Are We Even Making A Difference?

It has been 347 days since Luna and Sunshine came to our family. For the first seven months, their parents did nothing to get them back. Things are different now. Every day, it looks more and more like they will return to their bio parents in the coming months. I have been, and continue to, battle the hopelessness and despair that such a conclusion invokes in me. I vacillate between anger, hope, despair, peace, fear and joy... sometimes all in the same afternoon. The fact that I cannot see what the future holds for them can torment me (when I let it- and sometimes I do) On particularly dark nights, I wonder if I have wasted the last year of our lives trying to help a situation that cannot be repaired.

Multiple times this week, I have thought that my attempts to "help" or "save" by becoming a foster parent have been thwarted by the ridiculous system that is foster care. We walk into court hopeful and prayerful and leave infuriated, shaking our heads at the lack of logic and sanity that governs our laws. Our system holds the rights of parents above the rights of their children and I cry and grieve and shake my fist in anger. The very system that should protect our sweet girls holds them in limbo... preventing them from knowing the peace of permanence in family life.

I ran into a friend this week and we discussed how these situations make you think that to really affect change or make a difference for these children, you need to be an attorney, a judge, a politician. I feel that I have no power over what happens to Sunshine and Luna and that fact is unnerving, discouraging and infuriating. Maybe I should run for office or go back to law school or, at the very least, encourage my children to choose careers that will enable them to help others. What we are doing seems so futile...Watching all of our love and work and prayer for these girls get cast aside so they can return to the very people who got them into this mess in the first place.... Are we even making a difference? What is the point of all we are doing if the system just sends them back to be neglected and abused again?

I held my daughter Daphne last night as she wept over the future of our little Sunshine and Luna. Daphne has become the most amazing young woman over the past year. I look at her and I see a glimpse of the powerful and impressive mother she will be one day. She gives all of her love and heart to Sunshine and Luna and is such a wonderful big sister to them. As I held her, She looked up at me and said, "But they should stay here. With us. It won't be safe for them if they go back. It won't be good for them." I held her and I even said these words to her:, "Maybe, in order to really help them, I need to be an attorney or a judge.. All I know is that God has called us to love these girls and we must trust him with our future." We prayed together and cried together and talked. I told her that none of this makes sense to me. This system, this outcome. I told her how although I struggle to trust God several times a week, that trusting Him is my only Hope. I know... I KNOW that His ways are higher than ours. While our understanding leads us to believe that these girls would be best in our home, in our family, I trust God to finish this story. I have seen Him pick up the pieces of my broken heart and make the most beautiful story with them. I choose to trust Him. We read Proverbs 3:5-6 together:

This morning, she sent me these pics:

I'm not gonna lie, y'all. I am both gutted and empowered as I watch my children go through this process with me. I wish I could show you all the pictures of them laughing and playing together. What joy we have known with these girls. How amazing that in the midst of "anticipatory grief", Daphne can see God's hand in this, that she can trust Him through such pain. How blessed am I to be their mama.

My dear friend Spring shared this quote in her lesson today and I was pierced with its truthfulness:

“When the real history of mankind is fully disclosed, will it feature the echoes of gunfire or the shaping sound of lullabies? The great armistices made by military men or the peacemaking of women in homes and in neighborhoods? Will what happened in cradles and kitchens prove to be more controlling than what happened in congresses?”- Neal A Maxwell

I was wrong, dear Daphne. We ARE changing these girls for the better. We ARE helping them. We ARE making a difference. Whatever the outcome of this story, God has written on the fabric of who they are while they have been in our home.

They have come to know the love of their Savior. This summer, I was telling them the story of Jesus and explaining how He died and how the Roman soldiers crucified Him. Sunshine looked up at me, with the most pure and innocent expression on her face and asked, "Why would them do that?" My heart was so enriched to know that we get to share the gospel with these precious children. These girls have learned of their Savior, of who He is and that He died for each of them. I pray, with all of my heart, that their time with us will stay with them. I pray the love they feel here, the lessons they have learned, the peace and security they have known will stay with them, imprinted on their hearts. They may not remember our faces, or even our names, but I trust that God is using our family to change their trajectory. I trust Him. It is a choice I have to make every day. I choose to trust Him with the future.