Psalm 107:2, New International Version

“Let the redeemed of the LORD tell their story— those he redeemed from the hand of the foe.”

Our adopted son’s sister wants to stay for the summer. We hoped on a plane two days later to go pick her up In Florida.

I have so many thoughts and things the Lord is laying in my heart that I want to share. So many things foster care related but also just so many things related to God and the calling on our lives.

Foster care is not our calling. Walking as sons and daughters obedient to what the Lord asks of us is our calling. To be sold out, head over heels in love, connected and abiding in the vine. Foster care and legal custody have just been one vessel to which we have walked this out.

With that I am reflecting on the years of walking through fire with foster care, all of the feeling and emotions and situations that we walked through that could have so easily swept us down a rabbit trail of pride, self-pity, and selfishness. Instead, the Lord refined us, He burned up off of us those things and led us into compassion, love, and unity. With eyes to see others in His lens and a grace to wrap around us when we have stumbled.

The heartbreak goes so deep with our adopted son’s family, and I longed to know his biological mother before she passed. I honor her for giving us our beautiful boy. Four years later- years of keeping close proximity to his family to build these relationships to love one another, to show commitment and honor. So, we could show up when there is a call and a need. I am honored and grateful that the Lord would use us. Us, just a normal person (not quite normal but you know what I mean) to carry out His work.

That my husband pours out with His fruit to chase after the Lord radically, and with humbleness. That God got ahold of his life and has given me the husband that I have. I am often left speechless for His power in this and restoration to our lives.

I encourage you all to take a look at your awareness of the needs around you. If the struggle to be aware of a need is something you find yourself seeing, then take a look at your proximity to those in need, to those in need of the Good News and His abounding love. Move towards that need and if you can, meet it. It will wreck you, and it will change you.

What a wonderful summer we are gearing up to have. What the world sees as broken, He calls to redeem.

We stand in awe of you, Lord.