Lessons of Love

 It was 3 pm on Wednesday, February 13th, 2019, when I ventured out to the neighborhood park with my two girls who were both under the age of two at the time. We were interrupted by a phone call from my husband, who asked what I thought about opening up our house to a 12 year old boy who arrived in Switzerland completely alone. 

Shocked with the entire situation, I told him I needed to think about it. It took us both a total of 5 minutes to think and say a quick prayer, to realize, our hearts were saying…Yes. At the time, we were living in a three bedroom apartment and decided to move our 6 month old baby into our almost two year old girls room to make the arrangements work. 

What surprised me most about this process was how quick everything went. The officials from Social Services came on Wednesday evening to talk with us and see our home and space where the 12 year old boy would be staying and told us within the same meeting, that we can pick him up tomorrow, February 14th, from the hospital. We went from a family of 4 to a foster family of 5 within 24 hours.

February 14th, 2019 otherwise known as Valentines Day, looked a bit different for us that year than our usual fondue date night or bouquet of flowers and box of chocolate. It was a strong, deep, and sentimental aha moment, where I started to realize what love really is. 

I would love to write that I said yes to this 12 year old boy, simply because I loved him or children for that matter. I wish I could say that we said yes because we had the perfect house, hearts and were mature to handle what comes with fostering and raising teenagers. For goodness sake, I myself was one less than a decade before. I wish I could even say that I said yes because I wanted to make the world a better place, but none of these reasons were the reasons why I said yes.

I said yes because of love. The love that I have for God, his work, and his kingdom here on earth. He has given me so much, from his Son who is the perfect example of love in action to a promise of eternal life with Him to even His Spirit who guides and helps me with all the gifts that he freely bestows upon me. 

My yes was a risk, it was a step into unseen, unknown territory, where I knew only God could show up and provide in the areas where I​ would fall short. This yes was a yes that changed the course of my children’s, my husband’s and my life, for the better. Of course, we gave our foster son a home and a family, but what he has given back to us is so much more. 

He has taught my children to share some of the most intimate parts of their lives with others, their parents, their home, even at times their toys. He has shown me the darkness in the world, that circumstances could be so bad that it is better to send a 12 year old to a foreign country alone in the hopes for a new and better life. He has brought balance into our home and a gentle way in which he deals with his little siblings. 

Only God can take the dark circumstances that this world gives and turn them into something good, so so good. 

Love is so many things, but selfish is what it is not. Love is self-sacrifice, risk, vulnerability, and that valentines day in 2019, taught me a deep and profound lesson, not only in fostering and in my faith, but as well within my marriage and those relationships that are nearest and dearest. Lose control a little, take a risk that somehow does not add up or make sense, you never know how many blessings will follow that choice.