Olivia

Olivia turns 11 today. Eleven! I still remember the night that she came to us.  We got the news around 4 pm that we were officially licensed for foster care.  The phone rang again around midnight with our first call from placement: “Would you be willing to take a 3-year-old little girl?”

Too excited to sleep, Caylee got up and waited anxiously with me as the rest of the family slept-- oblivious that a new houseguest was on her way. About an hour and a half later, Olivia Grace walked up to our front porch. I opened the door to greet a sweet little blonde-haired, blue-eyed doll who had the cutest little nose that I had ever seen.

 

I expected to hold a distraught little girl in my arms the rest of the night, but that wasn’t the case. She grinned from ear to ear as she snuggled up on the couch to watch Mickey Mouse. She seemed as giddy about her strange, new environment as we were about having her stay with us.

And she never left. Our first foster led to our first adoption. 

Her back-story is one of the saddest that I have encountered so far as a foster parent, but that was only the first chapter in the book of her life, a book that enthralls me daily as it unfolds before my eyes.  Olivia is smart, funny, and beautiful. She loves robotics and golf and the beach. She also is into cooking and baking. She is artistic and enjoys painting. She loves being an aunt to Em and El. She is full of spirit, but best of all, she is so kind and gentle.   

Not only is she a great kid, but there is also one more thing that makes her extra special to me.  Olivia is my child who has changed me the most.  1 Corinthians 13 kind of change. She has taught me more about love than any of my other kids.  You see, it is easy to love my biological children.  What is hard is to love others outside our tribe--- strangers, foreigners, people not like us.  Over the last seven years, Liv has taught me about unconditional love, about grace and mercy, about kindness and empathy.  God didn't give me Liv because she needed a mother.  God put her in my life because I needed her.    I am better mom---a better person--- because Olivia came into my world.

Love is patient, love is kind....

It always protects, 

always trusts,

 always hopes, 

always perseveres.

 Love never fails.  

I Corinthians 13:4, 7-8