Friday, October 28, 2011

What's Love Got to Do With it?

Foster care has made concrete some ideas I had that were abstract. It has made my faith stronger, my character finer (still needs a lot of work) and my heart bigger.
I realized this morning when I woke up to a little chipmunk-like voice calling, "mamma!" and babbling away in his crib, that something profound had happened in our lives. He has been healed.

I recieved a grubby little screaming bundle, who didn't stop screaming  very long, day or night, for months. He was in pain. He was grieving. All those sleepless nights, prayers, tears when I had heard all the ear splitting screaming I thought I could handle, worries, and worse-case scenarios about the future playing out in my mind took a toll. But, like actual childbirth, once you see that beautiful, healthy baby, all the pain is forgotten and there is just pure joy for the gift the Lord has given you.

Foster care for infants is having the God-given opportunity to embrace a little soul who already knows loss, grief, and pain, and submerge them in love and safety. Praying for his wholeness after reading disturbing books, and distressing and depressing videos provided to me to keep up my license taught me to put my hope in God when the world system offered none.
Broken children that the world says are always going to be broken don't have to be.
My God is sovereign. He is a Healer. A Provider. He is a gentle restorer of health in every way.

I am so very humbled this morning, and grateful to tears when I look at the beautiful, shining, chubby face I have come to adore as much as one I gave birth to, and see he is happy. Healed. Confident. Bonded and attached completely. For those of you who know adoption terms you know something amazing happened that experts say might not ever. You know disorders and effects of things that should supposedly cripple this child emotionally and perhaps mentally...I have a new philosophy for dealing with the foster care system. I'm tossing all the expert advice and books for The Book. There is One manual that works for every situation and person if it's believed. Well, I believe. And now that I have seen first hand what love can do, has done, and will do, I'm passing it on to you.
Jesus is love. So, what's love got to do with it? Look at the face below and ask again. Everything, my friend-everything.

"....while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus." Acts 4:30


What if I had missed these sloppy, wet kisses and clumsy, chubby hugs around the neck and legs?

For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11

<><><>
<><><>
I have several friends who also do foster care, and they are seeing the same results of love and prayers that I am trying to describe (not so well?). The Word says "love covers a multitude of sins" and it does. Meaning that the harm done by neglect and abuse, drugs and alcohol- these sins- they can be covered by love. Don't believe me? Look at the pictures again. The eyes. I'm telling you Jesus heals.

For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the LORD, because they have called you an outcast: 'It is Zion, for whom no one cares!' Jer. 30:17



"Do what you can, where you are, with what you have." Teddy Roosevelt
~-~
"And let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful." Titus 3:14
Foster care is an urgent need. Now more than ever. There are so many babies born into generations thick of drug addictions that they often don't even have one clean relative willing and able to care for them. So, they go to strangers. Like me. Like you?
P.S. in the foster parenting classes they tell you it's not often you get to adopt your foster baby.
 We are adopting. My friends Michelle and Jeff are adopting, and several others I know locally are adopting. Why? Because God hears the prayers of His children.
Oh yes, there's risk involved. You may fall in love only to have that child returned, but I say to that,  "It's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all." and I mean that for the baby that gets to love you, and bond with you. It's terrible for them if they don't get to do that. Worse for them than if they don't bond.

5 comments:

  1. Amazing post! Thank you so much for writing this. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Amazing mom. You made me cry. I love my little brother too and I can see the change in him. The battle isn't over, there's still many more years, but I'm so glad we get to have all those years with him. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. You are an amazing woman. You truly know love. Blessings!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dalyn ~ You always amaze me with your kind heart. I gave you a shout out in my Blog today: http://russ-stickacres.blogspot.com/2011/11/and-so-it-goesthe-waiting-continues-for.html

    ReplyDelete

Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a comment Be blessed!