If our rocking chair had a odometer attached, I wonder what it would read. How many miles I have rocked on this emotional marathon of parenting and foster care.
Tonight I sat back in it's familiar soft embrace, with a little girl who is spunky and scrappy and has stolen my heart. She moved in last Sunday. We pray she will be ours forever.
She snuggled against me wrapped up in her blanket, drinking her evening bottle with heavy eyes.
Jesus loves me, this I know
For the Bible tells me so.
My mind wanders as I sing the familiar words. I think about all the babies I have loved and rocked in this chair.
I think about the ones we loved fiercely and grieved their leaving so deeply it felt like a death. A private, uncomfortable grief that no one quite knows how to comfort you through. I miss them, our five boys - their absence weighs on me still. I start to count the years and wonder if little D is in preschool this year. Did he have his first day of school? How did it go? Was he brave and outgoing, shy and timid? Is he safe?
Little ones to Him belong
They are weak but He is strong.
It was - it is - a privilege to love those boys. No, they are not ours. They are His. He entrusted them to us for a week, a few weeks, few months, to love and care for them. He's entrusted them to us for life to carry them to Him in our prayers.
Jesus loves me, He who died
Heaven's gates to open wide
My voice breaks.
He will wash away my sin
Let His little child come in
Oh, Lord Jesus - these little children that you love. Thank you for the privilege of loving them. Oh that they would come to know You as their Savior. Oh that they would realize how deeply You love them and grow to love you deeply in return.
You are the Redeemer, the Restorer. Please bring wholeness and healing into their little lives that began with such brokenness.
And oh Lord, Jesus... please let her stay. Please let her stay.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
The Bible tells me so.
Your will be done. How You love her. How you love me. I will trust you.
Goodnight, dear girl. Goodnight.
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!
1 John 3:1