The Steps You Take

When I reach my hand into the mailbox and see the crisp white envelope with the county logo in the corner, my heart, as it invariably does, skips a beat.  Important news seems to always come with a phone call or in a crisp white envelope.  I half hold my breath while I rip open the seal.  As I read the document that had been carefully folded inside, it takes a moment for my mind to catch up with my eyes.  Although I can read the words quite clearly, I can not fully comprehend the enormity of their meaning.  I cannot reconcile the harshness of the words with you, my sweet little one, who are perched securely on my hip.  

Mother’s whereabouts unknown.

At first I am outraged.  How could your mother, the one who was supposed to love you forever, so carelessly abandon her responsibilities?  How could she bear to disappear into a world that doesn’t include you in it?  How could she walk away from such an amazing child?  Such a precious gift?

But I am also saddened.  I grieve for this young woman who gave birth to you.  I cannot imagine the choices and circumstances and steps that led her to this point.  My heart breaks when I think that she could feel so wrecked, so trapped in her brokenness that she could see no other option except to leave.   

I am so sorry for everything she is missing in her absence:  your beautiful smile and your funny baby words and your wild hair that will not be contained and your tight squeezes around my neck.  I am sad that she is not here to witness your first tentative steps. 

Most of all, it grieves me to think that because of her choices, because of her destructive relationships and deadly habits, it means that you, my sweet one, do not have the permanence and stability and security that every child deserve.

Invisible Orphans

Most likely it  is not any of the children at the birthday party.  She wasn’t invited.  How can a child learn how to make friends when she doesn’t stay in one place long enough?¹

It’s probably not the kid on the soccer team.  How can a child learn how to play a sport when he doesn’t have a dad who will kick a ball with him?  A mom who will drive him to practice every week?

But maybe it’s the young girl who sits next to your daughter at school.  The girl with the slumped shoulders who never makes eye contact.  The one who shuffles her feet a little bit when she walks, a result of growing up with shoes that never fit quite right.  Or the one who, when the teacher asks her to read out loud and she stumbles over the words, gets teased and laughed at by the other students.²

Perhaps it’s the little boy you see when you go to the store.  The boy who keeps touching everything within his reach, and who has a tantrum when he hears the word “no.”  Or the one who bats his eyelashes at everyone he meets, knowing that they will inevitably say, “Ah, he is so cute!”

It could be the kid on the swings at the park.  Or the one in the Sunday School class that you teach every week.  Or the one who visited Vacation Bible School last summer.   

They are all around you, and yet they remain invisible.  They are foster children in our own community – in our schools and neighborhoods and playgrounds - who are waiting to be adopted.  They are our country’s invisible orphans.

Your Honor

Your Honor.

Although the chances of meeting you in person are very slim, possibly non-existent, I often think about you and the powerful impact you have in the lives of the foster children who are in my home.

I am not an attorney or a legal assistant or even a court reporter, nor am I personally acquainted with anyone who is.  In fact, I don’t know very much about the legal system at all.  Whenever a court hearing is scheduled for the families of my foster children, I sit expectantly by the telephone at home, sometimes unsuccessful in the virtue of patience, waiting in anticipation for news of the hearing’s outcome.  My opinion will not be taken into consideration.  My perspective of the situation has minimal significance.  So I must completely entrust the lives of my little ones into your capable, knowledgeable hands.  Hands that hold the gavel as it decisively bangs onto the bench, setting in motion decisions that will have permanent ramifications.  I have no say or influence in those decisions, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I am silent.  I often use my voice to pray for you.