God is Using Foster Care for the Good of My Children

It hit me today that Jax has no idea that our family is a foster family.

The last time we said goodbye to a child, he was only six months old. We have pictures and moments, but he has no memories.

We said goodbye to our girl and spent some time healing up the holes in our hearts, then we welcomed our little baby boy, and the state counted up our six kids and called us “full.” No one’s come or gone since.

And so, in his little life, he’s never known the confusion of saying goodbye to a sibling. He’s never experienced the grief of this side of foster care. He has no idea that our family—as he knows it—could change forever, any moment.

So it raises, again, the hard and holy questions of pulling my kids into this foster caring life. Is this choice of mine damaging them? Will they break under the weight of grief? Will they drown in the anxiety of change and uncertainty? Is this all too much for their little hearts?

But overwhelming my questions are the answers I believe so deeply—as the answer to every single question I hold in my mother’s heart.

+ I believe that God uses every hard & “bad” to accomplish His very good plans.
+ That the things I’m praying for my kids—things like character and hope—are often accomplished through the things I pray away—like suffering.
+ That everything that happens to them is something He’s using for them.
+ That the things they face today are making them who He has them to be tomorrow.

I believe that God is using foster care for the good of my children.