05/01/2022
May is Foster Care Awareness Month. Here’s 10 things to be aware of...
1) It's important to be aware of the data. 400,000+ children in foster care. 100,000+ children waiting for their forever families. And this pandemic isn't helping anything.
2) It's important to be aware that we are not merely talking about numbers and data and stats - but instead real kids, real moms and dads, real humans just like you and me.
3) It's important to be aware of the fact that data rarely changes hearts and that we are predisposed to find reasons why the data is not our problem.
4) It's important to be aware of the truths we celebrate in the gospel - that God saw our plight and went to extravagant lengths to move towards it, walk with us in it and give us hope out of it.
5) It's important to be aware of the fact that we live in a world which says pursue comfort and convenience at all costs - even at the expense of the most vulnerable around you...and the gospel says something literally quite the opposite.
6) It's important to be aware of the truth that we cannot raise our hands in worship of a God that steps towards us in our hard and broken and then use those same hands to push the hard and broken of others away.
7) It's important to be aware of the reality that while we may celebrate the same gospel we all don't demonstrate that gospel in the same ways - we're not all called to do the same thing, but we are all capable of doing something.
8) It's important to be aware of your tendencies to minimize your capacity to make a difference in someone else's life - and to, out of fear, sometimes use that self-deprecation as a smokescreen to avoid what you know you are actually capable of (and perhaps called) to do.
9) It's important to be aware of God's capacity to do what only God can do, and the freedom you have to not expect yourself to be anything for these kids or families that only Jesus intended Himself to be - so don't let the fear of not having what it takes deter you; let the hope that He does drive you.
10) It's important to be aware of all the things you are not aware of - the myriad of unseen things God will do through you that you might not ever see in full on this side of eternity.
May is Foster Care Awareness Month, and perhaps for you the thing you need to be most aware of is the capacity of God to use you in ways you never thought possible - if you would simply be willing to say "yes".
www.reframingfostercare.com
