Joyful Blessings and Painful Takings

I’ve had so many thoughts swirling through my mind the past few days, it’s about time I try to sort through some of them.

About three weeks ago I read an article entitled “WANTED: PARENTS WILLING TO GET TOO ATTACHED”  The site has been an open link on my computer ever since, because I knew I’d want to read it again. I finally read it again tonight, in lieu of some heavy circumstances occurring right now that seem very applicable to what the article was referring to.  In the article, the writer expresses the joy and love that comes to her and her husband as a result of being foster parents. But with that is also paired great sorrow and heartbreak at knowing that their foster son will not be with them forever - that the child they have loved and invested in and called their own will eventually be taken away to be adopted by someone else.

At times I wonder if we were crazy to get ourselves into this situation.

Foster care is a messy, complicated process, filled with messy, complicated emotions.

When we tell people he’s our foster son, they usually commend us then quickly add,

“I could never do foster care—I would get too attached.”

But that’s the point.

Parents willing to get “too attached” are precisely what children in foster care need.

This same concept is similarly felt by parents who have gone through the process of adoption. It is messy, complicated, difficult and emotional. People look at them and think, “I could never do that. I’m not (strong/patient/selfless/stable/etc....) enough.”  But the author points out that those sacrifices pale in comparison to all that Christ sacrificed to save us.

Opening your heart to love any child is risky and requires a loss of self.

Opening your heart and home to a foster child may seem especially risky.

But in losing ourselves, we gain. We grow in understanding how Jesus loved

us and gave himself up for us. In seeking to love sacrificially, we pray others

will see a picture of the gospel and be drawn to Christ.

So with these thoughts and challenges going through my head the past few weeks, I’ve also been witnessing this happen right in front of me in the lives of a dear friend and her family. Destiny and Patrick adopted their son, Josiah “Jojo,” nearly two years ago. Not only did they commit their lives to the joys and difficulties that are faced through the adoption process, but Jojo has special needs. (I have so much to say on the topic of adoption of children with special needs, but I’ll have to save that soap box for another blog…) They quickly learned that the typical life expectancy of individuals with the disease that was affecting Jojo (read HERE) was low. I remember talking with Destiny about this news; about the realization that her son would die from this disease. But I also was encouraged by her immediate response of claiming that Jojo belongs to Christ and that she trusts Him with Jojo’s life, whatever His plan may be.

Within the past few months and recent weeks, Jojo’s condition drastically changed and his health began deteriorating. (Read details in Destiny’s blog HERE, HERE and more HERE). Over the past few days, they’ve had to make the excruciating decision to not pursue any more medical interventions to prolong life. Jojo will pass from this life soon. And while the tears are many and the sorrow is great, never once have I heard them question God or blame God for what is happening. But rather, they’ve displayed bold and humble understanding that they entrusted Jojo to God the moment they became his parents and are now trusting God - the Creator and Sustainer of life - with the plan He has purposed for Jojo’s life.

“He gives and he takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

Destiny and Patrick will be the first to tell you that there was nothing that made them “more ready” or “better candidates” than anyone else to pursue adoption, let alone special needs adoption.  They were just trusting Christ. Their hearts were breakable then and their hearts are breaking now. But they’d do it again in a heart beat.

“Whoever finds his life will lose it,

and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 10:39).

We need to be more willing to “give our hearts away” to the things, to the people, that God loves - acknowledging the goodness of God both in the joyful blessings and in the painful takings.

I had that privilege of spending all day Saturday with this family as I traveled with them to visit family and friends in Michigan, giving them an opportunity to say “goodbye” to Jojo. The sorrow is great but there is joy in knowing that soon Jojo will be in Heaven, healed and whole. Patrick and Destiny (who have three other biological children aside from Jojo) are brave, but they were also simply obedient to what God has called them to do.

As they face what is to come, the memorial and funeral expenses are more than this family of 6 can face alone. Please consider donating to help them through this difficult time, keep them in prayer, and share their need with others. DONATE HERE