In February my husband and I began the process of classes and trainings to be foster parents. We’re almost to the end now, hoping that our approval will be coming through any day now or maybe any week now, there’s no way to know for sure. I meant to write about it after we told people, but I’ve still been working on words that honor all people in the process. My family wasn’t surprised that we were doing this — I’ve wanted to be a foster parent since I was 13 years old, and it’s something Trent and I have talked about since we started dating. Some folks were more confused by the timing — wouldn’t it make more sense if you two had biological children first? You don’t even own anything for children. Shouldn’t you wait until you’re not both solo pastors at different churches? That’s going to be hard to figure out and you have no other staff to step in if something happens.
All of these concerns were true, though through craigslist and the kindness of others we have a few more things set up for children and babies. And yes, it still is scary that we both work on Sunday mornings in separate churches with neither of our parents right nearby. But it got to the point that this was what we knew for sure — being foster parents at this time right now might not be reasonable, but we believe it is faithful.
I finally found the number to call for a foster care informational meeting after I couldn’t fall asleep every night for over a week because it had been weighing on my heart and mind for months. After I found the page and wrote down the number I went back in and fell right asleep. I thought talking to Trent about this thought would surely make reason win out. I mean I’ve wanted to care for all the children for forever — myself and another friend were voted most likely to commit code pink (steal a child) from the children’s hospital — so if the Spirit wasn’t also talking to Trent, this would clearly not be the time. She was.
There was only one other family at the trainings that didn’t already have children. We got some weird looks and side eyes, but we went in listening to the Spirit – hoping the classes would either confirm or change what we thought we were hearing.
So here we are, somedays we wonder if we’re crazy, many days we wonder how the logistics will all work out, but knowing we have the easiest side. If our life is unreasonable or inconvenienced so that a child may have a safe place to be while their family gets help- then faithful wins over reasonable every time.
We made room in the kitchen cabinets yesterday for bottles and sippy cups — just another way of making space in our home and hearts. I try to be patient, we are so excited to show love and care to a child, but on the other hand, we would love it if foster parents become obsolete. The whole system is full of contradictions, we’d love to adopt from foster care if the opportunity arose, but would not want to “root against” family wholeness and redemption. I’m sure that both faith and reason will be tested on this journey.
We know that faith and reason will be more balanced as time goes on — and as much as I joke about not being reasonable, we have been reading every book suggested to us about how to best care for foster children because research equals love. We know we have much to learn, and pray for hearts that are open to hear it.
We covet your prayers — for these children, for the social workers, for us, and for our community. And as this journey begins, we pray that we would be faithful, even when it is not reasonable.
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