Called to foster care…pt. 2
In February of the following year we found ourselves sitting in an informational meeting for foster care. John and the boys were super excited, but I was still hesitant. I didn’t know if I could do it. Could we navigate this with our boys, and protect their hearts? Could we love a child that may not stay the same as we loved our own kids? I knew that if we did this everything about our life was going to change. As we sat in the meeting I was really hoping to hear something that would tell us it wasn’t the right path. As the lady talked the opposite happened. The stories got scarier. The comfy bubble we lived in was completely destroyed, but at the same time all the questions of if we could do it were replaced with how can we not do this. She was preparing us for the worst. I kept thinking we should be running out of this room but we weren’t. The longer we sat the more excited we got. By the time it was over we both knew this was the road God had for us. The journey began. Paperwork, home studies, and A LOT of waiting. My friend and I always joke that foster care is a lot of hurry up and wait.
As we went through all the training a little part of me was still waiting for the Lord to show us this isn’t for us. It is amazing how patient He is with us. He allowed us to work through our emotions, fears, and doubts, but always gently guided us back to His path. It was teaching us a new way to have a relationship with Him. He became more real then he had ever been. We were clinging to every word He said, every scripture that He placed in front of us. He wasn’t afraid of the questions we were throwing at Him. He was OK with the doubts because it was part of the process of learning to continually abide in Him. We were learning to truly trust. It was about being obedient one step at a time. Sometimes it felt like we were stepping into a pitch black room. It took taking a step through the door for the room to be illuminated. He was always faithful. He never left us unprotected. It was all lessons that later we realized we needed to have,and that were going to be tested along the way.
We had been moving forward in obedience, but doubt and fear of the unknown was still very real. One morning I sat in the room we usually did our quiet time. We had hung prayers for different people, situations, etc on the wall. I was reading through different things that we had written. I got to one of the cards that said prayer for my family. I was asking God to show us something that we could do in ministry together as a family. Something that each one of us could participate in. A light bulb went off. That is what He was doing. I had written that down months before this was even a topic of conversation. He was fulfilling a desire of my heart in a way I would never have thought. He was turning our home into a mission field. When I saw this the doubt that had crept in and out was completely gone. It was what I needed to be 100% in for whatever God had for us. In that moment I finally felt that we were called to foster care. On Oct 24,2017 we were finally an approved foster home.