While in our season of renewal and recharging in between fostering assignments, I went through a time of asking the Lord why so many difficult things came about from our having fostered older children: so many weaknesses came to the surface, and even after the children have moved on, we still continued to struggle from time to time. From a recent equipping seminar, we found a verbal description of what we seem to have gone through: secondary trauma, which tends to affect people taking in children from hard places.
I reached a point of questioning if it had been the wrong decision in the first place. But, upon coming before the Lord, pelting Him with my accusations, He reminded me again of what is clearly in His heart:
Sing to God, sing praises to his name;
lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts;
his name is the Lord;
exult before him!
Father of the fatherless and protector of widows
is God in his holy habitation.
God settles the solitary in a home;
he leads out the prisoners to prosperity,
but the rebellious dwell in a parched land.… in your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy.
~Psalm 68:4-6, 10
Thank You, Lord, for the confirmation that it WAS in Your heart. 🙂
From the experience, I’m learning to pray not only for the church to make the choice of taking in the fatherless, but for us to be strengthened with might in the inner man, so that we CAN take them in and, being strong and healthy, release the healing that these children need.
Pray with me for all foster parents in the Philippines: Lord, may we be strengthened with might in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power together with all the saints to comprehend the breadth, the depth, the length, the height of the surpassing love of Christ, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-19) Amen.
Finding Beauty Creating Beauty 