Hearts Willing to be Broken

This post was originally written in July 2011.  We still think of these girls often.  We know God put them into our lives in order to wake us up to the reality of foster care!  I pray that we will see these girls again some day and can thank them for just being them!

Lifesong for Orphans recently had this as their facebook status....

[We] asked [a] foster family how they guard their hearts. [Their] response; "we don't. Every child deserves to have some one love [them] enough to have a broken heart."

Tony and I recently found out about a family in need of temporary emergency housing.  Of the nine kiddos we said we could take two.  Mom is in jail and Dad was pretty sure he was going- the next day.  The next day we were able to work out with our contact, Kelli, to meet these kiddos.  However, she also informed us that an aunt had come forward from Texas to say that she would was willing to take the seven youngest kids (the oldest being able to take car of themselves).  

We went into that meeting knowing these kids probably wouldn't be coming to live with us.  The girls Kelli had planned for us to take were 8 and 9.  We spent less than 2 minutes with them (total).  Before we left the 8 year old gave me a hug and the 9 year told me "if we don't go to Texas I would love to come live with you." 

The car ride back to Tony's work was pretty quiet.  See these girls had done something we hadn't expected, they had captured our hearts.  It didn't seem possible to have fallen in love with two complete strangers in less than 2 minutes, but we had.  

We arrived back at Tony's office and we realized that Kelli may need a place for the kiddos to stay until they went to Texas.  Both of our hopes soared thinking that maybe, just maybe, we could have them for one glorious weekend.  Oh boy what a weekend we would of made it.  

However, we left town that night empty handed.  There weren't two giggling girls in the back seat.  No catching fireflies, popping popcorn, painting nails, buying them a small gift to take to Texas, swimming, and enjoying our yard.  For some reason I knew that even though our house was going to be the same as when we left that morning, it would seem abnormally quiet.  

You see God let us see something so special that day.  He let us see Himself through those girls.  He put a challenge up to us- these are my precious children, they need you, now what are you going to do about it?  I've seen the orphan before, but God has not revealed Himself to me the way He did that day.  

God looks at us and says, "What will you do now that you've seen me?"  This may be in an orphan, a father in prison, a homeless woman, a teenager caught up in drugs and gangs, a couple going through a nasty divorce, a elderly woman who just needs companionship.  Whomever it may be do you think they deserve enough love to have your heart broken?  God does.