REACHING, DESPERATELY REACHING

My friend and hero, who for the sake of this post I will call "Anna" is a single mom of four kids. Technically, she's a foster parent, but her and her children are as much of a family unit as a family with blood ties. God placed those four kids in her home for a reason, and they have blossomed under her care and investment.

This past Friday, VACFSS had more children than they had placements for. They had babies with no bottles, no diapers and no homes. They had school-aged children that they thought they were going to have to take home themselves (not a very good option as social workers typically do not have children themselves and so would not be set up to have kids in their homes) and so they called Anna in desperation, asking her to take two kids for the long weekend. She said that she would but she didn't have beds for them to sleep in. They were so desperate for placements that they bought her a bunk bed. Later that evening two children were dropped off at her doorstep by an after-hours social worker who had never met the children prior to delivering them to Anna. She didn't know their last names, didn't know why they were in care, didn't know anything about them at all. This meant that Anna didn't know anything about them at all either.

These kids, who I will call "Jordan" and "Ashlee" are sweet children. But what I see in their stoic faces is devastating. In Jordan's face, I see calculated mistrust. I see disappointment that you and I can hardly fathom. I see crushing insecurity and an overwhelming desire for stability. Ashlee is desperate for approval. She is desperate for someone to say "you're amazing!" her eyes pleade : "love me."

Anna can't keep these kids. They don't "fit" with her kids. Jordan and Ashlee will be transfered to another foster home in the next few days. At first, I thought: at least these kids get to be in a good, loving, safe home for the weekend. A bit of oasis and respite in their helpless tumble through the foster care system.

But after thinking about it I came to realize it's actually terrible. The reality of their life is that in all likelihood they will be shunted from foster home to foster home, back to dad for bit perhaps, and then back into a foster home and the cycle will repeat until they "age out" and the government no longer has to take responsibility for them when shit hits the fan. When this is all you know, yes it's bad, but it's just what you know. But when you see stability, love - a true family created out of a foster care situation, and you get dropped into it, and then whisked away, it has to be worse. To taste, to see the possibility but never to have. How desperate a life.
I cried all the way home from Anna's house tonight. I'm struggling to see where God is in this situation. I'm so angry that these kids are getting so shafted.

God's Word says that he is "a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows" He says that he places the lonely in families. But there is a physical reality here: There is no family for Jordan and Ashlee. I know that the ministry does not remove children lightly and so their life must have been pretty shitty that they had to be apprehended in the middle of the night. Ashlee told me that this is not the first time she's been in foster care. And from what I gathered from our conversation later, it isn't even the second or third time. These kids have been through the system.

Where is the forever family for Jordan and Ashlee? Where is the stability, the unconditional love and acceptance, the constant parenting that they need to flourish? At this moment, I can barely see the screen for the tears and all I am so angry. All I can say is " You made a promise God. Time to pony up on that." My heart aches to take them in, to give them the stability and permanency that they so need. But I can't.

So I'm left with my tears and frustration. I'm left yelling at God for the wrongness of this.

I wish I could tie this post up with a nice bow of a lesson learned, a platitude or some glorious epiphany. But I have nothing but tears and a fragment of a song running through my head:

I guess I shouldn't think it odd
Until we see the face of God
The yearning deep within tells us
There's more to come
So when we taste of the divine
It leaves us hungry every time
For one more taste of what awaits
When Heaven's gates are reached


We are reaching for the future
We are reaching for the past
No matter what we have we reach for more
We are desperate to discover
What is just beyond our grasp
But maybe that's what heaven is for
(from "Reaching" by Carolyn Arends)

There is a longing inside of me for more. I am convinced that it is a longing that is in each of us. It's built into us like DNA - a longing for there to be right in the world. A longing for wholeness and unconditional love and acceptance. I will never be satisfied. It is not meant to be. It can only be satisfied by God and we live in a fallen world and life will always be full of brokenness. That's what heaven is for - for wholeness. But until then - it sucks a lot. And it sucks the most for Ashlee and Jordan.

At the very bottom of this blog is a quote from Bob Pierce that says "Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God." In my anger and frustration tonight, that is all I have. My heart is broken with the things that break the heart of God. He hates this shit more than I do.

I'm going to go now. To cry and pray. Maybe somewhere in the mess I'll find some faith. Faith that there is an Anna out there for Jordan and Ashlee.