The family photo I didn't send

Do you do family photos for your Christmas card?  I have gotten some great ones this year! I usually do.  I have creative and gifted friends.  They plan ahead.  They get all crafty with bows and stuff. Their family looks cute, lovable and color coordinated.  In fact, I think some must have their own studio setup and some might be stepping off the pages of award-winning picture books or popular Pinterest posts.


Honestly - I LOVE getting family photos from friends and family. The simple, the clever and the cute.  I love them all.  Every year I look forward to ones from dear friends in my childhood whom I rarely ever talk to now, but will always love dearly.

We did photos for years. Not all crafty and amazing like, but let's face it, just getting the family together, and then the photo printed and mailed out, that was a feat in and of itself. Getting it done BEFORE Christmas was a miracle, and it was rare. At least for me. 

In an effort to get it done each year, reminders could be found all throughout the house and on my computer starting in October or November. "FAMILY PHOTO". "Don't forget Jo!"  Ahhhh...my family know I'm unfortunately notorious for forgetting to do things, like call, on special days. Sigh. But I don't give up trying.

Sometimes my reminders are invisible to everyone else in the house. You see, I have this really cool technique of writing on the wall with my finger when I need to remind myself of something. It's like a secret message in the greatest invisible ink ever. I started this in my school years when I laid in bed and needed to remember something for the next day but didn't feel like getting up to write it down. I used my fingers - and wrote it on the wall. It's awesome I tell you; having your own secret messages on the walls.

Yet, no matter how many reminders I put out there - it was always at the last minute that we would get a photo to happen. One time I had to wake up my youngest two from a nap. They weren't too happy, and it showed. One year it didn't happen at all so I used a summer photo from our time at the beach and that was all cool like, "Hey, we did this really cool thing and got a family photo planned so far in advance I managed to pull it off in June!." When really I didn't have a newer one to use. Well, maybe I actually did plan that one that far in advance? Whatever. I don't remember for sure.

At one point I discovered boxes.  Card layouts with boxes so you could include several photos. I could put pics of the kids in different boxes and we didn't really all have to be in the same photo! Wouldn't that be easier to pull off?! Hmmmm....I THOUGHT about doing that this year, but I didn't. 

Honestly, I wish I had done a family photo this year but my brain couldn't get wrapped around the whole idea. For one, it was daunting to consider this task when there was no way to get all the kids together.  I could have collected individual photos of the kids that aren't with me, but didn't. I had thoughts of gathering up photos of our children, but my heart stopped short when I realized how many children's faces I wanted to include. How many faces weren't with me anymore. 

At this, I am momentarily suspended in memories. My chest breathes deeply. My heart swells and constricts with overwhelming waves of love and grief. I picture every face of those precious children who aren't near me physically. The ones I bore and the ones I didn't. The many I have been blessed to love. The many who have called me mom. Even ones who never did.

There are two in the home now, but TWENTY-ONE (and more) in my heart.  How do you put all that in a family photo? Even if I tried, I'd have to protect the faces and identities of many of them.

Yes. TWENTY-ONE children. No, I'm not a Duggar. Not even close. And if I'm honest...I don't want to be. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the children I have cared for and wouldn't change that for the world. I LOVE that we had the opportunity to serve as we did. But God knows how He made me, and the purposes He has for me...and they look different from anyone else's. And definitely different than the Duggars. In fact, His plans for my future look different than the plans He has had for me in the past.  I trust that, am thankful HE KNOWS what is best for me and I go with it 

People will always ask, "How many children do you have?"  Seems simple doesn't it?  Not to me. When I get asked that, there is a lump in my throat. I can't swallow the question and I struggle to spit out an answer. Do I say twenty-one?

I used to say five.  The words come out as five and my mind thinks of all that means. I have my four bio and a step-son. My husband adopted my first two bio children that I had before he and I met. We are a blended family of yours, mine and ours. But, no one really wants to know all that when they ask the question though, do they?

So, we have our five, but truthfully there are more. Many more.

There is the teenage boy who lived with us for 8 months and who will always call us mom and dad. There are the thirteen foster children we took care of in a span of fifteen months. There are my two babies in heaven. That's twenty-one children.

In fact, in my heart there are even more.  There's also the little girl in India that I dream of as my own.  There are several precious children I almost took in to foster, some whom I met and would have loved to have adopted, and some whom I only know by their stories and their great need for a loving and safe home. I would have taken all of them in and almost got the chance to, twice, but the opportunity didn't happen.  All of these I am burdened to continue praying for.  They never called me mom, but they have the place of a child in my heart.  That's at least thirty-three children that take residence in this wild heart of mine.

But how many people really want all THAT detail in reply to a question that seems so simple, so basic, so undemanding as, "How many children do you have?"

I will give you the answer here that you probably won't get from me if you ask me elsewhere. Though it will be running through my mind. 

"How many children do you have?" Thirty-three and counting.  Five...twenty-one...thirty-three...

If I could fit ALL THAT into a family photo, I would!  

And yet...really...I have none.  A picture of me as mom with arms of love around all of these children pauses...and is repainted. 

My heart has learned that it is not I who have any of them.

Here or not here, they are not mine. None of them belong to me.

They ALL belong to Him.

This reality hits hard when you are faced with things in life that are out of your control.  When your child dies and you don't get to hold them. When your heart yearns to care for a child who is not yours but needs the love, safety and provision you want to offer them. When you take in foster children who leave. When you take in a homeless child who goes back with his mom. When your son turns 17 and won't stay...when these things happen...you realize...they were never really yours in the first place.  They always were, and always are, His.

While they are not in my arms, the arms of my Father remain around them. I seek peace and freedom in that. I must.

While I cannot collect all the photos and show you the many precious faces in my mind and heart...He sees them all and puts together the most beautiful pictures in His time.  What a glorious picture he must see!

They are all precious, every one. They are loved and prayed for even when I don't see them, talk to them or know where they are.

This mama's heart, seeks the heart of her Father. As I reflect with joy and sadness over all the children I have loved and still love, but cannot reach out and hold, I take my yearnings and my longings to Him. They are His. He reminds me that He is Father to them as He is Father to me. I pray they know this and cherish this. When a mama's arms feel empty, His remain full.

I smile. I cry. I kneel my heart.

I don't even have a picture for all the faces I love. But He knows. He gives me a sweet picture, a beautiful (and large) collage in my mind, of smiling faces and keeps telling me how much He loves them and that His watchful, caring eyes are still upon them when mine cannot be.  He encourages me to keep praying, keep loving, keep believing, keep seeking Him.

So I don't have a family photo to share with you, but it is imprinted in my mind and heart.

If you do not have the family photo you desired, yours is written on your heart too.  Your Father in heaven knows your heart of love that expands beyond that which others can see.  He knows your longing to hold and care for the child (ren) who is (are) not there with you.  Or your heart to have your children know your love when there are obstacles preventing that vision. 

He loves them. They are His. Trust Him.

Dear Father - thank you for loving these children more than I ever could.  Help my heart to rest in that and to be comforted when their absence overwhelms me. May they know they are Yours, wherever they are. Thank you for the best family photo ever - the one where you are Father and all who call you daddy are smiling with you.

Every child, every day, every step of faith, is a journey in trusting the Lord. Thank you.

(This is a picture of my dad trying to get the kids in a single photo from where he sat. 

Some are our kids and some are nieces and nephews. This is far from everyone!

We had gathered in Branson, MO 

for Christmas in 2012 to celebrate my parents 50th Anniversary.)