Evaluating a Year of Absence

To recap as it’s been many months since I’ve written anything here, it’s been a year since we said goodbye to children we raised just shy of 4 years. In the year of absence, we’ve done respite and we had one short-lived placement. It hasn’t been the same. Like an elderly person who can sense rain a-comin’ in his joints, a foster parent can feel it in his bones when something is temporary. Respite kids cross the threshold and you flip the very large hourglass and wait for the last grain of sand to hit the bottom. The Lord may surprise me, but I don’t think we’ll ever find family in fostering again. I think we’re moving to the stage where it’s a professional service, one infused with compassion and loving-kindness, but a job nonetheless.

I think we all yearn for stability and permanency. We want loved ones to remain in our lives just a little longer, and we want answers when they don’t. Being a year out, I no longer beg God for answers. It’s not because I have a better understanding of why this all happened in the way that it did; it’s because in all the mysteries of this broken world, I’ve finally come to realize the knowledge of why something happened is very low on the docket of what’s important moving forward. When I was crying out to the Lord about why, why now when He had clearly intervened so many times before in hopeless situations that kept us together, I was consumed with the unanswerable instead of focusing on praying myself and the kids through the hardest parts of separation.

What I didn’t see during that period of trying to make sense of everything was the hand of God in my life. Immediately before I accepted placement of these kids, I left a career in teaching. My job working at a private Christian school was everything to me. It was my identity, and I finally let go of what I thought was going to be my forever mission in life after months of God prying it out of my tightly fisted hands. I will never forget an email from my dad when I delivered my final resignation:

“Now, imagine the scene of Captain Jack Sparrow riding into the harbor atop of a mast of a ship that is mostly submerged. You gingerly leap to the dock while the ship is sinking and confidently stride into the next adventure. No looking back.”

Everything I planned for myself toppled, and I clung to that visual- theme song blasting around me as I strode from the rubble of what I left behind, not quivering to the mast as I sank, but resolute, head high, expectant. Wouldn’t you know but the very day I would have gone back to work for the year, our infant foster daughter was dropped off on our doorstep. A newborn was not a placement we could have accepted if I fought the Lord Almighty and continued teaching like I wanted. It could not have been more clear to me that the author of the universe wasn’t done with me yet. Then when I found out there was another baby on the way, I can’t describe it… but my very soul ached. Foster parents know when it’s temporary, but the Holy Spirit can also prick our hearts when it’s going to be more significant than just caretaker and foster child.

I also think about my youngest. He came out of infertility, 6 years after my first, and was 1-year-old when the kids left. I wonder sometimes if God knew we would need him and blessed us with one more when He did. There are many days I miss being a parent of 4, but there isn’t a day that goes by I’m not tremendously grateful for that little bugger. Even his name, which means “one who returns, as if from death,” represents both the loss and renewal of hope that was to come.

I look back over the year. The first few months I was on pause, waiting, believing they’d be back. I was a mess through a lot of the year without fully realizing it. If I could go back, I’d clear my schedule, step down from leadership, and spend more time rebuilding myself and my family unit. We’ve never been a family with just myself, my husband, and my two boys. Friend and community support seemed like the most important investment to keep us afloat, but I should have understood the Lord when He was once again beating me over the head trying to communicate that I didn’t need to hold onto things so tightly to avoid experiencing loss again.

The things He has for me will come. I don’t have to battle for them singlehandedly or force them into existence. The very best things will arrive like a life-changing bundle on your doorstep the day you trust God with your journey. It’ll show up as a faint pink line when you truly need it. It’ll stir in your very soul.

I don’t know when the next adventure will start. Maybe it’ll be a phone call from a case manager. Maybe it’ll be something entirely different. All I know is I’m letting go of the sinking ship. I’m done trying to stay where I’m at as the water floods in. Resolute, head up, expectant. No looking back.