Sometimes, I’m stubborn.

Hard to believe, I know. But I am. So many times my stubbornness gets in the way of what I should be doing, or what God is trying to do in my life. There have been times when I knew what God was asking me to do, and I’ve chosen not to. So many times when He’s given me a bit more grace, and a second (or 3rd or 4th or 5th) chance to do what He’s been asking me to do all along.

It happens with almost every kid we say yes to in our house for foster care.

There is always one of us that is on the fence or who is saying no.

Sometimes, they call about a child, and we say no. It’s not in our wheelhouse, we can’t parent that level of need, we don’t have a bed, etc etc.

Then they call back about the same kid a week later.

Then they call again a week after that.

And two days after that.

I could make this a spiel about how more foster homes are needed, and it’s true – the need is great. But right now, it’s a story about my hard-headedness and His grace. I mess up all. the. time. But He is relentless. He desires the very best for me, and He’s working out His plans (not MY plans) for my life. I know that He is working all things for His glory and my good.

Sometimes though, what He knows is good for my life, doesn’t feel like it’s good.

It feels like overwhelming.

It feels like drowning with 3 kids and then having someone ask you to take a 15 year old with a mood disruption disorder and dysregulation. It feels like “how will this work?” and it feels like angry at being asked to do something that you obviously don’t want to do (I mean we’ve said no 4 times at this point! haha).

So far, it’s just respite care, which means we would have another 15 year old girl stay from Friday-Tuesday while they work to find her a permanent place to stay. But unofficially, I’ve heard of this happening so so many times from other foster parents. “It was just supposed to be for one night” or “they were just coming over for dinner and then they never left”. They’ve opened this kid up to a statewide search, which means they can’t find a home for her and they have been looking for a while. She’s being shuffled around from home to home every few days, with no sense of permanency and no end in sight for this. The list of scary unknowns is long.

I was venting to my husband about how unfair this is that they keep asking when we’ve said no so many times.

Just then, I heard my foster teen from the other room offer to give up her bed so that this girl has a place to sleep. She remembered what it was like, just a month ago, when she was living in the unknown and facing a statewide search for a permanent foster home. She offered to keep her occupied and promised it wouldn’t trigger her to have another with big emotional needs in the house.

So I called our caseworker, and asked if she had more info. She said she spent the day with this girl yesterday and she thinks it could be fine.

I talked to Robby. He wasn’t happy. But somehow, we agreed that we could offer a few days (AND NO MORE as he put it. lol. We will see where He takes us from here).

I called her caseworker back, and totally put my big foot in my even bigger mouth with what I said, not realizing I was on speakerphone and this girl was in the car…but that’s another story for another day. I offered our yes for a few days. The caseworker said she had one more family in mind (probably because of my aforementioned foot in mouth moment) and that she would let us know.

Now we just wait and see what happens.

UPDATE: I’ve had several people ask about this girl. We ended up taking her, it was definitely a chance to be the hands and feet of Jesus. We had her for more days than we thought we would, and it was so much more (mentally and physically and emotionally) exhausting than I thought it would be. Maybe one day I’ll write out some thoughts from that story, because it was w.i.l.d.