The Journey: Good Bye Foster System!

I just can't seem to keep up on the blog! Sorry blog readers! But I eventually get around to posting! :)

We had an amazing Christmas! But the thing that was most amazing occurred on Christmas Eve. About 1:00 on Christmas Eve the doorbell rang with a surprise for Princess M, the 15 year old we are adopting. She was placed as foster because we wanted her here asap! That doorbell was the workers from CPS and Buckner coming to give her a great Christmas surprise! We signed papers that moved her from foster care to adoptive placement! It was just a few papers, but to her it was the world! It meant that she was no longer in the foster system! She has a home, a permanent home! We all cried!

We bought her a suitcase and left it with her when we met her so that she could have something to move her stuff here in. Little did we know it would have taken 15 suitcases to move all her stuff! But the suitcase was something God had told me to do when we first committed to her. After we signed papers, I told her to go get it. She looked at me funny and said she had things in it. I told her we would find new places for those things and to get it. While she went to get the suitcase, I went to get the utility knives. When she came back, we destroyed that suitcase! We wanted her to have a visual reminder that she is never moving again! At least not out of the family...maybe to college or her own place, but not because she has to! It was a pretty neat experience!

Princess M has said from the beginning that she wants to change her name. She doesn't just want a last name change, but a whole name change. We have let her take the lead in this as we were not opposed to her first or middle name, but kind of like the idea of changing them just as God changed many names in the Bible when they started a new life! We have had a few discussions about names since she came to us. God was gracious and provided a name that we could all agree on (it wasn't looking like that would happen for a while! A fifteen year old trying to name themselves for life can be challenging!) We had agreed on Isabella. We all like the sound of it, then when I looked up the meaning, I loved it even more! It means God's promise or God's oath! But we had yet to come up with a middle name. She had said I could pick a middle name, but I knew that was only partly true because if she didn't like it she would make that very clear! :) I had put some thought into it, but had not come up with anything. I was a little nervous the morning of the event knowing that she would want to start going by her new name, but I didn't have a middle name yet. But God, as always, provided, right no time! I was praying for her that morning and about the event that would take place. It is hugely significant for this young lady! It marks the beginning of the first day of the rest of her life. No, its not finalized, but it was huge for her that we were the first people to follow through with anything but fostering. It meant a ton to her that we would actually take that step, lose the financial benefits, etc to make her a part of our family and not just leave her as foster. It meant a ton to us because we understand the spiritual significance of adoption and what it means for her to truly be ours! As I prayed, God brought the name Ruth. I mean no offense to any Ruth's out there, but that has never been my favorite name. I like it, but its not one that I jump up and down for, you know. But I felt a definite urging that Ruth was to be her middle name. I have a name app on my phone since we are still picking baby names, so I looked it up. Immediately I knew Ruth was to be her name and I LOVED it! Wasn't sure how to convince her of it, but told God He would have to make her love it like I did! Through my tears, I read on my phone, "Ruth was the young moabite woman who said to her Hebrew mother-in-law Naomi "Where you go, there I shall go also; your people will be my people, your God, my God"." That was it! One of the biggest struggles we have had with adopting an older child is learning what she needs to pick up of us and what we need to let her keep of her old life. It has been a challenge at times for all of us! Even parts of her past she doesn't like, she wants to cling to because it is familiar and all she knows. Just like all of us! But we know without a doubt the main reason God has her in our home is because He has plans for her that require her to know our God! She needs to know the God who saves, the God who redeems, the God who loves her enough to rescue her not only from eternal damnation but from her worldly circumstances as well! My biggest fear and thus my biggest prayer since she has come is that we will not give her enough of this God in the three years we have until she can leave us to make her cling to "our God" the way she needs to in order to live her life for Him! So it was settled...her name would be Ruth, and my prayer would be that she will say as the Ruth of the Bible did - "My people are your people and my God your God!"

I just love that I serve a God who is not some big guy out there somewhere! He is so personal that He named my daughter! He is so personal that He speaks to us about any and everything, no matter how tiny we think it may be! Thank you, God!

Oh, and when I told her the story behing Ruth, she loved it just as much as I did and she has told all her friends where it came from! I love hearing her tell them! She lights up when she says it means she has a new beginning! She is so awesome!

We still can't show pictures, will be posting many in about 4 months when the adoption is consummated, but we can now use her name since it is changed! Our oldest daughter is Isabella Ruth Petree, Izzy to her friends! And she is even more beautiful and amazing than her name!