Close to Home

I turned on the news before making breakfast yesterday morning. Making headlines were stories of missing children, attempted abductions and a one year old girl locally who was taken to the emergency room for dangerously high blood alcohol levels. I sat down and prayed for our children. It is easy to look out at this world gone mad and think, "I am glad it isn't my kid, or that could never be my daughter", but it is. They ARE our children.

Being a foster mom has brought this notion closer to home than I could ever have imagined. Our children are our future and we are surely not being good stewards of our future. As I placed a plate of pancakes on the table, the phone rang. I looked at the caller ID. It was the Erie County Office of Children and Youth. My heart sank. With each time I see that number, my heart breaks knowing that somewhere there is a hurting child...a child who has been abused, neglected, or abandoned...sometimes all three.

It is hard to go to that place of knowing that right now there is likely a child being exploited, and mistreated. It is hard but it is reality. Until we go there...to that hard place...nothing will ever change. We will never make a difference...you can't hide from the hard stuff and expect to grow closer to Jesus. It is in the hard stuff that we find Him ever near.

The call was merely a clerical one, though my mind raced wondering if it were a call to come and get the little girl from the news. Each time we welcome another child into our home, we get to look into the face of Jesus just a little closer. It might seem like we are crazy or hoarding children, or trying to make up for our own losses, or any myriad of things, but it is simply because He calls us to.

If I've learned anything in my life, I have learned not to shy away from heartbreak. We can't live fearing that our hearts will break if we put them out there. We just have to put them out there knowing that WHEN they break, God will pick up the pieces and put them back together to create something even more beautiful...with every break, the masterpiece becomes more intricate and deep. Shying away from it would deprive us of so many wonderful blessings.

So, if you're wondering if we'll open our home again to yet another child....a few weeks ago, I might have told you we were FULL and our van can't hold anymore. In the last few weeks, God has truly been speaking to my heart...just reminding me to keep it open for WHATEVER He has for me. So I'll trust in that, and each time the phone rings, I will pick it up and pray knowing He will provide ALL of my needs for whatever He calls us to. My heart WILL get broken again...foster care is heart ache all around because it isn't the natural order of things...adoption always means a tragedy happened. My heartbreaks with each call from the agency, knowing these kids aren't being cared for, my heart has broken having to let a little one go back after loving them with my whole heart, and my heart has broken as I signed adoption papers, knowing that this child will grieve the loss of his/her natural parents probably all of their life.

God will bring healing to every heart break, and I have no answers for why. I guess I've finally come to a place in my life where I don't really need to know why. I just trust. I trust that He has a good plan for my future and that He has placed each child in my arms for a purpose. Each time I see a news story on the TV about a child being mistreated, it hits close to home because that child could well end up at my dinner table, that child could be MY child, and with every child that comes to my door, I feel closer to Home. They are OUR children...and we need to love them like He would...they aren't just a news story or a headline...this stuff is happening and it BREAKS His heart and it SHOULD break ours...Let it...see what might happen.