You know, it is quite humbling when you realize just how much you allow your flesh to rule your decisions.  Your flesh is your mind, will and emotions.  The Spirit, that which God changed from being dead before salvation, into HIS LIFE with the Holy Spirit upon Salvation, is now alive and can rule and reign in our lives~ if we let HIM.

We have been pondering decisions, and almost all of them, have been decided by praying, by the Holy Spirit and aligning to scripture...doors opening, opportunities to discern, etc.   But, there are certain areas, in which we have experience much emotional pain and turmoil, that we have been holding back from bringing to God completely.  This area is Foster Care.

It is such a mixed, twisted blessing to participate in the Foster Care System.  Spiritually, we are called by God to take care of  the orphans and widows (James 1:27, my paraphrase~although amplified version is great!)  We are in complete agreement with this statement.  We do believe we are ALL called upon to do this..in some way or fashion.   It may be supporting financially , meeting their needs by helping, giving a bed, sharing meals, passing along clothing, but we ALL have a part to play in it.  For us, we feel God has called us to Foster Care and Adoption.  As much as we look back and think, God didn't specifically call us to Foster Care, he called us to adoption~  The fact of the matter is that HE has been orchestrating all of it anyway.  We would say yes, a placement would fall through, we would say yes, they would come, them move in a short time (those are easier to do emotionally), we would say yes, and a year or two later, they are still here...waiting for parents to get their act together enough to actually parent them ADEQUATELY (did I say that out loud?)  Yes, much to our amazement~yet very much according to Gods way~ the system that is in place is failed.  It cannot produce fruit with CHRIST, period.  Therefore, these parents will only go so far in their rehabilitation.  Without Christ as their Lord and Savior, the best they can do is ADEQUATE and the best the system can offer is ADEQUATE.  This is one of the primary reasons we have difficulty wanting to continue doing foster care, but at the same time,  a really, really great reason to continue.  That is why we need to press in even closer to God to get HIS perspective of all this.  What does HE want from our family?  What is HIS plan for us?  Do we continue?

This decision is not to be taken lightly.  After 5.5 years and 30+ children later, we have opportunity to adopt only once.  Maybe this is part of the fruit we have experienced, because our workers are amazed that we have had that many children and only one was actually adoptable (one set did get adopted by a relative) so I guess it was two.  The rest returned to parents, a couple to relatives.  We have sowed seeds of Gods Love and faithfulness into them, some we have been blessed to lead into a life with Christ~professing their salvation and accepting Jesus as their Lord and savior.  We have seen children completely changed, did I say completely?  From being unwanted, terror children~ to a being a joy.  It is certainly not US, but Christ living through us that has allowed this to be accomplished!   We have seen autistic children thrive in our home (oh my, so much work) and go home to be completely violent and non cooperative.  Again, not us, but Christ through us~ Wisdom in many areas:  nutrition, discipline, therapies and other treatments.  HE has provided all this to us.  Has it been hard?  YES, you bet!  Hard emotionally to get attached and see them leave to less than great circumstances, Hard to pour yourselves into them and see them go...never to see the fruition of the seeds planted, Hard to separate yourselves from the pain of raising twins for 2 years, planning to adopt as the agency said, only to see the court return them home, having children with attachment issues spitting, kicking and hitting, screaming and being so afraid (not actually of you, but of life and love) that you press into more research of how to handle this.  These are a sample of the painful situations we get to be a part of .  Situations that we chose (well, kind of) by being Foster Parents and saying "yes" to those children. 

So, what is a person to do?  Lets get back to the flesh:  it wants peace in parenting, me time, time for all by hobbies, consistancy, clean houses, managability, money (I mean, I could work more if I didn't have so many children) control of the situation, control of the situation, control of the situation...I mean the illusion of control   Our four children, at this stage in our lives and experiences, are a breeze!  FLESH wants a breeze...flesh wants it easy, the road with the least resistance................sounds really tempting. 

As I sit here, my 6 and 7 yo children are discussing how much they miss our little "Manny" who we raised from 5 weeks Failure to Thrive (ie:starved in this situation) to over 1 year and just recently left to go back to his bio mother.  My 7yo says "I miss Manny."  The 6yo says "Everyone does."  This is TRUTH!

Just a day in our life...pondering thoughts, making decisions, grieving losses and expecting great things from God.

Only through Christ~ Mellissa