Our Journey to Foster Care

Our journey to foster care.....a cheesy title, but there's truly no other way to describe the process other than as a journey. I've had several people ask how we decided to do foster care and.....well....there's not really a simple answer so I thought I'd record it here.

About 4 years ago, we were sitting in church. I can't remember what the sermon was about. I was tired. We had two young kids that I was trying to keep entertained for an hour and a half because they refused to go to the nursery. Honestly, I just remember being SO over it. I wanted to go home and sleep and relax and not chase children everywhere. My eyelids were getting heavy (sorry Pastor) and juuuuuust as I was starting to doze off, my husband slides a piece of paper over to me that he had written a note on.

I thought, "Oh, that's so cute! He's going to tell me he loves me or that I deserve a nice long nap when we get home."

And then I read the note.

It said, "We should do foster care."

Uhhhhhhh...........no.

No thank you.

There was literally nothing I could think of that I would rather do LESS than raise another child who needs more attention than my own two. But I didn't want to let Nick know that. I looked up and met his eyes.....smiled.....and shrugged my shoulders. I whispered, "Let's talk about that later" while frantically trying to think of a reason to say no that wouldn't make me sound like a horrible, awful person.

That's all I thought about after he gave me that note. Through the whole church service, my mind bounced back and forth between 'that could be really awesome' and 'that sounds like hell.'

After church, we got in the car and I braced myself for the inevitable.

"So.....what do you think about foster care?" he asked me.

"Well......it sounds like a really nice thing.....for another family to do."

And I'll spare you all of the conversation we had in between, but eventually I agreed to take the required classes to get licensed. Nick was completely understanding of my hesitation and didn't pressure me at all, but I'll admit that I initially said yes out of guilt. My husband felt a true calling to it and I did not. But my thought process was that there's no way being a foster parent was a BAD thing so even though I didn't necessarily feel like it was the right thing for my life at the time, I went along with it.

We took the 9 week MAPP-TIPS class. If I remember correctly, it was a 3 hour class that we took once a week. Those were some really long nights. My kids were still three and four and I hated leaving them with someone else for an entire evening every week. We both went there straight from work and we all went straight to bed once we got home.

The classes were amazing. We learned SO much. It was heartbreaking to see that the need is so great and to watch the videos and learn about how to handle these kids who have been through so much. But at the same time I felt compassion and sadness, I felt SO overwhelmed. With each foster kid comes finding a baby-sitter, establishing care with a doctor, getting them seen for a check up ASAP, paperwork that's never ending, documenting EVERYTHING, emailing social workers and on top of all of that, being the best parent you can to a child who is lost and broken. The list is never ending.

After our final class, I remember driving home in the dark. My heart was aching...for all the kids in the system, for my own two kids because I missed them and they missed me, because I was exhausted and I just KNEW I wasn't ready to do foster care. I didn't know how to tell Nick and I felt so much guilt (self-induced). I felt like a bad person for not wanting to do this. I felt like I was letting Nick down or keeping him from God's call on his life. I was speaking a lot of untruths to myself. I turned on K-LOVE (our local Christian radio station) hoping to get SOMETHING to uplift my spirit and the song "It's Not Over Yet" by King and Country came on.

Talk about the Holy Spirit knocking your socks off. It was like literally every word was speaking directly to each negative thought I'd had in that car ride.

And they are inside your head
You got a voice that says
You won't get past this one
You won't win your freedom

It's like a constant war
And you want to settle that score
But you're bruised and beaten
And you feel defeated

This goes out to the heaviest heart

Oh, to everyone who's hit their limit
It's not over yet
It's not over yet
And even when you think you're finished
It's not over yet
It's not over yet

Keep on fighting
Out of the dark
Into the light
It's not over
Hope is rising
Never give in
Never give up
It's not over yet

Oh, game set match
It's time to put it in your past, oh
Feel the winter leavin'
It's redemption season
Long live the young at heart (here we are)
Cheers to a brand new start (here we are)
We're revived and breathing
To live a life of freedom

Oh, to everyone who's hit their limit
It's not over yet
It's not over yet
And even when you think you're finished
It's not over yet
It's not over yet

And life is a race we run
So run till the race is won
Don't you ever give up (here we are)
Oh no never give up (here we are)

I remember just sobbing the rest of the way home and feeling like God was assuring me that it's okay. It's not over. Just because I'm not doing something RIGHT NOW doesn't mean it won't ever happen. That Nick wouldn't resent me. That he would provide other people to step up for these kids. That my kids were doing okay. That we were heading into a redemption season. 

I don't remember when or how I told Nick that I for sure wasn't ready. The years have blurred my memory a bit, but that song and that car ride are something I will never forget and that I clung to for the next few years.