Today, marks five years that Joshua and I have known each other, so this post will not be so much about fostering as it will be about the wonderful human I get to partner with to foster.
Usually, I have Joshua proofread my posts and give feedback. Or at the vary least, I tell him the topics of my posts, and he helps me brainstorm, but today’s post will be a complete surprise to him.
If you don’t know our story, we met on Eharmony as “What If” matches. This means we were considered compatible, but there was something about the person that was outside our preferences. It could be that the person was older or younger, taller or shorter, or further away. Let’s just say that I was a little further away then Joshua preferred (I was living in China at the time). But I smiled at him, he smiled back, and the rest is history.
The very first thing that attracted him to me was how interesting he was. He built theatre sets, rock climbed, unicycled, and made balloon art (though when I first saw his pictures, I thought they were puppets not balloons). I continue to be impressed with how creative and talented he is. While these are all wonderful things about him, it was his character that really made me fall for him.
When he first told me he loved me, I wasn’t ready to say it back. A few weeks later, I was really upset about something, and I called him to talk to him about it. I thanked him for being a good listening ear and for letting me vent, and he said that he was glad to be there for me when I was upset. That’s when I knew I loved him.
A few weeks ago someone asked us if the kids we were fostering were in the US legally, and before I could say anything Joshua said that we weren’t worried about that. He said that kids need to be safe and taken care of and that we were going to do that no questions asked. I fell in love with him all over again.
My favorite podcast is the Bare Marriage podcast, and a huge passion of mine is creating healthy partnerships in Christian marriages. I spend a lot of my time hearing or reading stories of women married to really selfish, misogynistic men, and Joshua is nothing like the entitled men that are present in those marriages. In fact, I feel like we are defying a lot of expectations with how we foster. We have had to ask multiple times that all communications about fostering be sent to both of us because sometimes its me taking care of the kiddos and sometimes its Joshua. Joshua is our on-call parent during the day. We are doing this together, and there is no one else in the world I would rather make this paper trail with than him. Joshua, I’m glad to have known you for the past five years, and I look forward to many more with you.
It’s been a privilege to walk beside you two since you’ve been married. We are very proud of you and grateful to be your friends. ❤️