December 19th I gained two little girls in my house – ages 5 and 7 (the youngest turned 6 while staying with us). It was quite unexpected. And last week CPS closed the case and they were allowed to go back to their mom. I knew it would hurt when they left but I was not expecting it to hurt as much as it did. I learned a lot in this 41 days. From the beginning I expected everything I did with the girls to be a complete waste. By that I mean, I knew these girls did not have any structure with their mom. Their life was/is basically chaos and I am more of an orderly person, umm, robot. I knew that I would be sending them right back into the madness when they returned which saddened me.
I know that I am supposed to trust God and His plan but I have questioned His plan continually during this process. I told myself to love them while they were with me and that is what I tried to do. Sunday (nine days ago), I prayed with them at bed time and told them I loved them like most nights and both girls said “I love you” back to me for the first time. The older sister is not one to say this lightly and it made my evening to hear those words. Then Wednesday (six days ago) when I found out they were going home I also found out that Taylor was missing. I shared that with my kids and that night as we prayed the older sister prayed they would find Taylor. I nearly lost it. [They did find Ms. Taylor!] I have been so proud of my girls and how much they have grown in the past month or so. I would have preferred to just keep them and love them forever but God has different plans. Prayer for my girls appreciated.