By: Hanna Thomas
As usual, I’m brining you honesty. Today won’t be a highlight reel- I love what my sweet friend Patti Monk said in her last blog post about that. Life is hard and raising kids is hard. Honestly, some days in the last few weeks have been harder than normal. Both Evan and I have been drained in every possible way. Like I said, raising kids is hard and raising kids from trauma makes everything just a little bit harder. We are learning to dwell in His refuge and let Him be our fortress.
We had the chance to go to Antigua as a whole family. It truly helped us bond and helped our kids see how much we care for them. It showed them a beautiful place in their country and it gave them aspirations as to where they could go if they continue to work hard in school. We also got to spend time with some of our best friends from the states! Seeing our kids develop a relationship with our friends meant a lot to us.
We also had a visit from Evan’s sister and brother-in-law. As I’m writing this, I feel like I could almost cry because of how thankful I am for family. When they were here, it’s like there was a physical and emotional weight lifted off of our shoulders. Not only were they extra hands to help make our lives easier but our kids loved them so much. To see how much Laura and Logan loved our kids in return was one of the sweetest things. To have our family so deeply on board with what we are doing here is a huge blessing to our hearts.
This week started out really rough. Don’t get me wrong, we love our kids so much. We are so thankful but you know when you just have ZERO energy, ZERO patience and yet you are required to carry on in life as normal? That’s what we’ve been in the midst of. We met a group from Virginia from Restoration Church and some of them really took us under their wing. I think they could see the exhaustion in our eyes and hear our tank of compassion being on empty in our voices. Plus, they were some of the people involved in the baby rescue of our youngest guy, Isaac. I think this meeting was a divine appointment. They invited us down to join them in their nightly worship. I’ll admit, we almost said we couldn’t go because it started at 7:15- which is right around the time we start winding down for the night (you can laugh, I feel like I’m aging quickly but in my defense I wake up super early). But I am so glad we decided to go. We were prayed over, sang over, people shared encouragement and wisdom. I cried the whole dang time. And while I was singing I was reminded how good our God is to us- when we least deserve it. And I started thinking about how much better I could be as a mom. They reminded us and encouraged us speak Psalms 91 over our home, our family and literally declare it in each room. Because this job we have raising these kids is a battle of kingdoms. There is so much more going on than just typical kid behavior.
We are so thankful for the friendships and relationships old and new that are praying us through this calling to love and care for orphans here at Hope of Life. We could not even try to do it without people supporting us through prayer. And reading Psalms 91, the encouragement is so powerful and I have nothing left in me but to dwell on and repeat His promises over and over- “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust'”. Life is hard, but thank you Jesus for promising to be right next to us.