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From Caseworker to Mother of 3
“I don’t even like kids!” were the words I uttered for nearly 17 years. I never wanted biological children; it was not important to me. The idea of being pregnant made me panic. I hated hospitals, needles, pain, and germs. Through deductive reasoning, I determined pregnancy was just not a good fit for me. Plus, I had big dreams for my career (none of which panned out of course) but, that’s another story for another time.
Early in my career, I found myself working for the Children’s Division; an agency with the Department of Social Services designed to protect children and reunite families. I had intentions of this role being a mere stepping stone to the wonderful future I had laid out for myself. Somehow though, I never left. For ten years, I was on the front line working directly with children and families involved in the foster care system. I tried to leave – I really did, but I never could. I could not find anything that interested me more. Finally, I just gave on the idea of doing anything else. I thought, “Maybe this is where I am meant to be. Maybe this is what God intended for my life.” And I spent the next 16 months going through the motions of a case worker.
In that time, I fully released control and let God lead and then things began to change in the most unexpected way. My hardened, jaded heart began to soften. In September 2014, I was taking a little girl back to her foster home after a visit with her birth parents. As I was driving, a desire appeared in my heart and sat like a ton of bricks. The most random thing at the most random time…I wanted to foster! I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me and sat dumbfounded wondering why I felt this way. My husband Joe and I had talked about fostering over the years, but the conversations were never very serious. With this new true desire to foster, Joe and I agreed to start praying for God to lead us in the right direction. And the dominoes began to fall.
First, a job opportunity with Lutheran Family and Children’s Services surfaced – even though I had not been looking. Then, we decided we wanted to begin the foster care classes, and we were able begin almost immediately and were licensed in less than six months. A few weeks after we were licensed, our licensing worker completed one of our home visits. While visiting, she told us about three little boys who were available for adoption. We immediately declined as our plan was for one child, maybe two, who we assumed would be school age, preteen, or a teen.
A few weeks following our home visit, LFCS set up a photo shoot for foster children as a fundraiser for the agency. Since I knew the sibling group of three boys needed some recruitment, I invited their foster family to the event so the boys would have a professional recruitment picture. The family walked through the door, and as I watched and briefly interacted with the boys, my heart fluttered and my mind started running in circles with thoughts that I didn’t make sense.
I called Joe immediately afterwards to tell him about the boys, and we decided to move forward. Joe recalls my exact words being, “I found our kids!” I asked our licensing worker if she thought we were crazy for considering this. I felt crazy. None of it made any sense. I’m a germ-a-phobe who hates needles and hospitals. How can three little boys, one who has medical issues, be a good fit??
Well, the rest is history, and we have been incredibly blessed with three spunky, energetic, sweet, amazing sons. I often don’t feel like we deserve them, and I’m still in complete awe of how things worked out. There’s definitely something to be said about giving everything to God. My life completely changed when I stopped fighting and gave that control to the One who knows it all. With God in control, I know we can’t go wrong.
Who else could have turned this heart of mine??