Pearls

There are unforgettable moments in the past seventeen months of this foster journey. Some of them are moments of remarkable progress. Some are moments of extreme saddness. Some are the joy of watching a kid do or experience something new for the first time. But my favorite unforgettable moments are the moments when I can realize that God is up to something that is beyond my wildest imaginings.
I am not going to launch in seventeen months worth of moments but I am going to write about a few in a series. I am going to string them together for you like a string of pearls. And I hope you are as overwhelmed at God's brilliant plan as we are.

My first pearl was strung last year as I studied Genesis in BSF. As we studied the life of Abraham, one story clenched my heart. The story of Ishmael and Issac. God tells Abraham to send Ishmael away and Abraham obeyed. But being a foster parent, I started thinking:

How can you keep one and send the other away?
What did his friends think? What did they say?
Did his own servants, friends and community judge him?

Which all of those questions I was secretly asking myself about myself. See, little did I know what God was about to do, but I did know that God was asking us to adopt lil miss if it came to that but that we weren't supposed to and weren't financially able to adopt the oldest. But its as if God stopped time one day during lecture and whispered to me when Karen said, " They [Issac and Ishmael] couldn't become who they needed to be if they had stayed in the same house. God had a design for who they needed to become in history and they couldn't do it together."

It was settled.
But was it? Because, "Lord, where will he go? What will become of him? Will we still get to see him"

My second pearl is a lunch date I had with one of my dearest friends at the Crumpet tea room. Over orange rolls and fruit bowls (don't judge, this was pre-crabohydrate restrictions) she told me that it might sound crazy but she and her husband felt like we were supposed to say no to the oldest because they were supposed to say yes. They wanted to adopt the oldest, if it came to that.

As that pearl slid down the thread and softly bumped into the first, I knew. I knew he was putting lives in a beautiful motion. I knew he was altering out families forever and weaving us together in ways we couldn't have planned. I knew this was what the "church" stepping up really looked like. I knew he was up to something grand.

I just didn't know HOW grand.


(stay tuned for the third pearl)