I have
been contemplating titles appropriate for the message I want to share today.
Many came to mind simply based on the emotional roller coaster I have been
on. Just for example I debated on the
following titles: “God did I hear you right?”, “Bending until I break”, “What
is Your will?” However, I chose
“Refined” for a very specific reason.
For just as silver and gold are refined by fire; the hot pressure and
affliction of heat; we too are refined by the afflictions and trials of our
lives.
Isaiah
48:10
See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
Over 6
months ago we welcomed a young man into our home, our family. Our goal was to
make him a part of our forever family. As some of you know, we went against
every rule we had about adopting out of our birth order, taking in children
with certain needs that we did not feel qualified to meet, etc. However, this young man was presented to us
and our hearts melted over him. We prayed and prayed and prayed. Beyond diligent, we prayed continuously
trying to figure out what God’s will for us was. Believing without a doubt that God had called
us to pursue this child and to go against all the rules we had in place for
ourselves we moved forward in the process.
Doors opened left and right, everything continued so smoothly. It was
apparent that God’s hand was in this, that He wasn’t closing the doors. So why do we sit here today where we are????
Last
week we had to make the very difficult decision to disrupt the placement. We did not make it to the moment of saying,
“I do” forever to this child. I cannot
go into detail as to why we had to make this decision but it was out of love
and the safety of everyone that this decision was made. We could not believe the position we were in.
How in the world could we have been called to this, to break all of our rules,
only to end up feeling like failures?
Thad and I have found ourselves in conversations replaying our prayers,
replaying how we got to this point.
Lord, did we really listen to your will for us or did we just think we
were?? Did you really open all those doors when we asked for them to close if
it wasn’t your will or did you just not intervene at all?? I can’t question
either of those anymore. In my heart I
know that our intent, our complete desire was to take B into our home and love
him forever, to help him heal from the wounds of the last 9 years and to make
that difference in his life. Our intent
was pure and whether we listened to our own will or God’s, we believed that we
were following what He was calling us to do. We were being obedient. Before he was ever placed with us, God knew
what the outcome was. He knew we would
face some struggles that we have never had to consider before, He knew how many
times our hearts would break, and how broken we would feel when this final
decision was made. God is using this
affliction. God will use this for many years to come.
I don’t
know if we had B for the last 6 months just to advocate as much as we had for
him. The amount of services we were able
to get him was an insane blessing. I
don’t know if God is going to use this in order to strengthen us as a family,
to help us re-establish our rules and boundaries so that we know what our
limits are. Maybe He wanted us to
experience this so that we could be better foster parents or so we can better support other families who will go
through the same heart aches, struggles, and scares we did. We don’t know why
it has ended this way, we don’t know how God will use this to grow us…..but we
know without a doubt that God has refined us in this process. We could not have grown to this extent
without God allowing us to experience what we have. We just continue to pray that as we move
forward in our fostering and adopting journey that we only bring Him honor and
glory in all we do. I am hurting but I
am thankful that He is choosing to help me/us grow.
