I don't quite know when it happened...I don't know when I specifically realized and defined my life's dreams and aspirations to include being a foster parent; an adoptive parent; and someone who has the time, practical resources and emotions to help others get on their feet - specifically by allowing them to live with my family, learn life/coping skills, grow closer to Jesus and move into their callings and dreams. But, it happened.
It's been a number of years in the making, I'm sure. Perhaps it included having been a foster kid myself - three times - and having been blessed to have three great foster families (when that's totally not the norm). And, I know it included participation in the World Vision 24-Hour Famine when I was like 14 or 15 and I committed to adopting children one day. And, when watching The Pursuit of Happyness, sobbing outright in the theater, exclaiming, "I would give them a place to live! I would give them the break they need to get on their feet!" without even realizing that, though it was based on a true story, I was watching a movie.
Or there's the time when, after watching another movie, Amazing Grace (the story of British anti-slavery pioneer, William Wilberforce), I was so shaken to the core by his compassion and sheer determination to go against the grain of society and work for change that I knew my reaction was based on more than just a well-written story that grabbed my heart strings. I knew God was stirring something in me for my future.
Or exclaiming, while watching (yes, yet another movie) The Blind Side, "I knew it was possible!" (I was thrilled to be witnessing an example of how a foster family could make such an enormous impact on one life.)
And, while there are tons more examples that keep popping into my head as I write this, I'm sure you get the point: this is something that's been stirring in me for a while. It's something that's been building and building in my heart. The intensity of my desire to be doing this stuff right now gets more mind consuming and acute with every breath.
In the past few months, I simply cannot recount how many prayers I've prayed that somehow relate to these dreams - longing to be able to step into it all right now, to be adopting kids now and to have a home larger than my current 695-square-foot one now so that I could have a place for someone in need. Even my deep longings to be married now seem to stem more from the desire to have a partner in these dreams than anything else.
And, yet, I wait. Feeling this acute desire and yet, feeling like I am still in a holding pattern, unable to move forward...honestly sometimes thinking that God must think I'm still "not quite ready" to be allowed to move into these things that He's stirring in me.
But, I got a great dose of reality this weekend (read more here and here). While my dreams aren't completely fulfilled now, it's actually not true that I'm stuck in a holding pattern doing nothing. I'm getting the chance to care for, love and serve lots of people around me right now. God's answering my prayers - just in different ways than I was expecting (and than I know He will ultimately bring about in my life). Some of my dreams are being fulfilled now, even while I wait for those not yet a reality.
I'm overwhelmed with gratitude - for both the actual experience as well as the eye-opening perspective this weekend to see it.
Thank You, Jesus, for fulfilling your purposes in me. For knowing my heart and my dreams and allowing me to see them realized.
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