About five years ago Steve and I became licensed foster
parents. It was an exciting, joyful, difficult and humbling experience. We took on short term placements for almost two years. I will always be thankful for that time and wouldn't change the experience. But there are some things I would do differently if I could do it all over again.
1. I would pray for more direction before jumping ALL IN
I remember sitting in Panera one night when I clearly felt a
leading that Steve and I should be foster parents. I wrestled with God and said
‘Well you’re going to have a talk with Steve because he is never going to say
yes to this!’ Just a few weeks later I mentioned the idea to Steve while we
were out on a date. Somehow without much convincing he said yes. I didn't even get to finish the whole speech I had prepared for that night. I was so excited that we were on the same page that I started the process the very next day.
Looking back I wish I would’ve taken more time to pray for God’s timing on how
to move forward. For example, I wish we would’ve gone through the training with a Christian
based organization like A Door of Hope or West Florida Foster Care instead of being licensed through Eckerd. It would’ve made a huge
difference to meet other Christian families to encourage us on the journey! I also wish I would've prayed more about the timing of when to start, because I have no doubt that would’ve been different as well. We should've stepped back and taken
the time to pray for more direction
2. I wouldn’t be
afraid to fail at foster care
I remember when we finally made the decision that we wouldn’t
renew our foster care license. We knew that the short term care we were doing
was not what we had hoped for, but we also knew that we were not ready for the long
term placement of a child in our home.
I was disappointment with our
decision and I felt that way for months. I
thought maybe we weren’t just ‘good enough’ people to continue with it. Perhaps if
we had been more spiritual, listened better to God, or would be willing to make
bigger sacrifices we would’ve continued to be foster parents. I felt that we had failed.
Looking back I wish I would’ve known God calls us to
different things on different seasons, and I would’ve extended myself more
grace. I went on to mentor a young girl in foster care which I
really enjoyed. We stepped up to coordinate the foster care/adoption ministry
in our church to encourage other families. There are seasons for different things and God doesn't all call us to do the exact same thing. I hope one day again that we will serve in a more tangible way as we did back then.
3. I wouldn’t have
the false expectation that because God called us to do it, the journey would be
easy.
I used to believe that when God calls us to do something He also makes the process easy and smooth. Now don’t get me wrong there are
many when He has done just that… but there have also been times when He
has not. And when things get hard I tend second guess decisions, wrestle with God about why he's not helping more, and wonder if after all we made the right decision in the first place.
As I’ve dived into the book of Exodus these past few months, I’ve learned that sometimes God clearly calls us to do something and the journey is still hard. I love, love the story of Moses: a man filled with insecurities and far from qualified for the job God calls him to do. He does EXACTLY what God asks of him, but the journey is still really hard along the way. Moses wrestles with God and asks him multiple times why He's not making things easier for him.
It has
brought me so much encouragement to know this truth and know that God is at
work even when things get hard. For us in foster care, we had a hard time getting licensed and the process took almost a year. Also there were many times when it was really hard to say goodbye to these little ones. Some were easy but some were much harder.
Last thoughts
I wanted to share these drawings from a five year old girl
that stayed with us for two weeks. She came to our home late in the night one
day with nothing but a Publix bag with a few of her belongings. Her story I will keep private but it was heartbreaking to hear.
The first day she came in she didn’t say a single word but
she loved to draw. She drew countless pictures of sad faces with tears.
After a few days she did talk… a lot! The day before she
left she made this picture which I’ve kept over the years. It was a picture of
a happy face with no tears. I was so amazed that just two short weeks had made
some impact on her. These pictures made me realize just the huge impact that you can have on someone else... even if it's just for a short period of time.
