Reckless, unrestrained Love

This morning on KLove, the fill-in announcer was Matt Hammitt, the lead singer of the group "Sanctus Real." Some of you may have heard his story of his son Bowen who was born with a Congenital Heart Defect. You can find his site HERE. As a result of all that they have gone through with Bowen, he has written a new album that is set to be released in September. But, they did a preview of one of the songs this morning. It is called "All of Me." Just with the lead-in to the song, I knew that I had better pull over or turn the radio off because I was going to ball my eyes out. I was ill-prepared for the chord that this song struck for me. This song was written to Bowen, basically stating that in spite of the fact that their hearts may be ripped to pieces, they were not going to hold back their love from him, because he deserved to have all of their love.

That EXACT sentiment is something that I have chosen with my 2 special boys.

God gave me a miracle baby girl in 2004.....but this post is not about her. This post is about my 2 miracle baby boys. In 2008, a tiny baby boy was born to a mother who was not able to raise him. He was immediately placed into foster care and after years of waiting for my arms to be filled again, God gave me a baby. We did not know at the time if we would be able to keep this baby.....foster care placements most often end in heartache for the foster parents. We knew that, but we felt called to do this.

The day I brought this precious baby boy into our home, I made the conscious decision to be his mom. I was going to throw myself into loving him. I knew that in the end, my heart might very well be ripped from my body, but this child deserved my love as a mom and not "just" as a foster mom. I remember telling family and friends that....and praying to God that He would indeed be the Healer that He promises to be if in fact he did have to go back to a family member. Several times, family members were found who desired custody.....every court date brought fear and trembling on my part as we sat in that waiting room looking around for his birth mother or uncle or grandmother to arrive. Each time the court postponed the date for the courts to gain permanent custody was another chance for the birth family to come forward. The entire time we grew more attached. My daughter truly was becoming the big sister that she yearned to be.....and I was the mom I yearned to be.....and Greg was the dad to the son that did not share his genetics. On August 12, 2009, Tyler became a part of our family FOREVER. This story ended happily.

Then in 2010, I gave birth to my Trenton, 12 weeks early. I am still reeling from this. Most of my posts are about this traumatic event as I still try to overcome my emotions of that horrible nightmare. Each time he has more medical tests/procedures/hospital stays it brings back unresolved feelings in my own heart. One day when he was about a month old, after his first brain surgery, we nearly lost our son. I nearly watched him slip away. When I left that Sunday night, I knew in my heart I would never see him again.......I never slept that night imagining him in heaven and not in my arms. Then Monday morning I showed up to find my baby sleeping peacefully and the monitors calm for the first time in 24 hours. He survived.

At that moment I made another decision though this one was unconscious. I was going to love this son with utter and complete abandon....and I have to be honest. There are moments I question that decision. My heart hurts too much to imagine losing him in the future. My heart hurts almost physically to even look at him sometimes and there are even moments that I wish God did not give him to me to spare me from the heartache that I do not think I can possibly handle.

Excerpts from "All of Me" by Matt Hammitt.

You are gonna have all of me.

You are worth every falling tear.

You are worth all of me.

Let me recklessly love you even if I bleed.

You are worth facing all my fears.

This is where I will start

Do not let fear keep you from recklessly loving the people in your life. God has not given us a spirit of fear.....He says so in His word. I remind him of that all the time :) God give us the strength to recklessly love the people in our lives with all of our hearts. Without doing so, we fail in so many ways. Learning to love this way for me is not hard......living with this decision sometimes is. But, He does not give us more than we can handle.