The heart of a single mom

The day Big Bean came home to Little Bean and me was a day of great praise for the miracle of what God had done in our lives.

My heart has always been for children in need.

Specifically, my heart was drawn to the children of Africa – so much so that I went there and spent time loving and caring for African children. I witnessed the overwhelming greatness of their need first-hand. In that time I knew that God was calling me to become a mother to those whose own mothers could not provide them the life that they so thoroughly deserved.

I had always wanted to build my family through adoption. I thought that maybe that would happen after I was married and that my husband and I would build that family together; that time has not come yet. What has come is a clear call from God to be a mother before a wife, plain and simple. However, many doors of adoption are closed to a single woman like me.

However, the doors of fostering swung wide open as I started my journey to become a mother. I now see how God led me to become a foster parent so my eyes would be opened to the incredible need of children within my own city.

Every child is born with a mother and father, but not every child is born with a family who will walk with them, love them and support them their entire life. And every child deserves that.

Now I am able to provide that family for my two incredible children who I will call Little Bean and Big Bean (our adoption process is not yet complete, so to protect my children I am not including their real names here).

The moment I saw Little Bean, I knew that she was mine! I knew that God had created this blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty to be my little girl! The moment I held her she fit into my arms like she had been created for them, and my heart was full to the brim of joy and wonder at God’s awesomeness. And then I learned she had a big brother who was in another foster home, and my heart went out to that little boy. I wondered what he looked like, what his laugh sounded like, and if he was missing his little sister. And just like I knew Little Bean was mine, I knew that Big Bean was to be part of my family too.

It took a long time, a lot of heartache, and great amounts of prayer and trust for our family to come together. The day Big Bean came home to Little Bean and me was a day of great praise for the miracle of what God had done in our lives. That day and our story stands as a reminder of what He can do in the life of every child who needs a family to call their own!

My journey of fostering did not start with End the Wait, but I sure wish it had! When you walk into the world of foster parenting it can be so lonely, confusing and daunting. You can feel helpless and hopeless as you step into the lives of children who have experienced more heartache and hurt than any person should ever have to.

What I have seen Focus on the Family Canada do, through the End the Wait campaign, is bring a voice to those who are not heard. They bring light to children who are lost in a broken system and a broken world, and they bring hope to those who feel hopeless. End the Wait takes God’s love and grace into a world that is in desperate need of it and they do it with such relevance and faithfulness that it’s hard not to see how God is blessing the work! They inspire, encourage and support the families that they work with, and I see how what they do is a clear reflection of God’s heart for His children.