Friday, October 11, 2013

Why We Don't Want You To Congratulate Us On Our First Foster Placement

This topic has been rolling around in my head and heart lately and I'm just gonna go for it even though this may seem like an ungrateful thing to write about.  We're getting really close to being officially licensed as foster parents, which means soon our name will be in the hat for our first placement of children with us.  There's been a lot of build up to this, a lot of time, a lot of work.   It will be exciting. It will be huge.  It will be life altering.  It will be so hard and it will be so amazing.

But...when we get our first placement...please don't congratulate us.  We want your well wishes.  We need your prayers.  But congratulations just doesn't really seem to fit.

You see, for a child to come into our home, something happened that made it unsafe for them to be in their own home.

For us to add a child as part of our family, even for a short time, another family has to be without their child, and a child without his family, even for a short time.

For us to have the joy of taking care of a child, someone else who was supposed to have that joy doesn't.

For us to experience that point of becoming parents, when life as we know it flies out the window and we reach that moment we've worked towards and planned for, a child is experiencing life as they know it come crashing down around them.

For us to welcome a child into our forever family, if that is able to happen someday, that child has to lose the family that was supposed to be forever but couldn't be.

So, when we get "the call" and we post on facebook that it's go time, please turn any words of congratulations for us into a prayer for the child or children coming into our care.  This isn't about us.  It's about them.

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