From Foster to Forever

In honor of Foster Care Awareness Month, May, I wanted to share a story with you. In my last post: Don't Adopt from Foster Care, https://impressingminds.com/dont-adopt-from-foster-care/ I mentioned a well-intentioned person dissuading me from foster care adoption when I could have perfectly good kids of my own.

Here's the "REST OF THE STORY"

We did adopt from foster care. We secretly took classes. Secretly, because, well, wasn't there something wrong with wanting to adopt from foster care? We determined the age and sex of the child that we wanted. Even though all of that changed later in the process. Our plans changed, IMAGINE?

Those PRIDE classes (Parent Resources for Information Development and Education), opened our eyes to a whole new world - a world of drugs, neglect, loss, physical abuse, mental abuse, sexual abuse. It opened our eyes to 70-year-old grandparents in the classes so they could retain custody of their grandchildren.

In those classes, despair for a generation seeped into my being. Who would rescue them all?

We had no idea the trauma that a small child - or infant - can endure before they can be eligible for adoption.

We quickly had our home study completed - like as fast as we could go - fast. It was a tedious process with no one to assist us except a great social worker friend, Amber. I hope to assist others in the process here: https://impressingminds.com/foster-care-home-study-process/

We waited and waited.

We eventually did tell our families. They were nervous, I guess. Again, we felt the, "Why would you want to adopt when you could have your own kids? Why?"

We knew it was something we desired. We waited some more. I joked that I was "expecting" but in a different way... I told a few friends that assisted me in getting bunk beds, a dresser, and various essentials.

We waited.

Then the call came.

We answered.

We have been blessed beyond measure. But, don't let the beautiful picture fool you. It was hard. In the midst of the beauty of the picture is rejection first. A rejection that only an adopted child would know. Life is hard for them - and therefore, for us. And life will be hard as we take the past and move into the present and the future. That is another blog post for another day. Or many, many more blog posts!

"A Tearless Christianity is No Christianity at All." - A. W. Tozer (The Wisdom of God)

“‘[God] said,

How I would set you among my sons,

and give you a pleasant land,

a heritage most beautiful of all nations.

And I thought you would call me, My Father,

and would not turn from following me. Jer 3:19 ESV