Book #8 of 2020

The Language of Flowers
By Vanessa Diffenbaugh

I didn't know when I picked up this book at the library, how I wouldn't be able to put it down.  How I would connect on this weird level with the girl in this book.  Her story is one of never knowing her birth parents.  She grew up in foster home after foster home... finally coming to the place at 10 years old that she thought she had found a permanent place.  Then it was taken from her.  Some of it of her own choices, and some of it because of the life that she had led.  This story hits me on a personal level, because right now I have two foster nieces.

Fostering.. if it has never touched your life, well it leaves a mark on it quite different from any other marks.  If you grew up in a loving home with two parents for the most part.... you don't know what it means to feel that kind of rejection.  The rejection that is your birth parents not wanting you.  As grown ups it is hard enough to let go of rejection... I can't wrap my mind around being rejected as a child.

So... to have two in our family that we get to love because other people can't, or won't whatever the case may be.. it feels like a really big privilege, and yet a burden all at the same time.  Because it feels like until that adoption actually happens, if it ever happens they can be taken away at any moment.  But does that mean that they don't need the same kind of love and care?  No... in fact it means they need it even more.

So, no matter what your life might look like... if you have the chance in your life time of getting to impact a child in the foster care system... do it.  Don't hold back love, and affection.  Love them... completely all in, and without fear of rejection.  Because most of the time they are kids that don't know what it means to be loved unconditionally.  Most of the time they only know love with conditions.  Most of the time, they push so hard that they have to go somewhere else.  Most of the time love is broken.

In my own life I had great loving parents, I grew up in a good home.  But it wasn't without its faults.. . of course.  We all grow up in homes where mistakes were made, and we end up at times questioning our worth and value.  Whether due to the home we were in, or the friends that surround us.

I'm learning what it means to have people in my life that choose to not walk away. I've always had this with my family.  I know that they love me, but my friends well that's another story.   I am learning what it means to have people in my life that are there for me, even when I get upset by the stupidest things, like a freaking snapchat streak.  I am learning what it means to be able to be myself without questioning if someone is going to turn around and walk the other way because I don't think the way they do, or I have a little more of an opinion than I maybe once had.

I am learning what it means to love.

This book made me feel what it means to love, without conditions.  To love despite how angry someone tries to make you or how much they push you away.

That's what we are called to do, right?  It is a hard thing... love.  It gets messy and  confusing.  We long to be loved for who we are, but we don't want to let people in close enough to love the real us.  We want to be accepted, but we fear rejection  so much that we put up walls once people are close enough to accept us all the way.  We want to be all in, to this thing that we want so badly, but we are afraid that if we are honest... that it will mess it up.. .and it will disappear completely.

We can't put boundaries and walls around love.  Not the love we want to receive and not the love we give to other people.  Being all in, honesty, trust... it all helps lead us to a greater love.  A love that goes beyond what we could ever hope for or imagine.

Here's to learning how to love... to accepting the love given by others, and realizing that not everyone is going to walk away.... sometimes people truly mean that their love is a no matter what kind of love.