An Update on Josiah!

Sometimes people ask us if we hear about Josiah.  The answer is no.  The grandparents never call.  DYFS never calls.  (They finally stopped calling about 2 months ago for wanting to place another child with us, even though we told them we were closing our home in February.)  And we never call to ask.  We learned from the lovely encounter on Josiah's birthday, that sometimes not knowing things is better. But yesterday, Justin finally had a reason to call DYFS because he needed some paperwork that they had.  He was able to ask about our little man.

I don't have much news, but they say he is doing well and loving being with his brother.  The bad news:  the parents STILL will not relinquish their rights, and the state has not officially taken them away.  So that probably means he's still subjected to stupid visitation every week with them, and the poor grandparents are still having to go to pointless court hearings.  This was disheartening.  More than anything I want permanency and a forever home for Josiah, even if it isn't my home.

Justin and I were talking about how much we miss him still.  We went to a friend's house that had one of Josiah's toys that he used to play with, and the sounds that it made triggered an empty feeling in my gut.  I just never know when the feeling will knock me down.  Justin and I were thankful after we heard the latest, that as much as it hurt letting him go, God probably saved us from a lot of pain and heartache in the long run.  We would STILL have been dealing with visitation, and court, and craziness.  I can't imagine having to explain things to Molly, who now understands and repeats everything that I tell her.  We still have pictures of Josiah in our house, and Molly talks about him.  The other day she wanted to pray for him.  I can't decide if it's a good or bad thing to let his memory linger around the house.  It makes me both happy and sad at the same time.  

I do know that I'm ready to finally take our family picture down and replace it with a new one.  I'm ready to celebrate our family of 4....it's a different 4 than it was this time last year.  Its the 4 God designed for us to have right now, and I am so thankful for both of my girls.

All that being said, please pray for Josiah and his family.