Episode 252: Learning to Feel Conflicting Emotions (w/ Melissa McGilliard)
The Forgotten Podcast
The Forgotten Initiative
4.9 • 532 Ratings
🗓️ 28 October 2024
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Have you ever had a foster placement or adoption plan fall through? Initially, you feel excited about the prospect of welcoming another child into your home. You start gathering things you think the child may need. Clothes. Toys. School supplies. But then you get another call that the plan is being changed. On one hand, you’re grateful there’s still a plan to keep the child safe, but on the other hand you feel a deep sense of loss and grief.
Learning to hold multiple conflicting emotions is a core part of foster care. All along the journey, we are holding both joy and grief. Beauty and hardship. Holding on and letting go.
My guest today knows precisely what this feels like. Melissa McGilliard has been married to Chris for sixteen years and is a stay-at-home mom to their three boys, the youngest of which joined their family through foster care.
In this episode, Melissa shares some of the raw emotions she has experienced as a foster parent, why better understanding herself has helped her better support her adopted child, and the importance of allowing your heart to hold conflicting emotions.
Find resources mentioned and more in the show notes for this episode: https://theforgotteninitiative.org/melissa-mcgilliard-252/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Sharing the stories of the foster care community. |
| 0:04.0 | This is The Forgotten podcast. |
| 0:08.3 | He softened to my heart. |
| 0:10.6 | I think that that has allowed me to really appreciate what God is doing in our family. |
| 0:19.0 | Because life can be more complicated with foster care and adopted children, but it's also |
| 0:24.9 | very rich and very beautiful. |
| 0:29.0 | Hey, it's Jamie Cabe. |
| 0:30.5 | Welcome back to the Forgotten Podcast, where we are highlighting the stories of the people |
| 0:35.3 | of foster care. |
| 0:36.4 | With every episode, our goal is to help you better |
| 0:39.0 | understand the foster care community. We want to bring you hope and encouragement in your |
| 0:43.8 | journey and help you support the agency workers, foster parents, vulnerable adults, and children |
| 0:49.7 | in foster care right where you live. If you want to learn more about TFI, catch up on past episodes, |
| 0:56.6 | read engaging articles, or partner with us on mission with a gift of any amount, head over to |
| 1:03.0 | the forgotten initiative.org. We are in this together. Okay, it is time. Let's do this. |
| 1:22.5 | Melissa McGillard has been married to Chris for 16 years and as a stay-at-home mom to their three boys, |
| 1:29.6 | the youngest of which joined their family through foster care. Melissa was born and raised in the |
| 1:34.8 | Seattle area and lives there with her family today. She loves Jesus and she loves people. |
| 1:41.5 | Melissa, welcome to the show today. Thank you. It's nice to be here. We're happy to |
| 1:46.6 | have you for sure. As you and Chris thought about growing your family, adoption was a path you |
| 1:52.7 | decided to pursue, but what was the reasoning? What made you kind of want to walk down that path? |
| 1:58.6 | Yeah, I think we, when we met, we both have adoption and |
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