Tuesday, July 3, 2007

How Many More Are There??

Let me describe a few of the children we were called about yesterday, just to see what emotion it evokes in you...

  • 2 little girls, ages 19 mos and 2 mos. Their Dad is in prison, their Mom a meth addict.
  • An approximately 3-year old little boy in a diaper left at the bus station in downtown Dallas... alone.
  • A 2-month old little boy possibly being taken out of the home for 'failure to thrive'... in other words, he has not been fed. His father was raised in the foster care system himself. Both of his parents are young.

And that was just yesterday. What in heaven's name is happening? If we are getting this many calls, how many children are out there? From what we've heard, at any given time, there are 4,000 children in foster care in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Over 50% of those will be adoptable at some future time.

It is easy to look in the face of Little Boy Blue and thank God for him and his time with us; but what about the others, what about the ones who don't get out? Right now, this is probably the biggest question I desperately want to ask God when I see him face to face. But then again, I somehow feel the answer... this is the mess we have made of our world; these are the consequences of all of our choices; this is what sin produces. It still hurts.

We did not end up with any of these children. We were selected for the 3rd one listed... but, at the last minute, he was able to go back to his parents last night for another chance. We were very happy for him and pray for his parents to learn what to do and to have some support in their efforts.

We will never know exactly what happened with the others; just like we probably won't know what happened to Baby Girl. My heart literally grieves every time I get a call and, for one reason or another, we aren't the family that CPS envisions for that child. Or, sometimes, we know our limits and are unable to say 'yes.'

Maybe I've given too much information in this post... I may have crossed the line in terms of privacy. But I had to lay it out there for someone to see... for you to see. This is the reality of today's world. We can try to close our eyes to it and hum to ourselves so we don't hear it... but, it doesn't disappear.

And God whispers to me, every so softly, 'just love the ones I've given you.' And I desperately do.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is exactly why we are pursuing foster/adoptive. There are so many that need a loving home, and we want to meet that need for whichever ones God brings to our door.

You suggested that we start a blog about our journey as well, and while we haven't had a chance to write too much on it yet, we did create a blog.

I smiled when I read what God whispers to you, because the title we chose for our blog is Love Each Child (found at loveeachchild.com)

steve :)