A Force To Be Reckoned With

209. The Gut Wrenching Reality: Our Foster Care Journey - Part 2

• Bethany and Corey Adkins / Adkins Media Co.

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Can you imagine leaving a child you've grown to love in an unfamiliar place, not knowing if you'll ever see them again?

This episode takes you through the gut-wrenching experience we faced on July 28th, 2023. We also share how prayer became our lifeline during these heart-shattering moments and how community support played a crucial role. Listen as we recount welcoming a new placement, a four-year-old boy, and the profound sense of urgency within the foster care system.

We open up about our own struggles and heartbreak, highlighting the feelings of helplessness and grief when children are abruptly taken away. The challenges we faced within the system, the emotional and physical toll it took on us, and the critical importance of self-care are laid bare in this chapter. Personal stories bring to life the rollercoaster of emotions—both the crushing lows and the triumphant highs—that come with fostering.

We explore the emotional complexities of fostering. From supporting the biological mother to the unexpected call to take back her other child we had previously cared for, the twists and turns are both heartwarming and heartbreaking. We also delve into the mixed emotions of reconnecting with a child after separation, the role of faith, and the comforting power of music. Don't miss this part of our three-part series, where we'll unravel even more of this intricate journey.


Episode Highlights: 

  • The long drive home.
  • Things weren’t going well.
  • Prayer is the most powerful thing.
  • The tides started to turn.
  • Storming the gates of hell.


Links Mentioned in Episode/Find More on A Force to Be Reckoned With:

This show has been produced by Adkins Media Co.


Speaker 1:

We are at war and it's not against our neighbors, spouses, children, politicians or whatever else we feel like we're battling against.

Speaker 2:

So the questions are who's the fight against, and are we winning or losing? We're the Adkins, and we are a force to be reckoned with.

Speaker 2:

Are you ready to join the force. All right, guys, we're back again. This is part two of, like, our foster care journey. We're sharing it and um. So if you haven't listened to last week's episode, I would encourage you to start there, because we covered a lot there, and if you're just starting this week, there's a lot that's not going to make sense. So we're picking up where we were driving home.

Speaker 2:

Uh, last summer, july 28th of 2023, from dropping our um baby jay baby jay off in new jersey and a couple things that I forgot to add. Where, well, one this is just like a little activity, I guess I would say is like all right. So july 28th 2023, we're driving home and like it was, like I said, one of the hardest days of of our lives where we have a baby that we honestly, at that point we thought that there was like potential for him to stay um we he was calling us mama and dada, like we were so bonded, we loved him so much and then we just, you know, kind of left him um with family and thought, well, we'll probably never see him again, but that's what we were doing on July 28th 2023. If you like, go and you look in your camera roll and type in July 28th 2023, what were you doing? And so my point in saying that is, right now, in this moment, there is a child somewhere going through the unimaginable. There's a foster family somewhere going through things that you couldn't even fathom. There's a biological parent somewhere who's having her kid removed right now, as you listen to this, and so people ask like what are ways I can get involved? And I just think that we take prayer too lightly and so, like, just think, look back on July 20th 2023 and think about like, oh, this is what I was doing, it was a pretty good day, and in that very moment, there's someone else having like the worst day that you could ever imagine. And so something you can do right now that costs no money and takes very little effort is to pray pray for these families, pray for these kids, pray for the county, because our nation as a whole is in a huge, huge crisis. And, yeah, we need intervention. We need intervention from real people and we need divine intervention. So, anyway, we get home. So we get home.

Speaker 2:

Oh, the other thing I forgot to add is a couple of days before we took him out of state to be with family, we got a call for another placement and they said listen, we know you're not technically open, but we're desperate. We've called 19 other homes and we we don't have any anywhere for this kid to go and he's at our county right now. He's been hanging out at our office all day. Could you please just consider taking him? And we did. He was a four-year-old little boy and we just kind of felt like it was like we both. We've had other calls where one of us felt like it was a good call call. The other one felt no, and if we're not in 100 agreement then we've said no. And it's harder for me than it is for cory. He's usually the sounding board, but he was on board, so we did we took placement of him and we were the 19th or 20th we were the 20th we were the 20th call for him.

Speaker 1:

They just they didn't have anybody, and even though we were in the midst of dealing with our own stuff with the other case, it's like how do you say no to that?

Speaker 2:

How do?

Speaker 1:

you say no, yeah, and that's what gripped me with him and the other. Really, I've always thought this was neat. But the kind of neat little God wink thing in all of this is his birthday was the exact same birthday as Big J.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Girl J.

Speaker 2:

Mm-hmm, yeah, it was, it's pretty cool.

Speaker 2:

So I just wanted to add that in there, because the kids did leave, but we also, in the midst of that, had taken another placement.

Speaker 2:

So once he left on July 28th and we came home, we still came home to four kids. We had our three biological kids and then this, our other little buddy that we had. So anyway, about two weeks in to the kids him being gone, we I got text messages from the family there and was just getting updates that it wasn't wasn't going great, and so we asked people to pray. And that kind of goes back to the beginning of this episode where, like that is, I truly believe that this case ended the way it did because we asked people to pray and people and I have a friend who says the same thing about her case it strips you down to your bare bones and these scenarios give you an ache in your bones that you can't even describe, and there are days where you just don't even know how you can possibly move forward with real life or with foster care, and that is when your community gets to pray you through it.

Speaker 1:

And it reminds you of the power of prayer. I mean, how many times do we? We look at prayer and guilt and guilt I'm completely guilty of this but we will look at prayers like the last ditch effort, like we tried everything else and all I can do is pray. But it's in those moments, I think, at least for me that remind me that prayer was the best thing and prayer is the thing we should have started with it's the most powerful thing, it's the most powerful thing.

Speaker 1:

But in this and I remember JJ telling me this from the get-go is that doing foster care will strip you of everything. In that you're out of control. You're not in control of the situation.

Speaker 2:

And people listening are like okay. So.

Speaker 1:

Even though you can do everything that you can do in your power, you're not in control and it makes you rely on God and he is in the driver's seat and he will sustain you and it reminds you of that, it draws you to him and it makes you realize the need you have for him and, honestly, how small you are compared to him yeah.

Speaker 2:

So that day, I remember it vividly I was home, I was folding laundry. I get the text message that things weren't going well, and part of me is like infuriated, because it was everything that we warned the county that was going to happen, and it was happening. And we were at that point completely out of control and we were no longer a party to the case, so like we weren't even really technically supposed to even know what was going on. But because we had built relationships with these families, they were keeping us in the loop and, um, we didn't do that in a way to be manipulative, but in a way that it was right to have relationships with these families because they needed support and they weren't getting it.

Speaker 2:

And so I texted our friends and, um, my, my one friend, in addition to prayer, music has been so powerful for me I mean, it always is. You guys know I'm obsessed with music. But, um, she sent me some songs and this one is still like our anthem for this case and it yeah, it's take it all back by torn walls. And so she just said, okay, like this is where the rubber meets the road and we start praying and we start advocating. And that day she sent me this song. She sent me. She told me to send an email and start documenting everything, and that's what I did, and so here is a part of that song enemy so great song. Check it out. I think it's in our force to be reckoned with playlist. Actually it definitely is.

Speaker 2:

All these songs are, and so I so I mean that song is so powerful where like that just became my anthem Like no Satan, you are not going to rip this family apart, you're not? I don't know what the outcome is. I don't know what this looks like. I don't know if he will ever come back. I don't know if he'll stay, but this is not going to stay how it is. It's going to get better, and I just refused to believe that this was the end of the story, and so, yeah, we started reporting. This is where it got really ugly, because the caseworkers are so busy in their defense and they hate pushback because it's more work for them workers are so busy in their defense and they hate pushback because it's more work for them.

Speaker 1:

But this is also where we started to see the tide turn, in that the what I was saying earlier about people of character and integrity expect to be believed, and when they're not, they let time prove them right. All the red flags that we had drawn, everything became um was being brought to the light. Being brought to the light and seeing as real and we started having, you know, our resource worker and her supervisor, and the GAL and her supervisor were starting to see.

Speaker 2:

People who all of it first were like listen you guys, we know this is hard. You need to settle down. Though this is foster care, they're leaving. We understand that this is emotional. They went from that stance, when we were voicing our concerns, to now the concerns that we had were being brought to life and they were like oh boy.

Speaker 1:

They were. This is right. Maybe there's something here.

Speaker 2:

Maybe there were things overlooked and maybe not, but regardless, there's some issues here and so we need to start.

Speaker 1:

The Adkins aren't as crazy as they seem. They're still crazy.

Speaker 2:

So we just advocated, and this took months, I mean literally two months. So eight weeks of unsettling updates, pain Agony, months. So eight weeks of unsettling updates, pain, agony, knowing that, like thinking about our little boy who was there and hearing the things that were happening and knowing like there's nothing we can do. And then, like on top of it, I hesitate to just share like my emotional parts of this, but like I think it's important because the feeling that we feel in foster care. Often, as foster parents, we feel like they're wrong, but they're just very real and that doesn't have to be a right or wrong to it, but it does, it is real.

Speaker 2:

And like feeling so much anger that I was in this scenario because what I truly felt was guilt that, like my little boy that I had raised for the first 11 months of his life and sat out on my front porch with every day and fed him blueberries and cheese sticks and I read my Bible with him and he I was his safe place. I was strong arms to drop him off and leave him in a strange place that he never knew. He watched me walk out that door and tried to, tried to come with me. He watched me close that door and then he would. I just imagined him laying there at night, like thinking, like where is my mom? Like why hasn't she come for me? Like has she been?

Speaker 2:

And that like it's such a devastating feeling and it's it's maddening because there's not. You were forced to be the villain and the bad guy and you had no control in and you would do anything for your kids, and it's a scenario where you can't. You can't and that's where you just have to trust that like, even in the midst of these eight weeks of unsettling updates and not at the fault of that family there, but truly because there were balls dropped and they're the the updates are falling on deaf ears and also even the county started seeing like we got to do something, we got to do something and then the law was strong-arming them. Just this, such a helpless feeling where, like there's so much that you want to do, you just want to go. Like like take them, you know, go, go back.

Speaker 1:

I just I remember saying this and just thinking this is like. This is one of the things that was so hard for me is that we were called to bring these kids in and love them like they were our own kids and treat them as if they were our own kids. And we did completely and fully. And you would never let, like I would never send carter and liberty and maya off and split them up and put them and send them off into these situations with red flags and I felt as a father powerless to this, I didn't have control, like I would never send Carter and Liberty and Maya off.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and that's where, like hearing us say that, like I understand our heart stance and I think that many people do, but when the County hears you say that they then go back to, well, you have to remember that these families don't live by the same standards that you live and you have to be okay with that, but it was beyond.

Speaker 1:

It's so part of that struggle, though you know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, totally so. Anyway, it was, you know, week after week. I just remember like week one I would journal. I actually have like a letter that I wrote to him the day after we got home.

Speaker 1:

I just want to say that just to finish that thought is that part of that like it was what you were saying reminded me of that, because not just that we were sending them off, but that we loved them and they trusted us and then we were sending them off Like their perspective on that, like what you were saying with little, with baby Jay, was that? And he, like how did he feel about this?

Speaker 2:

Right, yeah, and I just remember like waking up in the morning and being like okay, it's day one, and I just like wrote him this, this letter that was yeah, I still have it and I still read it, and it just takes me right back. And then like week one, thinking like okay, it's only been a week, like he probably still remembers me. And then week two yeah, I think that he would still remember me. And then, as we get further and further, just like feeling less and less hopeful, that like he is forgetting me, and just imagining that feeling of abandonment, of like wanting us to show up for him and us not being able to, and that like just broke me.

Speaker 2:

Um, and sometimes there's going to be cases where that's just the reality and there's nothing you can do about it and it's OK to grieve that. But it was really hard for me to walk through that and still live normal life. Like there were days where I was like incapacitated, where I had to call Corey. You remember the day where I was like in the garage. You forget it.

Speaker 1:

But like.

Speaker 2:

I just remember calling Corey and be like I need you to come home, Like I can't even function right now, because it was like knowing I have no connection to him, but then still getting these updates.

Speaker 2:

It was really, I mean, and that's why sometimes they don't even want you to connect with family, because you do get these updates and then you go crazy over it. So I do get that, but I don't know. I was broken for him. I was broken for his mom. I was angry he was so far from his siblings, so, yeah, it was just very, very, very hard.

Speaker 2:

And it was such a low point and we're sharing the pits of this story because we also want to share, like, the victories of it too and I just I, just to continue to paint the the picture.

Speaker 1:

at that time, we both started working with a nutritionist because we were like we had neglected our own selves and we were dealing with this grief and this stress and everything, so much so that it was like affecting us physically yeah, like my sleep was complete garbage and trash, because that's how my body deals with stress and your hormones are crazy. It's like that's just. This is how gut wrenching that time period was.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so in that time, like we hadn't really talked to their mom, she kind of would fall off the grid for a little bit and and that was pretty normal, but so dropped off in July. At this point we're in like early September and we're still kind of fighting with the county Like what are you going to do about this, what are you going to do about this? And at going to do about this, and at that point we're even just like just give them the resources that they need. And because it's overstate, it's super complex and there's things that they they couldn't even do, and it was just, it was a mess, a complete mess. There's so much more I could say, but we still want to keep our license, so we're not going to go there.

Speaker 2:

But sept September 8th, their mom had a baby, baby girl. And we didn't know because until September 10th, when Corey and I snuck away to on like a short little afternoon date and we were out at Marshall's and I got a text message from her and it was a picture of a baby, and I was like, oh my gosh, like she had the baby. And so we were on, we were close to where she had had the baby and we were like can we come see her? And she was like yes, and she was so excited she said I think that they're gonna let me keep her. I'm gonna go to rehab. I think they're gonna let me keep her with me.

Speaker 2:

So we went, we picked her up, food, we bought her like a little baby blanket yeah, we bought her a little baby blanket and then we went and we just loved on her and we got to love on the baby and we just knew, like the whether she was coming home with us or whether she was gonna to stay with her mom during rehab. Like this time was going to be different because their mom knew us. She, she knew like if she would come to us where, where the baby was going, and it just felt different.

Speaker 1:

It just felt so much better. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And also the. It was unspoken that like, yeah, she asked us to adopt this baby. And also it was unspoken that like, yeah, she asked us to adopt this baby. And also, yeah, would we have been willing Absolutely. But did we also know that that was probably a panic text message and we needed to fully wrap around and support her to give her every single opportunity to get this baby in her custody?

Speaker 1:

Because selfishly we were like like honestly, like just full transparency. Selfishly at first I was like, yeah, let's do it yeah you know, because we just we had fallen in love with this family yeah and in a way too, like this baby now potentially like reconnected us to this family yeah, yeah and oh my gosh it was so I just I'll never, I'll never forget going to the hospital and holding her.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is where the story gets good, you guys. So she ended up. It didn't work out that she could go with her mom yeah. And she came to us. She was born on the 8th. We went and visited on the 10th and we went and picked her up from the hospital on the 11th.

Speaker 1:

And you know, it's one of those heartbreaking moments where you just know that she's being separated from her mom and um and it was hard for mom, because mom thought they were somebody, was giving her the sense that she was going to be able to take her with her, yeah, but I think there, I mean we also know too, like there was a little bit of peace in that too, or that, like you said, that she knew where the baby was going she even, like the county at that point, was so mad at us that they were.

Speaker 2:

There were some people who were trying to not allow us to take the baby because they just didn't want to have to deal with us Because we were also still in the midst of, and their mom didn't know this, but we were in the midst of fighting and advocating and being relentless in making sure the rest, that the one-year-old was safe, and so, anyway, god had his way with it.

Speaker 2:

She was in our home and mom went to rehab, and that was on September 11th. Exactly one week later, I left to go out of town for a conference, for work, and as I was like packing and getting ready to go, I got a text from baby Jay, who was out of state, from his grandma, that something pretty big had happened that day and the county was basically done and they were having a big meeting and she was going to keep me posted on what was, what direction they were going to take. Um, and I was just like sick to my stomach, like I just didn't even know what could happen. And, yeah, so I'm driving to the airport with a car full of people and we're getting ready to go to. I think it was Oklahoma.

Speaker 1:

Oklahoma yeah.

Speaker 2:

And I get a phone call from the caseworker and she just was like, sounded so um, I'll never forget it Like, didn't? She just didn't even sound like herself and she said we need you to get the baby back. Can you take placement of him? And, of course, like I was like I didn't even call Corey, I was like, absolutely Like.

Speaker 1:

I mean, you knew what I would have said.

Speaker 2:

I let a sound out in that car. I remember it, like everybody, and thank God for where God, just even in that like, knew I was right, where I needed to be, because I was surrounded by a car full of foster parents and people who had been praying day after day and week after week and encouraging us and sending us scripture. And they were there. When I got the phone call and like it's a moment I will never forget, there was so much relief and so much also angst because I was leaving to go out of town for the week and I wanted to just jump out of the car and go home.

Speaker 1:

Well, you did go.

Speaker 2:

I know I wanted to stay home and just go, but also, like the caseworker knew I was going out of town and so she was like, okay, it's Monday, you can just go get him Saturday of this week. And so obviously our friends were so supportive and they were like, if you need to stay home, like stay home, like this is more important but there were details that needed sorted out.

Speaker 2:

There were details that need to be sorted out. There was paperwork that needed done, so I just couldn't have thought of a better place to be than with the group of people that I was with during that week and in the conference that I was at and during that time. Um, it was just man, it was.

Speaker 1:

It was a feeling you just can't even imagine and and just know, like this is very rare that this happens, like in foster care, that a foster child gets placed with kin, that that that that kinship placement gets disrupted and they go back to the same foster family. Like that, just it's very, very rare, and especially when they were sent, you know, three States away.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and so another song was we were at this conference and Shane and Shane came and saying and they played this song that just like rocked me to my core and I actually there's a YouTube video that I want to share Like I wish that I just could transport everyone to that moment of them, sharing, like, the heart behind this song and the message behind this song, and I wish I could just teleport all of you to be in the moment of everybody in that room like worshiping and and listening to the song, and I just felt not. I was like the closest I've ever felt to heaven. And it was the night before I was leaving to fly out to meet Corey in New Jersey. But it's based on the scripture, psalm 46, and it's called Lord of hosts. Based on the scripture, psalm 46, and it's called Lord of Hosts. And this then became my like all right, this is on repeat. The entire flight to New Jersey, the entire drive to their house. It then became like a rescue mission.

Speaker 1:

Well, you made this. That's where the Forced to Be Reckoned With playlist started.

Speaker 2:

I made that playlist this night and I sent it to cory because I knew so. They called. On monday and friday, the conference was over and and the rest of the team flew home to ohio and I changed my flight to new jersey. And so cory drove from ohio to new jersey to meet me, picked me up from the airport, we stayed in a hotel and then saturday morning we were off to get him and it had been eight weeks.

Speaker 2:

And so, yeah, I will lead us through the fiercest battle. Oh, where else would we go but with the Lord of all? Okay, I'm going to put the YouTube video to that song where they explain it in the show notes, and I would love for you guys to listen to it, but I'm just going to read the words really quick. It says Lord of hosts, you're with us, with us through the fire, with us as a shelter, with us in the storm. You will lead us through the fiercest battle.

Speaker 2:

Oh, where else would we go but with the Lord of hosts? Else would we go but with the Lord of hosts? And they explain the scriptures so, so beautifully that it just was like couldn't have been more fitting for this time. And yeah, I mean that song carried me and those people that we were with carried me. So the county was like, when they had called that monday, they were like we can, how we could get him back, like we could go pick him up. And I was like, no, like we're going, we're going to get him and like if I had anything to do with it was going to be right.

Speaker 1:

Then isn't it crazy, though, how like how you link so much to songs, like just listening to those songs, just takes me right back into that moment.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, it does. So get up the next day, fly to New Jersey. We're listening to take it all back Like no devil. You are not going to mess with us, Like we are on a rescue mission.

Speaker 1:

Like it really felt that way, like Corey picked us up from the airport.

Speaker 2:

We went to Texas roadhouse that night but like we were so like just we didn't even, we couldn't even like eat, we couldn't sleep. We woke up so early the next morning yeah, and nothing like and again like no.

Speaker 1:

Nothing against or no offense to baby jay's grandparents and family at all, because they were super concerned in all of this. They were the ones reporting stuff and advocating for him to come to us pivotal that yeah grandma was pivotal.

Speaker 2:

His aunt, they were pivotal in his journey to safety yeah they advocated for him a hundred percent, a hundred percent.

Speaker 1:

And I say all of that because, listening to Take it All Back and just this whole time, I felt like as a guy, like when he says I'm storming the gates of hell, I felt like I was storming hell, like I was a SWAT team and I was going to bust the door open or run into the flaming fire to rescue baby jay yeah, and it wasn't just rescuing to bring him safe to our home.

Speaker 2:

It was like we're bringing him in close proximity to the rest of his biological family and we now had his baby sister yeah, and so that was like one step, like okay, we get to bring two siblings back together. And that morning when we woke up in that hotel, I was up at like four and I got up and I got ready and I was just like so anxious we went there so early I think we went there at like it was like 6 am or something, yeah because the grandma was like I get up early, just come, and she's so sweet, I just love her.

Speaker 2:

I wish they lived close because she's an incredible woman. Um, and we get there and she said um, she was like all right, he's in there sleeping still. Do you want to go wake him up? Do you want to be the one to wake him up? And she let us go into his room and go into his crib and wake him up. And it was like I was so nervous because I just didn't remember. I didn't know like is he gonna remember me? Like is this gonna freak him out? And I just remember going in and waking him up and he just he looked like a different baby. Do you feel like he remembered us?

Speaker 1:

I. I think it took him a second. I think he was confused.

Speaker 2:

He had been through so much in that eight weeks that he his gate like his demeanor demeanor was different, his eye contact was different personality, like he, it's like he knew who we were but he couldn't put a place it. And so, like I picked him up and he like hugged me and clung to me and I just, I couldn't even explain, put words to it. It was something you just feel like when these kids leave, in that, um, like, in that way you're youieve and like it's like your body can't decipher it and it's almost like you grieve a death because you're so bonded and you're so connected to this child. And then they're gone and you, just, you just think about like I wish I could just have hugged him one more time or snuggled him one more time or kissed him one more time or smelled his little hair one more time or heard his giggle, and you don't think you're ever going to get that again. And so you truly, truly like you, it's like you grieve a death.

Speaker 2:

And then I don't say this to discredit anybody who's lost a child, but in some ways I do feel like it can be. It's definitely more complicated because you don't have access to them, but you also know that they still exist in the world and that I think it's called ambiguous loss, ambiguous grief where, like, you're grieving the loss of someone or something, even though you know that they still exist out in the world, and it's just like a very complicated feeling. But anyway, we picked him up, we spent a little bit of time with um, his grandma, and then we were off on the road and it's just like nothing I'll ever feel again. And so in that moment where we're getting him, he's safe in our car we buckle in and get on the road.

Speaker 1:

Well, hold on, I do. I do want to add to that that when, when I picked him up for me, I had these things with him that I had. Just they were routines or whatever like a song yeah, and so I always did these little things.

Speaker 1:

I've done them really with all of our kids where I've just had like little songs or little things that I've said to them and it's just like our little thing or whatever. And I used to always I would press my mouth right up, right, right by, on the side of his face, up his ears, so you could feel like the reverberations of my voice, and would sing the blessing to him. And I also had this other little, these other couple little songs and sayings that I made up and like, because I wanted him to like, know, like that was our thing. We used to do this so much like if there's anything he's going to remember me, it's going to be when I do these things. And I remember he just pressed his little cheek up against my mouth and I sang the blessing to him and he just pressed in, in and he wasn't like, he wasn't like making those like smiley, I'm happy to see you faces running to you.

Speaker 1:

He was just like it was like he was recalibrating almost yeah, and he was just like oh yeah, yeah, I remember this, I remember you, I remember the love that, I remember how you made me feel like it was like he was remembering who we were.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, I mean, it was such a mix of emotions. It was relief, it was anxiety, it was sadness, it was anger that he ever had to go through this. It was anger for his family that had to go through it, that had to go through it. He had blank stairs, he wouldn't let us put him down. Over the next couple weeks he had to sleep in our room because if we even left his side for a second, it was really really hard for a couple weeks.

Speaker 2:

In that moment, you look at this case and you think what a mess. And this is exactly why people don't do this. And another song that was so powerful in this moment that a friend sent to me, because I was angry even with god at this point, like what was this? What was this for? Now we have two of her kids. It's a different set. We, um, he went through all of this unnecessary trauma for what? What are you doing? And I just don't see any good in this.

Speaker 2:

And so there's a really good song called Though you Slay Me, and I've shared it on Instagram before and it's also by Shane and Shane, and there's a part. You have to get it on YouTube, but there's a part where John Piper talks and just it's such a powerful song about going through hard times and going through moments of defeat and questioning God's goodness and all of that, but still saying that, although we're going through this and although you're putting me through the fire, like I'm still choosing to walk with you and I'm still choosing to praise you and I'm still choosing to bless your name and I was so thankful for you know friends who reminded of us through that and reminded us of that through scripture and sending us songs, because it was just such a needed reminder and yeah, yet I will praise you, though you take from me.

Speaker 1:

I will bless your name, though you ruin me.

Speaker 2:

Still, I will worship, sing a song to the one, who's all I need. So there's a YouTube video that's going to be in the show notes where John Piper talks. Listen to that song because it's so good, but this is going to be a three part thing. So, we're going to end this episode and then we're going to wrap up our story in part three and then part four will be with their mom. So come back later this week. Bye.