Secret Thoughts

I read Rosaria Butterfield's book. 

Again. 

I don't know how many times I've read it in the last six months, but it's probably getting ridiculous. I love what it says about sin and grace and sanctification. I love what it says about hospitality and loving your neighbor. I love what it says about church and the church and the Bible and prayer. 

And I love her heart for the forgotten child. 

I have long thought I would like to be a mom. Teaching my babies on Saturday mornings makes me want to have kids. But there is also a deeper longing. 

I would love to provide another option to abortion. I would pay for the expenses throughout pregnancy and deliver and let the mom see her child grow up of she wanted. I'm always really inspired by Eric and Leslie's story with their son Kip: his momma was 17 and scared and was thinking abortion. The Ludys invited her into their home and loved her and she comes and sees Kip regularly. I could do something like that. 

But I also read Rosaria's tales of the kids she's adopted out of foster care, and the ones that slipped through the cracks and red tape. I'm reading Michael Oher's book, now too. I don't know if I could have what it would take to be a foster parent. You never know how long you'll get to build a relationship for. I think I would want to adopt every child who came through my house. And I wouldn't be able to. But maybe I could adopt at least one out of the foster care system. 

I was given so many privileges in life and I want to be able to give someone a chance who has none. The question for me wasn't if I would graduate college, but which one. Meanwhile less than 10% of kids who age out of foster care will even enroll, and less than 1% will graduate. Children who go to foster homes are more than twice as likely to experience PTSD than American soldiers returning from war zones. Only about 1/3 of foster kids ever get adopted, and most of those are under the age of 8. The rest age out and within a year and a half, half of them are homeless. 

This is something worth weeping for and praying for and fighting against any way we can.