Yesterday I visited the Laura Dester shelter, the place where children are placed when they are removed from their parents before they are placed in a foster home, a group home, or returned back to their family. I volunteered there regularly during my late teens and early twenties. I did some volunteering with teenagers--a girls' choir which was pretty much a flop due to the ever changing population (and my inexperience!) and an etiquette class (life skills). Eventually though I found my place volunteering in "the little house" with babies/toddlers/elementary aged children. It was at that little house that my heart was captured and I decided that I wanted to work with abused and neglected children.

It had been at least 5 years since I had been to the shelter. It is in a new location now, more spacious, more security. I went to visit one specific child and yeah, my heart was stirred again.

After leaving juvenile court for the last time in August of 2010 and having our home closed soon after that, I said I would never again do fostering. It was too hard, too stressful. The system was broken. I never wanted to see a judge, caseworker, attorney, or the DHS building again. My heart was closed and there were plenty of other people who would get involved. It was time for me to more forward in life, and after spending the majority of my twenties getting sucked into a super complicated case, I was done and ready to live my life again. I was also so much wiser in how HARD it really is to work with foster children and how much love, grace, and patience it required. Sure it's possible to see a child healed but I realized that the majority of the time foster and adoptive parents don't live a life filled with warm fuzzies and Hallmark moments! they do exist but often it's mixed in with a lot of chaos and messy moments.

Eventually I realized that maybe I missed it just a little. Perhaps I would be suited to CASA or maybe eventually if I got married and lived a "normal" life for a while I could think about adopting or somehow getting involved. But that would be way down the road. A long ways down the road.

Recently I a friend told me that he heard I was wanting to adopt again. I laughed at that rumor. It truly was an absurd rumor because no, as a single person I was not looking to adopt. But the truth was that we were in process of having our home reopened for fostering--and for fostering only! It has been a very slow process because we kept changing our minds about whether it was the right thing, the right time, and a good thing for Daniel. Usually while I am thinking about something I am not one to share my thoughts and feelings with a lot of people. I might tell a few people but keep things pretty quiet until I am pretty sure of something. So thinking about fostering is something that had been on my mind for several months. It is one thing I was especially cautious of talking about because reactions from people are varied and sometimes I'd just rather keep things quiet!

So now with the process basically complete I still sometimes have hesitations, mainly because it is hard. And takes sacrifice. I know now that it takes way more human love than I have. It's easy to see a cute kid and feel overwhelming feelings of love and compassion but that fades pretty quickly once a child starts acting out and that is when only God's supernatural love is strong enough to last. Now I realize just how important it is to have God's grace and to rely on Him. Even that is a struggle for me because relying on Someone else does not come easily for me. But I am not strong enough to consistently love a hurting child by myself. Not nearly strong enough. It has to be a God thing. I remember weekends with teenage girls where I had reached the end of my love. They could be tough, needy, and just plain annoying. And one weekend having one of the girls get into my makeup and leave a big mess in the bathroom just proved to me how very little patience I really had!

Well, my heart is open again--with a little cautiousness--and now I wait to see what God will do. Maybe something, maybe nothing, maybe the unexpected...but I'm finally willing to see.