Latest / Neighbourly: Real Stories of Care and Community / Faith Amidst the Frantic: How Do Mothers Juggle Chaos with Grace? | Alicia Freeman

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Faith Amidst the Frantic: How Do Mothers Juggle Chaos with Grace? | Alicia Freeman · Neighbourly: Real Stories of Care and Community

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As a mom of 6 kids and the huge age range that we have,
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I feel pulled in so many different directions on
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any given day. I I feel like I'm always letting somebody down, you
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know? I feel like there's never quite enough of me to go around to everyone
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everywhere, and especially when you start adding some special needs
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and exceptionalities in there that just take some extra time and attention, and
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I wish that I had more to offer
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them. What does loving your neighbor actually look like?
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This is Journey with Care, where curious Canadians get
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inspired to love others well through real life stories and
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honest conversations.
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Welcome journey with care listeners. We've had several weeks
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of some Jeopardy, getting to know Wendy and I a little bit, and
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then we've been on the road to Kansas City. You heard all about that.
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And finally, we're getting back to the stories. We know
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you're here for the stories, the real stories, the honest
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stories, and today is not gonna disappoint. We
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have one of our associates on, Alicia. Well, I'm just so
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excited. We have Alicia Freeman from Parry Sound,
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Ontario. She is part of the Care Impact team, and, she
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can share a little bit herself. But, Alicia, welcome to the podcast.
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Thank you so much. I'm really honored and really excited to be here with
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both of you. This is a first for me. So, Alicia, you wanna maybe introduce
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yourself to our listeners, maybe tell us a little bit about your family?
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I would love to do that. So I'm married to my best friend
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and partner in crime for 14 years now, Kirby. We
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were high school sweethearts, fell in love, got married very early
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on, and began our family very early on. God really placed it
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on our hearts to pursue adoption and foster care.
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So, we have 6 beautiful kids. Our oldest three
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children are adoptive children, so they've come just through adoption
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and foster care. And our youngest three children are biological,
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And they range in ages from 12 months to 17 years,
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so we kinda have the whole gamut going on there. Wow. That's a that's
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a large span there as a mom. And I look at you.
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You look so young to to be parenting 6
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children, and, you and your husband have been called
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into fostering adoption since you got married. Is that
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correct? Yeah. So I was one of those people who just
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I honestly can't remember a time when I didn't anticipate
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foster care and adoption being a part of my story. So God just
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he placed some people very intentionally within my sphere as a
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child already who really impacted me and moved me in that
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direction. Married. It it took him
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some time, but he he
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got there married. It it took him some time, but he he got there, and
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he is absolutely fully in. So it sounds like you guys
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have kinda jumped right into this fairly early on in your
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marriage. So what inspired you guys to foster and adopt?
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That's a good question. I think that, like I mentioned, like, there
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were people within that God really placed specifically and intentionally
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in my sphere of influence, who I observed
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as they brought children into their home through adoption and foster
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care. And God just used those stories to
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really impact me and my growing heart and full disclosure.
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I jumped in as, you know, a hardcore savior mentalist.
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So the past 2 decades now, God has spent just
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chipping away at that savior mentality that I first arrived
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with. But my husband and I always say, you know, it was that naivety
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and that enthusiasm that god used to bring us to the place where he
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wanted us. And then he was like, okay. I've got you here now. I've got
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a lot of work to do. Well, thank you for your honesty and
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vulnerability in that because I think that many people could
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with that, and we see vulnerable children and those needing homes, and
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and it's easy to fall into that. Like, hey. Let's just swoop in and
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and rescue the children. Maybe we can make a better future.
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And and there's there's a lot of good intentions in all of that,
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but I think life taking in children, even
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speaking from experience, life going through that journey has a way
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of dethroning us. Right? Humbling us as parents.
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And do you get a lot of people asking you, wow. Good for
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you. I could never do that. You are just like a superwoman
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kind of mentality. Do you get some of that feedback where it's like, I could
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never do that. I love my children too much, and I would get it too
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attached with fostering? Yes.
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So much of the time. And that's something that I've I've really
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worked on kinda trying to to script my answer to, because
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I I used to honestly just get really offended because I I felt like
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what they were saying was, like, I'm a much more loving person than you, and
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I could never possibly bring children into my home and then let them go. And
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I was like, okay. Thanks. But I know I
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know what their intentions are behind those comments, but I do really view
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those now as opportunities to, you know, just show off the glory
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of God and and show off my own weakness and just saying, like, you know,
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that was me. Like, I always said that exact same thing,
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but it's really not about me. And at the end of the day, it it
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doesn't really hinge on what I think that my capacity is. If
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God is asking me to do this, then he promises that he will be faithful
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and he will equip me with whatever it is I need in order to
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be able to do this. But, yeah, it it's really uncomfortable to be
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kind of put on a pedestal, especially when life is
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messy and hard and you know how much you're struggling in the day to day.
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You're you're like, oh my goodness. If you walk through my doors, you would you
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would not say that anymore. We still
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have dishes on our counters. Right? And you still have lots of
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appointments. And and, yes, you're not claiming to be superhuman
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in this, but you still you have one child. Hopefully, we'll hear from her yet.
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She's crawling around you there, but and 5 lunches to make where you've got
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appointments to take, social services to attend to. You've
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got a lot on the go with 6 children with complex
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stories as well. Just so our our listeners know that you
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aren't Superwoman, is there something even that maybe happened this morning
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that just can give us a little insight that you are a
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actual real human being like everyone else
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just serving the lord? Yeah. I love that. There's so many things
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that pop into my mind, but the first thing that popped into my mind because
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you specified something that happened this morning, This morning, just
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like almost every morning of my life, I was running
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late. I cannot seem to adjust my
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schedule and my margins so that I arrive on time
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anywhere. And it doesn't matter if I have all 6 of my children with
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me or one of my children with me. Just recently, I
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arrived, like, 5 minutes late to a doctor's appointment for my baby.
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She was due for immunizations, and they canceled on me. They
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wouldn't let me come in, and I was so frustrated with myself
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and so frustrated with them even though I I knew that I didn't really have
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a right to be frustrated with them. But it it was just a frustrating experience.
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So I I really don't, like, I don't enjoy being late, but I I just
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seem to have trouble, like, adjusting my life and making paying attention to my margins,
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I guess, so that I can arrive on my making
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paying attention to my margins, I guess, so that I can arrive on
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time with everybody, you know, fed and clothed and intact.
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Probably have to do, like, a deep dive on what's going on there for me.
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It probably has a lot to do with mental rest, which is something we
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talk about a lot in our trauma care, self care module.
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But, yeah, just the the mental overwhelm can be very
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real.
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So we've just had another guest join our podcast. So if you hear
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from this guest, I I don't know if they'll introduce themselves
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because I don't think they could talk. But, anyway, Wendy.
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I'd love to dive in a little bit about some of the
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challenges. The things that sometimes aren't Pinterest worthy are not
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on Instagram. It's not those cute pictures. But when you were talking about some of
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the hardship as a parent and and having to, move
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into a difficult journey through the the journeys of your children,
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are there some things that you've been surprised or challenged by when you said
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yes to caring for children in difficult places? I'm
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just curious how you have grown as a person as you you've said yes into
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these difficult spaces. Yeah. Absolutely.
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One of the first things that comes to my mind that I think really
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shocked me was I like I said, I I have carried
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this, passion for caring for vulnerable children for a
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very long time. And I always assumed that
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knowing their stories and knowing where they have come from and
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the traumas that they've lived through would transform
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me into an incredibly compassionate person
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who was always able to understand, you know,
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why they may be behaving in the ways that they're behaving,
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but it's turned out that's really not the case. I still struggle
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with being irritated over tiny things and getting
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frustrated when their behaviors or even emotions
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that are just really uncomfortable or
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invading my own personal space. I never would
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have anticipated that I would start accumulating so many triggers
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of my own. I remember early on in our journey
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hearing about vicarious trauma for the first time, and
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it felt very foreign and very strange to me. And
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now I know exactly what that is and exactly what that feels like
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because after you've walked alongside somebody who's
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hurting and struggling, you get a little mess on yourself.
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And I love thinking about how, when Jesus came
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to earth to rescue us, he
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came in such a human form and he came in such a
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messy and painful and human way. And he, he really
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did let our mess get all over himself.
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And, the truth is that's, that's what happens when, when
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we walk closely with people who are hurting and struggling
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is we start, we start to get messy and, and that can be
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really uncomfortable and really disillusioning
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to find yourself in a place where suddenly you're dealing with your own triggers and
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your own trauma due to caring for others.
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So that was very, very surprising and has brought a lot of challenges.
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I think that's, very profound,
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what you just stated here because I think in North America,
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regardless of the denomination, I think there's a lot
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of prosperity gospel infused in our thinking. If we follow
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God, things will get better. It's, like, almost, like, up the
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the ladder, so to speak, in euphoria of
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spiritual experience, and and yet you're right. When we come
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into proximity with pain, the places that God has called us to, it's
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not rescuing out of. It's entering into. And
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I know there's ways, and you you've been teaching this. I think it comes from
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a very authentic space in our trauma care training. You've been
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training other people in ministries and camps and in churches
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how to enter into the mess and yet not
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walk as traumatized, but work through that trauma.
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But it sometimes it evokes, at least for myself, it evokes some things that I
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didn't even know I had to deal with. But because they've triggered me in
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these areas, I need to grow in these spaces.
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But we have this prosperity gospel at play at war against these
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experiences that we're called into hardship. And one thing
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I would love to see the church expand on, and I don't know if you
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have any comments to this, but just having a a deeper theology
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of suffering, that suffering isn't inherently bad. It's
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sometimes what we're called to. Have you experienced some of
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that dissonance within your own faith
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experience and going through hardship with your family?
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Yes. Absolutely. A number of years ago, one of
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our biological children actually ended up being diagnosed with
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a brain tumor and walking with him through that journey, he was 18
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months old at the time. And I just remember that was, that was the
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first of many times in the next number of years
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that I would just have to face the question that
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was resounding in my heart, where I, I believed that God
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was good in this overarching way, but I was really
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struggling to believe that God was good to me and to my children.
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You know, God in his kindness and his graciousness made
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me face that question repeatedly over and over again
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so that I could struggle through that and come to this grounding
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realization and understanding that, yes, the answer is yes.
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He is so good to me and so good to those I
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love. But my view is very, very small
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compared to his. And so, it takes a it takes a lot
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of faith and it takes a lot of a lot of trust to
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to surrender my plans and my ideas of
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what would be good in my life or in my children's
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lives or, or those around me. And to, to kind
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of give that to God with open hands and say, you know what?
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I know that you know better than I do what is good here.
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So I'm going to surrender my ideas and give them to
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you. I think the word surrender is so powerful because that
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some of it is letting go of the control we actually never have
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had, but we had the illusion of control even if we have
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biological children. And there is no guarantees.
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There's no guarantees in anything in life, and we're not promised an easy
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life. In fact, it says, in this world, we will have troubles.
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But take heart. He's overcome the world, but there's a long suffering.
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There's a big dash in between from when we see
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the ultimate hope that is promised us so
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often in our stories. I've been thinking a lot lately
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about a little phrase I keep hearing, and that is just that
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hard is not the same as bad. And it sounds so simple, but
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it it's exactly that. It's that that prosperity
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gospel that creeps into, especially our Western mindset
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of, you know, our rights and what we're entitled to,
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but hard is not the same as bad. And so when when I
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really internalize that and I view my own life
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and the lives around me, that the people that I'm trying to walk with,
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when I keep that at the forefront, that heart is not the same as
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bad, then I can remove kind of that first
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reactionary trigger response that wants to come as
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soon as I bump into something that feels difficult and uncomfortable and
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hard. If I can remove that first instinct that, oh my goodness,
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something's wrong. This is bad. And instead go, wait a minute.
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Hard is not the same as bad. Hard is sometimes
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exactly where the growth is. And we know this. Right? We
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know this so easily in other other
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parts of our existence, whether that's in Paul's
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example in the Bible was, you know, an athlete training.
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Mhmm. We know that hard work breaks
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about endurance and, what are
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all the things that are listed in in that verse? Are you looking it
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up, Johan? I think you're referring to Romans 5:4. I just looked it up
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here. Endurance produces character, and character produces hope.
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Now this hope does not disappoint us because god's love has been poured out into
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our hearts by the holy spirit who has been given to us.
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Yes. That's it right there. Bingo. And that and
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that's where yeah. That I mean, segueing into hope
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then when out of this suffering, my
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family
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my family and I have been living crisis to crisis. It feels
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like, you know, we just we just barely catch our breath and something
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else happens. And then we've just barely gotten back on our feet or
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we're on our knees and something else happens. And,
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you know, even people around us. You know, I've had so many people people say
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to me, you know, oh, you guys, you just can't catch a break. You know?
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And and it's easy to want to just kind of sink into
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the melancholy and the, I guess, the, the discouragement
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of that and the exhaustion of that. But at the same time, I
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see, I see this truth that heart is not the same as bad. And
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I see in my own heart, this working out of that verse in
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Romans where I'm seeing this character
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that he is producing within my own heart and within
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the hearts of the people around me and and, you know, good things happening
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within my marriage, within my relationships, and even in our
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family when when it feels like everything is fracturing and falling apart.
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God is going about weeding out the yucky, icky
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things that that aren't supposed to be there, but that I
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would never go and pay attention to if I didn't have
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to. Right? So that that's where, like, the hope lies, I
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guess, that God is a good father to me. And he
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will walk me into those hard and messy places in order to
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truly refine me and bring me into that broader,
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greener pasture that he wants me to be able to reside in.
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Yeah. In the good and the hard, God is still
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good. It's not dependent on our circumstances
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if they're good or bad. I think we can honestly say sometimes things are hard,
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and some things are the way they shouldn't be, and yet this is the reality
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that we're all living in. You can fill in the blank. Everybody has their own
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experience that they're they're called to face. And I think it's our
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faithfulness and and just turning to God, not that God is impressed
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by, oh, did you see me now, god? How I responded? I
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really saved the day there. He's not impressed. He he just wants
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our surrender. Right? He just like, I got you, girl.
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I've got you. And and it's not on our just on our behavior that
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we have to win this approval at inner bad situations or
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hard situations that we have to somehow behave
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in an extraordinary way to win that approval of God. We are
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beloved, and he just delights, though, when you,
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Elisha, respond in those hardships, whether there's healing or
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not, whether there's there's reunification or not, whether it's
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restoration or not. But in those hard times, how are you being
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faithful to that? That is where, we can get
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that hope, that only comes from Christ, and
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we let go of some false sense of control in these
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situations. However, I will argue, though, we could, and we
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some I sometimes do. There are some areas that I just wanna
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control, so I'm just not gonna go there. I'm gonna avoid the pain, and, therefore,
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I'm gonna say no to it. That is easy. Like, I think in
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today's society, we very much, prize control
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in having everything, having boundaries, for example, even though God is
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knocking and saying, I'm gonna mess that schedule up. Are you willing to give it
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up? I just had it recently, and it's just like, God, this wasn't part of
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my plans, and yet, God is so faithful.
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I really admire that your faith hasn't really
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been shaken in the midst of this. And, like, I see it evidenced
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even in some of your communications with our Care Impact team. Like, when
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when you're going through those crisis after crisis, we've seen those prayer requests come
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out on the on the chat. You didn't just fold back
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into your little world and try to deal with it on your own, but you're
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really reaching out to people and asking, hey. I really
20:10
need prayer for this because the Lord's the one that needs to intervene, and he's
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the one that's gonna help us through it. So it's evidenced in your life, even
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as you go through the crisis, that you're leaning into him and his goodness.
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Thank you so much for that, Johan. That's really encouraging. And and I
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just, yeah, I just wanna testify that I, I feel like that's
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a very new work in my heart. This, and again, one of those
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things that God has produced and my husband and I were just talking about
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this the other day, the the humility that we are learning
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how to walk with, stay learning because it's,
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knock on wood. We we did a lots of practice with humility,
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but just reaching that place and and being
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able to let go and realize, you know what? Both the
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good and the bad, they're not all on me. You know, it's
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not my story that's being written right now. It's God's
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story that is being written, and he's gonna do what he's gonna
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do. And that I don't have to I don't have to take
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on so much, you know, when it comes to the tough times. I I don't
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have to take it all on and try to white knuckle through it all by
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myself. But then also in the good times, I don't have to
21:21
just hoard that to myself and bring the glory and the
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credit on myself somehow. I can just
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relish the the fact that the truth that I know that this
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was not me. There's no way that I could have brought this about.
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And so I would say that that has brought a lot of freedom
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and joy to our our lives in the last couple years as we've been
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moving from crisis to crisis to crisis and starting
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to to just stay in a, I guess, a a posture
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of learning and humility and growth and
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understanding that, you know what? God's doing a thing here
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and we don't know what it is right now. And we may never know what
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it is, but our job, just like you were saying, Wendy,
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is just about faithfulness. That reminds me of a
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conversation that I had with Kirby a little while ago. And it's just gonna
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stick in my mind forever because you know how sometimes you just have those conversations
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and somebody just helps you have this light bulb moment and you think like,
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oh my goodness. I I don't know how I had it so wrong.
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But I was just really struggling. I was struggling with my own capacity
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limits as a human. I mean, as a mom of 6 kids and and
22:32
the huge age range that we have, I feel pulled
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in so many different directions on any given day. I I feel
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like I'm always letting somebody down. You know, I feel like there's never quite
22:43
enough of me to go around to everyone everywhere. And especially when
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you start adding some special needs and exceptionalities in there that
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just take some extra time and attention. And, and I wish that had more
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to offer them. So I I was just sharing with him how I
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just felt so so burdened and, you know, that I was just
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hitting the ceiling all the time of my capacity limits. And I
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was exhausted and I desperately needed rest, but I also
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felt this this heaviness that I didn't want to somehow
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I wanted to make sure I was being accountable to live up to my
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potential. And I I went on and on
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along this thread. And and finally, I stopped. And and he just looked at
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me and he's like, I I don't understand what you think
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your capacity has to do with
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God and his faithfulness and your faithfulness to him,
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because this is what I was trying to struggle through. What it looked like for
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me to be faithful? That was my question. How do I be
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faithful? And how do I make sure that I'm being faithful? And and
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in that moment, it was just like this light bulb. And, you know, he he
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was just like, it it's not about you. It it doesn't matter how
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hard you try, how hard you strive, how concerned you are
23:57
about reaching your potential. That is not what God is requiring of
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you when he is asking you to be faithful. And
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so I feel like simultaneously to all this, I've been on this
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journey of of learning what it means to abide and learning
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that that is what it means to be faithful. The only thing that
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God requires of me is that I abide in him and become
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this source of the life that he has to offer. Right? And
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there's so much freedom in that when I realize that it's not me. I
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don't I don't have to make sure that I've got it all
24:30
perfect. Instead, I just need to be a
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channel that his lifeblood can run through.
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And thinking about that Vine analogy of just when I'm
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connected to him, there will be fruit on the other end, and it has nothing
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to do with me, but I get to be there. And I get to watch
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it happen, and I get to be a part of it. And that's that's the
24:51
beauty of being a part of his family, right, and a part of his kingdom.
24:55
And there's a underlying deep joy
24:58
even in hardship when you see you're connected to
25:02
the vine, to God, and seeing the fruit that despite
25:06
us in our shortcomings and the things that we cannot
25:09
do or have capacity for. I love that conversation.
25:14
Despite that, God is doing a good thing. I think there's listeners
25:17
right now that are going through fill in the blank hardship.
25:21
Whether they're a mom or they wish they were a mom or they're facing they
25:25
were thrust into a financial or workplace or
25:29
there's so many different crises, not to even mention all the things that
25:33
we see in the news, but sometimes things happen to us. And then
25:37
there's also people listening that have this little niggle, kinda like
25:40
you did when you were getting married about fostering or
25:44
adopting or invitation into that they could actually
25:47
say no and get away with. But they're sitting at the
25:51
precipice of these things, either in crisis or invited into it.
25:55
Can you speak to them in what it looks like just
25:59
to abide in those moments and to trust? What would you say to
26:02
them? Well, I feel like I'm very much still on the
26:06
journey of learning what it means to abide. Like I said, I
26:10
feel like this has just been the last couple of years that that God is
26:13
showing me what it looks like and feels like to walk in,
26:17
in freedom and to walk in this spirit of
26:20
abiding in him. I have had the privilege of working with
26:25
a really impactful Christian counselor who has been
26:28
such a great source of wisdom and, and guidance for
26:32
me as I, as I work out some of these things. And what does this
26:35
look like practically? For me, it's meant
26:38
having the faith to prioritize time in the
26:42
word and time with other believers, even
26:45
when, you know, my my schedule is packed and my life is
26:49
chaotic to believe that my time spent
26:52
with Jesus or my time spent with other Jesus lovers, my
26:56
time spent in worship is going to pour life into
27:00
me even if I can't feel it in the moment. So I think
27:04
that is a big one. And I know I know there are probably a lot
27:07
of moms out there. I know the last thing you wanna hear is another to
27:10
do thing. Right? But I just, I know what it
27:14
feels like to have time with God as a as a
27:17
thing on my to do list. And then I know what it feels like to
27:21
have it as something that I crave
27:25
and look forward to. And it's definitely one of those things that the
27:29
more you do it, the more you crave it. And the more that you
27:32
see the value and the more that you start learning how
27:36
to work that into the little pieces of your day. And I
27:40
let's be clear. Like, I do not I don't rise early. I don't
27:44
spend hours. I I'm not that person. I wake up with my
27:47
kids. I have one of my kids wakes up at 7 o'clock AM every
27:51
single morning. It doesn't matter if it's the weekend or the weekday. He's a very
27:54
scheduled little person. 7 o'clock AM. He's my alarm
27:58
clock. It's time to get up. That's when I get up. I don't get up
28:01
early, but I find time. I use screens
28:05
to occupy my little one so that I can have time with
28:09
Jesus. I go for walks and, you
28:12
know, pray out loud while I'm pushing the stroller. I post
28:16
scripture around the house and I have them in my
28:20
bathroom so that every time I go into the bathroom, I
28:24
see those verses, and it starts to infiltrate every part of
28:27
my day. And it's beautiful. It's beautiful. I
28:31
have the bible app on my phone, and I look at the verse of the
28:34
day. A week ago, I felt like the verse of the day the
28:38
verse of the day was all I had. It was a crazy week. It was
28:41
all I had. Every day, I had the verse of the day, and that was
28:43
it. But you know what? God was faithful in that. And, honestly, by,
28:47
like, the 4th day, I was, like, opening up the Bible up being like,
28:51
okay, Jesus. What do you have for me today? I'm a little scared because so
28:54
far, the verse of the day in the morning has really given me a pretty
28:58
good tip-off for what I'm gonna need today. And some days that was
29:01
that was just, you know, rejoice and be glad, and other times it was
29:05
like endure through hardship and giving me a heads up. Like, this is gonna be
29:09
a day. You're gonna need this. But it's beautiful. It's beautiful the way that he
29:13
meets us and whatever we bring to him. He is
29:16
faithful to just increase and and
29:20
produce good things in in our hearts and in our minds and
29:24
yeah. So I feel like that's what I'm learning about abiding, that it doesn't doesn't
29:28
have to be big and hard. It's just about being in
29:31
relationship. Right? And it's a bit of that intentionality, right, and
29:35
being creative. God doesn't need us to necessarily spend an hour a day
29:39
in in morning solitude because sometimes that's not our reality. But
29:43
can we seek God while we're breathing? Can we seek God when we're
29:47
doing dishes and taking appointments, responding to urgent
29:50
crisis? Just I did it the other day. Lord, help. That's all
29:54
I had. That's all I had, but god met me in those places. It wasn't
29:57
out of a I should, but, lord, help.
30:01
That's what he used to tell young people when I worked with him in the
30:04
church. It's like, god's not disappointed with the time you didn't spend with
30:08
him. He's excited about that moment that you glance
30:11
towards him. Those small specific moments, he gets
30:15
excited about that. So don't dwell in the time that you didn't spend with him
30:18
and don't mourn over that. Just see his face when you do glance
30:22
towards him. And I don't know about you. That's really good, Johanna. But I'm
30:26
wondering, sometimes my capacity is
30:30
so limited in the the things that I've been thrust into and that God has
30:33
called me to, I really don't even have the words to,
30:37
like, pray a lot. I sometimes I have those go to in my
30:41
community. It takes a village, and and it's just
30:44
like, guys, pray. Where can I turn to? Like,
30:48
you are my people. And so I'm wondering about community,
30:52
and what has that meant to you? Have you experienced
30:55
God in community that they held you when you felt
30:59
like you couldn't do it on your own? Absolutely.
31:03
Yeah. That's been a a huge part of our journey as well. I would
31:07
say right up front that I feel, I feel so
31:10
incredibly blessed with the community that God has brought into
31:14
our lives. And I know a lot of people have to work really
31:18
hard to find and create community. And I will say that I
31:21
feel like that was gifted to us before we
31:25
could even ask. When I look back and I, and I watched the ways
31:29
that God led us, we made a number of church moves
31:33
and we moved outside of the community where we grew up
31:37
in. And all of those pieces, I I just see his hand
31:41
and the way that he was orchestrating the community that we would
31:44
need to be able to to move through, you know, the
31:48
the years where we were living crises to crises. We have a really
31:52
incredible church community who is really authentic, really,
31:56
a safe space where where we can be real and honest with our
32:00
struggles and with the challenges that that our family dynamics can
32:04
bring. But very much, I would say we we've been blessed with so
32:07
many friends and family who they don't look at us with that savior
32:11
mentality. And that's so important to me that they don't look at
32:15
us and say, wow, you know, I could never do what you're doing. They
32:18
see. They they see the ways that we're messing up. They see the ways
32:22
that we are being faithful. They see when
32:26
the outcomes are, you know, as we've prayed for and as we hoped, and they
32:29
see when the outcomes are devastating and painful. And they're
32:33
just there. They're just there to walk it with us and to encourage us
32:37
and to point us to truth when we become discouraged and disillusioned.
32:41
You know, they're there to point us back to God and say, you know, it's
32:44
not about you. It's not about you, and you need to let go of that,
32:47
or this is how you can grow. This is what I see. Again, I'm
32:51
thankful for for the community that God's blessed us with. He's
32:55
placed so many safe people in my life who I can honestly
32:59
go to, and I can say, help me out here. Like, what am I missing?
33:02
Like, how can I how can I do this differently?
33:06
And they can speak into my life and my heart and my approach and and
33:09
same with my kids. You know? Like, I I'm a mama bear. There's not I
33:13
was gonna say there's not too many people that I trust with my kids, but
33:16
but surprisingly, there actually is quite a number of people
33:20
who I trust with my kids' hearts and and their stories and their
33:23
challenges. And and I'm so thankful for that because I know there's a
33:27
lot of really lonely foster and adoptive mommas out there, particularly
33:31
Good. And I am not one of them. Thank you, Jesus. And our
33:35
family has been incredible. Early on, we were
33:38
very young when we first began pursuing adoption and foster care.
33:42
And we had some family members who were very, hesitant to
33:46
kind of jump on board with us, and that was really a discouraging
33:50
time for for me in particular. But it took me a long
33:53
time to realize that they they saw a lot of things that
33:57
I had yet to learn. You know, I was I was young and I was
34:00
naive and I was energetic and I was passionate. And those were
34:04
things that God God knew that he needed to place within me to get
34:07
me to to the start line. But I'm so thankful now. You
34:11
know, those same people who were hesitant at the beginning, Now I'm
34:15
going back to them and I'm saying, I get it now. Like, I I
34:18
get why you were hesitant because you could see such a clearer
34:22
picture than I could. And I'm so grateful that you're willing to still be
34:26
here and support me and walk this with us. And and they were, you
34:30
know, as soon as we were there and we were deciding this is what we're
34:32
going to do, and this is what we feel like God is asking us to
34:35
do, they were a 100% on board. They have never been, you know,
34:39
anything but supportive. But I'm I'm grateful for
34:43
that first experience that we had because now,
34:47
10 years into the journey, it gives them, you know, credibility
34:51
in my own heart when I can look back and realize, oh,
34:55
you saw this coming. And because you were my
34:58
parents or my sibling or, or my aunt or uncle, you know, you you
35:02
wanted to spare me some discomfort and some pain that you knew that I was
35:06
going to bump into, but god had a different plan and a different story.
35:09
And and now you're here, and I I can come to you and I know
35:12
that you were a safe place for me to talk through this and work through
35:15
this hard feeling. And I love it because you still were
35:19
obedient because this was a calling. You went back to those
35:23
people, and sometimes people in good intentions wanna prevent us from having
35:26
that harm, right, or going through hardship. And
35:30
yet both of you, I think, are stretched in that. You they were stretched
35:34
into entering those spaces. And I think this is a message, and
35:37
it sort of embodies what Care Impact is about. That is not
35:41
everybody is called into these exact spaces of fostering or
35:44
adopting or or you name it in in the most hardship of
35:48
hardships. But we're all called to care, and we
35:52
need aunties and uncles and people in our village that
35:56
are called to give or called to give a wise counsel or called in
35:59
different ways that I love calling people in our village saying,
36:03
hey. Do you wanna have a fire tonight? I I just wanna talk. Or
36:06
would you yes. I will say yes to to your help and and being
36:10
vulnerable and saying, you know what? I I need people in our village. And I
36:13
think not everybody is able to the way you
36:17
have. You have had to be vulnerable in saying, you know what?
36:21
I don't have it all together. I do need a village, and I think there's
36:24
a lot we could all learn about being that village
36:27
for the people around us going through hardship.
36:31
We really need each other, and there's a place for everybody to get
36:35
involved. And don't worry about getting your hands dirty. It is
36:39
worth it when we're we're following the way God has called us.
36:42
Well, I know we have to wrap things up pretty soon, but there is a
36:46
a very beautiful lining to this whole story. And the reason
36:49
that you are part of our Care Impact team, the
36:53
academy, the part of the trauma training, I'd love for you to share a
36:57
little bit about your experience and your why to
37:00
why you are dedicating time to train up churches,
37:04
not just the foster and adoptive moms, but churches and
37:08
camps and ministries and and organizations to
37:12
to grow in their capacity to care. Can you talk a little
37:15
bit about trauma care? I would love to talk a little bit
37:19
about trauma care. You may need to shut me down.
37:23
This has become my my passion and my purpose. And,
37:27
again, so grateful that God has brought us
37:30
into a space and community, where we are
37:34
able to learn and be a part of other people's learning
37:38
journeys as well. Early on in our adoption and foster care journey,
37:42
we quickly realized that we did not
37:45
have the resources that we needed in order to parent our
37:49
children well. So early in our journey, we definitely
37:53
just came to a very clear realization that we did not
37:56
have the tools and resources we needed to be able to
38:00
parent our children the way that they needed to be parented and the way
38:04
that we wanted to be able to parent them. And that led us on a
38:08
journey to not only broadening our village
38:11
to include more adoptive and foster families who had gone before us
38:15
and to learn from them, but also to bring in a lot of
38:19
professionals. People who've spent time studying both
38:22
science and scripture and bringing those two things
38:26
together. And that was such a beautiful
38:30
light bulb moment in our journey when we started to understand
38:34
that there are people who have spent time studying
38:37
science, studying how God has created the human body
38:41
and brain and nervous system to work together, but also
38:45
digging into scripture and realizing, like, God knew that all along,
38:49
and he's got plans for this. And there's hope because we we really
38:53
did find that training outside of the church community
38:58
left us feeling a little discouraged and overwhelmed. But when we
39:01
started seeking out training and equipping from believers,
39:05
we found that there was so much hope, and there was so much support
39:09
available. And so what I think that we have
39:12
enjoyed discovering more than anything is just that science
39:16
about neuroscience, in particular, exalts the
39:20
glory of God and the creativity of God and the faithfulness of
39:23
God to always provide a way of healing
39:27
and that he never wants us to stay stuck in those
39:31
place of trauma or grief or destruction,
39:35
but that he has hope available for us. And so that's
39:38
really the why for me behind why I I'm
39:42
involved in trauma care training. And then alongside
39:45
that, living that out as I watch my kids, as I
39:49
live in the the challenges of our family dynamics.
39:53
I'm so passionate about helping people around us understand
39:57
what that looks like and feels like so that they can come alongside
40:01
and support other people. We have been blessed with such an incredible
40:04
village who does that really well, but I know there are so
40:08
many families out there. I hear those families all the time
40:11
who are very lonely, very under supported,
40:16
and very overwhelmed with their reality. And
40:19
I wanna bring them home through all the spaces in their life. I think
40:23
it's important that it's not only, you know, places
40:27
specific to foster care and adoption that are equipped with these
40:30
resources because it's not only foster and adoptive families who
40:34
struggle and who feel the impacts of trauma. I don't have the
40:37
statistics offhand. Come to our course if you wanna hear the statistics.
40:41
But the number of people in Canada
40:45
who have experienced trauma is overwhelming. And
40:49
so I think, you know, as the church, this is our time. This is
40:53
our place. This is the space where we get to rise up and bring
40:56
the good news of the gospel. And that's what trauma care is all
41:00
about for me, is bringing the gospel, bringing hope. I love it. I get a
41:04
bird's eye view from from what you guys are all doing. We have a team
41:07
of of trauma trainers from across Canada. They are professionals and
41:11
practitioners in the daytime. And in evenings and weekends,
41:15
we do a lot of workshops and training. And what I get to see
41:19
is that this growing team of professionals, they light up
41:22
when they're able to share it with with a lot of people, in the
41:26
church and and nonprofit areas and are able to build capacity
41:30
and speak out of their experience. And and you speak out of your own experience.
41:34
It's not just up there neuroscience and out of a textbook and out of the
41:37
Bible. You're living this out, and you're still wrestling seeking
41:41
answers and empowerment. And then on the flip side, I'm also seeing churches empowered saying,
41:43
you know what?
41:51
As a Sunday school teacher or as a pastor or as a leader in this
41:54
nonprofit, suddenly, they have tools, a way to connect with
41:58
some of the most vulnerable and see actually, signs
42:02
of progress and healing and and redemptive stories that we get out of
42:06
man, we could have full episodes, and we will have to, Johan, on
42:10
this. But there's so many examples of how people
42:13
when we know better, we do better. And when we have more
42:17
tools, we see more people feeling safe in our congregations. We
42:21
haven't talked about that. But so often, we need to create that felt
42:24
safety like you are doing within your church community. I'm sure it's
42:28
been a learning journey altogether. Yeah. And I
42:32
love being able to do this, and I'm so humbled to be able to do
42:34
this and that God's given me this opportunity because hear me well. Like,
42:38
I am not getting it all right. I mean, my kids will testify to
42:42
that. They would don't bring them on the podcast. They would love to tell
42:46
you all the ways that I don't get it right. And, I mean, very recently,
42:49
Webb pointed out to me. She's like, you know, mom, you're a trauma care trainer.
42:53
You should know better. I'm like, you're right. I should. But I still get
42:57
it wrong all the time. So it's beautiful to be able to bring the hope.
43:00
And then, like you said, to be able to say, you know what? Like, I
43:04
know this sounds lofty, and this sounds like a really big
43:07
goal, and I get that that's overwhelming, but it's baby steps.
43:11
Right? If you leave a 6 hour training with one
43:15
little tidbit of one thing you're gonna do differently, that's all that
43:18
matters. That's all that matters. It's about growing. It's about when we know
43:22
better, we can do better. And that might just be one baby step at
43:25
a time, but those baby steps can end up making a really big difference
43:29
in the long run. And God is faithful to to take our
43:33
efforts, feeble as they may be sometimes, and
43:36
produce beautiful things. Well, Alicia, I don't
43:40
know how how many podcasts we we've never had a podcast
43:43
guest on wild parenting live in front of the camera.
43:48
And and I've just gotta say, you are practicing it
43:51
literally while we're doing this. It's beautiful to watch. And in your
43:55
humanity, in your vulnerability, you are just shining. I know
43:58
you're not even trying to do this. You're being superhuman and
44:02
super vulnerable, but, also, what I feel is that
44:06
people can relate to you. You're actually a human being that is
44:09
just doing the best you can, being faithful to God. And
44:13
we just as a team here at Care Impact, we love you. We love what
44:17
you bring in that authenticity. I think that's when we can see
44:20
healing and growth. So thank you so much, Alicia,
44:24
for coming on to the podcast even while you're parenting
44:27
and, sharing from your heart. And I love how you're taking those
44:31
scissors away from your child sitting on your lap right now. That's a
44:35
beautiful thing. He keeps going for the scissors. He keeps going for them.
44:39
We do have to have you back on, though, because I know there's so much
44:41
more to your story and so much encouraging words that you can share. Thank you
44:45
so much. You're welcome. Thank you for
44:49
joining another conversation on Journey with Care, where we
44:52
inspire curious Canadians on their path of faith and living
44:56
life with purpose in community. Journey with Care is an initiative
45:00
of Care Impact, a Canadian charity dedicated to connecting and
45:03
equipping the whole church to journey well in community. You can
45:07
visit their website at careimpact. Ca or visit journey with care.
45:11
Ca to get more information on weekly episodes, journey with
45:14
prayer, and details about our upcoming events purpose.
45:23
Thank you for sharing this podcast and helping these stories purpose. Thank you for
45:27
sharing this podcast and helping these stories reach the community. Together,
45:30
we can explore ways to journey journey in a good way. And always
45:34
remember to stay curious.