Flips Story - Part II - The first of many miracles

I have personally felt the Lords tender mercies as Flip came into our home. The afternoon the caseworker brought over a young curly head little boy and she dropped him off he was scared little boy. It is a good thing that Vinnie, our yellow lab, was there to help calm the fears of this “one” year old. I was in the back yard doing some work, which is where I first saw him, the first thing that he wanted to do was to play ball. So that is what we did, we tossed the ball back and forth for a few minutes while he got acclimated to his new surroundings.

But this is where the series of events started, you see, in our state if a child is over 1 year they are eligible to go and stay at the “Christmas Box” house until a permanent home is found. Well, the next day the case worker called and said that a mistake was made on the age of Flip, that is was really 18 months old, which made in eligible to be housed in the Christmas Box House. The case worker, knowing that we had a foster child already in our home, asked if we would like to have her come and pick Flip up and take him to the Christmas Box House. The answer was simple; Flip has already started finding a place in our hearts, yet we did not know it. My wife told the case worker that she did not want to disrupt his life any more than it has already been over the past 24 hours, so Flip stayed, to continue to have a special place in our family.

It was about 2 weeks since Flip came into our home, then another call came, the call that we did not want to receive. It was a call again from the caseworker notifying us that a home had been found for Flip. It was a good home, a home that would welcome him and give him a place to run and have fun. That was a very difficult call to take for my wife and I.

The day came to make the transfer, the new foster family came over to pick up Flip and take him home. As we sat in our living room holding Flip while he got acquainted with his “new family” I felt like a part of our family was being taking away from us. The time came for the family to leave and to take our “son” with them. As we walked out the car I said good bye, not know if I would ever see him again, but then I had to turn and go back into the house because I did not want anybody see that I had tears streaming down my face (After all real men do not cry).
As I came into the house I found that I was not alone in the feelings that I had towards Flip. But this was just one of many events that would take place before Flip would come to live with us again. In looking back as to why we had to give him up it was to allow us, as a family, to realize how much we really did love this child and that he should be part of our family. But little did we know that he would be back.