It’s honestly hard to know where to start.

So I am probably going to start at the beginning of our foster care journey.

I promise to not make each blog post a million miles long, because with me, that could easily happen. So buckle up and hang on!

When Ryan and I got married in 2008, we just assumed that we would be a normal family. Get married, have kids, grow old together, etc. We talked a few times about how we wanted to adopt someday. But we always thought it would be after we had our own biological children first. A couple of years after we were married, we decided it was time to try to have kids.

It didn’t work.

We went to doctors, specialists, and even had surgeries… all to no avail. I was so frustrated and didn’t understand how God would give me such a desire to be a mother, but then not allow us to have kids. I got angry. I got depressed. And finally, I had nothing left to do except turn it over to God, which is what I should have done in the first place.

In January of 2012, after we had exhausted most options as far as getting pregnant ourselves, I started to talk to God about what HIS plans were instead of constantly thinking about what MY plans were. I knew He wanted us to be parents, but I was slowly realizing that it was not going to be the traditional way for us. It was something much, MUCH bigger.

I researched adoption and realized that for us, it was not an option because it was sooooo expensive to privately adopt. And at the time, foster care was not even in my radar because I kept saying, “I could never do that, it would be too hard. There are just way too many variables. I wouldn’t be any good at it.” However, I knew there was a lady in my church who had fostered 5 little girls and was in the process of adopting the last one… and I kept feeling God push me to just call and talk to her.

So I called her.

Originally we were supposed to meet in February, but things got busy for both of us for a few months and it wasn’t until April that I finally met up with her.

She shared her stories. Some scary, some heartbreaking, and some that filled my eyes with tears. When I left that lunch date, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we were called to be foster parents.

And I was scared out of my mind.

I immediately started praying for my children. I prayed, “God, I don’t know where they are. I don’t know if they even exist yet, but I pray for your protection over those kids now. Bring them into our home so that they can feel the love that a Mommy & Daddy should show them.” And I have continued those prayers through today.

Tomorrow I will post about what came after the initial decision to become foster parents!


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