Powerless

 

I get an early-morning text from the kids’ new foster mom:

We’re going hiking today.  Do you want to join?  

Finally! A time to see my former foster kids. We’ve been repeatedly asking and impatiently waiting for this invitation for two months. But when I ask what time we’re meeting, I don’t get an immediate reply.

10 am rolls around, still nothing.

Lunchtime—I try calling.  I know the kids are out of preschool? 

After keeping my phone on me all day, I finally give up hope about 3 pm as I look at the rainy forecast for the rest of the afternoon.

Does this foster mom realize how much this meant to us?

Does she know I spent the morning in tears, because of my love for these kids and the anticipation to see them?

Does she get that I picked out gifts for them?  That my husband and I rearranged our entire day so that we could make this hike work on a moment’s notice? 

I wrestle.  With bitterness, and grief, and also guilt—after all, we could have said “yes” to placing these kids in our home again.  It’s all killing me.  When suddenly, my self-pity is interrupted by a greater reality: for my former foster kiddos (and the thousands of others caught up in the same system), this powerless reality is their daily reality.  

How many times did that 4-year-old girl count down the days until her visit with Mommy, only to show up at the visitation center and have a caseworker come out to break the bad news:

I guess she’s not coming today.  

I remember.  Yes, we tried to distract her, but no bribe to visit Dairy Queen could mask the pain in her eyes.  No assurance of “next time” could stop her anger from overflowing in the coming hours and days.  It isn’t fair.  

That sweet little man, too young to have explanations for his eight placements in 16 months.  He had no say in where he got to be or who was his caregiver.  He is powerless. 

Today, all I wanted was to squeeze and snuggle my baby boy.  The one who’s not really mine.  But you don’t always get what you want.  A feeling these kids are so familiar with.  

So instead, I will write and I will pray. And hope that these kids’ tragic and infuriating reality inspires you and I to step out of our controllable environments into their powerless ones.  That we would share in Christ’s sufferings, so we can share in his glory.  Because that is what his kingdom is all about, right?  Stepping off the throne, and entering the messiness.  The injustice.  The pain.  

We pray, Father, that you would help us take up the cause of the powerless—to see and hear and know these children and their parents.  Help us have the privilege of pointing them to you. 

We pray for these parents, Jesus, help them so they can help their children.  They don’t deserve your grace, they know not what they’re doing.  But neither did we.  Show them grace. 

And for these precious children, help them know that you always show up. Every day, you see them and you say “let the children come to me”.