There are not many things as unique as the wait of foster care and adoption.
From the moment you make that first phone call the wait begins. There is something about the timeline of brokenness and redemption. Of ups and downs, of hopes and dreams.
Sanctification. God has used foster parenting in ways I had not anticipated in my motherhood. He has shown me some strengths and more weaknesses that I didn’t even realize I had. He has drawn me in closer and closer to Him because in riding this emotional rollercoaster you must have Him to cling to, He restores me in more ways then I can explain.
As mothers we so desperately want to control the happiness of our children. God uses this as the perfect way to sanctify us. Controlling happiness is hard enough to do in typical parent child relationships let alone the complexities that foster care add.
We have access to everything in an instant in our culture and that striving to help heal these children in an instant application of advice from the internet, just doesn’t align when trauma is involved. We try and we learn and we hope for change. But that hope, that change, that wisdom can only come from a deep relationship with our Lord.
This post contains affiliate links. Full disclosure here.
So we sit in this constant cycle of broken, hoping praying for a quick resolution to the despair and dissapointment that foster children have to endure.
When God gently grabs our hands and guides us back to the place of joy. The place of peace and safety, our refuge and haven.
Challenge after challenge we face in foster motherhood points us back to Him. Drops us to our knees, knowing we cannot go on without His help and guidance and grace. Oh the grace our Heavenly Father pours out on mothers.
Sometimes the pain seems too much to bear. Another goodbye, more uncertainty. A constant pressure of did I do enough. God aren’t you done? What else are you trying to teach me? When God sweetly whispers “yes my child, you are their mother for this season, you can do hard things, keep choosing love, keep choosing what is right.”
The waiting for resolution in a constant season of conflict, of hardness that weighs heavy on my soul. Hope restored is my plee. But each and every stumbling block and hurdle. Each twist and turn throws me into my Fathers arms.
The joy that comes in redemption so sweet. An end. A permanent place. Welcome and belonging. Safety and strength. Unexpected blessings in the middle of the broken. And a sweetness in the everyday love. We love them because He loved us.
The goal of my life is not to be stable, secure or comfortable. The role of my life is to have purpose, to be more like Him, to become Holy. I want to sacrifice and serve because of Jesus. My prayer is that the Lord uses this weak vessel to teach your love and transform lives. As the potter molds the clay please keep molding my heart, removing the impurities and teaching me true surrender, true reliance.
Grace abounds where grace is more.
Ephesians 4:2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,
Galations 6:9And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.
Genesis 29:20So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.
1 Corinthians 13:4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
Phillipians 4:6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Proverbs 15:18 A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Romans 12:12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
Psalm 37: 7-9 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;
fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,
over the man who carries out evil devices! Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. For the evildoers shall be cut off,
but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.
Romans 8: 24-28 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
2 Thessolanians 1: 4-5 Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering
Hebrews 11: 13-16 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
Psalm 75:2 At the set time that I appoint I will judge with equity.
