i made you play-clothes from the curtains.

maybe you remember. i will never be able to forget.

last year i took on an enormous responsibility. i decided to watch three extra little girls while their mama was at work. it took everything i could give.

even now i look back on the posts from that time period and i wonder, "how did i do that?" well, i know i was given a strength beyond what was inside myself.
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i was their mother's visiting teacher. that's an assignment in our church that basically entails looking out for that person. a visiting teacher comes by and teaches gospel centered lessons from time to time,  but more importantly a visiting teacher seeks to help. this woman told me her struggles as a single mom with three young girls and i wanted to help.

i finally feel comfortable talking about it, mostly because they moved away this week.

basically these girls were in a very bad position with their parents locked in a stressful custody battle and they needed a neutral place in their lives. i feel honored and wonderfully blessed to have been able to offer them that.
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i made one very huge mistake {if you want to call it that}. i fell in love with the girls.

i let myself love them like they were my own children. but they were never mine to keep.
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i knew the situation was getting bad. i knew i had put myself in a very vulnerable place. i was being taken advantage of. i won't go into too much detail but it's enough to say that i was doing more for their mom than i ever agreed to do with very little thanks or follow-through on her end.

i care about their mom. she is my friend and i have since forgiven her. i know that Heavenly Father loves her so much because He has, when i've prayed to feel good feelings for her, granted me a small taste of how He feels about her. i wish i was more like Him. i didn't want to help her anymore.
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matt and i prayed to know if it was time to stop watching them. we both felt that i should still be willing but that i needed to talk to their mom about the ingratitude and disregard for our arrangement. when i tried to talk to her it blew up into a million pieces and i was left calling to the girls, "i'll always love you... i'll always love you... i love you..." from the steps of my front porch as they left, never to return. i didn't cry over them. i just felt mad at myself for not being more saintly and long-suffering.
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this winter, right around the holidays, i experienced the deepest depression of my life to this point. it was inexplicable to me. later i realized that i'd felt so relieved to be free from the situation with their family that i forgotten to let myself grieve.

so my therapist asked me, "has anything traumatic happened to you in the last year or so?" and i was like "hmmm... no, i don't think so." i really didn't realize. it took months to realize that i'd lost children that my heart had adopted.


as painful as that experience was, i know it was for my good. i know i was becoming more like the Savior. i would never wish those girls away.


you know how during that time i had really short hair? recently some moms from the school told me that everyone called me Maria because i ran around with seven children like i was helping the vontrap family learn to live.

i made them an album of all our adventures {manny, many, more pages than these} and dropped it by their house just before they moved away. it was gut-wrenching. imagine if the vontrap dad had married that other lady and Maria had left those kids. it was like that.
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Comments

Unknown said…
I did that, too, helped a mother, supported and raised her kids. Four years. Then gone. It's very hard.
Anonymous said…
Megan, from here you look angelic.
joolee said…
what a wonderful mother you were to those girls when they needed it. as a member of the Primary Presidency at church, i got to know and let myself fall in love with a girl in a terrible situation at home, where she was unwanted by both mom and stepdad. i cried and ached for her to the point where we tossed back and forth the idea of adopting this lovely, happy, innocent 9yr old. she has since been sent to live with her biological father in another state, who hasn't seen her since she was 3 yrs old. i doubt i'll ever see her again and it breaks my heart, so i feel like i can in some way relate to what you've felt for these girls. (but wow, taking care of 7 kiddos at once...truly saintlike!) you are amazing. :)