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From Foster Child to Adoptive Mom: Kristen Thomas’ Incredible Journey
8 Plays10 hours ago
In this inspiring episode of Pause & Think, Kristen Thomas shares her powerful story of transformation—from growing up in foster care to becoming an adoptive mom.
Kristen opens up about:
💬 How a “one-night foster placement” turned into a lifelong family through adoption.
💬 Walking alongside her daughter Elise, who overcame challenges with confidence, identity, and autism.
💬 The reality of foster care and adoption—both the struggles and the incredible moments of joy.
💬 Practical encouragement for foster/adoptive parents who may feel weary in the trenches.
💬 How her nonprofit, Tamarisk Community, is creating belonging for youth who have aged out of foster care.
Her story is a powerful reminder that God can redeem brokenness, that belonging changes everything, and that every “yes” to love has ripple effects far beyond what we can imagine.
👉 Don’t miss this conversation filled with honesty, laughter, and hope.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Hosts
00:00:01
Speaker
We all have a story, and at times we feel we're walking it out alone. Let's pause and think. Join us for honest conversations about adoption and parenting as we lament, encourage, give hope, and explore our true identity and worth in Christ.
00:00:24
Speaker
Hi, and welcome to another episode of Pause and Think. And we're here to have real and honest conversations. My name is Jackie Darby. My co-host Aisha is not able to be with us today.
Introducing Kristen Thomas
00:00:38
Speaker
That's okay. Sometimes we divide and conquer, but we are back with our special guest, Kristen Thomas. And I met Kristen at CAFO in Atlanta. Hello.
00:00:51
Speaker
2022, and God used her story and her life to just open my eyes to the foster world. And I was blown away throughout the whole CAFO conference, mainly about the area of foster care.
00:01:08
Speaker
So welcome, Kristen. Thank you. love being back.
Kristen's Adoption Journey
00:01:14
Speaker
um Well, thank you for just being willing and um available to not only share your story, but you shared your, your foster care story in the last episode, but not only were you a foster um child who aged out, but now Kristen, you are an adoptive mom. Yeah.
00:01:38
Speaker
And that, oh my goodness, blows me away. i'm so inspired. But I want you to dive in and tell us this amazing adoption story.
00:01:50
Speaker
Oh, thank you so much. It's a wild one. So buckle up. i I was a foster parent for ah quite a bit. um I took in children that were above therapeutic and I had had a little girl in my home and it was very ah challenging and she did eventually need higher level of care, which was heartbreaking. um And I had gotten a call about a teenager um In the interim of helping this young girl out ah while she was away, they asked if I would take this teenager for just a night, right? Just a night so they could find her another place to stay.
00:02:30
Speaker
um and so she came in my home. Her name is Elise. She was 16 years old. And ah six years later, she has not left. So um best lie ever, as many that may know, DSS ah doesn't always know how things are going to go.
00:02:49
Speaker
And so I was just really grateful that I get to call her mine. um For that time that she was with me in the beginning, um i think she was in the car for maybe five minutes and she was like, hey, can we get horseback riding lessons?
00:03:07
Speaker
And I was like, you know what? Bet, yes, we could do that. That's totally easy. and then she throws out, well, do you think he would adopt teenagers? And I was like, was like, I don't think they'll let me like our age difference and being single.
00:03:24
Speaker
um But in the back of my head, that was always kind of like, oh, like this kid really wants to belong. She wants to find permanency. And and I know what that feels like. Right.
00:03:35
Speaker
um And so throughout the journey, it became very apparent very quickly that this was Carly gonna go towards adoption. and um through some circumstances, she had to get moved for a little bit just because of logistics. It was so dumb.
00:03:50
Speaker
um But when she came back, the plan was from the beginning adoption and they wouldn't let us for a while because of our age difference. It's only about 10 and a half years. And so um we had to wait till she aged out.
00:04:04
Speaker
And as soon as she aged out, COVID hit. And it took a couple of years for us to finalize the adoption. um But we like to say that it's beneficial for a really long time.
00:04:15
Speaker
um And she's been mine. And I'm so
Elise's Story and Achievements
00:04:18
Speaker
proud of her. We are very different in a lot of ways, very similar in a lot of ways. And ah we always joke around that, you know, when we're in our 70s, we're going to be making trouble in nursing homes together because we're so similar in age.
00:04:31
Speaker
and But she also has a younger sister that our older sister that I adore and is part of my family in a way. yeah. Yeah. That is an incredible story. And you know you could be her big sister, yeah but yet you're her mom.
00:04:50
Speaker
yeah And you intentionally chose to go out on the limb because of your story and you have empathy.
00:05:00
Speaker
You have empathy and you understand when God says, i comforted you, now you go and comfort others. And you know that's That is what you've been doing. You have been reaching out to other young women and kids who or have locked are walking in the shoes that you have walked in.
Building a Supportive Environment
00:05:26
Speaker
So I, I'm amazed at that story. So Elise, tell us more about Elise because she's only 10 years younger than you, you said, but Elise came at 16. So that's high school age.
00:05:39
Speaker
Yeah. So tell us about those years in college. And I know, but our listeners don't know. Yeah, no, um it was incredible in so many ways. She's so brilliant.
00:05:51
Speaker
um But we were seeing a lot of struggle with like confidence and feeling secure in herself in the way of like, you know, we'd be in the grocery aisle and she could barely look up. She was so, you know, just it was really everything was overwhelming to her in a really big scale.
00:06:06
Speaker
And um shortly after we kind of discovered that she actually has autism and she's very high functioning, but is autistic. And a lot of the behaviors that she unfortunately was kind of shamed for in the foster care system were completely understandable.
00:06:23
Speaker
And so immediately when she um turned 18 and we started this, part like she got to get a service dog and train it herself. And she went through programs and and online things to try to learn the best she could. And this dog is one in a million, Jackie. It's crazy how much she's done with this dog.
00:06:42
Speaker
And ever since I've known her, she's always wanted to just do something with animals. Right. And so for the last six years, she has dreamed about going to this dog training school in Oregon.
00:06:53
Speaker
um and I just dropped her off last weekend and it's going to be nine months and I'm not crying. um But I'm just so proud of her, like a six year dream. Going from facing aging out of foster care to not knowing what her life was going to be to now having graduated college already and is now in a post-grad program across the country. Which, if you know statistics, less than 3% of foster youth graduate from college and only 0.5% go on to even higher education.
00:07:22
Speaker
go on to even higher education And so as someone who's gotten their master's and and been able to go in towards licensure and be a clinician, my daughter and I are in the same 0.5% of foster youth. And that just to me is just, um yeah, like only God can write stories like that.
00:07:40
Speaker
Right, Jackie? Exactly. i so admire you, Kristen. Oh, no. ah But we both know, like you said, only God can write stories like that.
00:07:54
Speaker
But it takes people like you who are willing to Be obedient to what God's put in your heart. And again, like we said in the last episode, which if you haven't listened to the last episode, you need to go back and listen to Kristen's story.
00:08:11
Speaker
ah She has made lemonade out of lemons. And you and your daughter, Elise, are in that little, little small percentage of people who have finished college and i have gone on, have gone on. this is an amazing story. Yeah. It doesn't set a success for every foster youth, right? There are so many other ways to find what they deserve, right? The life that they want and they deserve can look so differently.
00:08:43
Speaker
um But it is really cool to to share that part with her. Sure. For sure. It's cool. And, you know, Kristen, you're aware of the book that Aisha and I wrote, and it's about our identity and worth in Christ.
00:08:57
Speaker
And you explained to Elise um in the grocery store, like she couldn't even look up. And so clearly you have, um along with, because of what God's done in your life,
00:09:10
Speaker
you have helped her to understand her identity and worth. And can you just share some practical ways that you have maybe done that or yeah ministered without ministering to her life and loving her?
00:09:24
Speaker
Yeah. Well, as a clinician, I really love the nervous system and the brain and learning the way that God designed it and and what trauma has done to disrupt some of those systems and um And part of that was learning how much the brain loves play.
00:09:40
Speaker
It loves playful engagement, play disarms fear. And so it was learning ways to delight in her genuinely, right? find ways that really just but celebrated who she was, new like more normalized and more neutralized the behaviors that we knew were understandable, just not always helpful for her.
00:10:01
Speaker
and invited her into very non-shaming conversations and discipline patterns that really more empowered her than to try to shame some of these things that she really couldn't help.
00:10:14
Speaker
um She has come so far and um she actually, like her friends will joke that she's kind of the therapist in her group now, like, because she's understood like some of these things, like they do multiply to others and we all could use more kindness and more understanding and more play.
00:10:31
Speaker
um because the world's hard, even if you're not in foster care, right? um I'm sure there are people listening that are foster parents or have worked with some type of ah in the system, and they've also gone through hard things.
00:10:43
Speaker
And they're also trying to make a difference in spaces. Yes. And I think what I love um that you're saying is, you know, play um Trump's fear, but just practical things. So it's not like as your daughter, you had her in therapy sessions or counseling sessions you know, constantly, you just did simple things with her.
00:11:11
Speaker
yeah And that's what I love. You know, Aisha and I, we are not educated counselors or therapists or psychiatrists, but in just creating that safe place for lament and playing, doing fun things that would open up hard conversations is what you're saying, right?
00:11:34
Speaker
Yeah. And sometimes it looked like she would maybe give some very normal 16 year old attitude, right? And I'd be like, okay, silly goose, like, that's probably not what you meant to say.
00:11:45
Speaker
What else did you want to say? Like, what do you need? Right. And it was a way of disarming. She didn't have to fight. i heard her. I modeled apologies. I modeled silliness. Like it didn't have to be this, this hard thing anymore.
00:12:01
Speaker
and we did have hard moments. Right. But just remembering how much grace I've been given and how much kindness the Lord has shown for me and how much she's never been shown that.
00:12:13
Speaker
And so for her, that seems super scary, right? And so how much more kindness and patience can I pour out and and see it change her brain so much faster than if I just continuously punished her for things that um her brain was wired for and in survival mode.
00:12:33
Speaker
And our space is to have real and honest conversations. So you're not saying that everything was picture perfect. No, and she wasn't either. I think as parents, yeah, as parents, we know those teenage years, there can be a lot of attitude, whether you're adopted or fostered or not.
00:12:52
Speaker
um It's just kind of part of life at times. yeah And so um you shared how, you know, you you confronted that kind of stuff and And clearly through that, it's been a process, I'm sure, but you have showed her her identity and her worth in Christ above all, correct?
00:13:15
Speaker
And the cool thing is, is like, I'm not perfect either. And I think for a long time she was seen. um as that project, right? And so people ah were the expert always. And so the humility of coming alongside of someone who's been through so much, they are truly the expert in their life.
00:13:34
Speaker
And the best thing that we can do is model humility, model apologies, be super radically honest and just drop the pride and drop the our own walls and things.
00:13:47
Speaker
As a way to love them, if that makes sense. Right. So showing her identity in Christ was knowing that as a daughter of God, for me, even though we may not share the same religion right now, um for me, it's truly about knowing who I am, knowing that there really isn't anything I can do that's really going to make God hate me or not love me.
00:14:09
Speaker
And so if I truly know that, then it kind of does squash some of the drama because I don't have to run and hide. i don't have to try to to make things up or to be better. I can simply apologize, repent, you know have that lament that you're talking about, and we can move on. right um and so it was a lot of that. It was so imperfect, like you said, um but it was just incredible to see the growth that comes when we lay ourselves aside too.
00:14:38
Speaker
that's That's so good. And coming from somebody who has walked it personally,
Insights on Foster Care
00:14:44
Speaker
but now you're walking it with your daughter, Elise. And i it's just a beautiful um example of Christ walking with us in our pain and in our our you know ugly situations.
00:14:59
Speaker
So you are an incredible advocate now for foster adoption, that whole area. Yeah. Um, what would you say to somebody who might be just thinking, maybe just thinking about foster care or adoption or just, you know, it's just a little thought right now, but what, what would you say to a person like that?
00:15:27
Speaker
Well, one, befriend a foster family. You're going to learn a lot of the real life stuff, not the um fairy tales that we kind of make foster care and adoption and saviorism to be.
00:15:40
Speaker
Um, but then also like just knowing that who you are and the talents that God's given you, it doesn't have to take a all in perspective. You can literally show up in so many different ways.
00:15:53
Speaker
Um, but also if you want to meet with God and see more sides of his face, um, just try foster adoptive care. Like there are just so many parts of the Lord that we see in this work and it's stunning. And so if you want to grow in your faith, if you want to be challenged, if you want to just be uncomfortable, but for the best reasons, um foster care will grow and strengthen you for sure.
00:16:17
Speaker
So you mentioned there's just some simple ways that you can come alongside of a foster care family. Can you name maybe a few of those? Because if somebody's like, well, I don't know how I can help.
00:16:30
Speaker
um Because I do understand that some families When you're dealing with foster children 18 or under, um you have to go through possibly, I'm not sure if every state's different, but you have to go through some courses to even help them or babysit to give the parents a night out. But what are other ways that we could, simply you know, in simple or practical ways be a help to a foster family? Yeah.
00:16:55
Speaker
Yeah, i mean there were times where we had really long nights with some other foster children I had. And people in the church would, I would literally just text in this thread, hey guys, it's been a long night.
00:17:07
Speaker
This is situation with love prayers. And then I would get flooded with prayers. And then people would like, Hey, like we don't have anything going on. could we come over and just hang out with you guys? And so it's like one in the morning and they're watching movies and playing with the kids. And I'm just able to have a moment to myself. So, and you don't have to be trained you're if you're in the same room and you're able to be around them, but it just gave me a moment to breathe.
00:17:30
Speaker
And that's what I think really hugely what sustained me, um, for the duration. That's good. And neither one of those things cost you anything financially. no It's just your willingness to go serve.
00:17:46
Speaker
Yeah. And so i love that. I love that. how And pray praying does not cost you any money, but you can. And immediately start praying. And yeah and that goes a long ways. yeah that is That's huge.
00:18:01
Speaker
So thank you for sharing that. And so, Kristen, um I know that you are also, aside from being a clinical counselor, if that's the correct terminology, because you have your master's and everything. So I so appreciate your um wisdom in that whole area.
00:18:21
Speaker
But you also um help. and are a part of a nonprofit. Can you tell our listeners about that? Absolutely. ah we and some good friends started a nonprofit called Tamarisk, and it's actually a tree in the desert of Israel that provides just a little bit more shade than most trees, right?
00:18:41
Speaker
And so it's aimed to really give community and just a little bit more shade to ah youth that have aged out or um are now like young adults who've been adopted um It gives them a place to belong, a place to be.
00:18:56
Speaker
It's just so much fun. we have weekly dinners on Thursday nights where we just invite them into our space and our homes. and We mentor them. We get to know them. um Some of them have become just really like really good friends.
00:19:10
Speaker
um And it's just a place where we all belong. And it's just it's incredible. It's been life changing for me. i know my daughter and my niece and um several friends um were all part of it. And it's just the highlight of the week. This past Thursday, we went to a park and had a picnic.
00:19:26
Speaker
And then we went and played on the playground for hours. And we're all 18 plus. So it was so much fun. And is this just in the Raleigh area?
00:19:38
Speaker
um It's more like the triangle, the greater, yeah, like Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill. There's like five or six cities that we have youth coming all over from. Okay. So if you're in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area, yes you can look up Tamarisk and yeah is there, is do you have like, it's tamarisk.com, correct? Dot community. Yeah.
00:20:00
Speaker
Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Dot community. We're on Instagram. Yeah. It's just tamarisk.com. um But also we're looking for volunteers for people that can give an hour or 10 hours a month ah to be able to just come alongside them. So if they have skills or things that they want to help teach and and mentor. Okay.
00:20:20
Speaker
That's amazing. So you're giving, um Any listeners opportunities to go serve and to be a blessing to to this nonprofit and to adult foster kids who've aged out.
00:20:33
Speaker
So what um in hearing your story, and it sounds so beautiful, but like we said, we know there's definitely very challenging times.
Encouragement for Foster Parents
00:20:44
Speaker
And there might be a foster parent or an adoptive parent who is not necessarily giving advice can can sit here and talk about the beauty right now they might be in the trenches and going through a really really difficult time yeah what encouragement would you like to give that parent
00:21:07
Speaker
you
00:21:11
Speaker
you are seen just as much as and you are loved just as much as your foster youth and adoptee is and that um Yeah, I always encourage foster parents, regardless if it's a hard season or not, to plop into therapy for a season and and learn some of those distress tolerance skills and how to to manage expectations and pain and have someone just hold space for you.
00:21:33
Speaker
um Making sure that you are surrounded by good community and and finding that if you don't have it. Um, at the the day, you do matter as much as they do and delighting in yourself and realizing the call that's been on your life is, is powerful and it's not perfect.
00:21:50
Speaker
And there will always be giants in the promised land. Right. Um, but just so much gratitude that I have for you saying yes. And, um, that I hope that you can continue to delight in your kiddos and find reasons to love them and allow yourself to be loved as well.
00:22:08
Speaker
Thank you so much,
Kristen's Growth as an Advocate
00:22:09
Speaker
Kristen. You're so welcome. Yeah, that that was beautiful. And i am just, I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you from 22 where I seen you at the conference to participating in that workshop.
00:22:26
Speaker
And then last year, i seen you on main stage at FILD, which is another amazing conference for foster adoptive moms. Yeah.
00:22:37
Speaker
And you sharing your story and with just such confidence yeah yeah humility and how the Lord has met you, changed your life around.
00:22:51
Speaker
You understand your identity and worth now in him above all. Yes. And you're being embraced as... a leader in this space now and um just an advocate for kids like you and I. Yeah.
00:23:11
Speaker
And adopt now also an advocate for adoptive parents. So you are just so well-rounded that area. um I know we're not perfect, but I just want to um just say how proud I am of you.
00:23:27
Speaker
Thank you, Jackie. I admire you for um just going out on the limb and being vulnerable to use your story um and help um just be there for other kids like Elise. So thank you for being here with us today.
00:23:43
Speaker
Thank you, Jackie, so much. so appreciate it. Well, I am thankful for all of you who are listening, taking time to listen, to pause and think um about these kinds of conversations. We know they're not easy to have at times, um but our hope is to bring encouragement to your life as a parent, a leader, or even a an adult adoptee or a foster
Closing Remarks and Resources
00:24:11
Speaker
kid.
00:24:11
Speaker
So thank you for joining us on Pause and Think, and we look forward to seeing you on the next episode.
00:24:20
Speaker
Thanks for joining us for this episode of Pause and Think. For more resources and information, whosami.org.