Right around the time we were near the end of fostering JJ we got new neighbors. These neighbors had some life struggles. Then they got pregnant right before I gave birth to our second child.
During the mom's pregnancy I had a feeling that I would someday be caring for her daughter. It was a weird thought and didn't really seem to make sense. That would mean bad things would happen and no family for the little girl to go to before we would ever end up with her. This was not something I hoped for this family to deal with.
When I get these "feelings" that something is going to happen I store them up and ponder them in my heart. Those words come from the verse Luke 2:19 "But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart." When I get those feelings there isn't much else I can do with them except store them up, ponder on them occasionally, and ask God if those are ideas from Him or from something else. I've found that often they come true and so I've learned not to ignore them.
Fast forward a year. We had both moved away and were no longer neighbors. We had kept in touch but had only talked a few times. We went to the baby's first birthday. For confidentiality I'll call her Sweet Pea. I had the same feeling again but didn't feel any sort of bond to her so again I just tucked it away and sort of talked to God about it.
Fast forward another 7 months. I just gave birth to our third child. She is 4.5-weeks-old and I get a text at 8:31am from our old neighbors, "Hey Lisa what are you doing?" I was on my way to a leadership meeting for a mommy group I was going to be a part of. I knew something was up. I started talking to God about it, "Is this going to happen now?! Seriously? What is going on?"
The leadership meeting started at 9am and I was already prayerfully seeking out if I was supposed to take on that role. I felt horribly rude having my phone out during the meeting but I knew something was up. At 9:22am, "Well we were wondering if we could acquire your and johnathans foster parenting skills services." Holy crap, God, this is really happening! This is crazy! I have a 4-week-old!!! People will think this is crazy!!! (Yes, I thought about what people would think.)
Now here is where my "feeling" from the past really played a role. I had a 4-week-old. I could have easily said, "Sorry, we just had our third kid and I don't even know how to handle this dynamic yet. We love you guys. There are lots of nice foster families. We'll pray everything works out for the best." Nope. I knew this was a role I was supposed to take on. Why, exactly, would it happen now, I had little idea. It seemed crazy. Also, we have a 2 bedroom apartment with three girls already. Four kids in a two-bedroom is not allowed for foster parent certification. I let the parents know we would be willing but that I thought social services would not allow it due to the size of our home.
That was a Wednesday. The parents said be ready to come get her that day at 1pm. Then Social Services called us around 4pm and took our information for background checks. On Thursday we were in limbo thinking that the social worker would come check our home. They never came so I assumed she was placed with a relative. I thought, "Well, God, at least I was willing. So glad I can just stick to my 3 little ones."
On Saturday we heard from parents and they thought there daughter would be with us by then. Wait, what? This is when I started feeling less sure of our willingness. I had thoughts like, "I can't even take care of my three, how can I add a fourth? This would be too hard. I can't do this!" Then Monday, the parents were supposed to hear where Sweet Pea was supposed to go. I didn't hear anything all day. On Tuesday morning my friend from church called and asked how things were going and I said I was pretty sure we weren't the home where Sweet Pea would be placed because we hadn't heard from any social workers. I was thankful and felt a pressure lifted. Then after that I realized I had missed a call from the social worker asking to inspect our home. She thought that it was a great placement and that Sweet Pea would be so cute with our house full of girls (they make exceptions for the amount of rooms as long as there is space for a bed for the child to sleep). So Tuesday evening I went and got Sweet Pea and brought her back to our home.
I comforted her to sleep with our turtle light-up night light. In the middle of the night she woke up and was sitting whimpering with her back in the corner of the bed. I was so thankful for the light up turtle to remind her where she fell asleep and it helped let me comfort her back to sleep.
