“I could never do that…”
“It takes a special type of person to foster…”
Yeah, NOPE! While all of these statements have good intentions, they are false.
You CAN do what we are doing. Maybe it’s just not your time yet, maybe you’re going to serve the foster care world in another way, maybe you are saying no when you should be saying yes. I can’t speak for you, but all I know is that our family was called to serve the foster care world through foster parenting.
I will never forget the evening our life changed…
My husband and I had just celebrated our 3rd anniversary and having weekly date nights. My husband had always known my heart for adoption, but fostering had never been a discussion before.
While we were sitting at dinner, waiting for our food to come out, Jerod looks at me and says, “What do you think about becoming foster parents?”
My jaw dropped to the floor. I was caught off guard, not because it was out of character for my husband to be ready to serve others, but in that instant I knew he had specifically heard from the Lord. This was not just a “Jerod” idea, this was a God thing. I’m still so proud of Jerod for listening.
I remember instantly being in agreement with Jerod. When we returned home from dinner that night, we got on the Illinois DCFS page and filled out the form to become foster parents.
We had no idea what we were doing. Other than a few families in our network of friends, we really hadn’t seen what fostering looked like. We knew general facts, but we definitely learned the most along the way.
Knowing full well that this was of God, we dove in HEAD FIRST!
A week later we set up a meeting with a DCFS worker…two months later we started the extensive DCFS courses…and two months after that we were going to the hospital to pick up a four day old baby boy that we knew literally NOTHING about.
All of this to say, we are not special, we had no idea what we were doing (and are still making it up as we go – haha). The one thing we did do is try to be as obedient as possible to what we felt God was saying to us. That is it.
This is our why…because God asked us to. And because He makes it clear in His Word to care for the widows and the orphans. Visiting people in their affliction is in the VERY nature of Jesus. Why would we not try to do the very same?!
Since becoming foster parents, we have learned so much about the character of God. He has met us in our affliction, met needs, comforted us and given us perseverance. We would have never learned these things without diving into the hard with others.
It is when we are crawling in the trenches with others that we truly get to see how gracious and magnificent God really is! The call is clear. The good news is, everyone can do something!
I love how Jason Johnson so eloquently puts it, “I don’t want to raise my hands in worship to a God who moves towards my broken while simultaneously using those same hands to push the broken of others away. I want the implications of the gospel for me to be the driving narrative through me – to both deeply celebrate it and widely demonstrate it. It’s not easy. Actually, it’s often very hard. It would be so much easier to avoid, isolate and insulate. But, something’s got to give right? I choose the hard knowing that one day hard things will not be final things. This is the hope of the gospel.”
journal127.com 