Imagine someone in your family is traveling abroad, and a terribly destructive, record-breaking earthquake happens in the city they’re visiting. You wait for some time until finally you get the phone call saying your family member is okay.
The relief. The joy. The eagerness to get them back home and never let them out of your arms again.
Now imagine while you’re waiting for them to get home, you get a second phone call that the information from the first call was wrong. It wasn’t actually your family member they were calling about. Someone else was rescued, but your family member has yet to be found.
That’s kind of how this feels.
We want to do foster care because we want to care for any child who needs a family at any time. By God’s grace, we have a safe home and a strong family, and we can share that with a little one in crisis. But we first signed up for foster care because we want to adopt.
We believe we have children – OUR children – who are already alive and who will eventually be with us forever. Believing that is true and knowing those kids are probably in a situation right this very second that will eventually get so bad it will require a removal of them is extremely worrisome, as I’m sure you can imagine. We pray for our future babies all the time. That they will be safe and protected and that somehow God will find a way to deliver them to us with the least amount of trauma possible.
There was a sigh-of-relief that came with the entry of those two babies into our home in March. They were safe. They were okay. They had not been injured.
But as time progressed and we realized slowly that these babies were not OUR babies, a much more complicated feeling crept in.
Of course, we rejoice anytime a tiny one anywhere is brought out of a dangerous or harmful environment. So we were delighted to be chosen to care for those two. And they were precious and sweet, so we were happy to have them. But knowing it was temporary and that OUR babies were still out there somewhere…it’s the earthquake feeling I said before.
“Well then where is MY baby.”
So here we are at the end of August and getting ready again.
Hoping the rescue happens soon. Preparing our hearts and this cozy room for the next. A little girl, age range 5-7. And praying for her until we meet.
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