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...
“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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Ten-year-old Jessica couldn’t wait to go out to dinner with her foster family. The restaurant was crowded and they waited twenty minutes to be seated. After Jessica ordered her favorite meal, she interrupted conversation, wouldn’t sit still and whined about being too hungry to wait...
The Stearns' Journey to Adoption - Part 2 Kirsten & Andy Stearns have been married 8 years, their son Lincoln turned 2 in January 2016, and they are in the process of adopting a special needs child, we now know - a boy, from China. They...
Editorial Note: In many nations, children bereft of parent(s) are not adopted but cared for in relationships akin to fostering. This practice is particularly prevalent in nations with large Muslim populations. Thus, displaced children legally remain a child of their birth parents. The stated purpose...
Our daughter is now eight years old and this holiday season was quick to remind me, "Papa, this is my first Christmas!" But this special little girl came into our lives a long time ago - at three months old when my wife, Amy, and I went on...