What is the Question?

To be or not to be?

That is the question,

but it is not the only one.

To risk or to be safe?

To love or to withhold love?

To protect the weak or to leave them defenseless?

To open the doors to your home or to keep them closed?

To share your abundance or to accumulate it?

To share your name or to refrain from sharing?

To include or to exclude?

To walk in faith or to stand in doubt?

A little one somewhere is also asking questions.

And not hypothetical ones.

To be at risk or to be safe?

To be treasured or to be forgotten?

To be protected or to remain vulnerable?

To find an open door or to encounter closed ones?

To be filled and warm or to be cold and hungry?

To belong in a family or to be alone?

To have a name or to be a statistic?

To be included or to be isolated?

To dare to dream or to lose hope?

To be or not to be?

That is the question.

Will You Adopt Her?

Will you adopt her?  It was a question that they had never considered.  A question they never saw coming.  A question that shocked them to the core, challenging everything they believed!

After months, maybe even years, of prayer and discussion and research, they finally made the monumental, life-changing decision to open their home to foster children.  They just knew that God had called them to provide temporary safety and shelter to a child in need. Their hearts were full of love and compassion for the children they had not yet met– children they knew the Lord would soon bring into their lives. 

They expected difficulties, of course.  When children’s typical development is interrupted by abuse or neglect or trauma, when their world has been utterly shaken by being removed from the only parent they have ever known, of course there will be challenges to overcome.  Of course it will be an enormous adjustment for everyone involved.

And they went into it, fully expecting to get their hearts broken.  They suspected that once they had fallen in love with a dear child for whom they had cared and provided and nurtured, it would feel like torture to watch that child leave, knowing that they would most likely never see him or her again in this lifetime.