We have been licensed foster parents for 1 year as of this month and now are officially licensed for another year of this craziness.
We’ve said yes to 4 children but 3 have actually been in (and out of) our home in the last year. 2 girls that were only with us for 5 days and 1 baby boy who has been with us for the last 8.5 months.
Nothing in this journey has been what we expected. We never expected to say yes to TWO children at once, one being over 2, as our first placement.We never expected we’d say goodbye to them after just 5 days. We never expected it’d be so hard to say yes again even though it was only 5 days. But we did. After a month long break, we said yes on November 8 to a placement we never expected to get a call for; one newborn baby. I never expected how hard it would be to become a mom for the first time, while wanting and expecting reunification to happen. We never expected to have such a good relationship with his parents. I never expected that this journey would make me bold. Make me not so afraid of confrontation. Not afraid of being a voice to someone who doesn’t have one yet. And we definitely never expected to be in the messy situation we are in now as we wait to hear if little man will be with us longer or moved.
And to be honest, I never expected to question what in the heck God’s doing as much as I have in this season. To question whether or not He’s just called me into this hard season and then decided to have me fend for myself, or if He’s truly walking through this season with me. I never expected to believe the lies that so easily make their way in when you’ve had months and months of stress, of worrying. But in this season of unexpectedness, I’ve learned that it’s okay to question. To cry out desperately. To say “I don’t really know how to pray right now, or how to walk this out well, so Jesus teach me.” And to continually go back to His Word to read about His true character.
We have no freaking clue what life will look like in July 2019, after another year of the craziness of foster care, but we are sure it won’t look anything like what we expect.
