Taking Care of Each Other

This afternoon I had an opportunity to have coffee with a man who is making change.

Positive change in the lives of children who have been bounced from home to home with often little or no hope for the future.

I received an email around the holidays asking if I would meet to talk about ways that he could gain greater awareness for foster children in the Omaha community and connect these young people with programs that would help them to get a 'leg up.'  I was only too happy and wondered if I would have anything to contribute.

I was appalled to learn how many 14-19 year old children are living alone...not literally.  They may be in a foster home, but often it can feel as though their only value is a check to their temporary guardians.

Our conversation made me think of my own children...who had been driving me crazy right before I left.  Sam (6) and Kate (4) have been fighting incessantly for days.  Claire (1) is teething and can't go a few feet without whining at my heels.  I actually said over the weekend that I would be willing to sell them to the highest bidder. 

Life is hard.  Unfair.  Filled with pain.  But the truth is, I am grateful that our family is intact.  I pray that if you are connected to a child who is in a placement scenario or a foster home that you would reach out, connect.  Let him/her know that they are valuable, loved, needed, wanted.  And that there is a chance for change.  We all just have to decide to take care of each other.