"I could never love a child I could lose"

Well, I wasn't sure what to title this, and I may well change it before I publish this- but yes, it’s true...all our children are just temporarily here.

I have known I wanted to be a foster parent for as long as I can remember- I suppose as soon as I realized that one could adopt a child that wasn’t a baby; that there were not-yet-grown boys and girls in the world who needed a mommy to love them for a while, either until their own mommy could get things together or until forever, if need be. I’ve been increasingly vocal about my goal since Jr. High and over and over again I have heard:

“Oh I could never love a child I knew I could lose.”

I’ve heard this line from many well-meaning people. People who have adopted all their children and who would love nothing more than to be able to adopt more but cannot afford another international adoption. People who claim to want “as many children as the Lord provides,” yet somehow overlook the charge in James 1:27 that says “pure and simple religion is to look after orphans.” People who have raised wonderful, caring children but can’t consider even one more. And of course people like myself who haven’t parented any children yet- biological or otherwise. It’s a really common belief- that one couldn’t love a child knowing they could lose him or her.

Today as I was driving home from work in my mini-van I glanced up in my rearview mirror and for a moment got an excited flutter in my tummy as I imagine, for a split second, the day (in the hopefully not-too-distant future) that I would glance back there and see a precious foster child or two (okay, I may have automatically imagine as many as three or four) sleeping in their car seats and boosters. As I focused my attention back on the road my mind wandered to what I would say when I’m out in public with my batch of kids (some foster, some adopted, some biological) to the question I’ve heard so many foster parents bring up on message boards “Are they all yours?” My first thought is usually “Yes- at least for today” because I already know that even my “temporary” children will be loved fiercely by me- and I know I will want to claim them as my own. But something else about my knee-jerk response caught my attention tonight…

If I am blessed with biological children- that answer of “Yes, at least for today,” could just as easily indicate that one of THEM will not be with me the next day. A child can be called home to Jesus at any time in their lives. As a matter of fact- a more appropriate answer to the question, “Are they all yours?” would be “No, they are all God’s.” Even the biological ones are only here on “loan.”

A friend of mine died when she was just 16. She was killed in random gang violence on her way home from church. Becky’s parents placed a poem in the memorial program handed out at her funeral. It read:


I'll Lend You a Child
by Edgar Guest

"I'll lend you for a little time a child of mine,"  He said.
For you to love - while he lives
And mourn for when he's dead.
It may be six or seven years
Or twenty-two or three,
But will you, till I call him back,
Take care or him for Me?
He'll bring his smiles to gladden you,
And should this stay be brief
You'll have his lovely memories as solace for your grief.
I cannot promise he will stay,
Since all from earth return,
But there are lessons taught down there
I want this child to learn.
I've looked this world over
In search for teachers true,
And from the throngs that crowd
Life's lanes, I have selected you.
Now will you give him all your love,
Nor count the labor vain,
Nor hate Me when I come to call to
Take him back again?"
I fancied that I heard then say,
"Dear Lord, Thy will be done,
For all the joy Thy child shall bring,
The risk of grief we'll run.
We'll shelter him with tenderness,
We'll love him while we may,
And for the happiness we've known
Forever grateful stay.
But should the angels call for him
Much sooner than we've planned,
We'll brave the bitter grief that come
And try to understand."

You see, Becky’s parents didn’t KNOW they were going to lose her when she was just 16, but they recognized that she- like their other children were only promised to them on a moment to moment basis. Another friend of mine, Natalie, passed when she was in her early teens after a battle with bone marrow cancer. Her parents didn’t stop loving her the day they learned that there was a very real possibility that they would lose her. My friend B.D. has Cystic Fibrosis- her mother knew from the time she was an infant that her time with her daughter was going to be much shorter than she would like. But the option of not loving B.D. was never an option- it was really pretty automatic. If you asked her now, as B.D. is about to give her a first grandchild, if it was worth the risk- I bet you she would say yes a thousand times over. Another precious woman- whose blog I find so moving- only got to have her precious baby, Samuel, with her here on earth for the 9 months she carried him in her womb before he was called home unexpectedly. Her love for him is FIERCE, even though she only got to have him for just so long. Anyone who reads her blog knows that she is thankful she had those nine months with Samuel- I don’t believe she would have avoided loving him if she knew that’s all the time she would share with him here on earth and I would go so far as to assume that if she knew ahead of time what would happen in the end she would still have elected to spend at least that little bit of time with him.

My point in bringing all these VERY sad stories up is not to depress you. It’s to challenge the all-too-common idea that one could never love a child they might lose. If you love a child- then you ALREADY loving a child you could lose. By God's grace, everyone who is reading this blog entry will go on to glory BEFORE all their children here on earth. But loving somebody is ALWAYS taking a risk. And I believe it is one that is always worth taking when it concerns a child.

I recognize that foster care and adoption is NOT for everyone. I don’t assume that everyone who says that they know they cannot foster parent is wrong and/or selfish. There are sometimes valid reasons a person cannot  or should not foster. That’s okay and I am supportive of people who know that its not for them and respect them for knowing their limits. I just want to challenge anyone who thinks that they could never foster simply because they could never love a child they knew they could lose to rethink that idea. Could they? Could you?

A bleeding heart

Sorry, my spellcheck isnt working! Good luck!

Ive been badly negecting this blog, which is unfortunate. I think in part I ignore it because I dont think it is ever read and in part because I dont know what the dirrection of the blog should be. The former has never stopped me from writing before. Ive been writing since before I knew how form my letters and its only been in recent years that I have had an oppertunity to put that suff where people can see it. LOL. I used to keep a blog about a health condition that I struggle with. I did that for four years and built an incredible support system that way, but in the past year or so everybody has migrated away from that site My health is also much better right now and I dont identify myself as much by my illness anymore. Anyways, not knowig the dirrection of this blog IS a problem. Initailly I started it as a way of doing homework assignmetns for a sociology class...I had to find things around me that reminded me of problems in society and give my opinion of it. (Yeah that was an easy class!) But then I wanted to kinda continue that but put in more about my personal life/intersets and aspirations. I also want this to be a possitive blog, which is sometimes hard because I have a hard time always being positive (dirrectly related to my health issues.)

Well, today I am just going to write soemthing that has been on my heart. Im currently in pre-Nursing school. Its a long story why Im not in Nursing School yet, and Im not going to tell it now. I have my pre-requisites done for the most part, but amd gonna retake a few of them becasue I got some Cs in the anatomy and physiology classes and I need higher grades to get into other schools (I have all As besides theose A&P classes and math classes.) So, sicne it has taken me so long to get this far, I have also been working on my associates in social work. So here is the deal, I want to be a missionary. Thats all Ive ever wanted to do, but Ive always felt lead to do medical missions and have been trying to get my nursing degree since I was 18. Im actaully a pretty good student but finances and my health has made this a slow road.

My husband, who was once very open to missions is now- not really into it at all. He wants to make money and have nice cars and live in the suburbs. There's actually nothing wrong with this. Lots of American's feel this way, but its not at all how I am oriented. As I began to discover these things I was gripped with a crushing depression. Its litterally been since before Kindergarden that I knew I felt called to missions. I selected my husband VERY carefully with this goal in mind. I actually turned down marriage proposals from nice, godly gentlemen simply becasue I wasnt willing to pass on what I felt was my God-given calling. Before we were married, my husband spoke of wanting to be involved in the ministry but that he didn't know in what capacity. He said when he met me, he felt like it was Gods way of dirrecting him to the ministry he had planned for him. He siad that he felt called to marry me, and that  becasue I already had a calling in my life, then he knew that was also Gods calling on his life (since God was bringing our lives together.) Ministry was a HUGE focus of our premarital counseling. We also were in a Missions class together before the wedding that concluded a few weeks after the wedding last summer. When that class ended, so did my husbadns interest in missions. He no longer likes for me to talk about missions. Sometimes when he starts talking about all the material goods he wants and I ask when missions will fit into the plan and he seems exasperated with me. Like I say, as this stuff started unfolding, I really was over come by depression.

In recent weeks I have been doing better, depression wise. I guess for a while I felt really confused. I felt like maybe I had msunderstood God, either about Missions or about Marriage. But the more I think about it, the less I believe I got that wrong. I know Im supposed to be my husbands wife. I prayed a lot about it and really felt it was the right decision. And I love my husband. What I am now trying to do is figure out what I want to do with my life- what Gods dirrection form my life is. I want my life to be something that will bring glory to God, something that will call those who have been astranged from their heavenly father to a knowlege of his saving grace. Nursing was always my prefered means of doing that. I knew that with nursing, i could minister to somebodies physcial needs and it would nto matter if I could speak their language. I longed to provide medical care to those who had no earthly hope to access such care. Thats where my heart as ALWAYS been.

I LOVE people. Ive been accused of being a bleeding heart more than once or twice. Do you ever just drive by somebody random on the street and just start thinking about how wholey and completely they are loved by God? That Christ DIED for them to have a realtionship with them. This happens to me A LOT. I've been known to just become overwhelmed by emotion at this thought that i sttart to cry and pray for that person. i cannot watch the news because its really too heavey for me. I feel like I sometimes feel the actual pain of the people described. As a write, I have to a be a good empathizer. As somebody who has suffered much pain and loss in this life, its not hard for me to tap into these feelings when I see soembody hurting. I beleive God designed me this way on purpose. I belive he WANTS  me to do soemthing with it. The truth is, if I am going to be stuck here in the US, I do NOT want to be a shift nurse. I see ZERO point to it. I have no passion for it.

Ive considered pushing and pushing my hsuband, manipulating him into agreeing to do Missions, like he did before we were married, but I dont think that would be God-honoring. I have to find a way to honor God in this situation. So I am asking myself, what do I want to do? What tallents has God give me? How can I make an impact here? I dont think missions had to be to far away lands (although I always THOUGHT I was called to serve over seas) Maybe God has a plan for me to be a missionary right here? I long to do foster care and adoption. Ive always wanted a huge family and adoption is how I want to make that happen.In particular, I want to be able to foster/adopt sibling groups.That will certainly impact lives, but I think I can do more than that. I want to homeschool- my vision was always homeschooling on the missions feild, but I've also considered teaching. I know in public schools you are very limited to what you are allowed to talk about so that could be limiting too. So, Ive considered somehthing like a private  Chrisitan montisori school, but I dont really want to minister only to kids from Christian homes. I am close to having my associates in social work- I've thought about working with DCYF- but if I do get the chance to do missions in the future, well, thats not really a transferable skill. Ive wondered if my husbadn could ever be pursuaded to be house parents to a childrens home. I saw some on missions websites before down in the south. But i dont know- that might also interfere with our ability to have children that we get to "keep." I've also though about doing somehting in therapy and working with children recovering from trauma and those with attachment issues, the mom I nanny for (who has her masters in Psychology and three adopted children from fostercare) said that is a hopeless career and the therapists who work in that feild are not able to fix the children or do much to make them better. But what if God was involved in the therapy? .... What else? I love agriculture, but again, mostlty envision that being useful to missions. I could see practicle applications for it in the inner city, but my husband doesnt want me to work in the inner city because he is afraid Ill get hurt. Ive considered pursing the nursing and planning to work in a not-for-profit but agan, with the inner city issue. I cannot imagine doing anything with my life that would not be working to make other peoples lives more bareable.

So in short, I have lots of ideas and Im excited to figure out how I want to make this work. Of course Im never going to give up praying for God to turn my husband's heart back to Missions, Im never going to stop praying that my hsuband's heart will be softened towards the people God loves. But I also need to figure out who I can serve God here, where I am. I need to have the best attitude about this possible, as if I was doing EVERYTHING as if unto the Lord. So, trying to figure this all out has been kinda stressful, if you happen to have read this, please pray as I decide what to do. Ask God to revel his will for my life-- or at least the next steps he wants me to take. And pray for my attitude all the while!