Living a Joyful Journey

The Walls of My Heart

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I remember a conversation with a dear friend shortly after we started fostering. She asked me if I found myself putting up walls around my heart until we knew we get to keep the child forever. I immediately replied, “No. You just can’t. After you been up with them all night, lying beside their crib with an arm sticking through the side of the crib to keep your hand on their back because that’s the only way you can sleep. When you’ve rocked them to sleep and poured out your heart to God in prayer for this child. When you can’t leave the room because they scream in fear that they can’t see you. You just can’t put up a wall.”

Almost 2 years have gone by and we’ve had 11 kids come into our hearts and lives for a time since that conversation with my friend. If she were to ask me that same question today, my answer would be a little different.

“I don’t want to put walls around my heart, but it’s a real struggle not to. It’s selfish I know, but it hurts so much when they leave and not knowing where they are at or how they are doing is almost unbearable. It’s a moment by moment struggle to keep new walls from rising, to stop the ones already there from growing, and to tear them down. But I’m trying really hard to give them my whole heart.”

Grieving a loss is hard work and so painful. We are walking through this currently as a family; some days are good, and other days emotions are high and you can almost touch the pain surrounding us. It’s a process. As foster parents, this process is often compounded by the fact that we have another kiddo in our home. The pain we feel for the one that just left our home is also staring us in the face from within our home, as we fully recognize we could have to go through all over again if this precious baby leaves us too. So here come the walls, because the pain we feel now is one we don’t want to feel again, ever.

So how and why do we do it??? Somedays I seriously ponder this question and desperately want to just walk away. Yes, I know that sounds horrible and you’re probably judging me just a little, wondering how I could walk away from the most precious baby ever. Well, that precious baby girl is exactly what keeps us going.

Every time I’m in a mood where I want to quit or even the circumstances of her case are driving me insane, it never fails that one look upon her face moves me with compassion for her. Lately, Jesus words (He was moved with compassion for them”) speak to my heart so frequently as I try to navigate the hurt my own loss while I’m the primary caregiver of a small child who is trying to navigate her own loss. I’m so thankful for these words as they often come when Little Miss is having a moment of her own and I can’t figure out how to calm her and I’m starting to lose it myself. Not only do these words stir my heart, but they move me to compassion for her. They soften my demeanor and attitude. They keep the walls from rising and they send others crashing to the ground.

The other thing I’ve noticed that directly correlates to building and tearing down of these walls around my heart is prayer. I think we could all agree that this correlation can be applied to our lives in general. The more I pray for my foster kid, the walls get shorter and fewer. Whereas the less I pray for them, the bigger and stronger the walls get. I find this to be true with just about anything in my life. The things we need to pray about most for the sake of our own hearts, are the things that are often the hardest for us to pray about.

Today’s challenge is two-fold:

  1. Pray for a foster family you know personally. Pray for the walls of their hearts to come crashing down. Pray for them and their greif over the kids that are no longer in their home.
  2. This one’s going to get you: pray over that “thing” in your own life that you’ve been avoiding in your own prayer life. Ask God to begin tearing down the walls you’ve build about that “thing”.

I am not strong!!

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Over the past seven years, I’ve been told a variation of “You’re so strong!” more times that I can recall. I know every time it has been said, it has been said as a compliment and to encourage me. Sometimes it does to serve as those things, but mostly it makes me frustrated that people can’t see the truth, at least not the truth I see.

I don’t remember exactly when it was, but after one of my earlier miscarriages (#3 or 4), I was sitting outside by my front door trying to make sense of things when my sister-in-law arrived. She hugged me and I remember telling her “I can’t do this!” I believed those words with all my heart in that moment. I had never done this before, I never in a million years thought I would have to live through this. Without a moment of hesitation she looked me in the eye and quoted Phillipians 4:13 to me: I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

Those words brought to light Hebrews 4:12 “For the the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of joints an marrow, and is the discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

As soon as she spoke the words, I knew – I couldn’t do this, it’s too much to bear – but I’m not just me anymore and I wasn’t bearing this grief alone. You see on that day when I was 17 and I gave my heart and my life to Jesus; from that moment on, he has been with me.

So here’s where my frustration comes in with people commenting on MY strength: it’s not me, not at all me, because me wants to give into the pain and quit. It is CHRIST IN ME that gives me strength. It’s his strength to me that gets me through everyday; that heals my heart; that restores my joy!!! So my dear friends who are searching for strength to continue on, to rise up; look to Jesus. He alone can give you that strength you so desire!!!