Moving towards hard places is not just what we do; in light of the gospel, it’s who we are. We are the kind of people who move towards hard places and broken people because that’s exactly who Jesus has been for us. We move towards, not away, and when we do it says something true about who Jesus is in our lives. Our friends might look at us like we’re crazy, our families might look at us like we’re crazy, we might look in the mirror sometimes and ask ourselves why we’re being crazy - and everyone’s right! It’s crazy! It’s crazy that God would do this for us; and it’s crazy that He would then invite us to do it for others.
I’ve heard it said throughout my life in ministry that, “Ministry is a marathon, not a sprint.” Early on this word picture was helpful for me, serving its intended purpose to build a long-view perspective of faithfulness in work that can often be slow to produce immediate and satisfying results. I’ve used this phrase countless times myself challenging ministry leaders…
It was only a few years ago. We had three young daughters, a new church plant and a conversation one night that will forever change the course of our family. She was ready for us to become foster parents. I was not. It had been an on-going discussion for months. A very cordial one. We were on the same page, just different timelines. While I had been dismissing it in the name of it “not being the right time” she had become prayerfully convinced that in fact it was. The conversation that day was a carbon copy of the many other discussions we had on the subject up to that point. She believed now was the time.
Foster care can be cold and sterile. Like courtrooms. Medicaid office. Hospital waiting rooms. This is not to say foster care is boring and monotonous - it's anything but that. It is to say, however, that the places foster care takes you and the demands it requires of you can sometimes feel more legal than relational and more painstaking than life changing. The humanity of foster care is often lost in the beuaracrcy of foster care. In the midst of training hours, paperwork, court hearings and medicare appointments the fact that we are dealing with...
