You are about to be a grandparent
Your spouse is retuning from duty
Your son got accepted to college
The new job requires a move
Test results are back
Diagnosis confirmed
Your company is making cuts
There has been an accident
Sibling group of 5 is being removed from their home
Their day did not go as they expected either and it changed everything for them too. Their stuff was loaded up in empty sacks, a backpack and a trash bag. Their story is not rare, but in that moment it became intertwined with my own. I will never forget the day they walked through the door of the visitation room and I could put a face to the names of the children Chris and I had just agreed to take custody of; a 16 year old girl, and 8 and 4 year old boys. You could see the numbness already setting into their faces and hearts. This painful moment was too much to bear, but step by step they bravely walked to our truck and got in. How they left there without tears I do not know. I was overwhelmed by it all. We had gone from a family of 6 to a family of 9 in a moment.
Those first few days were a blur and only by God's grace did we make it through. He kept putting the words from Micah 6:8 in my mind.
"Mankind, He has told you what is good and what it is the LORD requires of you: to act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with your God."
Within a week a visitation is usually set up with the parents and though the children are very eager to see them, separating again is very tragic and painful. Leaving with them that day was so hard and they were hurting so deeply and my heart was broken for them. I continued to question if I was really equipped to handle this kind of hurt or able to be of any good to these kids, but again God reminded me of his presence. The license plate in front of me read E5TR 414, a verse I had been praying over for a few months. The words were to Queen Esther from her uncle Mordecai.
"If you keep silent at this time, liberation and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place, but you and your father's house will be destroyed. Who knows, perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this." Esther 4:14
I know that God will provide a way of healing for these kids that come into care with or without my help. I also know that God can use my past, my marriage, my family and my church to be a channel of his grace and mercy. It is challenging, it is handwork, it is thankless, it is heartbreaking, but it is the beautiful redemptive, sacrificial work of the gospel too! Every chance I get I share the hope I have in Christ and the promise that He loves them.
Exactly a month after they arrived and in similar fashion they were gone. Another phone call, more hurried packing and a drive back to DSS. I will never forget the look in my foster daughter's face when I told her she was going home. It was a look of disbelief and then realization. She looked up to heaven and with closed eyes she said thank you to God.
God has rescued my life from the pit (Psalm 40) and nothing I can say or do can repay Him for that. Foster Parenting is not about earning more of God's love, but of revealing it to those who need it so badly.
