[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM5Z1DHbrMg]
“Change the World”
I (like many) feel like I’m called to do something so much bigger than what I’m doing now. Similar to the song above, I want to “Change the World”. But I can’t do that overnight. It’s something that takes time, effort, thoughtfulness, consideration, “luck”, motivation, persistence, and numerous other qualities that break us down. It is, simply put, exhausting to constantly strive to be a better person, a better Christian, a better husband, a better employee, a better father, a better friend, a better neighbor, a better <fill in the blank>. As I strive in one, another is slipping.
I will admit that as my wife and I decided to get licensed to foster, my work performance began slipping. It isn’t that the fostering process is that difficult, or even that time consuming, it’s that I felt as if I were doing something I knew God wanted us to do. God has called us to be in this exact place at this exact time. I feel as if every time I shrug off or ignore God, I get so much farther away from His plan that I can never get back to what He originally had planned. And maybe that is true, but what I am thankful for, is a God that is willing to give us a second, third, fourth, hundredth, thousandth chance. When I felt like God called us to foster, it was worth it to me to focus on that, not knowing what may happen with my job. Thankfully I was able to keep my job and I’m thankful for the amazing team that I have that picked up my slack.
After we got licensed, I was able to start focusing on my work again. It was an extremely busy time as we were about to launch a new product.
About 1 to 2 weeks prior to that launch, we received our first call. That call we had been waiting for. The call that would change our lives.
It did not change my life in the way I would have expected. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make and we had to make it in about 15 minutes. As I described in a previous post, the foster parents get to state certain criteria they are looking for in a foster child.
When we received that first call, the children that were presented to us were slightly outside the criteria we said we wanted. I don’t blame the agency for calling us in that situation as their priority is to place the child, but putting that on my conscience and knowing that we said “No” to children in need is by far the worst feeling I’ve ever had. Immediately following that decision, I felt like the worst person in the world. Knowing that there is a child that we could have helped, that we could have shown love to when few others would, simply tears me up.
After a poor night’s sleep, I was reminded of why we have the criteria in place that we do. God has placed a passion on our hearts to help a very specific child or children. As hard as it was for me to say that we won’t take in these children, I know deep down in my heart that it will feel that much better when we get to say “Yes”.
My fear is that maybe I misread or misheard what God was telling us. Or maybe I warped what he was trying to say in order to fit what I wanted. This is a feeling that doesn’t seem to go away or get easier with time. But this brought on a new prayer in my life. That if I messed up, that if these were the kids that we were supposed to care for and love on, that God would bring them back into our lives. Somehow, someway we would get a second chance.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMgE61PjKKw]
Above is a song about living in the past or constantly looking at the past and missing the present. It’s about the hard decisions in life that haunt you and if you continue to just think about them, then you will continue to go backwards. So in order to “Change the World”, you need to take action. Taking action could be just saying a prayer for God to show you He is real, it could be going to church for the first time, it could be opening up your home to fostering, or it could be moving to Turkey to be missionaries. Whatever it is, my prayer is that you will take that action and stop going backwards.
The Full Series:
- Quick Recap of How I Got to Where I Am Now
- Why Foster to Adopt?
- The Full Pre-License Process
- Foster Process – Phase I
- Foster Process – Phase II
- Foster Process – Phase III
- Scratching the Surface: Religion
- Overwhelmed (this one)