leave with answers that week, but I left well loved.</div>
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Twelve years ago I sat in a NICU cubicle while doctors told me my son was dying, I ran to another room and cried and cried while a nurse held me and even held my hair back while I threw up. My husband brought that sweet boy into the room and we held and sang to him as he drew his last breath. We left the hospital that day, not with our child, but with a box of memories of six days of his life. I clutched that box as we left the hospital empty armed and broken hearted. Neither Howard nor I said a word on that drive back to our little corner of Pennsylvania, but that car somehow found itself on that narrow road leading to that rocky beach at that tiny Baptist camp. Once again tears fell into the lake as I wondered where on earth I fit in this world and why any loving God would take my son. I felt so insignificant standing there looking out at the crashing waves. The magnitude of the waves overwhelmed me but also stilled my heart, drowning out all of the extra noise in my head as my husband held me and I ached in a way that still takes my breath away just remembering. I didn't leave with answers that day, but I left well loved.<br />
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In the past few months I have found myself overwhelmed and growing cynical with a world seemingly gone mad. Foster care has opened my eyes to stories that have broken my heart, become a part of me and yet are not mine to tell. We have some big decisions coming up for our sweet foster daughter and beyond ALL else my only hope is that decisions are made with HER best interest in mind. Life has gotten hurried and full and I have found it difficult to breathe or even take a moment to take care of myself. I celebrated a birthday this week and was overwhelmingly grateful to have my amazing husband, children and friends as they showered me with gifts, sent me out with friends and gave me space for self care. Today I found myself walking that narrow road leading to the rocky beach at that very tiny Baptist camp in solitude. I stood there as waves crashed and it was like the floodgates opened and months of tears fell into the lake as I stood there wondering where on earth I fit in this world and why any loving God would allow such poverty, addiction, abuse and brokenness. I felt insignificant standing there looking out at the vast lake. I walked back to the camp where I am currently attending a retreat with some of the most lovely women you could ever meet. I'll leave here tomorrow with no answers, but I'll leave well loved. </div>
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Honestly, friends, this world makes less and less sense to me each and every day. I am overwhelmed with heartache for all of the brokenness of the world. I have made it my mission to enter into the pain of others and just be there and feel it with them, to be there and love them well. I honestly have a lot of questions about religion but as I sit here tonight my soul still stilled by the sound of the crashing waves, I think the answer is love. I think it might just be that simple. I think we try to complicate it all with doctrine and laws and rules but the basis of it all should be love and if it isn't, it isn't my God. Love doesn't always look pretty or feel good, but it is the a<span style="text-align: center;">nswer. We don't always have to agree with each other, we don't have to like everything about each other, but we CAN always love each other well. SO when I think about religion and how I fit in and what I believe, I am still figuring that out. I do believe 100% that there is a God and that he loves us and wants us to above all else love each other so until I get the rest figured out (and maybe I never will) I'll just continue to love others well. Could you help me be part of the answer and love others well too?</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">"When sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul." - Horatio Spafford</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. - John 13:35</span><br />
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boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-22796052972542215832017-04-14T20:32:00.000-04:002017-04-14T20:32:25.158-04:00"Good" FridayI sit and write this in my bed as I recover from another melanoma surgery. Last week I had a mole removed and the doctor assured me if anything it was atypical, so I was a little stunned when the nurse called and said that it was in fact melanoma...again and that I would need to schedule a surgical excision to be sure we got it all. "This one was caught early" she said. Somehow that didn't comfort me. It felt like another battle to fight and while it definitely could be worse, I've been exhausted from fighting battles. <br />
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I remember finding out that Asher was not well while I carried him. It seemed so cruel that I'd have to go through that twice. I mean, I had the thought that "I had paid my dues". I praised God despite having to let go of my second born son. It seemed cruel that I'd have to also let go of my fourth born. They say lightning doesn't strike the same place twice. They're wrong. <br />
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Death can strike twice, cancer can strike twice, and it leads me to think of how Jesus' people must've felt on Good Friday. Good Friday couldn't have seemed "good" in any way shape or form. It had to be agony, it must've felt cruel and crushing, much like the trials we face today. Good Friday wasn't good. Sometimes we need to sit with that pain, we need to feel it, let it wash over us. Brokenness, fear, sickness, and death are all part of this fallen world. Christ suffered, we suffer.<br />
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The truth is, that we can live the Friday and Saturday experiences with hope. Jesus gave us a beautiful example. It's Friday, but we KNOW Sunday is coming. Christ died, but he ROSE. The rising would not be so powerful without the two days of death. Jesus overcame death so that we would be able to have the hope that one day all of these trials, these hurts, these battles will be won...maybe not by us, but one day all of the sad things will come untrue, there will be no more hurt, no more fear, no more death. <br />
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Jesus died, the tomb was empty, and he was resurrected. Friends who are living a Friday experience right now, hang tight, hold on and turn your face upward. I am not sure what it will look like but Friday doesn't last forever, don't lose hope, don't fear that Sunday won't come. He assures us it will. It hurts right now, there are so many questions, anger, disappointment, longing, grief and fear. Allow yourself to feel ALL of them, just don't reside there, feel them and keep on moving on to Saturday, Sunday WILL come. Beauty will come from ashes. It may not look anything like what we hoped or expected, but these trials are changing us, they're preparing us for greater things even when they don't feel so great. You may not feel like you've got this, but He does. Hold fast. It's Friday now, but Sunday IS coming. I don't know all of the answers, or really any, but I know this isn't the end.<br />
boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-85163620511401307742017-02-22T00:31:00.000-05:002017-02-22T00:31:05.820-05:00NineNine years ago today, I sat in a hospital room hooked up to monitors, with the crushing knowledge that my sweet fourth son's life was near it's end. I was taken for a midnight ultrasound to take a look at the umbilical cord as it was suspected that the blood flow was beginning to slow to his body. My greatest wish was to meet him alive. I was told it was a long shot, but the doctors promised they'd try.<br />
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The ultrasound confirmed that our time was running out and I was bombarded with decisions. Big decisions. I am not by nature a decisive person, anyone who knows me knows that any decision causes me pretty great anxiety...ok, maybe not any decisions, there have been some decisions in life I have unequivocally known the way to go...marrying Howard, adopting my kids, those were no brainers. What kind of mattress to buy...nope. Hours and hours of research, to be sure I don't make the wrong decision and have to sleep on a lumpy mattress for the rest of my days precede a decision like that. I am not being dramatic, it really causes me great anxiety, some days I just need someone else to make all of the decisions that I KNOW aren't a big deal but somehow make a big deal.<br />
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This day, there was no such person. Howard and I were faced with what to do next. We could have a c-section immediately and hopefully meet our boy before he died or we could wait it out and let his lungs mature more giving him a greater chance of longer survival. Then, once he was born, what measures would be taken, who would be in the room, what would happen next?<br />
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We took a breath and decided we wanted to meet our boy, his heart was slowing, and it wasn't looking good. We made phone calls to our friends and family and let them know they were welcome to come and meet him, we called our favorite NICU nurse, a photographer and our pastor. We made a plan. I would deliver the baby and they would close me up ASAP and I would be taken to recovery where his siblings would come in and meet him, followed by grandparents, aunts, and friends. The photographer would be there all the while capturing every precious moment.<br />
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The decisions came easy, we just knew what to do, we have NO regrets about our time with Asher and we somehow got a tiny lifetime out of the thirty minutes he lived. He met many people and he knew only love. He died peacefully in our arms and it was a day of tangible love, grace and hope. <br />
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Fast forward nine years, tonight I stood in Target and cried a river because for the life of me I could not choose a toothpaste. Why on earth are there so many choices? They all do the same job, but what if there is a better one, which one gives me the most for my money? It is maddening. I stood there and cried and cried. I finally threw one into the cart and moseyed back to electronics to find Luke. He could see I'd been crying and he asked what was wrong. I told him I was overwhelmed picking a toothpaste. He looked at me and said, "Mom, I doubt it is about the toothpaste. It maybe is because tomorrow is your dead son's birthday." Maybe.<br />
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On the ride home he spoke with wisdom and kindness that made my heart overflow. We stopped at a drive thru for ice cream and fries. As we pulled away, I looked at him and said, tomorrow is your brother's birthday. He handed me a fry and said, "Let's have a fry and cry". We did. I sometimes worry about secondary trauma inflicted on our kids because of the things they've lived and continue to live and then my thirteen year old shows me he gets it. He didn't try to offer meaningless words, he didn't try to fix it. He handed me a french fry and cried with me as we talked about what a nine year old Asher might be like. <br />
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We got home and he helped me carry our bags in and he went to get a shower. As I was putting things away I heard him soothe the baby back to sleep when she began to fuss and I thought about how lucky I am to have that kid. He then came out of my bedroom and said, "Mom, I found this kitchen knife lying around in your room, I figured it ought not be there, so maybe just put knives away when you are done using them in your bedroom." We both laughed, and he hugged me and thanked me for spending the evening with him and as he went to bed he said, "You're a good mom, Asher was really lucky to have you for his whole life."<br />
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His whole life. Asher had his mom and his dad for his whole life, not many of us do. While I'd do anything to have had him here with me today, and I sure wished he were following me around Target tonight picking out birthday goodies, I had him for 31 weeks, 4 days within my womb and 30 amazing minutes outside. He had his mom for his whole life and she could not have loved him more. I'll probably always wish for more, but I know he now wishes for nothing. He is perfect and whole and with his Heavenly father, and while my body physically aches for him every day, he lives on in us, we are different because he lived. We know a compassion and a depth of soul that we never would have known without his brief life and while my heart aches, it also bursts with joy and pride that he was mine. I had him for 30 minutes, he had me forever. It is well, it is well with my soul.<br />
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I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be.<br />
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Asher "Happy" Joseph Bolte 2/22/2008</div>
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<a href="http://www.mylivesignature.com/" target="_blank"><img src="https://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54487/230/61F8854994E8CF84315276DCA72B3CFF.png" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px;" /></a>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-91186535569513182342017-02-13T09:58:00.002-05:002017-02-13T09:58:49.644-05:00Let Light Shine Out of Darkness<br />
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2 Cor 4:2,6 (NIV) We have renounced secret and shameful ways... For God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.</div>
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I don't know about you but these days I look around and I feel overwhelmed. I see stories of addiction, sexual abuse, mental illness, violence, etc and I wonder what in the world is happening. I had a conversation with my grandmother about some of these things that were weighing me down and she said that these things were not so rampant in "her day". I got to thinking. Is that true? Are these issues new?<br />
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I would argue that they aren't new at all. Those issues have been around for as long as people have been around I'd guess. I don't think they are more common today, I think people are getting BRAVE and talking about them. History tells us that many atrocities happened long ago, I think the difference is that for many years people were silenced. These were things no one was expected to talk openly about. When we keep secrets, eventually they will have to come to light...eventually whether they are spoken about or acted out, they come out. <br />
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For decades, maybe centuries, people have dealt with all of these issues in silence. They were inappropriate things to speak of and so they got shoved away, deeper and darker, and in that darkness they fester, they begin to cause rot and decay, the decay spreads and spreads until eventually something comes to light or the rot takes over. I think this silence and suppression of these issues has caused the infection to grow, it becomes a cycle and the only way to break that cycle is to get honest, open up and address the issues.<br />
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An abuse victim shoves their fears and feelings down until they grow and the abusee becomes the abuser, a person struggling with mental illness shoves the shame away until the illness takes over. A person struggling with addiction continues to feed the addiction until that addiction brings death and destruction. We can't keep on keeping' on this way...we need to be brave, we need to bring it all to light. We live in a broken world where terrible things happen and we need to talk about them. It is time to break the stigma. <br />
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I think there are far too many of us carrying around hurts and traumas that we are not meant to carry alone. I don't know why these things happen to so many, but I know we were never meant to try to handle them alone. I've been criticized for being so open about my mom's suicide and my own struggle with depression and anxiety. More than the criticism though I've had people share stories with me that they had previously been unable to share, people who've contemplated their own suicide but found hope in knowing they aren't alone. My mom's birthday was yesterday and I can't help but think that if she had felt she could share, if she could be honest and bring that darkness to light she might still be here today.<br />
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Friends, you aren't alone. Whatever your struggle, you are never alone. When we get brave and we share our souls and the deepest darkest parts of them, we allow light to shine into the darkness and the light will cause growth, the rot and decay will stop and true growth and healing can take place. I think for many generations stigma and taboo won, that must end here. No more shame, no more stigma, no more taboo, you are loved and you are not alone. I urge you, whatever your struggle, whether addiction, mental illness, sexual abuse, abuse, anything, reach out to someone who loves you well, bring the darkness to light, take back your power, God can bring beauty from the ashes of any circumstance, but as long as it remains in the dark it will fester and the infection will spread, so bring it to light, let the light shine out of the darkness, I am here, I am with you and I am always honored when you share your stories with me so feel free to email me if you aren't sure who else to share with. <br />
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Let's leave a better world for our kids and bring it all to light!<br />
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Mat 5:14-15 (Phi) "You are the world's light; it is impossible to hide a town built on top of a hill. Men do not light a lamp and put it under a bucket. They put it on a lampstand, and it gives light for everybody in the house."<br />
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<a href="http://www.mylivesignature.com/" target="_blank"><img src="https://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54487/230/61F8854994E8CF84315276DCA72B3CFF.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0;" /></a>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-40315540168089991272017-01-20T13:22:00.002-05:002017-01-20T13:22:45.404-05:00It is PersonalOn Tuesday of this week, I sat in a cancer center for the day. It is near the third anniversary of my cancer diagnosis and I am now having annual scans to be sure the cancer doesn't return and if it should, that we catch it before it spreads. I have written before on my experience in the cancer center. It is a sacred place. It is a place where deep sorrow and great hope coincide. It is a place that unless you've spent time there, you can't really grasp. While I am a nervous wreck each time I go, I also look forward to going, I could sit and just listen to people share their stories all day and basically I do.<br />
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This week was slightly different. My best friend took me to this appointment so that Howard could keep the wheels turning at home and we headed out once getting kids settled with school or on the bus, I got there, had bloodwork done, had an IV placed and was sent to the basement for radiology (where I would later have to have the darn IV redone, but in the grand scheme I shouldn't complain). Once in radiology I was separated from my friend and placed in a small room with seven other cancer patients all waiting for scans as well. <br />
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Part of the scanning process requires drinking a contrast solution. It isn't TERRIBLE but it's no margarita. As I sat there with those seven people we each took turns giving a "cheers" as we received our contrast. The feeling is one of camaraderie, it isn't a place anyone would choose to be, but there is a solidarity in that room that you won't feel elsewhere. As we sat and sipped our bottles of yuck, we shared stories. I sat there in awe of these people. The resilience, the positivity, the hope was tangible. A 72 year old man with terminal liver cancer that had spread to his lungs, who by all doctor predictions should've been dead years ago, a 32 year old mom of Muslim faith who was battling stage 3 ovarian cancer, a 54 year old woman on a clinical trial for breast cancer, a 61 year old man battling prostate cancer, a 43 year old man battling stage 4 colon cancer, an 83 year old woman enduring treatment for end stage renal cancer so she could see her first great grandchild be born, and a man who kept to himself and sat quietly in the corner fighting tears.<br />
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These are all real people. Michael, and Adra, and Ethel. Bob and Ryan and Millie...and the man in the corner, they are parents and spouses and siblings, friends and as we sat there, sharing stories, the news came on. The fear and sadness in the room was thick as the repeal of the ACA act was being discussed. Each of these people have a preexisting condition. Each of these people need expensive medical treatment to live and continue to live. Each of these people is loved deeply by others. Each of these people deserve better.<br />
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When fighting cancer one should not have to fret about the logistics and financial aspects of their medical care. They need all of their energy just to show up and fight. I try not to get political here, as it is never my intention to divide people. We all need each other and we need opposing views to better each other. But guys, healthcare shouldn't be a luxury afforded to only the wealthy...it should be a right in America. All people should get the care they need without going bankrupt or being denied. These precious people are afraid that changes in healthcare law will ultimately result in their death...this is life and death. I hope and pray they are wrong, that everything is going to be just fine and that maybe the new president will surprise us all...regardless, I'd challenge any of the politicians of America to spend just a day in a cancer center, listening and truly HEARING people, healthcare reform maybe should start there.<br />
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Today a new president takes office. If you know me, you know he would not in a bajillion years be my choice. I do not believe he will be a voice for the marginalized, I believe he is a voice for only himself and is a man of no integrity. I do not believe he has the best interest of the people at heart. As a mother to girls, to children of different ethnicities, children with special needs, and as a mom with a pre existing condition married to a public school teacher, this is beyond political, it is personal.<br />
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His words and actions thus far give me no hope in his ability. He is all of the things I pray my children never become, he is in no way a role model I want them to follow, his words have been horrendous, and yet we as a nation write those words off hoping that something shockingly different will be better. I am a firm believer that words have power and I believe his words have revealed who he is, but I stand today hoping with all I have in me that I am wrong. I hope he somehow deep deep down has the ability to "Make America Great Again", but friends, this job is too important to leave it up to him. We have to stand up and speak out. We have to be unafraid to be a voice for those who need one and to stand up for what is right and just.<br />
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We cannot give up now, we have to make our own corners of the world better, world change begins there...be kind to each other but keep fighting the good fight and do not grow weary. The battle begins now. It's ok to be sad today, but tomorrow we begin the hard work ahead of us, God is still in control and we have the power to make a difference...let's do it.<br />
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<a href="http://www.mylivesignature.com/" target="_blank"><img src="https://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54487/230/61F8854994E8CF84315276DCA72B3CFF.png" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px;" /></a>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-23920114531189308812017-01-09T21:00:00.002-05:002017-01-09T21:00:32.516-05:00Walking/Driving After Midnight<br />
We are all probably pretty familiar with the phenomenon where you hear a song and it is able to transport you back into a moment of the past because the song played at a significant time in your life. It evokes the same emotions, feelings, moods, vivid memories flood back. It is much more than just nostalgia, it doesn't necessarily make you yearn for the past, it transports you there.<br />
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Twenty nine years ago, my mother ended her life. A single bullet and it was over in that instant. She'd suffered with depression and I suspect other mental health struggles for maybe forever. She had a traumatic childhood herself and despite her best effort she was not able to overcome the demons that continued to haunt her. She planned her death in great detail. I was nine, I had no idea what was happening at the time but looking back it takes my breath away.<br />
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The events surrounding her death were extremely traumatic for me. I didn't realize until I was in my thirties just how traumatic they were. I began seeing a therapist and discovered I was struggling with PTSD. I had almost no memories of the first decade of my life. When I turned the age my mother was when she died, memories suddenly began flooding me at inopportune times. Feelings and traumas I had never dealt with were demanding my attention. I have continued therapy and worked on dealing with those issues and feelings in addition to taking medication to combat some of the same demons my mother fought for so long. I am not ashamed. If nothing else, my mom surely taught me a heartbreaking lesson. I will continue to get help and fight for my life for as long as I live.<br />
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I am in a much healthier place today. I hold little resentment I once clung to and I am able to see through my own experience, the struggles she faced. For as long as I remember, I've had a strong connection to Classic Country music, mostly women. Patsy Cline, Crystal Gayle, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton all hold a sacred place in my heart. One memory I have that is a positive one is that my mother was a singer. She was talented, and she loved to sing. She would put records on and dance and sing around the house almost daily when she was well...and she would sit and sing and cry when she wasn't. <br />
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On our most recent vacation to Myrtle Beach, we drove through the night. I am by nature a night person. I enjoy the quiet and stillness of the night and I function best in darkness. I pulled up my playlist on my iPod. The rest of the family was sound asleep and I drove through the hills of West Virginia and Virginia while I sang my heart out. It was maybe the most therapeutic thing I have ever done. I started with "Walking After Midnight", tears fell down my cheeks as I sang the words, remembering my mom singing that song all of the time. It transported me back to a moment of her holding my hands and dancing with me in our living room. Her smile, her long blonde hair, and her chunky cardigan sweater were almost tangible.<br />
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My playlist continued, Crazy, Harper Valley PTA, Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue, Islands in the Stream, Jolene, Stand By Your Man, Delta Dawn, I Don't Wanna Play House, I Fall to Pieces, She's Got You, Coal Miner's Daughter, Fist City, and the list goes on. I've had this playlist on my iPod for as long as I can remember, I guess as long as I've had an iPod. There are so many moments in my life I yearn for my mom...for her advice, for her help, just for her presence. It was on that drive well after midnight, as I sang Walking After Midnight along with Patsy that it occurred to me that those records were soothing to my mom's soul, and today, they soothe mine. I miss her. Every day I miss her. I have missed out, she has missed out, my family is missing out...but in a way, she continues to mother me through music. It might seem silly, but as I listen to those songs, I can hear her voice, in those moments she is with me. I sure wish I still had those records, but for today, I am grateful for iTunes for bringing my mom back to me in a small way when I really need her. It is comforting to be transported to those moments, dancing and singing in our living room and let's be honest, most of those songs teach a pretty good motherly lesson and there's something to be said for the sound of a fiddle, a banjo or a steel guitar. ;)<br />
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"I go out walkin' after midnight, out in the moonlight, just like we used to do, I'm always walking' after midnight searchin' for you."<br />
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boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-55701900950142906562017-01-04T20:54:00.003-05:002017-01-04T20:54:25.911-05:00Take Care of One Another"We must absolutely take care of one another. It does take a village, but we have to be a village first. We have to take care of each other's children." - Ruby Bridges<br />
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We've been studying a bit in our homeschool studies about activists who have made a difference. One of the most recent people being Ruby Bridges. I read this quote and it resonated with me so deeply. Things in the Bolte house have been good. Everyone is doing pretty well, we had an amazing Christmas vacation and things have been relatively uneventful. Nevertheless, I am tired.<br />
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I don't just mean I could use a nap kind of tired, though a nap would be nice, it would not come close to alleviating the bone numbing exhaustion I suffer from. Raising six kids, two who are currently very active in sports, two with some significant special needs, a dramatic seven year old and infant is a lot. Each day I find myself more overwhelmed and tired than the last.<br />
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Raising special needs kids is something I never realized was as intense as it is. It feels like every day is a battle and many days, I feel like I am losing. Decisions are made every minute of every day that have to be thought through in their entirety or the consequences can send us in a downward spiral or worse. I have a child who does not correlate cause and effect, has no respect for boundaries and has no fear, she has to be supervised every single minute of every single day. My kids have to be wearing the right pants, their socks have to be just right, their backpacks packed with the appropriate tools (wiggle seat, sensory soothers, books, etc) to help them be successful for a day in school, and the list goes on. <br />
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I wake up in the morning, feed the baby and try to chug a cup of coffee while it is remotely warm, when this fails, I'll later pour the coffee over ice and pretend I intended it to be that way. I wake Jacob and Lily and get them dressed for the day. This can go well, but more often than not I've chosen the wrong pants or the wrong socks or we want to wear three dresses at once. When it comes to wardrobe, if it is weather appropriate, I typically don't fight that battle, I pack backpacks, making sure each kid has what they need to be the most successful on the bus and at school. I brush hair and teeth and hope the bus comes on time because it is all a delicate balance. <br />
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Once they are safely on the bus, I walk back up the driveway where I hear the baby screaming because she cannot see me and I've gone outside in the 10 degree weather without her. I come in and scoop her up and check emails for the day, I return emails to caseworkers, teachers, therapists, biological parents, grandparents and other service providers. Most days there is then a doctor appointment or caseworker appointment or therapy appointment to deal with. I wake the other kids and they get breakfast, (which I am learning to have them do for themselves, clean up, get dressed and brush teeth, they then begin work on their homeschool checklist for the day that I have prepped at an hour no one should see. <br />
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We get the schoolwork done, read books, play games, create things, while I juggle a baby, dinner plans, bills, and phone calls from caseworkers, school, therapists, etc. at 3:30, I realize I have forgotten the second cup of coffee I made and just pour it over ice and suck it down. The bus comes and two four year olds who have mostly held it together all day come home in tasmanian devil fashion. They blow through the door and it all falls apart, I spend time trying to decipher their behavior and what it means and how to help them, I lose my patience, I begin again, I finally send everyone to separate areas with a screen, because I am human. <br />
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Howard comes home, we sit down to eat (I won't even try to describe dinner chaos, but imagine feeding a herd of finicky tyrannosaurus rex, it resembles that), Howard kisses me and out the door he goes to coach either Luke or Ben, sometimes both. I clean up dinner whilst refereeing UFC style four year old brawls, and wrestle them to the tub where I assembly line bathe the three youngest children, lotion them up, brush teeth, read stories, snuggle and tuck them in, clean up the bathroom, sit down, get up, tuck kids back in, repeat. Oversee showering of older kids, laundry, food prep for the next day, feed the baby, lie down to watch The Daily Show and promptly fall asleep. <br />
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I am sure that is not even it and that is just a normal day not a day where the s#it hits the fan. It is exhausting and overwhelming, and amazing and rewarding. Not a day goes by that someone doesn't look at me very seriously and say, "I don't know how you do it all" or "I think you are taking on too much" or "you can't save the world". The thing is...maybe I can't save the world, but I can make the world better for a few, so I will keep just doing that. Just because I can't do all things for all people doesn't mean I should do nothing. These days the world praises independence, not having to lean on others, we are missing our village and I am a product of a village of adults who cared enough to invest in me when my own mom was missing. I might be tired, but I'll keep doing that for as many as I can, because these kids, they are amazing gifts and they have so much to offer the world, they make ME better, and maybe, just maybe the village starts with me. The tears, exhaustion and sleepless nights are more than worth it. We have to stop viewing kids as other people's children and a burden. They're all our children and our future. Let's stop blaming and shaming and making parents feel they aren't doing enough, lets take care of each other and each other's children. Parenting is hard. Extend grace. Lend a hand. Be the village. World change is going to start there.<br />
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<a href="http://www.mylivesignature.com/" target="_blank"><img src="https://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54487/230/61F8854994E8CF84315276DCA72B3CFF.png" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px;" /></a>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-10617608909170682702016-12-08T09:44:00.001-05:002016-12-08T09:44:54.899-05:00Unrealisitc Expectations are Premeditated Resentments<br />
The first decade of my life was spent in a home filled with love but also expectations. High expectations, often unattainable expectations. My mom was a perfectionist, and it wasn't quite as much that she wanted things to be perfect, but she wanted things to at least APPEAR perfect. She did a great job of this. From the outside looking in, we probably looked near to perfection as a family.<br />
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Appearances can be deceiving. My mom was struggling with mental health and as a result every one in the house was also struggling. I am still trying to piece my childhood together and heal from the trauma unintentionally inflicted upon me by the one who supposedly loved me most and in her own way, she did. I am grateful in my life to have learned that there is One who DOES love me most. <br />
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I often find myself struggling with those expectations my mother held, wanting the world to see the family of beautiful well behaved, well groomed children, wanting to put on a picture perfect view of our family. I mean we're a good looking crew, but it is a mirage. We are a crew of broken people hobbling our way through life the best way we know how, we have nothing really figured out, we spend our days changing diapers, making meals, cleaning endless messes and feeling like we are botching all of it.<br />
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We want to send our kids into the world and have others see our kids as lovely, obedient little genius rockstars. We often measure our success by their ability to do this. As my kids grow, I am learning that especially my kids who come from a more traumatic beginning, cannot live up to that expectation. They have big feelings, big fears and lack the coping skills to shove it all under the rug the way my brain has been wired to do. Their brains are wired quite differently.<br />
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Brain science tells us that early trauma affects kids...even babies. Stressful pregnancy, drug use, neglect, poverty, all of these things play a role in how the brain of a person is wired from the very beginning. There are six kids who currently call me mom, each of them with their own unique brain wiring, with their own strengths and weaknesses. Somehow when we get a compliment on our parenting or on our kids' behavior it validates us, makes us feel as though we are succeeding. <br />
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One of my children has been struggling...especially in school. For months, behavior reports, bus suspensions, and teacher phone calls have been keeping my anxiety level above 100. The feeling of failure overwhelms me. I adopted her. I love her. I want to save her from all of this. I want her to succeed, and if SHE succeeds, then I have succeeded.<br />
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I have been at the end of my rope, unsure of what to to next for her. I want the whole world to see her the way I see her. I want them to see a ray of sunshine, a walking rainbow, a beautiful girl who is beating the odds. They see behavior. She cannot put on the facade most of us learn to put on. She wears it ALL on her sleeve, her joy, her frustration, her sadness, her anger, all of it. I have felt helpless and alone, and I can't really even imagine how it feels to be her.<br />
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I sat in a child psychologist's office with her this week, desperate for hope, desperate for answers. What I got was a little bit different. It was an emotional appointment as we discussed all of my little girl's strengths and weaknesses, her struggles and her past, but when I left that office, I left with a gift. I left with a feeling of having ACTUALLY been heard. I left with a peace that that woman saw my daughter as I see her. She saw the amazing, brilliant and sweet little girl I love, and she saw her struggles. Never did a look of annoyance cross her face just compassion and understanding. <br />
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My girl responded well to her and obviously so did I. I didn't realize how much I just needed someone to HEAR me, not to downplay my concerns or to blame poor discipline, but to HEAR me. Expectations are a good thing, and we should hold high expectations of our kids but we need to make sure they are realistic. This woman "got" my girl. Her expectations for her were high and appropriate. She helped me to see that my success as her mom has nothing to do with my daughter's perceived success in the world. <br />
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As I drove home, tears ran down my cheeks as I came to the realization that success looks different for different people. I cannot spend my days worrying about the years ahead. I must spend my days in this moment, helping my kids find their own success for today. I cannot be their savior. That job is already taken. I can be their mom. Their cheerleader, their biggest advocate. The fight is long and the fight is hard. I am exhausted, but one day at a time, I will choose love and compassion. I will still get spit at, and kicked and screamed at. I am parenting children who need to release those feelings and they feel safe to do it with me, even though it hurts. I will snuggle them and reassure them, I will discipline them by teaching them the way they need to be taught and let go of what the world thinks I should be doing, because if they've got it figured out, then they should be doing it. <br />
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So, parents out there, parents of special needs kids, kids from hard places, kids who've endured trauma. I see you. I hear you, and I am with you. You'll find no judgement here, we're all limping along as best we can. We might as well do it together. Let's redefine success, let's continue to raise happy kids who feel loved and live up to their own greatest potential...whatever that looks like. Hold those expectations high, but attainable. I raise my coffee mug to you, one day at a time, and sometimes just moment by moment, we can do this, it is a hard and sacred job, but we are blessed to do it.<br />
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Photo by Holly Jane Photography<br />
<a href="http://www.mylivesignature.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54487/230/61F8854994E8CF84315276DCA72B3CFF.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0;" /></a>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-82762918423854810772016-11-14T10:33:00.002-05:002016-11-14T10:33:34.337-05:00A Walk Down Memory Lane<br />
In September of 2012 we began our journey into the foster care world. It has been a roller coaster for sure and there have been many moments when I have just wanted to throw in the towel, but overall it has been amazingly rewarding and I am so grateful to have this opportunity to be just a small part of what God is doing in the world. Our first foster care placement was a 3 week old baby girl. I fell fast and hard for her, she was like an extra appendage of my body and could be found in my arms at all times. Just three weeks after we met her, a case worker drove to my house, with her mom, who loves her VERY much, and I had to hand her back to the woman who grew her in her womb. It was bittersweet loading that girl's belongings into the car that day. I hugged her mom, we both cried and I hit my knees praying that they would be able to be together forever.<br />
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Over the next few weeks we accepted a sibling set who were with us just a week and another baby girl who had been born the SAME day as that first baby girl. This baby girl left us to be with her grandparents on November 13th around 7 pm. They picked her up, thanked us and even called me later that night to go over her bedtime routine. My heart was sore but grateful. It was so amazing to be a safe place for kids and to get to see them reunite with biological family. Nevertheless, they became a part of our family instantly and we have missed each of the children who have been in our home. We pray for them each day and try to stay in touch when appropriate.<br />
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The morning of November 14th I got a phone call from the agency for a little boy. I told the worker that I needed to think about it as I kind of felt my heart needed a breather. It wasn't like me to hesitate but for a reason unknown to me at that time, I just didn't feel ready. I thought of and prayed for that little guy throughout the day and figured I'd call that afternoon to see if he'd been placed. <br />
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Just before lunch time, the phone rang again. It was the agency again, I hesitated to answer, but they never pressured me into taking a placement so I figured it must have been something else. I answered the phone and the sweet worker on the other end, said I wasn't going to believe what she was about to say so I maybe should sit. She explained that after an unfortunate series of events, that very first baby girl we'd fallen in love with was coming back into the system today if she could be found and she knew how much we loved her and she wondered if we'd want to be her foster home again. <br />
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Tears of joy and sorrow streamed down my face as I said yes. I hung up the phone, called Howard and started to prepare for her. I waited on pins and needles all day for a phone call saying they'd found her and that I needed to come get her. We continued to wait, the kids were elated and so excited to see her again. Just before midnight that night, I got a call, I left instantly and picked our girl up at a local Burger King parking lot. To this day we joke that babies don't come from storks, but Burger King. <br />
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We brought her home and bathed her, snuggled her and cried. We wondered what had happened. We knew her mother loved her deeply, and was surely heartbroken. I won't share any of her mom's story as it isn't mine to share, but she is a kind and loving person and she loves her children and we love her. As it turns out, this baby girl is our daughter Lily Grace. She is a ray of sunshine in our every day and challenges us constantly. We are grateful that she is now forever ours, and we grieve the loss she continues to feel even though she doesn't quite understand it. As foster parents we believe it is incredibly important for kids to know their roots. Lily has seen her first mom when possible and is building a relationship with her biological grandma, great grandma and sisters. It has been an overwhelmingly amazing honor to be able to watch her story unfold. She was our first foster care placement and is now our forever daughter. She is loved by all of us incredibly and also by her biological family. <br />
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I pray my Burger King baby will always know how loved she has been all along and not a day goes by that I don't pray for her first mother. November 14 marks the day that Lily came back to us but also the day she was separated from her natural mother forever. We rejoice and we grieve and I think we will probably always dance between the two of those as we navigate this foster care/adoption world, but as you read this story of God's plan for Lily, consider if He'd also have you play this part in the life of a child or a family who needs a safe place for their child even temporarily. It is definitely not for everyone, but could it be for you?<br />
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<a href="http://www.mylivesignature.com/" target="_blank"><img src="https://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54487/230/61F8854994E8CF84315276DCA72B3CFF.png" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px;" /></a>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-30090009223176889242016-07-12T00:09:00.001-04:002016-07-12T00:09:42.326-04:00The Body RemembersI've been struggling this past week with anxiety more than is typical for me. Things are going well, Howard is home for summer and we've been having a great time together as a family. There is nothing major going on that should cause additional anxiety in fact I SHOULD be having less...and so then that thought plays over and over in my mind causing an anxiety snowball.<br />
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Tonight I had a couple of moments to myself to decompress as I cleaned up the basement. The littles were sleeping and those who were awake were happily engaged in some activity otherwise. I've struggled with PTSD in the past several years and ended up seeking treatment for the flashbacks and lack of sleep I was experiencing, things have been significantly better, but this week things have been kind of tough.<br />
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We all know about flashbacks, suddenly a memory floods your brain taking complete control sometimes seeming so real that you struggle physically. You see the entire event replay so clearly in your mind. It is less common however to realize that our body remembers these events as well. It isn't only our brains that suffer from trauma. Trauma affects EVERY cell of our being. Those cells all have the capacity to recall the trauma. <br />
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This week I've been feeling a bit like I've been hit by a truck and as I spent time allowing myself to feel those feelings and figure out what was going wrong, I realized that this week, is the 2.5 year mark since my cancer diagnosis. Strangely as each of my six month oncology appointments approaches, my arm will ache and I find myself checking lymph nodes more often because I'm just so achy. My body remembers cancer. My body remembers a large chunk of flesh being cut from my left arm and sewn back together under great tension. My body remembers the lymph nodes being removed from under that same arm and the more I fight those feelings, the worse they tend to get. I've learned (with therapy) that the best way to cope is just to allow myself to feel the feelings, even if they're scary and even if it gets worse before it gets better. <br />
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This week I will head to the Clinic, have my oncology appointment and hopefully be 2.5 years "no evidence of disease" from stage 2 melanoma. <br />
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As I continued to process my feelings and give myself the space to just be present in them, I also thought about how this week is Isaac's eleventh birthday. Eleven years ago to this date I was carrying my second born son safely in my womb unaware that ANYTHING could go wrong. I had a nursery prepared, and we were so very ready for his safe arrival, when the bottom all fell out on July 14, 2005 and my world changed dramatically forever. <br />
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My body remembers. These memories are ones I am never quick to push aside. Unlike my cancer memories, these memories are ones I savor and wish I could relive just once more, I wish I could make better use of the time I had and be more prepared for what was about to come. I miss that boy something fierce and my body literally aches for him around this time each year. It is a bittersweet ache because while I still grieve him, that aching is proof that he lived and that he mattered. Sometimes I struggle to move through these aches and pains because in a different way it feels comforting to just revel in the tangible evidence of his absence. <br />
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For tonight, I will sit and just allow my emotions, mind, body and spirit to just be and feel all of the things I need to feel for now. Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is just be, be gentle, be kind and be present with yourself and that is my plan this week. As I head to the Cancer Center this week and celebrate the 11th birthday of my second son, I will be mindful, gentle and kind.<br />
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I guess I share all of this to remind everyone, we've all got some type of baggage and trauma, and you sure aren't alone in that. The world seems to be going mad. God created each of us with the capacity to take care of ourselves but we weren't meant to do it alone, so as trauma continues to affect us individually and as a society, let's be a little more gentle, a little more kind and a little more present with ourselves and with each other. The world is a tough place, a kind word and a gentle smile go a long way. Let's feel all of the feelings and allow others to feel all of the feelings, let's judge less and love more, the body remembers, each cell remembers, let's give them good memories.boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-52452400051695117522016-06-08T20:09:00.000-04:002016-06-08T20:09:15.128-04:00Solidarity<br />
"Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much." Helen Keller<br />
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"Solidarity is not an act of charity, but mutual aid between forces fighting for the same objective." Samora Machel<br />
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This past weekend our family went on an annual camping trip with families similar to our own, families built by God in many ways, birth, adoption, foster care, guardianship. These families always teach me so much. Sometimes raising kids especially ones who had a rough start in life is a lonely and uphill battle and with these friends, I feel so much less alone. I look forward to this annual camping trip each year and this was the third year. We don't really DO anything exciting or super fun, we just take a long weekend and BE. We sit and chat and enjoy our kids and each other we are able to relate to the struggles the other is having and are able to be a sounding board when a listening ear is needed. We eat good food, drink boxed wine and clamor for coffee in the morning.<br />
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I've been very fortunate that in the past couple of years I've been able to secure a couple of REALLY close knit friendships that have changed my life. As I sat near a campfire last weekend with one of those friends, in her "enlightened" state she began to talk about solidarity. The word has stuck with me for days now and just keeps coming to mind. I sat with another friend that same weekend as she talked about how alone she felt and my heart was just so heavy for her.<br />
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Last night my youngest kids had a tball game. They got suited up and we excitedly ran onto the field yelling our team chant. As I watched Howard coaching this group of kids I was just so grateful to be able to do what we do and to have him beside me as we do it. We make a pretty good team. Solidarity in marriage is important...united we stand, divided we fall.<br />
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As the game approached the second inning our three year old darling began to act as though she were a tiny terrorist, running away, spitting, kicking, and swinging a bat wildly. She's the sweetest most amazing kid and yet she can turn on a nasty side in a moment and it can be tough to bring her back from that. Kids who have experienced early trauma in life tend to have a more sensitive fight or flight response and once hers is triggered it is SO tough to turn that "lizard brain" off and move the thinking to he higher parts of the brain. I've recently realized that my early trauma has caused my fight or flight response to be more easily triggered as well and that can be a recipe for a disaster. Being aware of that has been huge for me.<br />
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SO as I tried to deal with her and also call out the batting order, I realized there were people (family members even) staring, glaring and shaking their head at my struggling girl. I could see that she was escalating fast and I began to feel my own adrenaline begin to spike. I took a deep breath, handed Ben the batting order, scooped her up and took her to the car, buckled her in where there was no audience and she could have quiet and we both sat, held hands and cried. <br />
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I was so embarrassed by her behavior. I want people to know that I am a good mom. There were people watching this event who were critiquing my parenting in this moment and in their minds, I failed. I came home feeling defeated, but as I have reflected on those moments today, I realize that I won. I stayed calm and collected. I recognized her needs and I met them. She was overstimulated and needed quiet. She needed me to speak softly and hold her hand. She didn't need "discipline" or scolding or spanking. She needed me. She needed to know that I was right there with her no matter how scary the feelings she was feeling were. Within minutes she was singing and playing sock puppets with her socks and happy as could be. I continued to sit and weep, and then a sweet friend knocked on my car window, saw my tears, listened to my words and took my girl for a walk so I could breathe. No questions asked, nothing expected in return, she was in it with me. Solidarity.<br />
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It is exhausting. Parenting ANY kids is exhausting. It is a monumental task of the greatest importance and we all feel like we are barely hanging on. What we need, isn't criticism, glares or snide remarks, what we need is solidarity. These kids are our future and they are so amazing. We need to feel unity, we're all in this together and we're all doing the best we can with what we've got. We all fail sometimes, and I am slowly learning that I'll never be a perfect mom, but I AM the mom God chose for each of my kids, and HE knows best what they need and for some reason He thinks they need me so who am I to argue? <br />
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No parent wants to fail, but we can't do this thing alone. Maybe next time you see a frazzled mom or dad struggling with a tantruming child or just looking tired, offer a smile, a word of encouragement, even a prayer, those glares, snide comments and eye rolls don't help anyone, one day these kids are going to run this world, so let's stand in solidarity and do this together...after all there's no such thing as other people's children, they all belong to us. United we stand, divided we fall. Be the village.<br />
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"Solidarity is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortune of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we really are responsible for all." Pope John Paul II<br />
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<a href="http://www.mylivesignature.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54487/230/61F8854994E8CF84315276DCA72B3CFF.png" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px;" /></a>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-29060380503897540652016-05-25T22:21:00.000-04:002016-05-25T22:23:07.813-04:00Society Needs a Shiva Lesson<br />
This afternoon, I sat in the hospital listening to a dad who lost his infant son the day before. With tears streaming down his face, he looked at me and said, " I never knew how hollow words could be until now." The mother of this same sweet baby looked at me with wide eyes and said, "WHY would you CHOOSE to be back here with me and relive this Hell? I don't understand." As a bereavement doula I have had the sacred privilege of standing in the space where birth and death meet. It is an uncomfortable place. As a society, we shy away from the uncomfortable or we over compensate with meaningless words. In the last two days, I have had several people ask me why I CHOOSE to sit there, in that uncomfortable place.<br />
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I gave whatever answer came to my mind but as I have processed the last couple of days, I have given it much more thought. Isaac and Asher taught me a lot. They have changed my whole world, and it is true that I want to be able to walk with families and help them as they navigate such difficult circumstances, but truthfully, I think society needs an overhaul on how we view grief and it is my hope to help facilitate that change.<br />
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As a society we are very uncomfortable with death. We see someone suffer and we want to fix it. We want to make it better and make them better, and as a result we rush people through their grief. We want to see them happy again so we push them along sometimes kicking and screaming and encourage them to "move on" and "get over it". <br />
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In the Jewish culture, when a close relative dies, they practice a tradition called "sitting Shiva". Shiva is a seven day period where the bereaved are expected to do nothing but grieve. People visit and sit with them, not to talk or offer platitudes but to just be, in that grieving place with them. No rushing, no blaming, no moving on no attempts at fixing anything...just sitting with the heavy grief and honoring the memory of the loved one. I believe they got grieving right. <br />
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It is hard to enter into someones suffering and just sit there with them. It is uncomfortable and awkward and we screw it up with our hollow words and empty promises. When we are able to move past offering solutions and move toward offering our very selves, we are becoming more Christ-Like. When we draw near to the broken hearted and offer our whole self to enter in and share their suffering, we are acting much like God did through Jesus. My hope is to maybe be an example of God's love for us and love others with that same love, to comfort others with the comfort I've been given through Him. Maybe through me, they can feel the nearness of God. That is my prayer as I walk into every hospital room I enter.<br />
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<a href="http://www.mylivesignature.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54487/230/61F8854994E8CF84315276DCA72B3CFF.png" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px;" /></a>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-49381274179288619862016-02-22T22:02:00.001-05:002016-02-22T22:04:33.240-05:00Purpose in Puke<br />
February is generally a tough month for me emotionally. Jacob turned four, my mom would've celebrated a birthday, and it marked two years since my surgery to remove the melanoma and lymph nodes in my arm. To describe it as an emotional roller coaster would be an understatement. Then comes Asher's birthday. I know I've said it before, but February 22, 2008 was one of the most amazing days of my life. Asher's birthday was a sacred kind of day that has changed the course of everything for us. God has used our sweet Asher in more ways than i ever could have dreamed and while my arms still ache to hold him, I see daily the difference he is still making in this world. <br />
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This month, has been that same emotional roller coaster as always, but this year we have also dealt with some big house repairs needing to be made, foster care struggles, adoption struggles, hives and a LOT of vomit. In each season of my life I have made some friends who were in that same season, my foster adoptive peeps are the ones I tend to be with most at this stage. The community of the few close friends we have right now makes life so much better...when one of us struggles, we all just jump right in and help the others. Everyone just does what they can do and we call it the "trickle down effect", so one family might help another family so that they can help another.<br />
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Sometimes, that means other things trickle down. This month, it was the stomach flu. It was ugly, it was brutal and it didn't discriminate. It ran through three families and back again through each of them. I was texting with one of my BFFs who we'll just call <a href="http://sarahannmuir17.blogspot.com/2016/02/fu-jb.html" target="_blank">JB</a>, chronicling my day of vomit, flooded basements and letters from prison and ended the list of happenings with Asher's birthday. She commented about how the struggles we're having now seem trivial in comparison with Asher's birthday, and I quickly replied that at least I have peace in Asher's story because it has been life changing and meaningful. It is hard to find meaning when you are cleaning up more bodily fluids than you knew possible.<br />
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That evening as I was filling a garbage bag with bedding to be burned because...some things are just not worth saving, my mind went back to that conversation with JB. I went back in to the bedroom to help clean my six year old up from her recent sickness and as I wiped her face, tears ran down my own, I remembered the days after her EB diagnosis, I wondered if I'd get to see her grow up and here she is defying ALL odds. I'd give anything to have Asher here even if it meant wiping puke from his face. February 22, 2008 was a sacred day, I bathed my dying baby and was surrounded in love, and I am so grateful that I get to be Asher's mom, but there is also something sacred in bathing the sweet blessings in this home, there is purpose in cleaning up the puke. In their sickness, they feel the same love Asher felt in his and that is something. I GET to be here and love them when they're sick as well as when they're not, and let's be honest, friends, as they get older, sick time snuggles are pretty precious because snuggles get a little harder to come by as our kids grow up.<br />
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Happy 8th birthday, sweet Asher Joseph. I miss you more than words could ever say, and my heart aches each day to get to snuggle you just one more time. God blessed us BIG when he gave us you and you continue to bring perspective and help me find purpose in all things... even puke. <br />
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It is well. It is well with my soul.<br />
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<a href="http://www.mylivesignature.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54487/230/61F8854994E8CF84315276DCA72B3CFF.png" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px;" /></a>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-67266034203069843342016-01-21T23:31:00.003-05:002016-01-22T00:07:50.637-05:00Random Thoughts From the Cancer CenterAlmost two years ago, I spent my first morning in a cancer center. I remember dreading it, I remember thinking that there couldn't be a scarier place to sit, and now, after having spent my eighth afternoon there, I have to tell you that while I HATE melanoma and what it steals from people, the cancer center is a sacred space. It is a space filled with the bravest most amazing people. People fighting the disease, people researching and devoting their lives to helping people fight the disease, and people making peace with statistics and prognosis, as well as people blowing those statistics and prognoses out of the water.<br />
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There is nowhere I can think of where human mortality is any more visible, ok, maybe the morgue but you get what I mean. I turned thirty seven recently, and while that makes me middle aged, I am so grateful for every one of those thirty seven years. I am not wishing I were younger (although I do appreciate when others think I am), I am simply grateful for another day. After a cancer diagnosis a person is forced to face mortality. I was thirty five when I was diagnosed with cancer. Hearing the words "you have cancer" conjures up images of death, let's be real. I was thirty five, I'd already outlived my own mother, and that had been my goal for most of my life. A lofty goal, as it turns out. I mean, as you age you know people die, you know everyone dies, you know one day you will die, but much like losing a child, it seems to be a tragedy you somehow feel immune from. At least I did.<br />
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I won't say I don't fight fear, I do. I struggle with depression and anxiety. I want to see my children grow up and to grow old with my husband. I want to be there for all of the things my kids do that my own mother missed with me, I will say that there are lessons to be learned that I may never have really embraced until the word "cancer" was uttered to me. I am a hard headed, strong willed, girl. The Lord knows this. The greatest personal growth in life often comes from the greatest hardships. Cancer has been no exception and I refuse to waste it. Don't get me wrong, I still loathe cancer, but I am not willing to not seek beauty where I am, and I am finding it everywhere.<br />
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As it turns out (and maybe it is easy for me to say as I still stand at stage 2) I look forward to my days at the cancer center. While they do include needles, oncologists, surgeons, scans, and this time some vein mishaps, vomit, and loss of consciousness, I mean, we're talking about cancer so those things are kind of to be expected and really are at the mild end of the spectrum. I enjoy meeting other patients, I love hearing their stories of hope, and success and wisdom. I've met some of the most incredible people sitting in the waiting rooms of that cancer center, people I think of and pray for daily though I may never see them again this side of Heaven.<br />
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I look forward to visits with my oncologist. He is a funny guy, he is caring and he listens to EVERY SINGLE neurotic concern I have, he laughs with me and he understand that often humor is how I cope. He makes me watch SNL skits to ease tension, he drops an f bomb here and there and tells the best stories. I look forward to a little solitude and scrolling my phone and reading a book and if that cancer center doesn't have the most amazing ice machine...dang I love that thing. It also doesn't hurt that there is a Starbucks within the walls of the hospital.<br />
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I had my two year scans and check ups this past friday, though my two year anniversary is next week. All is well with my health and my soul. I pray before each appointment for good news, but also that if the news is not what I hope that I am able to live this story well and to bring glory to God in some small way. Melanoma is a cancer that has no cure, all we can hope for is no evidence of the disease ravaging our bodies. It is often lying dormant only to rear it's ugly head some time down the road and while I praise God in my health right now, I pray that if that is a road I am to walk that I am able to praise Him in that as well. I met a few beautiful souls this visit who are doing this so well, they were such an inspiration to me.<br />
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One man reminded me that while cancer is NOT necessarily seen as a gift, that it does bring gifts in kind. He is ten years out from a stage four battle for his life and is just grateful to be here today. He has learned not to worry about tomorrow, but to just be glad he woke up today. He told me that after diagnosis, his wife left him and that he had some pretty low lows but for some reason, the Lord wakes him up for another day and he refuses to waste it. <br />
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Facing cancer, facing mortality is a scary thing. It kind of takes your breath away, but if you let it, it can give you new life and new breath and a new appreciation for all things. Cancer might be the thing that kills me. It might also be a bus, I mean it could be a shark, it could even be the radiation from the scans that are intended to save me, the bottom line is that every single one of us is only here for a very short time. We are given a set amount of moments, God has ordained exactly how many and we have no idea what that number is. We are not promised a tomorrow, but if you're reading this, you have been given a today. Love big, live big, give big. Make the most of today, we are ALL facing mortality. Go out and accomplish your mission, let's all make the world a better place in some way before we too disappear.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">“Each of us is merely a small instrument; all of us, after accomplishing our mission, will disappear.” </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">― </span><a class="authorOrTitle" href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/838305.Mother_Teresa" style="color: #333333; font-family: Lato, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 21px; text-decoration: none;">Mother Teresa</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFbNosU0IAxe2SPeRYv6Saaw_BI3SABwXXGAMk8Q-GRlQf9pw9ESdnr_KQ2-GPhCC4W8er3Qux6AtcoKZBn6VoWGccVBTjm-Vf_AK-MalhJ7zCcLp5EIogmcJeQtAqEi4VttzBQizcXSmL/s1600/12400466_10207839833694342_5675825170749734557_n-2.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFbNosU0IAxe2SPeRYv6Saaw_BI3SABwXXGAMk8Q-GRlQf9pw9ESdnr_KQ2-GPhCC4W8er3Qux6AtcoKZBn6VoWGccVBTjm-Vf_AK-MalhJ7zCcLp5EIogmcJeQtAqEi4VttzBQizcXSmL/s320/12400466_10207839833694342_5675825170749734557_n-2.jpg" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.mylivesignature.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54487/230/61F8854994E8CF84315276DCA72B3CFF.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0;" /></a>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-23137760294202518822015-11-10T22:34:00.003-05:002015-11-10T22:53:16.861-05:00Letting go hurts"A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, and must empty ourselves. Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in his love than in your weakness." - Mother Teresa<br />
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One of the phrases foster parents hear most often is "I couldn't do it, I'd get to attached." This week has been a tough one in our home. The little girl we've loved as our own for the last year and a half has begun transitioning home to her biological family. We have kissed her boo boos, celebrated her firsts and snuggled her each night. She owns a piece of my heart. If you go into foster care guarding your heart, you're doing it wrong, because attachment is kind of the point. <br />
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Research shows that children who do not securely attach to a caregiver in the first two years of life struggle to function in normal life as an adult. Children need families. I don't for one minute believe our family is perfect, but we're loving, we're available, and we know God has called us to this. In an ideal world, a child would remain with their biological family forever, but that isn't always possible. <br />
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When parents cannot provide a secure, safe and loving environment for their children, foster parents are called to fill in those gaps. We step in, we get attached, we advocate as best we can, we cry tears of joy, sadness, grief, frustration and exhaustion, we love them as though they've grown in our womb, we hope and dream and pray for them and for their biological families and while it may hurt terribly when they leave, we hope and pray that reunification is a safe and healthy option for them. We sign up HOPING to say good bye. Healthy, positive reunification is ALWAYS the goal.<br />
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In the next month we will have to let go, I hope our love, tears, snuggles, meetings, prayers, and sleepless nights were enough. I pray that the time we've poured into her will matter in the grand scheme of things, I hope that we have given her the gift of being able to trust others, to know that she is loved, to know that God has never for one moment left her, my heart is already breaking. I am struggling with the idea of walking into her room and not seeing her giant smile light up that bright pink room. My heart sinks as I have already begun packing her things.<br />
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This baby has been in our home since June of 2014 and by Christmas her absence is sure to steal the breath from my lungs. The system is broken. I am not sure that the decisions that have been made in this case are the best, but I know that I have done EVERYTHING I can to advocate for this little girl, I have crossed every t and dotted every i. I have loved her with my whole heart and I love her biological parents. I pray for them and for their reunification to be a positive new beginning for their family. <br />
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In the end I know that we serve a God who loves this little one more than I ever could, He is sovereign and I find great peace in knowing those facts. While the system is broken, He is not. He is a loving God, and a God of second chances, His grace and mercy have carried us this far and will continue to carry us through the days to come. Tears will fall, and every one of them has been hard earned, she is worth those tears. If I had cowered away from the pain of losing her, I never would have known the joy of loving her, and she is worth it. EVERY child is worth it. So while not everyone is called to foster children, the "I'd get too attached" excuse, doesn't fly with me. Attaching is the point. There is great purpose in that pain, if you think you would get too attached, maybe you should consider fostering, because that is what these kids need. <br />
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<a href="http://www.mylivesignature.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54487/230/61F8854994E8CF84315276DCA72B3CFF.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0 !important;" /></a>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-73436714111896689232015-10-28T22:21:00.001-04:002015-10-28T22:21:23.821-04:00Bereavement Resources for Infant and Pregnancy LossWhen experiencing the deep grief of pregnancy or infant loss it is often difficult to think clearly enough to seek out the resources you need. Here are a list of resources I recommend, most are local to the Erie PA area. If you are seeking something specific and cannot find it here, please feel free to email me at kbolte01@gmail.com and I will do all I can to find the resources you need.<br />
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Support Groups</h2>
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Empty Arms of Erie </h3>
Meets the second Tuesday of each month at 7:30<br />
Where: Liberty Family Practice Building <br />
3413 Cherry Street<br />
Erie, PA <br />
(814)838-6346<br />
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Highmark Caring Place</h3>
Support for children and families after the loss of a loved one<br />
Address: Bayview Office Park, Building II <br />
510 Cranberry Street<br />
Phone: 814-871-6868<br />
Website: <a href="http://www.highmarkcaringplace.com/" target="_blank"> http://www.highmarkcaringplace.com</a><br />
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Photography</h2>
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Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep<br />
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Providing the gift of remembrance photography for parents suffering the loss of a baby<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Erie Coordinator: Kenny Sturm</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Phone: (814) 881-7187</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Website: <a href="https://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org/" target="_blank">https://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org</a></span><br />
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<b>Funeral Homes</b></h2>
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<b>Van Matre Funeral Home</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Cambridge Springs: 814-398-2413</span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Edinboro: 814-734-2413 </span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Waterford: 814-796-2413</span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Website: <a href="http://www.vanmatres.com/web/" target="_blank">http://www.vanmatres.com/web/</a></span></div>
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<h3>
Edder Funeral Home</h3>
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309 Main Street</div>
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Girard PA, 16417</div>
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Phone: (814) 734-4306</div>
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Website: <a href="http://www.edderfuneralhome.com/" target="_blank">http://www.edderfuneralhome.com</a></div>
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<h3>
Burton Funeral Home</h3>
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602 West 10th St<br />
Erie, PA 16502<br />
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Phone: (814) 454-4551<br />
Website: <a href="http://www.burtonfuneralhome.com/" target="_blank">http://www.burtonfuneralhome.com</a><br />
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Online Resources</h3>
<a href="https://www.compassionatefriends.org/home.aspx" target="_blank">Compassionate Friends</a><br />
<a href="http://nationalshare.org/" target="_blank">Share</a><br />
<a href="http://www.firstcandle.org/" target="_blank">First Candle</a><br />
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Non-Profits </h3>
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<a href="http://www.emmasfootprints.com/" target="_blank">Emma's Footprints </a>- <span style="background-color: #f8f8f8; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Our goal is to provide compassionate guidance, resources and personalized services, including referrals and financial assistance as families begin this difficult journey.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f8f8f8; color: #7a736b; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: #f8f8f8; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><a href="http://gradysdecision.com/" target="_blank">Grady's Decision</a> - </span><strong style="border: 0px; color: #515554; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.799999237060547px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </strong><span style="line-height: 20.799999237060547px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">was created to present a glimpse of God’s love to families experiencing premature births as well as those families with children needing specialized medical attention.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">We serve as a beacon of hope through prayer, words of encouragement, gifts and acts of kindness. Grady’s Decision provides an avenue for people to donate and assist these family members during this difficult and emotional time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Assistance is case managed based on need. Grady’s Decision can assist with parking costs, food, housing near hospitals and transportation needs. Ultimately, our organization meets the needs of families whether they be financial, emotional or spiritual.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://sufficientgraceministries.org/" target="_blank">Sufficient Grace Ministries </a>- </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #363223; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;">was founded in 2004, with the purpose of reaching out to women and families to offer comfort, encouragement and hope.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #363223; font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;">Books </span></span></h3>
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<span style="color: #363223; font-family: Georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Holding-Hope-Pathway-through-Suffering/dp/1414312962/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446084972&sr=1-1&keywords=holding+onto+hope" target="_blank">Holding On to Hope</a> - Nancy Guthrie</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #363223; font-family: Georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/One-Year-Book-Hope-Books/dp/1414301332/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446085088&sr=1-1&keywords=one+year+book+of+hope" target="_blank">One Year Book of Hope</a> - Nancy Guthrie</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #363223; font-family: Georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sufficient-Grace-Kelly-Gerken/dp/193838847X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446085120&sr=1-1&keywords=sufficient+grace" target="_blank">Sufficient Grace</a> - Kelly Gerken</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #363223; font-family: Georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Will-Carry-You-Sacred-Dance/dp/080546428X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446085144&sr=1-1&keywords=I+will+carry+you" target="_blank">I Will Carry You</a> - Angie Smith</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #363223; font-family: Georgia;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ill-Hold-You-Heaven-Miscarriage/dp/0830732594/ref=pd_sim_14_11?ie=UTF8&dpID=41kPRYvkBcL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR95%2C160_&refRID=1QSF0Y3ZJ6G8TDT9BY0J" target="_blank">I'll Hold You In Heaven</a> - Jack Hayford</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.mylivesignature.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54487/230/61F8854994E8CF84315276DCA72B3CFF.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0 !important;" /></a>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-84137490699528248182015-07-14T00:40:00.001-04:002015-07-14T00:40:21.902-04:00A DecadeI sit here tonight thinking about you, I can scarcely believe it has been a decade since you made your entrance into the world, changing it forever. The details of July 14, 2005 run through my mind like an old slide projector. I wonder what ten year old Isaac would be like. What kind of cake would I be baking at your request? What would be the one coveted item you'd want more than anything as a gift? Which of your siblings would you argue with as they wanted to get their hands on your new possession?<br />
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Would you be into sports? Music? Would you be kind and quiet like your dad or would you be a stubborn chatterbox like your mom? <br />
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I'll never know the answer to those things. My heart aches to know who you would be, but then I remember who you are. Isaac Matthew, you are a world changer. You have moved mountains I never thought would so much as quiver. You have inspired and led your mama to live enough life for both of us, to create a legacy. Because of you, our hearts were forever changed. Because of you, we love deeper and we live louder, you've taught us the sweetness of a moment and not to let it pass us by, and you've taught us to love with abandon. It hurts like crazy when you lose what you love but that love always makes it worth it.<br />
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It is because of YOU that we were brave enough to step into foster care, to welcome sweet children the Lord loves deeply into our home and help them heal some of their hurts, this year we will quite possibly add another member to this family through the foster care system...you made us brave, you showed us that it is ok to put your heart out there and let it be broken, God makes beautiful mosaics with those shattered pieces. <br />
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It is because of you that I am awake tonight reading about pregnancy, childbirth and prenatal diagnoses. You taught me to step into other people's grief and to just be with them. God has opened doors for me now to become a bereavement doula. I will humbly get to walk the grief journey with others feeling loss so great they aren't sure they can breathe, and I will tell them about you and your brother and how my heart will never mend, a scar will always remain, but so will you. That it is worth it...it is always worth it...love is always worth the cost.<br />
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Happy Birthday Isaac Matthew! I miss you so much that I physically ache sometimes. I wish you were here with us, but I am so grateful that I got to love you at all. I am one blessed momma. I will forever ache and I will forever use that ache to fuel me to make the world better...because YOU lived.<br />
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<a href="http://www.mylivesignature.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54487/230/61F8854994E8CF84315276DCA72B3CFF.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0 !important;" /></a>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-18189388623537875812015-07-01T23:16:00.000-04:002015-07-01T23:16:12.902-04:00When Grief Strikes<div>
Sometimes, like a comet whizzing through the atmosphere, out of nowhere, and slamming into the earth, grief strikes. You don't see it coming and it leaves a crater behind. This week has been a tough week on the grief front. Yesterday, I was cleaning a closet out, feeling pretty good about the purging I was doing and then I came across this:</div>
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To most it just looks like an ordinary report card. A third grade student advancing to fourth grade. YAY! To me, it marks something very different. I pulled the report card out of its envelope, I chuckled at the grades and comments on the inside, I marveled at the idea that I only missed two days of school that year, then I turned it over and it hit me, like a comet out of nowhere. Her signature exactly where it should be for the first two periods of the school year. Then, she was gone.<br />
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It was a breathtaking snapshot of her very real absence and the breath was stolen from my lungs. I sat down on the kitchen floor and just stared at it. She was there, and then she wasn't. In a moment the whole world changed. That change is vividly marked on the back of my third grade report card. Tears started to fall as memories flooded back. Howard noticed that I'd stopped cleaning and he came to look over my shoulder, he was speechless. He hugged me and said, "that sucks, I'm sorry". I nodded.<br />
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I sat there and thought about that year. How drastically my life changed that year. Despite all of that, I missed TWO days of school, and one was the day of my mother's funeral. I pondered that for a few moments, I mean, surely losing your mother at 9 years old warrants a few days absence, but as I thought, I remembered how much I loved school. I remembered how when the whole world was spinning out of control, that third grade classroom was my constant, while the whole world around me came crashing in, that was a safe place, I had the most amazing teachers who helped to resume my normal, they loved me and stood in the gap as best they could. Over two decades later I am still wading through he grief of losing my mom at 9. <br />
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As I look back over the hardest times in my life I can see now how the Lord used those around me to carry me when life made it too hard to walk on my own. As a nine year old I am not sure I was aware of His presence, but He was there, I am so grateful for the amazing people who were His hands and feet to me and still are. We were never meant to walk this journey alone, sometimes life is hard, sometimes grief strikes out of nowhere, but through it all, He takes that pain and gives it purpose, so while my heart is heavy tonight, I am rejoicing for the beauty from the ashes, for the purpose in the pain and for the people who don't turn away when things get hard, they press in and walk with the grieving. It is my prayer that I am able to be that for someone else.<br />
<a href="http://www.mylivesignature.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54487/230/61F8854994E8CF84315276DCA72B3CFF.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0 !important;" /></a>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-25063294327536629322015-05-07T14:40:00.002-04:002015-05-07T14:40:10.819-04:00Multifaceted Mother's DayFor over two decades now, Mother's day has been a difficult day for me. As a child losing my mom was such a great grief for a small child to bear. Each year as I've grown the weight of that grief has not really ever gone away, but has sunk deeper, it is more of a deep aching scar now than an open wound. As I was learning to deal with that grief, I experienced the joy of motherhood, and the celebration of Mother's day as a joyous occasion for the first time in a long time.<br />
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I've grown five beautifully wonderful babies in my body. Three are building massive structures with legos as I type, and two are in Heaven. The grief of being a bereaved mother at Mother's day is inexplicably difficult to bear...it is a crushing grief and I once again found myself with conflicted feelings on that May Sunday each year. <br />
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Since then, our home has become a refuge for foster kids, we've had several children come for a time and move on and we've adopted two sweet babies, they have similar yet strikingly different stories that one day will be theirs to tell. We also have a sweet foster daughter who has been with us almost a full year now. <br />
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As I sit here and reflect on Mother's Day, I give thanks for the first mothers of each of those sweet babies. I can only imagine their heartache on a day set aside for mothers, knowing that handpicked bouquet of dandelions is being handed to another woman. To the first mothers of my babies, there is no way to express my gratitude. Your sacrifice cannot be expressed in words and I am heartbroken and honored to love your child, who is also my child. <br />
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If Mother's day is a day to celebrate moms and the sacrifice they make for their children, then you, birth moms should be at the top of the list. You ARE moms, you deserve that fistful of dandelions. I am sure your heart aches, but I want you to know that I see you and I celebrate you, your stories may all be as different as the children you birthed, but God grew a baby in your womb, He chose you, if only for a time and that matters. You matter to your children and you matter to me. <br />
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As my children grow, I pray our foster daughter, though we love her dearly is able to reunite with the family who is working to get her back. I also pray for my sweet Lily and Jacob as they grow and learn their stories, I want them to know they have ALWAYS been wanted by so many people, they've always been loved and that they'll NEVER be alone. Their first moms are beautiful, wonderful women that I love dearly. God chose them for our family too. I pray that we can show His love and grace as we forge ahead with all He has entrusted to us. <br />
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #6b6b6b; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;">Love is patient; love is kind. Love is not jealous; is not proud; is not conceited; does not act foolishly; is not selfish; is not easily provoked to anger; keeps no record of wrongs; takes no pleasure in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth; love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13 4-7</em><br />
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I want the first moms of my kids to know that we love them, without judgement, without strings. We will always be honest with our kids and we will navigate this as best we know how, keeping the best interests of EVERYONE at heart. Life is so hard and sometimes the obstacles before us seem so great. But for these special women in my life, I just want you to know, I love you, I see you, and I see your sorrow and I know that it is real. I celebrate you, I celebrate your sacrifice and I celebrate the incredible privilege of getting to raise these little people. <br />
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Happy Mother's Day to ALL mothers, those who are raising kids, those who are yearning for kids, those who have given up kids, those who are mourning kids. I don't know your situation, I don't personally know your pain, but I know that God is good, I know he brings beauty from ashes. I know that He keeps his promises and that His plans are good even when we don't understand them. <br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><i>Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her! Luke 1:45</i></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.mylivesignature.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54487/230/61F8854994E8CF84315276DCA72B3CFF.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0 !important;" /></a>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-91160876581219396952015-05-02T21:08:00.000-04:002015-05-03T11:23:34.431-04:00Foster Care AwarenessI've said it before but fostering is one of the hardest things ever. It is definitely a calling. One of the things people ask us all the time is "are you keeping her?". The thing is we don't know. We do this FOR the kids, not for us, not because we're starting a children collection. We personally feel, our calling is to just love these kids AND their parents and help them be together if that is AT ALL a possibility. We have five forever kids and if that is all we get to have on earth forever, we are ok with that. <br />
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Our current foster daughter has been with us almost a year now...nearly her entire life. We love her like our own and we will grieve if/when she leaves. We will also rejoice because it is our hope that her biological parents will get things figured out so that they get to parent her. One of the things I want people to realize is that these parents, the ones who lose their children to the system, they aren't bad people. They're broken people. They have issues and baggage that they need to deal with. Sometimes they're able to work through things and get their children back and sometimes they can't. Generally speaking, the LOVE their kids, they're just fighting demons, addiction, mental health, and processing their own abuse. <br />
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The cycle CAN be broken, and that is what we pray for when each child comes into our home. We don't root against their parents, we hope to come alongside them, to support them, to love them, to pray for them...it is hard, it is frustrating and sometimes I DO get angry when the answers seem so simple, yet the issues continue, but if you come into foster care to adopt and aren't willing to support reunification, you might be on the wrong path.<br />
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Fostering and adoption are two different things, some people are specifically called to adopt and we have walked that road. We are grateful and heartbroken that it was even necessary it is such a conflicting feeling. If you are called to adopt, you should follow that calling, but if a person gets into fostering, solely to adopt, you're bound to be disappointed. Biological parents are given EVERY opportunity and it is my belief that if a foster parent cannot attempt to support reunification, they're doing everyone a disservice. SOMEtimes, it goes on a long time and it is apparent that reunification just cannot and should not happen, but IF it can, if a child can be safe in their biological home, that is where they belong,<br />
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Foster parents have to put the child's feelings far above their own, they have to be willing to risk their own hearts for the sake of the child and the biological family. Parents all parent differently and while we don't all agree on parenting decisions, if a child can be safe, nurtured and loved in their original home, that is where they should be. <br />
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I guess I say this all to say that I feel like society, Christians especially, are sure to bring awareness to adoption and what a noble calling that is, my position is that while sometimes adoption is necessary, family preservation should be the crux of the orphan crisis. We should be His hands and feet, even and especially to the drug addicted mentally ill birth parent. We need to truly do ALL in our power to try and help families stay together adoption is not a fairy tale, it is necessary sometimes, but it is heartbreaking always, it has lasting effects, my prayer is that the Church is able to do more to step in and help families before their children are taken and come alongside families and help them heal and be the parents they need to be. My hope is that one day there will be no orphan crisis be cause we have become the village and we are coming alongside those who are struggling to help children be safe and loved before fostering or adoption are even needed. These kids are our greatest resource, they are our future and they deserve better. <br />
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I shall now step off my soapbox and stop rambling. <br />
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<a href="http://www.mylivesignature.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54487/230/61F8854994E8CF84315276DCA72B3CFF.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0 !important;" /></a>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-16431129823721712352015-04-01T22:49:00.000-04:002015-04-01T22:49:00.505-04:00March Highlights<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://www.mylivesignature.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54487/230/61F8854994E8CF84315276DCA72B3CFF.png" style="background: transparent; border: 0 !important;" /></a>boltefamilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09178547489939649432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7668050648919046122.post-16524118491368964892015-03-30T22:31:00.001-04:002015-03-30T22:31:15.642-04:00On The Horizon<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">March has been a busy month for our family. Our little foster daughter turned one, I had another great check up at the cancer center, we're plugging along with school work, house work, heart work and all of the things most families are plugging along with. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We've been trying to embrace moments more, finding beauty even in the messes of life and with a half dozen kids in the house...the messes are plentiful. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Finding beauty in the mess can be such a hard thing to do, recently I've been burdened for people experiencing loss. Many of those losses have been babies. As I've prayed and sought God's comfort, I remembered vividly all of the comfort showered upon us during our times of loss. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span class="text 2Cor-1-3" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;">"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,<span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-28804A" data-link="(<a href="#cen-NIV-28804A" title="See cross-reference A">A</a>)" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"></span> the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span class="text 2Cor-1-4" id="en-NIV-28805" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;"><span class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;">4 </span>who comforts us<span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-28805B" data-link="(<a href="#cen-NIV-28805B" title="See cross-reference B">B</a>)" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"></span> in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span class="text 2Cor-1-5" id="en-NIV-28806" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;"><span class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;">5 </span>For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ,<span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-28806C" data-link="(<a href="#cen-NIV-28806C" title="See cross-reference C">C</a>)" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"></span> so also our comfort abounds through Christ." 2 Corinthians 1:3-5</span></span><br />
<span class="text 2Cor-1-5" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="text 2Cor-1-5" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This verse meant so much during our times of grieving. After giving it a lot of thought, I feel very convicted to continue to use our mess and help others find beauty. I've decided to take some time this summer while Howard is home and complete training to become a bereavement doula, to support other families as they birth a child who is already in the arms of the Lord or who is expected to be shortly after birth. I am so convicted about this opportunity and am praying God makes it a reality. The class starts in July. So if you would, pray for us, for the process, for the time it will take for me to learn ways to comfort and walk with families who are grieving, for the finances to make it all happen. </span></span><br />
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