Haven Origin Story

In the fall of 2018 I fell apart. My husband and I had been foster parents for 1 ½ years and our 2nd and 3rd placements overlapped, at the same time that our son began experiencing the first symptoms of what would later be diagnosed as a rare autoimmune disease.

I remember it like yesterday.

The exhaustion.

The depression.

The shame I felt that I couldn’t ever seem to figure out what to feed my family for dinner.

I would go to the store with a grocery list, and then sit in the parking lot for 45 minutes, unable to figure out how to get from my car to the entrance of the store. Sometimes, after driving in circles for hours, I would find a parking spot and call my husband and ask him to come pick me up.

I spent the entire school day trying to find the energy to parent our 5 kids from pickup to bedtime. Never quite knowing if I would make it.

And every single day, without fail, I would dream of running away. It’s how I coped.

I would sit in those parking lots and dream about driving as far as a tank of gas would get me, to a beach I didn’t recognize and calling my husband from the road to tell him that I would be home in a few days. I didn’t want to run away forever… I just needed a really long nap, and silence for more than 1 hour.

Or, if I was home with kids, I would tuck into my favorite corner nook in our dining room and daydream about quitting foster care and driving out West with my family. In that daydream, we’d sit in the shadow of the Rockies and heal our battle wounds from the years spent helping other children heal in our home.

My husband, Brad, and I did everything we knew how to do in that season to care for my mental health. I quit my side job to lessen my workload. I spent intentional time in quiet solitude while the kids were in school, and also made sure that I was checking in with a friend every day. Brad took over cooking for the family and all the grocery shopping - and little by little I started coming back to life.

But, I didn’t quit my daydream. I stopped dreaming about running away in my car - but I fantasized about quitting foster care. Every single day. And then, one day I felt like a question was asked of me. It was very direct and I couldn’t escape it if I tried. It sounded like this: “Can you please stop trying to run away from the life you were created for?”

To which I replied, obviously, “No. Because this life isn’t sustainable.”

In that exact moment, the vision of Haven Retreats filled my mind. What I knew that I needed, deep in my soul, was rest … I was exhausted in my very bones. I needed somebody to feed me really good food - to nourish my body. I needed therapy. I was, quite honestly, becoming a mother that I didn’t recognize and I needed somebody to help me find myself again. And, as a Christian, I would tell you that I needed time to sit with Jesus - to yell, kick and scream - and then be silent. And I needed time to listen to what He has to say too.

I still don’t know exactly how to articulate that moment in a way that makes sense - but I knew that if I needed that, then other people did too - and I knew that it would take the form of a retreat. I knew that this idea felt different than any other idea I’d ever had, and that it was big. In fact, it would be life changing. I knew that I had to protect it.

If I’d been in a restaurant, I would have grabbed a napkin and jotted down the idea. But, instead, I grabbed my phone and made a note. This idea - this seed… it would become something. Of that, I was sure.

Six months later, we hosted our first ever Haven Moms retreat and we haven’t stopped since.