For months now I have been putting off posting new blog entries because I was trying to think of a great title for a new blog about foster care and motherhood and traumatized children. I never came up with anything and decided that I should just revisit this one and post here. This first post was written in August as a message to a small group of friends. More to come...
At 9:30pm 3 year olds should be fast asleep in a comfortable bed snuggled next to a blankie with a full tummy and an assurance that all is right in their world. Got a call at that time last night from the director of foster care for the county who needs an emergency placement for a 3 yr. old boy. I’ve gotten enough of these calls now to know that most likely this was a drug raid and this little boy is scared, confused, exhausted, most likely hungry and in shock. I have no words for what this does to my heart. I would take them all if I could, every last one. This past week I started helping with two kids whose mom is working toward getting them placed back with her. They are staying with us one night a week so that they can be closer to where she lives and she can start to prove herself ready to care for them. The boy is J’s age and the girl is 2. Within the first hour of meeting this little girl, she is calling me mama. And again my heart breaks over the fact that her little world is already in such turmoil. Before falling asleep himself, her brother pulls her pack n play as close to his bed as he can so he can make sure she is safe. He’s 10 and in his world, he is solely responsible for making sure she’s taken care of. This makes me think about J’s sister and how that was her reality for most of her years until they met me when she was 15. I think about the day they were evicted from their apartment and lost everything, including their mom. I can’t imagine the trauma for a 7 and 15 yr. old when the police come to the door and tell you that you have to leave your home. One minute you are playing video games in your pj’s and the next minute you are standing on the sidewalk watching neighbors dig through your belongings that have been set by the dumpster and with just the clothes on your back and the shoes on your feet, trying to figure out where you are going to sleep tonight. I became a foster parent because my heart was so burdened for these children that I had to start somewhere. When I started the process to get certified, I had no idea what the timing would be, when/if I would take children into my home, or what I was really getting into. Since 1992 my heart has been to care for abandoned and neglected children in the greatest capacity I can… in my home. I always wanted it to happen naturally, believing that I would meet a child who needed me and go from there. Becoming a foster parent is like jumping off a cliff blind-folded, but so many things God has taken me through in life have prepared me for this. Many children in foster care are taken from their parents just to enter an even worse situation or are bounced around from place to place. The statistics are overwhelming and “research shows that young people in foster care are far more likely to endure homelessness, poverty, compromised health, unemployment and incarceration after they leave the foster care system”. The answer goes beyond just taking in children who have been abandoned for whatever reason. There are giants and strongholds behind all of it that have to be faced: poverty, addictions, poor healthcare, inequality of education, broken families, crime and the list goes on. It’s the ‘anointing that breaks the yoke’ and it’s time for us to stop keeping that to ourselves, waiting for people to come to us; we need to take the water to the desert. Ps.146 says this of the Lord our God: "He executes justice for the oppressed; He gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the sojourners(foreigners); He upholds the widow and the fatherless." Is it not those of us who He has rescued who are to now be the rescuers? If not us, than who?
At 9:30pm 3 year olds should be fast asleep in a comfortable bed snuggled next to a blankie with a full tummy and an assurance that all is right in their world. Got a call at that time last night from the director of foster care for the county who needs an emergency placement for a 3 yr. old boy. I’ve gotten enough of these calls now to know that most likely this was a drug raid and this little boy is scared, confused, exhausted, most likely hungry and in shock. I have no words for what this does to my heart. I would take them all if I could, every last one. This past week I started helping with two kids whose mom is working toward getting them placed back with her. They are staying with us one night a week so that they can be closer to where she lives and she can start to prove herself ready to care for them. The boy is J’s age and the girl is 2. Within the first hour of meeting this little girl, she is calling me mama. And again my heart breaks over the fact that her little world is already in such turmoil. Before falling asleep himself, her brother pulls her pack n play as close to his bed as he can so he can make sure she is safe. He’s 10 and in his world, he is solely responsible for making sure she’s taken care of. This makes me think about J’s sister and how that was her reality for most of her years until they met me when she was 15. I think about the day they were evicted from their apartment and lost everything, including their mom. I can’t imagine the trauma for a 7 and 15 yr. old when the police come to the door and tell you that you have to leave your home. One minute you are playing video games in your pj’s and the next minute you are standing on the sidewalk watching neighbors dig through your belongings that have been set by the dumpster and with just the clothes on your back and the shoes on your feet, trying to figure out where you are going to sleep tonight. I became a foster parent because my heart was so burdened for these children that I had to start somewhere. When I started the process to get certified, I had no idea what the timing would be, when/if I would take children into my home, or what I was really getting into. Since 1992 my heart has been to care for abandoned and neglected children in the greatest capacity I can… in my home. I always wanted it to happen naturally, believing that I would meet a child who needed me and go from there. Becoming a foster parent is like jumping off a cliff blind-folded, but so many things God has taken me through in life have prepared me for this. Many children in foster care are taken from their parents just to enter an even worse situation or are bounced around from place to place. The statistics are overwhelming and “research shows that young people in foster care are far more likely to endure homelessness, poverty, compromised health, unemployment and incarceration after they leave the foster care system”. The answer goes beyond just taking in children who have been abandoned for whatever reason. There are giants and strongholds behind all of it that have to be faced: poverty, addictions, poor healthcare, inequality of education, broken families, crime and the list goes on. It’s the ‘anointing that breaks the yoke’ and it’s time for us to stop keeping that to ourselves, waiting for people to come to us; we need to take the water to the desert. Ps.146 says this of the Lord our God: "He executes justice for the oppressed; He gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the sojourners(foreigners); He upholds the widow and the fatherless." Is it not those of us who He has rescued who are to now be the rescuers? If not us, than who?
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