Thanksgiving

Tomorrow marks the 3rd anniversary of the day our daughters were placed in our home as foster children. Each year the weight of their short lives and the reality of learning to parent them well grows in my mind and in my heart. This year especially, I am more aware of the enormity of the blessing and responsibility that God has entrusted to my husband and I. 

One of the hard things about being a foster mother is the empty, black space that is your children's past. No matter how much information you learn about your children and their past, you just can't know it all. I wasn't there. I didn't see. I don't know. This year, on Thanksgiving evening, I was given another little peek into my daughter's lives before I met them. It broke my heart. Everything came flooding back. All the reports we have read. All the fears, behaviors, tears, and struggles we have walked through with our daughters. The pictures we saw. The court hearings we sat through. Everything came back in one huge rush and, quite honestly, I didn't know exactly what to do with all that emotion. 

How do you process that? How do you even begin to understand the horror, the depth of sin. How do you wrap your mind around the innocent suffering of those you dearly love? 

One memory came back into stark focus. It was a picture that we were shown shortly after the girls were placed with us. I think the fact that we were brand new foster parents taking on a huge responsibility prompted our case worker to show us some of the removal photos from our daughters' biological home. There is one picture especially seared into my brain. Forever. The picture shows all of my daughters. 

A tiny baby in a diaper, lying on the disheveled floor in full sunlight. 

Another daughter hiding under a blanket - only her face peering out at the social worker snapping the photo. 

And yet another daughter, only wearing a diaper but covered in her attempts to find anything...anything that would pass as food to fill her belly. 

Their eyes stare out of that photo right into the depths of my heart. The fierceness of my mother-love rises up inside me until it is nearly choking. Anger? Desperation? Longing? Protectiveness? I can't even fully decipher my emotions in those moments. All I know is that my arms literally ache with the desire to go back in time. To hug and hold them sooner. To hold and shield them until that fear is erased from their eyes. 

But I can't. I wasn't there. I didn't even know. They were hurting. They were scared. They were dirty, hungry, alone, and in danger. I was literally powerless to do a single thing. And so, in the wake of this weakness, this utter uselessness, I turn in anger. Where was God? Couldn't He see them? Aren't children some of the most precious in His sight? How can this innocent suffering be a part of His sovereignty? 
I look at my baby - now three - I see the innocence, the trust, the wide-eyed wonderful, sunshiney world that she lives in. And I see my 6-year-old - the daughter who was 3 when I met her that December day - and I know, I see with stark clarity that she has never, ever viewed the world that way. Her innocence was shattered so many times in unspeakable ways, and she literally could not survive without viewing everyone and everything as a threat. The responsibility for her safety and that of her sisters weighed heavily on those little 3-year-old shoulders. And again I turn in brokenness to my Savior - the God of the universe - and I fall, broken at His feet in confusion, pain, anger, questioning. 
Those eyes from the photo keep staring at me in hopelessness and I remember. I remember something that a social worker told me. When they enter a home and find children in that position they cannot run to them. They cannot hold, hug, and comfort them. To ensure the long-term safety of the children they must document FIRST. While those confused eyes follow their every move. And I didn't know it could, but my heart breaks again. Into even smaller pieces. Now the helplessness and pain of those who longed to help my daughters is added to the all-consuming weight in my heart. Where. Was. God?

And so I struggle. My mind swirls around and around trying to understand. I know I believe. I know I trust Him. I know His ways are not my ways. I know He was there. I know He cares. But my frail, broken, finite mind simply cannot connect the dots. The puzzle pieces just don't fit. How? Why? 

Yet, every time I call, He answers. Every time I am lost, He gently leads me. His abundant, unmatched grace pours out onto me even when I rail at Him in anger and despair. When I cannot go another step, His strength carries me. 

This morning in church the background of a slide caught my eye. 
A baby. 
Nearly naked. 
Wrapped only in a few cloths. 
In a manger. 

And suddenly I saw. I saw that God sent His only Son. His perfect, precious, royal Son. To the world. Completely helpless. To be raised by humans. Used and abused by humans. Tried and killed by humans. And He did that knowing that a day would come when He would have to completely turn His back on that precious Son. He would close His ears to the cries of pain. Refuse to look upon His precious child. Stop His arms from snatching that Son out of the grasp of those who inflicted punishment. All for those wicked, sinful, depraved, and hateful humans. All for His greater plan and our greater good. 

Please don't think that I fully understand. I don't. My mind still struggles with the enormity of it all. But, my mother-heart is comforted. You see, my God understands my pain, anger, sorrow, and struggle. He has walked through it all. He has watched His child suffer innocently. And, even greater than that, He understands the brokenness, abuse, fear, and neglect that my children have experienced. He sent His Son to experience the same. He didn't turn His back on my children. In fact, He made sure that His Son could perfectly understand them in a way that I never can. 

My heart overflows with thankfulness. Centuries before we were even born, my God provided the hope and healing that my family would so desperately need. And, as I have looked for it, He has shown other ways that He provided for my daughters before He tucked them into my arms. 

Can I leave you with one more picture? Please, rest your mind on this image. It was towards the end of the photos as we flipped through them: 
One of my daughters. 
Now dressed in a purple shirt and clean diaper. 
Being held close by one of those precious social workers. 
With a Ritz cracker in her hand. 

And so, I hold my daughters extra close. And with tears in my eyes I thank God for caring for them. Because He did.
Through caring, thoughtful, thorough social workers. 
Through loving foster moms whose arms held them and whose hands braided their hair when mine couldn't. 
And through His Son. Who suffered innocently so that I could be friends with God, saved from the eternal punishment my sins deserve. 
His Son. Who walked a hard and lonely path so that one day I could introduce my daughters to Him. So that I could say, "Walk with Him, dear daughter. He knows."

"For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

~Hebrews 4:15-16