The Promise Blog

Nurturing Biological Relationships

For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose. Philippians 2:13   Our family has not had a “typical” fostering experience. When I think of being foster parents I often think of a revolving door with children coming...

The Kindling of Community

Our youngest son had gone to the doctor a couple days before and our pediatrician had confirmed it–strep. He told us our 8-day-old foster daughter wasn’t in danger of getting it, but by the middle of the first full day of her being in our...

Meeting The Parents

Meeting the parents of my new foster child is a lot like knocking on the door of a stranger’s house. It’s hard to predict if the person who opens the door will welcome me inside or shake a fist at me menacingly and demand I...

The Power of Parenting Forward

“You are a liar!” I’m not proud of this, but I have outright not just said, but yelled these words at my child. And how did that work for me? It didn’t. I didn’t see or taste any fruit from it. Yes, it certainly felt...

Anticipating Love

Advent is the season before Christmas that is meant to help Christians prepare for the coming of Christ into the world. It is a time of waiting with great expectation. This year Advent has taken on a greater significance to me, as we await the...

BROKEN – AND BETTER

I managed to live a mercifully long number of years before experiencing the type of suffering that changes everything. Somehow I avoided the kind of heartbreak that forever divides life’s timeline into a before and after. But in this broken and sinful world, the pain...

Life In Limbo

I always thought the hardest part of being a foster parent would be getting attached and then sending a child back home. (I still think this would be the hardest, but it isn’t something I have experienced personally.) Of course, it would depend on the...

The Impact of One

At any given time in the United States, there are more than a half million children in the foster care system. In my state alone, the figure hovers near 14,000. In a nearby suburban county, the disheartening ratio is almost 200 children in foster care,...

Grief and Relief

It has been a strange couple of days at the Cash house. We miss the girls. I specifically miss the way that the littlest would whisper "Hi. Hi. Hi." through her pacifier when I woke her up from her nap, and how she'd likewise greet every...

FOOD FIGHT!

When my husband and I became foster parents, we knew one thing for sure, we would steer clear of eating disorders. We knew my challenging experiences with a close relative during my formative years might trigger a familiar frustration, so we were careful to avoid...