The Ride

Sometimes its all about the ride!

     I want you to look at this picture of my 5 kids that I homeschool on a daily basis( my three oldest are not pictured).  Keep in mind that 3 of my older children are not pictured ok?  Now, what kind of day do you think we were having?  As you can see my son who is 14 is driving this truck.  No, its not our truck and no he is not licensed.  Yes, it is on our farm and he only was moving them to the fence to hop over it from the truck.  What you cant see is the 8 acres of flood water that kept them from walking around the fence.  You also cant see how they fought me that morning to get their school work done and get dressed in "farm" clothes to go out and work. They also look happy right?  Well yes, in this picture till they hopped the fence and had to hoe the rows and plant the seeds.  Mind you our garden is about an acre.  What is my point?  Sometimes in life we have a rough road to go down.  There are bumps and turns and sometimes we may even end up in the ditch or stuck in a rutt.  What is the important part is the journey to where we are going.  You see it is in the bumps and turns that we learn who we are. We learn to have faith and to believe in ourselves and the Lord.  We learn if we can just make it to the top of the hill it will be all downhill till the next hill right?
       Looking at this picture I just see happy kids.  I see little Devon telling me in sign that he loves me.  I don't see the last two years journey I had with these kids.  You see not all of them are my natural born children.  Some of them came to me down a different road.  I call it the "Broken Road".  I thank God for that road. Each child has taught me a little bit about myself and showed me that I can love flesh that is not of my flesh.  Some of these kids have some major special needs and were kids noone wanted in the foster care system.  We were foster parents for 6 years and adopted some of them when we left foster care.  We were the last stop for them.  They were headed down a road to institutions.  One was 3 and like a wild animal. It was a super rough road we went down. One didn't want to let anyone get close. They constantly would push away and cause chaos and contention.  Another just has a ton of behaviors and destroys everything they can get their hands on.  If I would of gave up on the road we where on and took a detour , our family wouldn't be this size.  I would be minus some of my children.  I so often thought it would be easier to detour.   It is not easy to raise someone else's kids. Especially, after they have gone down so many roads and usually without parents.  The kids I adopted where raised in the system.  They didn't trust, love and where constantly moved from home to home. Still we choose to go down the road with all of them.
      This put our family on a new road. One I had no clue how to go down. My natural born children loved their new siblings but you see, there is a bit of jealousy.  Birth order changed, numbers changed. We doubled the amount of kids from 3 to 6.  I went from 3 teenagers to 5.   We also decided to move from Ohio to Florida for a new start and also for my health.  We are on a new road.  It has been an adventure to say the least.  This past Thursday as I was cooking Thanksgiving dinner it hit me like a ton of bricks. We have had a wonderful journey to become the family we are.  It has been a rough few years and honestly that is putting it lightly. We have all laughed, we've cried, we've experienced so much and all together.
       This picture doesn't show half of the journey it took to get to this point.  I however have it etched in my heart.  When I looked at this picture I finally saw a love between all the kids. It was a rough road but oh so worth the journey!