It took almost two years to secure our contract with DFPS to place waiting children in adoptive homes. When I first started the process, even the DFPS contract managers told me it would be a difficult and life-draining process. They were right. But we knew God had revealed to us the orphan crisis in our own backyard for us to make a difference....not to just walk away and pretend like we didn't know. So I pressed on. We placed our first waiting children in an adoptive home in December, and they finalized last month. If all that work was done for just those two kids...it would be worth it...because every child deserves a home! But there are 13,000+ still waiting.
That's why when I was made aware of a sibling group of four kids who have had parent rights terminated for over a year with NOTHING done according to policy of CPS to try to find an adoptive home, I jumped to action. Initially just because we had an adoptive home that was open to looking at the possibility of adopting them. There is so much more to their story and the travesty of it, but that will have to be a post for another time! My efforts to find them a home were met with a huge brick wall! Texas is undergoing a foster care redesign and evidently sometime between February when I was told adoption wasn't part of it and June when I am trying to find a home for children whom the system has failed for a year now, adoption became part of it. The details are appalling and make it obvious that the issue is money and not welfare of children, but that too is a post for another day also.
I spent the better part of the next two days on the phone with officials trying to explain the issue that would severely limit the availability of adoptive homes for the 13,000+ children who are waiting. On July 3, I found myself on a phone call with a foster care redesign attorney with DFPS and a couple of other people. It became obvious that this was not going to be an issue easily fixed. I was defeated. I was left wondering where God was in all of it! I knew He had called me to this work with waiting children of Texas. It's my passion, it's become the focus of my life's calling to care for the orphan. But I truly didn't think I could fight not one more battle in the war for these kids. I was emotionally, physically and spiritually spent with the demands of that battle, the cases I still had to work with Addy's Hope, and the job to be wife to John and mom to 9. I leaned over my kitchen counter and just sobbed!
"What do you want from me, GOD?!" I screamed from the deepest part of my soul! I have fought this battle before in Liberia. I had to walk away from that one without success leaving children and families broken in the wake of those events. What are you asking me to do now? What more do you want from me?
"What do you want from me, GOD?!" I screamed from the deepest part of my soul! I have fought this battle before in Liberia. I had to walk away from that one without success leaving children and families broken in the wake of those events. What are you asking me to do now? What more do you want from me?
I knew I had to have a break at the very least. So I determined to not work for the 4th of July weekend and take that time to enjoy my family. I spent most of that weekend trying to figure out how to shut Addy's Hope down. I truly didn't know how I could continue to work passionately for children to keep hitting government bureaucracy that stood between them and forever families. It was one thing to deal with that in a third world country half way around the world, but to once again be face to face with this monster in my own country, in my own state in a "civilized" society was more then I felt I could continue to battle. But come Monday morning, God was waiting for me when I got still and started my quiet time with Him.
I had heard a couple of teachings on the dry bones coming to life in Ezekiel 37. I had turned there that morning. I started in verse 36 to try and get a little intro to what was happening in 37. As I read, I felt the despair and hopelessness of the situation melt away. The Spirit of the Lord spoke to Gideon telling him that what he saw with his eyes was not reality. He told him to tell the bones to get up...then piece by piece, the bones became an army that could fight for him! As I read, I knew God was reminding me that what I was being told by those I was talking with was the physical world, but God was telling me to speak life into the situation! He was reminding me that the true reality of what was happening was in what He had planned. He brought to mind several Words that had been shared with my be key people in my life. He showed me how they were for this time and this exact situation. Then He did something I don't know that I can ever remember Him doing in my walk with Him. He gave me a choice.
We always have a choice. I know that. We can choose life, or we can choose death. We can choose obedience, or we can choose sin. But this time was not like that. This time He spoke to me like I would one of my children who were contemplating a decision. He assured me that He knew the sacrifice this battle would take. He told me it would be hard, it will take all you have to fight it. Then He assured me that I could walk away from it. It wasn't a "you can walk away, but you will be walking in disobedience" rebuke. It was truly a choice. I felt like what I think Jesus must have felt in the Garden of Gethsemane. Obviously not nearly to the extent of sacrifice that Jesus had to make or the agony he felt, but a similar scenario. God was telling me this is truly a choice. However, there were some "buts" to that choice. It was a choice, "but" all the work I had done in Liberia with the government there was for such a time as this. It was a choice, "but" the working of the CPS contract and having an agency doing only adoptive placements of waiting children was for this time and place. So much of the heart ache and the walking through the valleys was for this moment. It truly felt like God was saying, "This is the moment I created you for! But I know it will cost you, and you can walk away from it. Just know that all you have suffered in walking out your faith, beliefs and passion has prepared you for this battle. Now what are you going to do?" He assured me the battle would be won. He had already declared it in the heavenlies. However, He also made clear that pulling that victory down from heaven to earth would require going to battle. In my work with Addy's Hope, I have always felt inferior. Inferior as a professional, inferior as a tiny agency, inferior in just about every way possible. Can I tell you something? God knows our insecurities! And that morning He spoke directly to mine when He said, "Do not be ashamed or timid because you are a small agency - you are David and I will give you the stones of Truth and wisdom to sleigh Goliath." (And to confirm that one of my amazing families made a reference to David and Goliath just a few days later!)
And with that, I had a decision to make.....
I had heard a couple of teachings on the dry bones coming to life in Ezekiel 37. I had turned there that morning. I started in verse 36 to try and get a little intro to what was happening in 37. As I read, I felt the despair and hopelessness of the situation melt away. The Spirit of the Lord spoke to Gideon telling him that what he saw with his eyes was not reality. He told him to tell the bones to get up...then piece by piece, the bones became an army that could fight for him! As I read, I knew God was reminding me that what I was being told by those I was talking with was the physical world, but God was telling me to speak life into the situation! He was reminding me that the true reality of what was happening was in what He had planned. He brought to mind several Words that had been shared with my be key people in my life. He showed me how they were for this time and this exact situation. Then He did something I don't know that I can ever remember Him doing in my walk with Him. He gave me a choice.
We always have a choice. I know that. We can choose life, or we can choose death. We can choose obedience, or we can choose sin. But this time was not like that. This time He spoke to me like I would one of my children who were contemplating a decision. He assured me that He knew the sacrifice this battle would take. He told me it would be hard, it will take all you have to fight it. Then He assured me that I could walk away from it. It wasn't a "you can walk away, but you will be walking in disobedience" rebuke. It was truly a choice. I felt like what I think Jesus must have felt in the Garden of Gethsemane. Obviously not nearly to the extent of sacrifice that Jesus had to make or the agony he felt, but a similar scenario. God was telling me this is truly a choice. However, there were some "buts" to that choice. It was a choice, "but" all the work I had done in Liberia with the government there was for such a time as this. It was a choice, "but" the working of the CPS contract and having an agency doing only adoptive placements of waiting children was for this time and place. So much of the heart ache and the walking through the valleys was for this moment. It truly felt like God was saying, "This is the moment I created you for! But I know it will cost you, and you can walk away from it. Just know that all you have suffered in walking out your faith, beliefs and passion has prepared you for this battle. Now what are you going to do?" He assured me the battle would be won. He had already declared it in the heavenlies. However, He also made clear that pulling that victory down from heaven to earth would require going to battle. In my work with Addy's Hope, I have always felt inferior. Inferior as a professional, inferior as a tiny agency, inferior in just about every way possible. Can I tell you something? God knows our insecurities! And that morning He spoke directly to mine when He said, "Do not be ashamed or timid because you are a small agency - you are David and I will give you the stones of Truth and wisdom to sleigh Goliath." (And to confirm that one of my amazing families made a reference to David and Goliath just a few days later!)
And with that, I had a decision to make.....
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