My sister-in-law, one of the the best moms I've seen in action, asked me how I'm processing the choice to become a mom. As she and my brother were some of the first people to know what Edymar and I are up to, it was the first time I had been asked this question. I didn't have an answer readily at hand. As I tried to figure it out I found myself saying, "That's not what this is about for me."

I have been a counselor for five years now and I had the privilege of being a youth leader for two years in Florida. 

My youth family visiting TN in Aug. 2011. I'm in the middle.

Youth 2010 Christmas party right before we moved to TN. 

I have loved and cared for many kids. I have prayed for them, cried for them, been joyful and been frustrated with them. I have been called "Mom" and "Tia" and "Auntie," claimed by kids in a way I hadn't anticipated. Taking care of kids in one form or another has almost always been a part of my life. Adoption is another form, a new form for me to do what God has charged his followers to do: love others.

In Matthew 22, the religious leaders are trying to trip Jesus up, again, and they ask him what the greatest commandment is. Jesus replies in verses 37-39, "‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’" That pretty much says it all for me. My job in this world is to love God and love my neighbor. Who is my neighbor? Anyone that God brings across my path. The Samaritan from one of the most well known parables of Jesus was just going about his business when he came across the beaten man on the road. Jesus didn't say the Samaritan was out looking for someone to help. He was just walking down the road and someone needed help so he helped. That's what I want to do and who I want to be. 

Another scripture that brings this concept home to me is John 13:35 when Jesus says, "Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples." Love should be the driving force behind the decisions that we make and the way we treat one another. This, of course, requires reliance on God to give us love for others and self-control to take our eyes off of our selves and our lives and our circumstances and to instead focus on what God wants us to see each day. 

I don't pretend to understand what it is to be a mother. I don't know how to process this part of my journey at this juncture. But I believe that God will prepare my heart to be the caregiver he intends for me to be as long as I am willing to learn and to lean on Him.