God writes the amazing stories. But some parts of the story are hard because of this broken world with its many layers of sin-marred complication and confusion. All God’s stories, though, are woven with the theme of love and restoration and redemption. And He, in his omniscience and omnipotence, works through multiple hearts and situations to accomplish His work, weaving an intangible display of the power of His fingertips. He prepares and equips hearts for service, many times unbeknownst to the mind of that heart until that work is made evident...
My sister-and-law and her husband have a heart for kids from hard places--foster kids tossed back and forth from place to place. Remarkably, taking in orphans has just become a way of life for them. They see a need and rise to meet it. They’ve taken in many over the past few years, some just for respite over the weekend and some for multiple months. Most recently, they took in an eleven-year-old for about six months. With two younger children and having never fostered an older child before, they were unsure of the supposed-to-be temporary situation. But they ended up falling in love with him and were heartbroken at having to leave him in Louisiana when they took a job out of state.
“We’re trying to find a home for C,” she said to me at a family reunion in the spring. “If we don’t, he’ll probably go to a group home.”
Gary and I had never really thought about fostering or adopting before. We’ve had friends who have both fostered and adopted, but it was just never something we felt a call to pursue. We wouldn’t say no to it if we felt like God put it in our laps, though. And that’s what we felt like this was. When she said those words, I felt an internal churning--a gentle nudge from the Holy Spirit to say yes.
God had been working on me. Over the past couple of years, God has worked, through great difficulty, to create some space in my life, some space to be open to new things. Strange as it sounds, I had actually had thoughts thoughts of, “What if we were to foster?”, months before this opportunity arose. My mind began to explore the idea. God had planted a seed.
The day after that family reunion, we were at lunch with Gary’s family, and his sister mentioned it again, this time with Gary present. “We’re going to check with all the foster families we know to try to find a home for C.” She wasn’t directing the statement at us--we weren’t even foster certified. But Gary looked at me when she said it with a “what about us” look.
Later on we talked. And talked. And talked. How would it affect our own kids? What would this look like longterm? How would we work out all of the little details? A lot of these questions we didn’t have an answer to. We only had one answer, after days of prayer and discussion with the kids, the one we felt was from God--the answer was to say yes in a sea of unanswerable questions.
So he came to live with us. And it was hard. And it was messy. And I felt ill-equipped. There was lots of conflict between C and my kids, he being right in the middle of Ella and Dutch’s ages. Constant comparison and arguing and assertion of rights and roles ensued. Our semi-peaceful house was turned into a daily battlefield. I constantly asked myself, “What is the right response in this situation?” What was right was so unclear. My internal instinct to protect my own children often collided and clashed with my desire to love and support C, who often seemed an enemy to them. I teetered between being fair and objective and wanting to teach my children to respond with unselfishness and grace to wanting to stand in opposition to the one threatening their normal. Families are meant to be together, husbands with wives and children with parents, and any time this unit breaks, there is no easy answer. We’re dealing with sin-covered circumstances, and the water is murky.
Heightened situations like these can bring out your best and your worst. It sharpened my prayers and dependence on God’s word and wisdom. But it also exposed my selfishness and my human nature--my need to die to myself on a daily basis, to take up my cross and follow Him. Some days I did; some days I didn’t. I asked God to help me to speak life in all situations. Some days I did; some days I didn’t. God, thank you for your grace. And I asked God to help me love the many-times-enemy of my children and to pray for him who persecuted them. They were, by no means, blameless in these conflicts, though, making discretion even more difficult. Again, sometimes I did love; sometimes I didn’t. But God’s grace is always there to cover a multitude of sins, to embrace and make wrongs right.
As we stumbled along, we saw glimpses of God’s hand at work--slow growth, little victories, moments of a miracle in the making. C grew in perseverance, in struggling through hard things and not giving up. He grew in becoming more adaptable in social situations. He grew in trying new things and in gaining confidence in who he was. He grew in his knowledge of and relationship with God and how God could use his life. And my own children, especially Dutch, grew in grace and leadership.
A few months in, during a period of my extreme internal conflict, my brother-in-law called Gary, saying that they really missed C and felt like part of their family was missing. They wanted him to be part of their family forever. This was an answered prayer. When you say yes, not knowing what the end will look like, it’s a little scary. But this was how God was using us, to keep and invest in C for a time until he could be reunited with his family.
The next couple of months, as they were getting foster-certified in their state, we worked things out with case workers and lawyers for him to be able to move. We also talked with C and just kept living life with conversations that were just plain real and void of Hallmark movie moments.
About three weeks before his scheduled move, we spent Thanksgiving with my in-laws in Arkansas. So here we were, our two families together under one roof--the lines of who was foster mom or aunt or dad or uncle or sister or brother or cousin blurring. And it was kind of beautiful. I give a little; you give a little. You step in; we take a step back. “Here are C’s shoes.”...”Is he riding with you?”...”Did he get a shower?”...”Can he have another piece of pie? Are you okay with that?”...As we all sat in the living room during those mostly rain-covered days, an uncanny weaving-together of families emanated. Evanescent in quality, scarcely perceptible, but visible to those with spiritual eyes--these seams sewn by God Himself--through a boy discarded by his own family but redeemed by two families who brought their two meager coins, the little they had. A boy made in God’s own image, created for a purpose. Reminding me of how we who were once lost and dead because of sin are adopted as God’s own children, sons and daughters of Him. These are the moments I have to grab hold of and put words to--that I have to name and testify--the power of His fingertips using hearts that will say yes.
God writes amazing stories. This one’s not over. It’s in the making.
