Praying in the meantime

Still no placement.

It's interesting to live in this uncertainty.  For the first few weeks I felt like I needed to put everything on hold, just in case.  I didn't want to make even a lunch committment.  But it got hard to do that as time continued to pass.  So now I'm making plans knowing that - and trying to be OK with the fact that - a call might mean changing them.  That's difficult for the planner in me, the part of me that wants to exercise control over "my" schedule.  I'm getting better at it, I guess.  Or at least some of the anxiety that I was struggling with early on has abated a bit.

I had something of a revelation yesterday.  I was praying about the waiting and decided I would be bold in what I asked, because as ready as I feel like I am to have a placement, it also scares me.  So my prayer went something like, Dear Lord, I'm almost afraid to ask, but please bring kids to live in my house soon.  And even as I was praying I had this realization that is so obvious it's ridiculous, but that really knocked me back.  When I pray for a placement, I'm praying for a child to be taken from his or her home.  I mean, duh, right?  But seriously?  So focused on myself that I would - without really thinking about it - pray that a child would be traumatized that way.  Ouch.

And it made me think of a conversation I'd had with a friend earlier in the week about foster care and adoption - that it's easy to get caught up in caring for the orphan, because in some ways that's the sexy part.  "Look, a baby!  Look, I'm taking care of a little one!"  But what are we (as individuals, as the Church) doing to prevent these kiddos from needing us at all?  Can't we care for them best by preventing children from being abused or neglected or abandoned in the first place?  It's not as fun, though, to deal with broken, sinful adults.  They don't need us in the same way that kids do.  They're not nearly as cute either. 

I don't know what that means for me in the long run.  But right now it means that I'm trying to change the way I pray.  I'm trying to remember to pray for the families where kids are at risk - to pray for peace in those households, to pray for support the parents need to keep them from striking out or giving up out of sheer exhaustion, to pray that the Holy Spirit would change hearts.  For myself, in the meantime, I want to pray for patience and for preparation for the time when what is best for a child is to be removed from his home; to pray that when God's best for a child coincides with His best for me, that I would trust in His strength and His faithfulness to get me through.

Love.