The Lord works in mysterious ways. That is an understatement. The moment life seems to be going swimmingly well, a current wipes you out…taking your breathe away as you lay facedown.
After talking with social workers about a week ago, John and I were holding onto the possibility of taking in two kids under the age of two. Then, a couple of days later, we got the phone call.
“I hope someone told you this already, but the referral has been withdrawn. We’ll keep you on the list and call you when another child needs a home.”
Waiting, waiting, and more waiting. It is almost mid-August, and the students at Mount Horeb High School have been on summer break for three months already. So far, the summer has been wonderful, and in a couple of weeks, teachers will begin training for the 2019-2020 school year.
While I wait for children to fill our home and students to head back to school, I have binged on Tobe Nwigwe’s live concert experience as well as scroll through Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook…frequently. Yet, there is a need that social media cannot fill, and so I turn to God.
Sleepless nights give way to reading God’s Word. It is here in the middle of the night where I find myself thinking about children, fostering, and adoption. For the last two years, John and I have discussed what it looks like to have children. As much as we would like our own, we wanted to foster as well. At first, I had a difficult time accepting foster children as being our only children; for two years, I have prayed (and practiced) that one day, we would have a little John and/or Nicole running around.
However, last night my prayers changed. Madison is full of children who need homes. There is a sense of guilt in not having my own children…or not having children already. True, I’m 32 years old and should have at least 2 kids by now, right? Besides, I only have a certain number of years left in me to be having my own children. Perhaps this pressure coupled along with having our own is what led me to pray:
“God, we don’t have to have our own children. I give that desire and dream over to you…laying that at Your feet.”
Lay it down at Jesus’ feet and fall into a deep, peaceful sleep.
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