Lewisvillelife

Because God has put it in my heart

Because it is one way to reflect his own heart

Because filling in for parents for a period of time and temporarily doing a job they cannot, gives them the space and time to make what is broken more whole. Kids need whole families. Hopefully they will find health and wholeness with us in the meantime. And ultimately, hopefully they go back to find it with their own families

Because I am for kids

Because parents love their kids and kids love their parents, and they should be together in a way that will best show and share that love

Because kids desperately need safety and stability and trustworthy touch and kind words; they need what has been tainted and twisted to begin to be untainted and untwisted

Because these aren’t “bad kids” …they are traumatized kids

Because I want to see my kids recognizing the needs of others and being willing to give of themselves, even down to their very own hearts, in order to let someone else in

Because foster homes are often worse than the very homes these kids are being pulled from

Because I want Christ in us to be a bright spot of someone’s story they retell someday

Because God chose to enter into my brokenness and not to stay out

Because I can’t unread the statistics

Because I look around and see so much space, space these kids are supposed to fill. Space that already has love and safety and laughter that isn’t being used up

Because being pro life means finding ways to care for that same life we fought for being born

Because God says our religion is worthless to Him if we do not care about widows and orphans. I think this includes those needing a temporary home

Because I care about the flourishing of human beings. The flourishing of both parents and children, and ultimately the flourishing of them together as one family if at all possible

Because these families might have a total of zero Christians who know them. Zero Christians who have walked into their story. Zero Christians who have joined them in their pain. Zero Christians who know what it feels like to love and to lose the same kids they do. Zero Christians who are praying for them

Because these kids need to know someone is fighting for them

Because these families need the same Jesus that I needed. The same Jesus I now have because someone else took the time to take me to Him

Because if I don’t, they will still be there. In need. Turning a blind eye in my own life does not change the dark reality in someone else’s life

Because I have been given too much grace to waste it on hoarding

Because abundance causes overflow

Because no time is really ever convenient

Because Christians are called to build longer tables not higher fences

Because I did not choose the environment I grew up in, nor can they

Because me getting too attached is worth the cost of a kid never getting to attach at all

Because the culture cycles of adult poverty and homelessness often start with a once-little boy or girl who never attached to another human being in healthy ways

Because I see in these kids the next generation and I want to help raise them up in any ways I am given the opportunity

Because I’m afraid I can only care as deep as something touches me personally

Because empathy grows when we know their names and look into their eyes. Especially when their innocent little faces sleep peacefully on our own pillows at night

Because compassion doesn’t stay put, it acts

Because I’ve seen my foster-parent friends and family with tear filled eyes and broken hearts say “it’s all worth it” and then do it again and again and again

Because our losses are worth their wins

Because I want to be involved in people’s messy lives. And that is always going to get complicated and it is always going to hurt. No matter the avenue we take to do so

Because I would want someone else to do the same for my own kids

Because I think the world needs Christ followers who simply say “I’m here” and then prove it