Little Things on a Roller Coaster Day

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

I woke with a heart full of praise. Joyful.

After church, I discovered that our foster children’s mom is a danger to others and herself and in the elements at -30 F. How am I supposed to process this? What do I do?

My first instinct was to cry. Then I realized that God was the same on this beautiful sunny day before I heard this news as he was after this news. I didn’t know what to do with this information. I tried to take a restless nap before I got up and decided to love her children well as I hope she would have done if drugs, hurt, and anger had not taken over her life.

I look at six of her children, and my heart cries inside my chest. I look away with my sad smile when one of them looks up at me. They wish they could go home to her, but they are alright. How can I love them well today? It is Valentine’s Day, and we have this day together.

Lord, don’t let me miss a thing. Show me how to reach the sister who has been so distrustful and resistant to our family. Help her to feel loved and safe here.

Restless, I had to do something.

“Honey, the older girls and I are going out,” I told my husband.

They wanted to redeem gift cards from Christmas. We browsed makeup and skincare before going out to a cemetery to walk through the glittering snow. When our oldest foster daughter saw an American flag half-buried in the snow, she took off across the knee-deep snow. She dug and pulled the tattered flag out of the deep snow and pushed it up on the pole as far as she could. When the other girls and I caught up with her through the deep snow, she said, “She was a Marine in WWII. A corporal,” looking toward a nearby headstone. This foster daughter wants to be a Marine. It has become her motivation to overcome the challenges of school.

Lord, thank you for this little moment of inspiration and hope today. Please provide moments of hope for our distrusting foster daughter too.

We ended our day with a rare treat. All ten of us went out to eat for Valentine’s Day.

I don’t have anything exceptional to offer these children, but they can have what I have to offer, little ordinary things—small gifts of time and my heart. Lord, use these moments to help heal their hurts.