...of keeping things in the forefront of our minds! I have posted several times about my desire for a baby. It comes and goes from time to time. Well, lately it has come and stayed! Nothing about life says now would be a good time...John says nothing about life says EVER would be a good time! :) He was done at one! But I have really had foster care on my mind! As I was looking at all these adoption situations that I wanted to be presented to, I looked at the price tags, and this little voice said, "Now what was it that stopped you from fostering? Wasn't it like $2,000 to put up that four foot fence and you stopped. Yet, you are still looking at adoptions that will cost you well over $20K?" He had me! I couldn't rationalize my way out of that one!
So I started really praying! I even made some inquiries on-line about pool fences..you know nothing personal, just filling in some forms so there is no commitment. Well, out of the blue one day at the office, one of the companies called with their Texas installer! So there it was again....the idea of fosterting. He quoted me a price that would be about $3,000. Out of the question! John will never go for that! He doesn't even want a fence around the pool anyway. I didn't either because we had a lab that already didn't have enough room, and that would have blocked her running space for sure. Well, three weeks ago, we sent her to a new home with a ton of space! So one more dilema solved.
I have become a new fan of Karen Kingsbury. My friend Anita introduced me to her books, and I am hooked! I only had 5 minutes at the library the other day before I had to pick up the kids, so I just grabbed two and ran. When I started reading one of them, When Joy Comes to Stay, guess what it is about? You guessed it...foster care! A mom who gave up a baby and is now fostering, and the baby she gave up that is now 8 and gets nearly beat to death by her foster mom! I am not finished with the book, but have just cried through most of it! Once again, fostering jumps out of nowhere!
CPS is not the way I would go. There will be a much greater risk of heartbreak (like adoption doesn't have enough in and of itself!)as odds are we will lose a few before we get to keep our child. We will have to take children who have been abused...love children who have not been loved. That can be very difficult. But if we don't, who will? That is what God keeps asking me. I look on the TARE websight almost daily. Did you know that in 2006 in Texas along, 1,700 children aged out?! That means 1,700 children left the foster system with no where to return to on Christmas or no home to go to if they fall on hard times. No where but the street or jail where over 75% of foster children end up! Body of Christ, what are we thining?! Who will be Jesus' hands and feet to these "Least of these" if we will not?
I don't know that in the end we will be able to foster to adopt. I don't know yet what John will hear from the Lord. But I know that even if we don't foster to adopt, God has this in the forefront of my mind for some reason! If it is not for us, then I will have to keep praying because it is just not acceptable to know that many children are hurting...right here in good 'ol America!
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