Dear new foster momma,
Close your eyes for a second, will you? Take a couple deep breaths, and soak in the excitement you’re feeling right now. I wish there was a way to physically bottle those feelings up; to keep them stored in a safe place to be pulled out at any given time. But there’s not, so soak it up and store it in your memories for safe keeping.
Because as the days pass, that excitement might become more and more overshadowed with doubt, with fear, with lies, with broken systems, with unknowns that seem to drag on and on. Instead of your heart racing with excitement, it will begin to race with fear and anxiety about the future. Are you doing the right thing? Are you making the right choices? Are you being the very best advocate for that little one as you can be? What if that new addition leaves in a way you weren’t expecting? What if they leave in the way you WERE expecting? What if they’re in your care long enough to celebrate milestones and birthdays and many firsts but THEN they leave? What if, what if, what it?
And then there will be the lies that pop in like, where is God right now? What is He doing? Why did He call me to do this? Does He even care how I feel right now? Has He abandoned me? Thrown me to the wolves and said good luck? It’s too hard. I don’t think I can do this.
But oh sweet foster momma, you CAN do this; you were created to do this, there is no one better equipped than you for this. Jesus has not abandoned you, but that’s what the enemy wants you to believe.
That excitement you’re feeling right now? Bottle it up in your memories. Keep it safe. It’s in your heart for a reason. You are obeying the call to be a mother to a child who needs a temporary and safe mother to love them, whether or not you’re promised forever. You are obeying a call to be selfless, to get too attached, to love that little one with reckless abandon. You have been called to be a light in a dark place and holy crap it’s hard. You know it’s going to be hard, but you feel invincible right now. Because you are. Because you’re fully trusting in the Lord, and nothing has happened to allow the enemy to creep his way in. But the enemy? He’s persistent. He’s weak. And he preys on people who feel a little tired, a little worn out. He wants you to be afraid. To flee.
But Jesus’ perfect love casts out all fear, friend. And He has equipped you for this. So do not forget to rest in Him; in that Truth. To seek Him in the midst of the trenches. And to hunt down that excitement you’ve bottled up ♥️
My husband and I are just starting the process (like this week!) and I’m so glad I found this! I well definitely save this – may even print it out – so I can read it again when things get hard. We already have 7 bio kids but we are answering God’s call that I feel very strongly.
I’ll check out the rest of your site 😊