Friday, December 19, 2014

On trust and love and God. Mostly God.

Here is what I cannot stop thinking about: the love of God. I grew up in church so the idea that God gave his son for my salvation is as ingrained in my memory as is the color of my eyes. But life lessons have a way of awakening the rote.

A main reason that young families do not do foster care is because they worry how their biological children will fare. This is a legitimate concern. In Another Place at the Table Kathy Harrison explains that it does not make sense to improve the welfare of one child to sacrifice another (paraphrased). Foster care only works if everyone in the home can be well cared for, protected, loved and attended to.

After a training class discussion about the impact of fostering on our biological kids Dave and I drove home saying, "We don't have to go through with it. We can still change our minds." It was the only time we had that discussion. Our only pause was to protect the three children we already had. It was only natural.

We decided what we were willing to handle and what issues we were unwilling to welcome in our home. We agreed it would be terribly hard to send a child away, but the safety of our kids was priority. They are young and they trust us to create a safe home for them. Even with these boundaries and expectations in place, I prayed and prayed about how Haven, Maiya and Tristan would manage. As I've mentioned I cannot describe the inner peace I had about becoming a foster family. I simply chose to have faith that we all, the five of us, were doing the right thing. We would manage details as best we could and the rest was in God's hands.

It has been a struggle, as I mentioned in my last post and in probably every conversation I've had since the end of September. Our standards are met in terms of the physical safety of everybody. However, when there are more children in the home, no matter how they got there, there is less one to one time with each. I usually believe this is so good for them. It is a fantastic life skill to know that the world is not all about you. I vacillate between confidence and anxiety. I remind myself of Peter dipping his toe into the water and having a little difficulty keeping his eyes on Jesus.

So, back to the love of God. What makes my eyes well up and brings a lump to my throat is the reality of John 3:16. I could quote it in my sleep: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son...." I mean, who were we that God would love us, compared to his own son? We, as humans, did not even know what was good for us. We repeatedly chose self destruction. But for our sake God gave (to quote our pastor) his first and best. He did not hold back.

This kind of love is profound and beyond what is rational. It becomes more profound to me when I think of the knots in my stomach as I watched my biological children struggle during those early weeks. I felt their tension deep, deep in my body. It was different than the tears running down my face during the first phone call the girls had with a family member. It is almost like the difference between empathy and sympathy.

How revolutionary is the love of God. I mean, it isn't like God just took us in along with Jesus and raised us together. He literally sacrificed Jesus to save us. Sheesh.

I am not suggesting that we should sacrifice our children for other children. I'm with Kathy Harrison on that point--and probably the rest of the sane world. What I do know is that God sees a bigger picture than we do. God knew Jesus would live again and he knows our future too. As my children trust Dave and me to keep our home a safe place, I'm glad that we can trust God with the same confidence.

Maybe this realization was just for me and sounds super weird to anybody else. If you don't believe in Jesus I will just say this: the love of God is The Thing which has held me together throughout my life. It's as real as my heart beat and my lungs. And if you do believe, well, you probably already knew everything you just read. But here's to God meeting us where we are and speaking in ways we understand.