Here is my tear-soaked, snot-filled update: If you read one of my previous posts, you’ll remember that I said our house was bursting at the seams and so was our laundry basket. I knew a day would come where our laundry basket would be empty and our hearts would be shattered. Well, that day has come and I wish I could say that our basket was 100% empty, (but ain’t nobody got time for that) This week was draining, to say the least. We were given whiplash with the decisions regarding Sassy and Baby Linda’s reintegration, but glory-hallelujah they are going home to be with family who was not connected with their previous traumas.
How do you prepare yourself for that, you ask? You don’t. There is no pep-talk in the world strong enough to keep yourself from the giant gaping hole that will be left in your heart. No tools from any training will ever be wise enough or be accessible in your brain when you’re holding a trembling 4-year-old with tears streaming down her face, whimpering that she doesn't want to go and that she wants to stay here in this house. Forget about it. Watching her grip her foster daddy and then her foster sister for five straight minutes, choking out the words that she loves them and will miss them forever. Stumbling over to me with a trembling lip, sobbing and burying her face deep down into my shirt, using it as a tissue for the boogies running down her face. Then, handing over the tiny pudgy hands that you helped to heal. Watching them both walk out the front door, never to return. NOTHING WILL PREPARE YOU.
But, there is hope in the restoration - for all parties involved. Because another thing that you will NEVER be prepared for is watching God work through you in the lives of His children - witnessing their healing, instilling in them that they are forever loved by us and their heavenly father and seeing them actually believe that.. this alone will change the trajectory of their lives. IN-FREAKING-CREDIBLE.
We will never get to reap the seeds we have sown in their lives, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to be sprouting up like little daisies. God is using this heartbreak as an opportunity - to strengthen our hope in Him and equip us with the strength to carry on into this difficult calling that He has given us. And if this is what it takes, we will accept our hearts being broken one-thousand times over for the sake of these little lives, who finally get to find hope and healing in Jesus.
