When Life As Usual Isn't Good Enough Anymore

For quite some time now we've been good.

Life is comfortable, we're in a groove and the kids are well. Who could ask for more right?

Well, we are.

I was sitting at my desk (otherwise known as the kitchen table) Monday when I got a phone call that would change us forever.

Quite some time ago, Tim and I felt the Lord leading us to become foster parents. We went through the classes and the home study. We're now approved, we're just waiting.

Patience has never been a virtue of mine so while one might think that we're in the home stretch of preparation, I think I've only just begun.

Getting to this point didn't happen overnight. We've been talking to other families and seeking Godly counsel on this subject for years. The one piece of advice that we've heard again and again (I particularly remember Jon Croyle telling me this at a Lifeway conference when I met him two years ago) is that a yes is a yes, a no is a no and a maybe is a no. If you're ninety-nine percent in, don't do it.

You have to give these kids one hundred percent.

That was all good and fine and I am in agreement even now with the theory.

But in real life this not knowing thing, this ninety nine percent thing-well it's hard. Really, really hard.

I have been praying that we would get a clear yes or no call and on Monday we got a ninety-nine.

We talked about it, prayed about it and talked some more. We went back and forth with placement and gathered as much info as we could. We sought the advice of others who have gone this way before.

And when we weren't clear we did the only thing we knew to do.....we put it solely in God's hands. We were open to taking them, but we wanted to know for sure they were the littles that God is guiding to our home. The ones that we are supposed to take care of, support and love with open arms.

So we laid it all out on the line and within just a little while they were placed with another family. Our answer was no.

I was numb. I thought for sure it would have been a yes and while my mama's heart just wanted to hold these girls and love on them, God's heart said, "I have a different plan."

I stood at the kitchen sink yesterday morning with so many questions in my mind that I didn't even know what to pray. When I finally said, "God I'm afraid we might have made this a little too hard," He spoke ever so gently back to my heart, "Is anything too hard for God?!"

I know He's right, nothing is too hard for him. If He intended for us to parent those girls, He would have sent them our way.

The emotions in my heart and the knowledge in my head that God's way is always, always, always best have been hard to connect this week. Yet I won't stop trusting, I won't stop believing and I will always be confident of this one thing-He is good and He knows what was best for those girls way better than I do.

So now?

Now I wait for a little missing piece of the puzzle that I can pour myself into, feed, clothe and know for sure that completely, absolutely without the shadow of a doubt has been placed into our home for such a time as this.

My heart had to be broken into shattered pieces this week to be molded back into the woman that God can use for His glory as a foster mom.

Now my heart....

My heart is laid bare and open before the Father, beating wildly outside of my chest in the form of another little person that I am so anxious to love.

Oh, little one hundred, may the Father bring you to us soon. I am so ready to help you mend your broken pieces too.