Why Doubt.....God is Faithful!

It finally happened..........

The moment we have been praying over.  The moment we have anticipated.  The moment we have dreaded.

.........our first foster placement since our first kids have left.

Why was it a moment that we have been praying for?  We went through many struggles the first go around with foster kids.  We had them for about a year, and God used that time to strip both of our hearts of sinful selfishness and unrealistic dreams and desires.  God taught us that reaching out in ministry REQUIRES sacrifice and suffering in which we were not prepared for.  I had my struggles and Matt had his struggles, and instead of battling them together we fought them alone and against each other.  By the end of our time with those kids our marriage was struggling and our faith that God could use us to minister to hurting children was shaken and almost nonexistent.  Since then God has been ever so dependable and faithful to us in teaching us where we went wrong and how we can grow, learn, and apply what He taught us to anything else He calls us to in the future.  Our hearts grew open again to fostering and we realized that just because we had a rocky first go around didn't mean it was time to call it quits but to be open to step out faithfully again if He called us to.

Why was it a moment that we have been anticipating and dreading all in one?  We were excited to reach out to a child in need but yet had many lingering fears.  We were fearful of how we would respond to having another hurting child enter our home.  Would we be able to apply what we had learned?  Would I, Kait, be able to love this child?  Would Matt be understanding and patient if I struggled with loving this child?  What if we start having marriage problems again?  We have had so much healing......what if our wounds get reopened and we have to start healing all over again?

We have said "yes" to a few different referrals over the past few months but each child already had a home placement by the time we responded.  Every time our social worker would tell us the child already had a home we would both breathe a sigh of relief.  The day came about 2 weeks ago when a little girl needed and emergency placement ASAP.  We felt that we should say yes, and they then informed us that she would be to our home in a few hours.  We were in the midst of setting up to host an event, had company staying overnight, and were headed out of town to my sister's graduation in Chicago the next morning.  We quickly made some changes to our plans and welcomed little "H" into our home that night.  She was with us 4 nights and 5 days and then thankfully went to some family that were willing to take care of her.

While our time with "H" was short we thank God for giving us the opportunity to love her and share as much as a 2 year old can comprehend about Christ.  We are thankful that God poured out grace to us that allowed us to even welcome her into our home, because left to ourselves, we would have said we cannot do this again.  We are thankful that God has grown our marriage to make us more equipped to fight sacrifice and suffering together so that He can be glorified in our marriage.

We do not know what the future hold for us in fostering or in life in general, but as we continue to pray about God's desire to use us and what that looks like, we can have confidence that He is working in us, teaching us that DEPENDENCE ON HIM IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL!