My husband and I had been working on becoming foster parents since Feb 2020. We sat down anxiously with about 10 couples listening to the social worker describe the 2000 classes we had to attend, and 10,000 documents that we will have to dig up, scan and email them not once, not twice, but about 50 times. I am of course speaking in hyperboles; but long story short, it was a lot of work. It didn’t help that Covid complicated things.
Finally, we got our Foster care license on early November 2020. We were told that we would get a placement right away and so we had the kid’s room ready, the car seat ready and we excitedly told our family that we will have a foster child during the holiday. November passed, December passed, January, February….We waited and waited and waited, and nothing happened -except for getting a different social worker every 1.5 month or so.
As each month passed the kid’s room started to collect dust and so did our hopes.
Finally, in July 2021 they gave us a call for a placement. Unfortunately, we had already scheduled a three week family visit to Mexico, so it was not a good fit. Coming back from Mexico we got a call that they had 2 toddlers ready (2 and 3) for us- We excitedly said yes.
Overnight, my family doubled in size and our life turned upside down. We had to clean the dusty kids room, we had to get toys, we had to change diapers. They told us that they went to sleep at 7 pm; we couldn’t get them to sleep until 10pm the first night. Between the chasing, the cleaning, the baths and the reading stories–my husband and I were tired, hungry and very dehydrated.
Two nights in and with barely any sleep; I was having a panic attack. I wasn’t ready for this, my life was upside down. Did I have what it takes to be a foster mom? How was I supposed to do this?
I sat in their bedroom exhausted at 5 AM (one of them kept waking up and crying). I started to pray; I hadn’t prayed or read my Bible for 3 days. All at once I felt immense peace in my soul, it was as if the Holy Spirit was letting me know that He was there. The Father was there too and He knew what I felt.
A couple hours later we made our way to Church. Almost as if our worship leader was reading my mind, he spoke of fears and laying out our anxiousness on the Lord.
I am still very anxious, and I still have to figure things out. However, I feel like I got this. Well I don’t have this, God’s got this; I just have to trust Him.
I wish I had time to go deeper than this, but I have to run and change a poopy diaper.
Running,
Milo
