Make America Christian again

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If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be nation gone under.” – Ronald Reagan

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”– John Adams

The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.”- George Washington

“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.” John Adams

While there is debate on whether America was truly founded upon the Christian faith it does not take much digging up to find quotes and speeches like this that, at the least, point to the reality that some of our founding fathers and early presidents held to some sort of belief in God, faith, and morality. Many of which explicitly linking those roots in Christianity. Knowing that America, to at least some extent if not great extent, was shaped from Christian principles and standards, where does that leave us as Christians, today? What political party might that put us in? What does this mean for us as another election season approaches? What place do patriotism and nationalism hold in our lives? What kind of America should we be fighting for?

I am in no way equipped to give hard and fast answers to such complex and crucial questions. My hope in this blog is to simply let you in on some of what I continue to wrestle with as an American Christian. An “American Christian” who is seeking to be first a “Christian American”.

These thoughts are what I hope to be both solid and fluid at the same time. Wrought with the sort of conviction and critical thought that ever roots them yet changing with the softness of heart and openness of mind that ever grows them.

Why I fight for a “Christian America”

I think when it comes to laws and regulations those who are not Christians can become annoyed and resistant to Christians who are voting in such a way that “imposes their beliefs on us all.” I get that. It’s a tough balance, not neglecting someone else’s values while voting based off of your own.

In the end though, it seems as if we’re really all claiming that our convictions are what should shape the choices of other fellow citizens. At what point those decisions infringe upon personal freedom is a topic we should give thought to. Because some promotions or prohibitions bring into question rights or equalities or freedoms. But at some level, we are all fighting for our own idea of what is best for society. Derived from somewhere or someone. We are all fighting for the common good, whatever we deem good. Yet in some way or another that good is going to inevitably be at odds with someone else’s definition of good.

It may feel that Christians are just trying to impose onto others a set of regulations based on their own religious rule book that others don’t want play by. But the goal should be something else all together. If Christians believe what God says is genuinely best for not only us but everyone around us too, we must vote and act in a way that is in keeping with that.

We believe that there are general principles established by God, like many laid out in the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, that give us rough guidelines for how to live in a way that will “go well” for us. We also believe there are more specific life-changing guidelines, known as commands, that God has laid out that will bring benefits when obeyed and consequences when disobeyed. Lastly, we believe there is a soul-changing gospel that gives us new hearts and is the motivation by which we obey God’s commands and welcome God’s rule in our life and nation.

I believe that the same God who knows how to make a dead heart come alive also knows the way a nation ought to function in order to thrive.

So as a Christian, I will vote as one. Not because of a check mark in a religious affiliation box but because of the deepest convictions that lie in my heart. The ones that have been shaped and informed by God’s Word. Not a Word that creates borders and boundaries for the purpose of withholding and imposing. But a Word that gives life and love for the purpose of protecting and blessing. It is out of both duty and delight I desire a nation that is “under God.”

Therefore we pray in a way that those purposes might be fulfilled and act in a way that those purposes may be accomplished.

While the church I am a part of by no means does this perfectly, I’m thankful that it seeks to do this faithfully in word and deed. One way this is lived out is by my pastor’s weekly prayer. He rotates which government official he is praying for, but there is not a week that goes by that a person placed in office does not get prayed for. It doesn’t matter who they are or what position they hold, he prays that they would realize their authority comes from God alone and that they would act for the good of the American people and not their own selfish gain. The Bible tells us to pray for our political leaders, and so as Christians, we should. And we should be involved in politics in a way that rightly reflects the prayers coming from our pulpits and pews.

Where we got it wrong

The sad reality is that while we trust God’s way is best for us and those around us, somewhere along the way we confused some of our forefathers values that were imparted upon us with God’s promise that was guaranteed to us. We were never promised to live in a comfortable nation, whether here or there, that caters to our Christianity. Maybe we have grown so used to being the majority that we thought anything other than that was a direct violation against our God given rights as Americans.

As an American, I believe it is noble to fight for the country we want to be in. And as a Christian, I believe it is noble to long for the country we know will be.

I think as American Christians we are all too quick to link blessing primarily to freedom of religion and less so to freedom from our sins. One is a beautiful gift we may be given for a time and the other is a powerful promise that can never be taken. We are too quick to seek rest in who we ourselves have seated in congress for a few years rather than who God has seated on the Throne for eternity.

Living life with an “overseas mentality”

If my husband and I moved our family to another country, which we consider doing someday, we would never send our kids to a public school there expecting for them to get a “Christian education.” We would not go with the ultimate aim of seeing a change in the laws of their country but rather to see a change in the hearts of our neighbors.  We would not go expecting for our family to be the majority, in really any sense of the word. We would go in just knowing that our race and our religion would likely not be the norm. The majority. We would be different. And that would be okay. It would be very expected.

Why is it that as Christians we can go overseas with the expectation of religious adversity and opposition, and we might even go there for that very reason; yet we can’t stand living with it when we’re in America.

 

Exiles and sojourners

While the majority of Christians will never experience the expectation that comes along with living overseas and being “foreigners,” is that not who we were told we would be? Even right here in the United States. Were we not told, along with our brothers and sisters around the rest of the world, that we were exiles and foreigners and sojourners? That we were only passing through?

There were many parts that I left out of my pastors weekly prayer mentioned above. One of them, following the request for America’s good as defined by God, is for America’s salvation as found in Jesus. He prays that our nation’s ultimate good would come not primarily by a Christian president enacting Christian laws but rather the Christian church proclaiming the Christian gospel. The gospel that brings hope as we walk through this foreign land and brings peace as we await our heavenly home. The gospel that glorifies the blood on a cross more than it glorifies the blood on a battle field.

America has never been our true home. Our final destination. But maybe part of the problem is that it has felt a little too much like what we thought of home and of heaven, that we have settled in here. That we are no longer pitching our tents on the portion of land that we are passing through but rather building our houses on the lot that we are devoting our lives to. What if we could still fight for justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God by the way we vote as Christians? What if we longed for society around us to get a better taste of what we believe eternity will be, and enacted policies that would promote that? But what if we continue to stand firm in these things while also finally knowing what it feels like to fall under the weight of a nation that is not ultimately our own. That doesn’t cater to us and comfort us in the same ways it used to.

What if we are at a unique, and needed, time in American Christian history where we get to say along with men and women of our faith “for here we have no lasting city, but we seek that city that is to come.” And what if we get to better identify with the man who is our faith who said, “my kingdom is not an earthly kingdom.”

Christian, let us fight for a good America while we long for better Jerusalem.

Adult friendships: are they worth the work and the weirdness?

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Have you ever walked away feeling awkward and off after an oddly flowing conversation, even with someone you’ve known for a long time?

Have you ever laid in bed at night mulling over the same words that someone said that maybe you were reading too much into… or just maybe they meant something by? Or worrying about the words you said that someone else might have misunderstood?

Have you ever left a crowded event still feeling unknown and alone?

Have you ever felt like it’s high school all over again as you longingly watch the cool posse laugh and walk by?

Have you ever been nervous to put yourself out there and initiate a friendship, only to find that when you finally reach out you were met with rejection?

Have you ever felt yourself resenting the person who “just got to town” and already has more friends than you have made in the past 2 years since arriving?

Have you ever missed what you used to have with the same person you still see all the time and wonder why things had to change?

Have you ever spent years getting close to someone and in the end had to tell them good bye? And then you were left feeling like you had to start all over again with someone new?

Then you’ve made it.

We’ve made it.

Made it to the place they used to always talk about. The place where “life gets more complicated and relationships don’t come easy.” So here we are. Adult friendships.

These relationships that can be so noticeably clunky and complex. Full of tendencies that can annoy us. Personalities that can confuse us. Sins that can hurt us. Plans get cancelled. You always show up late. They always leave early. They expect too much. You give too little. They always forget what you said. You always make the drive. Work is busy. That struggle is isolating. Schedules don’t line up. The kids will have melt downs and they interrupt grown up conversation every other sentence. Actually, forget it, you’re just going to spend the majority of the time chasing them around anyway.

It can be plain hard.

And as a 27 year old mom of 2 my friendship challenges may look different than your friendship challenges. But at the end of the day we’re pretty much all out here saying that friendship is harder and weirder than we thought it might be. Even more so though, we’re all still saying that we want it. And need it. And it’s worth it.

We were made for relationships.

We become our stronger and softer selves, because of them. Community life, filled with sometimes funny-feeling friendships, has a way of growing us into our fuller potential. Of chipping away at our edges and filling in some of our gaps. Of teaching us a new kind of resilience and endurance. Of giving us greater understanding and deeper compassion. Of simply bringing us enjoyment and laughter.

So how do we fight for it? How can we dig deep roots of friendship that will eventually produce some of the sweetest and rarest of fruits?

I do not have all the answers. Obviously. But, I have studied the way other’s around me live life with one another. I have leaned an ear into the voice of those who do it well and sought to follow in their footsteps. I have taken tidbits (or ton-bits) of practical application from podcasts and nuggets of wisdom from break out sessions and books.

In my own words I’ve compiled (that’s a nicer word than stolen) a list. It’s been spoken and lived out mostly by others first.

7 ways to approach and walk in healthy adult friendships:

1. Keep pressing on

I’ve heard the phrase “failing forward.” I like it. To me it paints an accurate picture of what real life relationships look like. While it might sometimes feel like friendships are a constant dance of 1 step forward and 2 steps back, the good news is, you’re still going in the right direction.  Just because you’re stumbling, it doesn’t mean you’re not moving. One day we might just look a few steps ahead of our stumbling-selves and find that something pretty cool has been, and is being, built. So keep doing it. Keep texting first. Keep asking the questions. Keep pressing through uncomfortable pauses. Keep inviting them over even when your house isn’t perfect. Keep giving the benefit of the doubt. Keep accepting that you’re not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. And keep showing up as you. Where ever you said you would be, whenever you said you would be there. In all your Monday-morning messiness. Again and again and again.

2. Let go of your idealized version of friendship

Remember when you were a kid on the playground and making a friend meant swinging next to someone and saying hi? Or when you joined that club or team in High School and quickly found your niche? Or when you got to college and instantly became friends with a handful of people who were coming in and out of your dorm room on the daily?

Maybe your experiences of friendship haven’t been quite that easy or simple. But most likely we all have had at least one period of time in our lives that friendships were fluid and fun. Where they were just a given. And they lightened our load and rarely seemed to add to it. Or maybe your idealized version is something you’ve seen in a movie or read in a book or seen in other’s lives, but never quite experienced it yourself. Whatever your version may be, I believe it’s something we have to let go of. We have to realize 2:00 AM study dates are a season and a sort of friendship. They aren’t the prototype. And if we’re too busy waiting around for friendships to look that way or another, we may miss the unique ones that are right in front of us. In the words of Meg Tietz, stop waiting around for your best friend soulmate.

3. Allow friendships to be what they are

This is an idea that I heard recently shared in a podcast and I thought it was so enlightening and freeing. Don’t force something out of a friendship that it just isn’t going to give. Let it morph and grow and don’t box it in, but also just let it be. Don’t expect someone who never knows where their phone is to text you every day. Don’t expect someone who is quiet to shower you with all the words that you want to hear. Don’t go on a play date “for” your kids and expect it to actually be a mom date “for” you. We don’t have to put all of our friendship eggs in one basket. Actually, we shouldn’t. Because no one person can be everything we need them to be. They can not meet all of our friendship needs. And that’s a good thing. It allows us to have various friends who fill us in various ways and not have one friend who fulfills us in all the ways. Because they just can’t. This approach creates the room for us to make more friends and for those that are already our friends to make more of their own, too.

If you found your up-for-anything friend, have fun with them. If you found your honest friend, ask them the hard things you need to know the truth about. If you found your empathizing friend, cry to them. If you found your group friend, one on one time might not be your best bet with them. If you found your fix-it friend, call them when your pipe is leaking. Appreciate your friends for who they are and what they uniquely bring. And when maybe you get the chance to find a “freezer friend” (again shout out to Meg Tietz with Sorta Awesome) who knows every single thing in your freezer; aka knows every detail of your day and wants to… rejoice in the rarity and hold on tight to them. But acknowledge that this type of friendship is simply not everyone’s norm.

4. Share experiences

I recently heard someone say (once again, my written words and someone else’s ideas) that they realized about themselves that they rarely ever sat across the table from someone and felt an instant friendship-connection. They rarely “hit it off” with people. Rather they kept gathering around the same things at the same times, and formed something sweet. This can look like weekly coffee shop meets or biweekly play dates or monthly pizza nights or annual camping trips. Friendships can be forged and kept by the very things we mark on our calendars again and again. The routines that we build into our rhythms of life. Friendship isn’t confined to the spoken word only. It can be cultivated and kept by common interests and shared experiences. Turn up the music and make pizza together. Sit on the couch and cry at This Is Us together. Pant and sweat while you hike together. Be captivated by the flames of the campfire together.

Create together. Rest together. Play together. Watch together. Cheer together. Find the things that unite you, and keep capitalizing on those things and gathering around those things. They will be the very things you tell past stories about and create current memories in.

5. Sit in the sadness

I have found that, at least from my own personal experience, something that keeps me running from relationships is the fear of not knowing what to say. I’m afraid of walking through a situation with someone that I know absolutely nothing about. I’m afraid to say too much, offer too little, or flat out say the wrong thing. I’m afraid of the things that feel foreign to me and then I write myself off as having nothing to offer. Yet because we’re all human, pain and sorrow and suffering are no strangers to any of us. They may come in varying forms and degrees, but we are all acquainted with them. And so we can choose to be human with our friends. We can acknowledge that we have no idea what to say or no advice to give. But we can offer ourselves. We can give our quiet and caring and un-rushed presence. We can give the sacrificial gift of bearing one another’s burdens by simply sitting in them. We can take some of the tears by crying them too. We can take some of the sting by letting it pierce us too. Hearing the silence and feeling the pain might be all we have to offer, and it may be all they ever actually wanted us to give.

6. Have hands that help

I have never seen such a raw and beautiful picture of helping hands as when I joined a local church. This came to life to me when I covenanted to a body of believers. A group of people who saw themselves not only theologically but also practically as just that- a body. A body with moving and functioning and active parts. Doing their job. Imperfectly but faithfully. While my taste of this “hands on” friendship has been primarily in the context of my church, what new mom in your play group would pass up a meal being brought to her door? What car-less coworker wouldn’t want a ride to the office? What new house owner wouldn’t welcome able-bodies to help move some boxes? What single parent wouldn’t take you up on a night of free childcare?

Sometimes we can’t come up with the words to say. And sometimes we don’t have the chance to just sit and feel with them. But we can always say “I’m ordering” or “I’m doing” or “I’m bringing.” These soothing words and these kind actions have made me feel known and cared for in a way that almost nothing else ever has. Maybe it’s because we’re adults and we have so much on our plates that lightening our load is our new love language. Or maybe it’s because we’re human and we desperately need each other to make it through this thing that we’re all in together called life.

7.  Have lips that celebrate

Be a friend that mourns quietly and helps practically and cheers loudly. Throw their party. Buy their ice cream. Watch their kids. Send the text that says “good job!” Make the call that says “you did it!” True friends challenge us but they also cheer for us. See the good. Call out the growth. Emphasize the victories. Choose to be a friend that is quick to honor and root and uphold. The joy in your life will multiply as their celebrations become your celebrations, their wins become your wins, and their happy days become your happy days. Even in the midst of your own complaints and loses and sad days. Sometimes friendship is letting someone else ignore the brightness of their own day to sit in the darkness of your hard day. And other times friendship is choking back your sad tears to rejoice in someone else’s happy tears.

There are enough hard days and harsh voices. We all could use that friend, and be that friend, that celebrates proudly and embarrassingly and often. It’s not an expensive gift to give but it’s a priceless one to receive.

Take heart and keep fighting the friendship fight.

Embrace it in all of its weirdness and wonder and work. Oh, and don’t forget to look around and see that you’re among the 99% of people who are wanting the exact same thing as you.

A friend.

 

 

 

 

 

When your life isn’t what you thought

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I have come to find that sometimes the hardest time to write about something can be when we’re smack dab in the middle of it. Often it feels safer to be a few steps ahead of something before sitting down to write about it. But God doesn’t just meet us in the aftermath. In the solutions. In the recoveries. He meets us right where we are at: in the thick and tangled up mess. In the processing. In the wrestling. He doesn’t always provide a boat for us to ride above the waters. Instead, He may keep us inside the turning currents but give us goggles to see some treasures while we’re there. And the best part of all is that He doesn’t just throw us the googles, He jumps into the waters with us.

Now don’t let me mislead you, there are no storms of suffering surrounding me like they may be you. But there is a different kind of storm and it is going on inside of me. Side note, one embarrassing thing about writing in the midst of something is that our perspective is usually skewed. Everything looks and feels much bigger than reality. So we tend to be a bit dramatic. But, I digress. In my own little self-sized internal storm these big intimidating waves taunt me, “WHO ARE YOU EVEN? AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE?” Yeah self… who are you?

3 years after the real life version of “getting a gift I did not desire” (ie having my daughter) I have come to further realize that my struggles were more than the initial news of an unexpected gift. I was aware of this, but as always, there is more going on inside of us than what is on the surface. The surface-level is an expression of what is below it. Often it takes some digging and unveiling. So here I am, 3 years later. And on this side of it, I can tell you two things. I can unashamedly proclaim that I love my kids in a way that has totally exploded my heart and life. I can also, more ashamedly, confess that I don’t always love being a mom. More seriously, I can still deeply resent it. Big deal, right? Who doesn’t feel that way from time to time. But what I didn’t realize at the time was that motherhood wasn’t, and still isn’t, just a threat to my own plans and timelines. It was a threat to my very own self-made identity.

So, maybe you’re reading this and you’re in a totally different place in life than me. Maybe you find yourself being depended on in ways you never expected. Maybe you’re dependent on someone else in ways you never imagined or wished for. Maybe you’re sitting at that same desk or pulling up to that same apartment or looking down at that same bare finger, all for years longer than expected. Maybe your life has been uprooted and replanted in a brand new place surrounded by brand new people. Maybe that degree, or job, or trip, is being put on hold. Maybe you are experiencing the excruciating pain of longing or loss. Or maybe it’s (whatever your it is) here and you weren’t expecting it to come when and how it did.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

It wasn’t supposed to feel like this.

Who am I?

Wherever you find yourself in life, I hope my raw, flawed, zoomed in, goggle-sort-of-view of these things I’m learning brings some grace and understanding and truth to you.

“You aren’t alone”

As I have shared some of my personal wrestling with my own identity and worth, I have been met with empathy and a real sense of comradery. That’s a sweet gift you can receive and give to someone, y’all. It can be one of the most comforting things. But I would be less than honest if I didn’t say it can also be sobering. It’s comforting because we see that we aren’t left to deal with things on our own. It’s comforting because we aren’t strange for being the only one to go through something. But it’s sobering because we don’t get to throw ourselves an ongoing pity party. Because we don’t get to wear a badge for being the only one to struggle a certain way. You are one in a million, but you are also one of a million. So do yourself a humbling and helpful favor, and give people permission to tell you they have been there, or are there, too.

Stripped identities can be scary and sacred ground

The very things I was unknowingly clutching onto to form my identity did not only feel imposed upon by motherhood, they felt at odds with it. Where I wanted to be free spirited, I felt motherhood told me I must be restricted. Where I wanted to be adventurous, I thought motherhood meant I must be rigid. The list goes on. It felt like some painful sort of self death would have to happen in order for another life to be born in me. I deeply resented this death of self. But what I often fail to realize is that this sort of self death will be both beautifully true and foolishly false for the rest of my life. It is a constant and necessary losing of self and finding of self all at once.

When we realize our identities- be they a title, role, ability, relationship, desire, dream or so much more- are in some form being taken from us, it’s really terrifying. When the thing that we have let label us and define us for so long is somehow no longer a part of us, it can feel kind of like being exposed and having nothing to hide behind. It’s uncomfortable and scary. But don’t miss this, it’s also sacred and soft ground here. It’s an opportunity to be rebuilt, remade, and redefined. Or maybe just reminded of who we already are that we may have forgotten about.

Identify identity

The dictionary definition of identity is: “the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.” And while there could be many ways to define it biblically, I think Christian identity can be summed up in this verse found in Corinthians, “whoever is in Christ is a new creation, the old has passed and the new has come.” Identity is a buzz word in many Christian circles. And while it may not be a specific word used outside of these circles, the idea of identity is a big deal to us all. I think this new world of self branding and self promotion through social media reveals our intrinsic identity-chase.

Now the tricky part I’ve found in this whole identifying our truest self thing is that identity is both fundamental and functional. Fundamentally, I believe myself to be a human being created in the image of God who has been recreated in Christ. But functionally I currently find myself flailing around in a perceived state of crises, instead of resting securely in the one who’s undeserved and totally willing self death birthed my new life. I find my identity-naked self being exposed, instead of hiding behind the rock of ages. So how do we bridge the fundamental to the functional? We preach the gospel to our very own heart and mind and soul. Until the day we die. The gospel wasn’t just a thing of the past, it is the very essence of who we are now and it is to permeate into all we think and do and say and are, today.

Breaking borders

There is a subtle yet major difference between contentment and settling. Settling says “this” is all I am, can be, or going to be. Settling suppresses God given passions and gifts and desires and dreams. Settling usually plants seeds of bitterness and self pity. Contentment gladly embraces what God has seen fit to give to us in His own good time. Contentment is not afraid to strive while also being deeply settled. Contentment usually breeds thankfulness and joy. We are whole beings who are capable of functioning in more ways than we often give ourselves credit for. We often sell ourselves short in claiming only our primary occupation as who we are. We let this thoroughly define us. Instead, carve into your calendar an enjoyable hobby, make space for that creative outlet, pursue your passions, and explore what makes you feel like, you.

Being you, right where you’re at

The potential danger in pursuing what may feel a little out of our borders is that in turn we might miss what is right in front of us. This has hit me like a ton of bricks in my discontentment lately. No, I’m not only a mom, but yes I am a mom. So instead of seeing my passions and personality and gifts and goals as something I must put into some sort of outside source, I should seek to channel these things into motherhood. If you’re creative, bring creativity into your work place. If you’re merciful, show mercy to your children. If you’re driven, be diligent in your studies. Bring your adventure and structure and knowledge and compassion and your craftsmanship into the very spheres you are already in, if you believe you are supposed to be there. It would be a shame if in the constant chase for something more, we waste what has already been given to us.

Bringing it (to your own) home

I’ve heard it said that good desires make bad masters. As do good callings make bad identities. So how do we know when our misplaced identity has turned into idolatry? How do we know where our true identity lies? I think one helpful gauge is by recognizing the way we respond when something is taken from us or given to us. Does the loss lead us to normal disappointment or to total despair? Does the gain lead us to a healthy sort of happiness or an awaited sense of wholeness? Does it have the power to make us or break us?

I will not soon forget the wise counselor who looked into my misty eyes and kindly urged me not to think that shifting my identity into motherhood is my new ticket to fulfillment. Instead, they said, being a Christian is your identity. It is at the center. Everything else for the rest of your life is just an avenue off of it.

So friend, our heavy ladened souls searching for worth and value can find rest in who we currently are and always will be, in Jesus. It’s settled and secure. No matter where we go or what we do or who we become, we are in Him. And it’s all from Him and for Him and to Him, forevermore.

Foster Care: what I’m learning, relearning and unlearning

Natalie DenaeLeave a comment

Honestly, I have barely begun to scratch the surface of the foster care world. Especially when it comes to the lived experiences inside of it. There are so many who have been here, quietly digging in the trenches. Hands dirty, brow sweaty, body worn, soul heavy, heart soft. They’re often the ones who aren’t writing about it. Who aren’t on the rooftops shouting it. They’re in it. They’re doing it. Year after year, shoveling through layer upon layer.

But as I have begun to pull back the curtain into this world and peek inside, there is so much I’m learning and unlearning and relearning. At the beginning of this year I partnered with The Forgotten Initiative to become an advocate for the area I live in. This role was created to bridge a connection between local agencies and local churches. Much of what I am learning has come through the training, coaching, encouragement, and resources provided through this ministry. And even more has come through the hands on experiences brought about by seeking to build a trusted relationship with the agency and working alongside our church to support the foster care system. Here are a few things my eyes have been opened to along the way:

1. The need is so great

If you live in a county with children then you live in a county that has children without homes. Where neighbors live, needs live. And I can tell you without a doubt that the numbers and the needs you will find in your area will be staggering. Wherever you might live. Here in Idaho, there are 6 total segments that make up our “regions.” The small town that I live in, including the surrounding areas, make up a single region. This region alone has approximately 250 children in the foster care system at current. As of 2020, there were estimated to be 3,000 children in and out of homes each year in this state. Some of whom could not be placed due to shortages of foster homes, and were sent to hotels instead. These are numbers for one town, in one city, in one state. The need is desperate wherever you go and the call is urgent whoever you are.

2. Awareness leads to action

This is one of TFI’s core tenets that I have personally seen proven true time and time again. It’s a simple and universal concept that I think too often becomes overlooked and overcomplicated. Love begins with learning. In this case, it can start by looking up the statistics. Showing up to a trauma training class. Reading a book or listening to a podcast on fostering. Understanding how things such as homelessness and poverty intertwine with foster care. Sitting down with someone who is already immersed in it. It may seem small, but it is so very significant. Our brains fuel our hearts and our hearts fuel our hands.

3. Everyone really can do something

I think the church can get a bad rap for being more talk than walk when it comes to something like foster care. While I understand too well where this idea stems from, I truly do believe many churches want to do something. They just do not know where to start. I am focusing on the church here because I believe it is the call of the church to enter into broken places. To care for the needy, the oppressed, the fatherless, and the vulnerable. Not because “we are the rescuers but because we are the rescued” (David Platt). This is the gospel we proclaim. This is an opportunity we get to live it.

It doesn’t take long when a discussion about foster care comes up for a person to make it about their ability or inability to open up their home and do it. While I desperately believe that many more could and should pursue fostering, the list is endless for other ways to be involved. There are meaningful, helpful, tangible, life changing ways to be a part of foster care without becoming a foster parent. We just have to be willing to ask how. And then to say yes. There is so much value in simply showing up.

4. Sometimes helping hurts

This is a concept I learned while living in Africa as a short term missionary. Americans (especially categorically Christian ones) have been known to enter into foreign places as the arrogant elephant stomping out the silenced mouse. Also known as “the savior complex.” In this scenario, the “helpers” leave feeling generous and accomplished and the “helped” are left feeling overrun and overlooked.

In my own prideful power play, I have entered into foster care spaces thinking I needed to have the answers. When in reality, what I needed to have was the questions. I have started to see how meeting perceived-needs puffs up the individual who is seeking to help, while meeting real-needs builds up the whole community. And the only way to know what real needs are is to ask and then to listen. Really listen. Just because you think the donation closet surely needs more diapers, or the kids need jackets, or the office needs a makeover, doesn’t make it true. Ask what the actual needs are. Believe them. And act where you can.

5. Foster care is a community not a caricature

Foster care is made up of real people with real stories. It’s a student who sits beside your child in class who just got placed in care. It’s a mom at the park who had a 4 year old stranger sleep in her house last night after saying her most courageous yes. It’s a social worker in the grocery store, who can’t get the child waiting in their office after 20 calls that all ended in a no, out of their mind. It’s a couple that lives down the street who are staring out the same window that they once watched a stranger drive away with their child from. Their home now occupies an empty bed at night.

I think the reason foster care conversations often quickly turn to whether or not someone plans to open their home to a child exposes our narrow view of who and what foster care really is. It’s certainly not less than becoming a licensed foster parent, but it’s absolutely more than that, too. Most parents and social workers will say that children are the focus of foster care. Which I believe. But, they are not the only face of it. So to care about foster care is to care about all who are involved: children, parents, foster parents, case workers.

6. Fostering is about being the middle not the main

I have recently heard this idea that fostering is about choosing to become a “middle family.” I think it is such a helpful shift in both terminology and function. As Emily Smithart put it, “I started foster care because of the children. The reason I continue to foster is because of their families.” Another way to put it is that foster care is about protecting an individual child in the present while hoping to preserve a whole family in the future.

To be sure, foster care can lead to adoption. This is a reality to be both grieved and celebrated. As Jason Johnson has said “adoption is less about getting a child for your family and more about giving your family for a child.” It’s a beautifully complex redemptive reality riddled with loss. The fact children are adopted goes to show that the end game of foster care is a child’s ultimate safety and well being. Yet to love a child in foster care and to fight on their behalf is to choose to place yourself in the middle seat. Not the main seat.

7. Proximity changes us

When we see their faces, it changes everything. A few months ago I choked back the tears as I saw her. Warm yet hesitant eyes and a bright yet bashful smile. She’s just like my Reese, I thought. Probably 6 years old. I wonder if she likes coloring and horses and sprinkled pancakes and maybe purple, too? I don’t know but here she is. Right in front of me. Next up in line to pin the nose on the clown at her Back to School Carnival for kids placed in foster care.

Choosing to put a name and a face to a statistic will wreck your heart in all the best and most needed ways possible. Saying yes to seeing their faces and holding their hands and knowing their names will change you. We’re all afraid to get too attached, and it’s exactly what they need from us.

8. It’s not a world of villains and heroes

The narrative in foster care has historically been one of good guys and bad guys. Winners and losers. The side to celebrate and the side to scoff at. Yet I’m learning that foster care, as with most in life, isn’t split evenly down the middle. It’s not so cut and dry. It’s not this or that. Because foster care is full of people, it is full of nuances. It is full of good intentions and bad executions. It is full of bad intentions and good executions. It is full of stories. Stories interwoven with trauma, pain, cycles of addiction, and abuse.

I think foster care is a heart of empathy and a work of accountability. I think that being a part of this system takes the recognition of “if I lived through what you lived through, I bet I would have done what you did.” This doesn’t or shouldn’t discount personal responsibility. But it should bring more understanding, empathy, and humanity to the table. It causes us to move towards others with open arms and not come down on them with clenched fists.

There are hurtful parents.
There are hurt parents.
There are selfishly motivated foster parents.
There are selflessly driven foster parents.
There are kids who’s behavior is almost unbearable.
There are kids who’s trauma is completely unimaginable.
There are social workers who are calloused and cold, staring lifelessly at a screen.
There are social workers who are warm and welcoming,
and a lot like warriors on the frontlines.

We enter into a broken system with broken families as broken people. It’s not all capes and fangs in this foster care world.

It’s just people.

Lewis life update: the season of building

Natalie DenaeLeave a comment

As my family finds ourselves in Twin Falls, Idaho (it still feels so unexpected yet at the same exact time it’s like it’s all that makes sense for us now) we also find ourselves smack dab in the middle of a season of “building.” Building a family, a house, a new life, a community, and a church. Even though each form of building is different from one another, there are common links and threads that I’m starting to pick up on. That I’m translating from one form of building to another. This season feels long but all too soon it will have felt really short. So before I forget what I’m learning through all this building, I want to jot it down for myself and share it with you, too.

1. The energy

There is a specific kind of energy that comes along with the “beginning days” of anything. I think it’s some sort of mix of excitement, anticipation, and adrenaline. The honeymoon phase of anything is not always and only filled with bliss. But there is usually at least a sense of freshness. A happiness for what now is and a hope for what one day will be. These are the days, the ones right now, we’ll look back on and reminisce about. That we’ll say “remember when” about. There’s only one beginning. And right now, we are living in the middle of those beginnings. What a joy and privilege it is to be a part of something so unique. Something that a lot of other somethings will one day be built upon.

2. The exhaustion

There is also a certain kind of exhaustion that accompanies the beginning of anything new. The days that follow new birth inevitably include rookie mistakes. They include not only writing up the rule book but then by trial and error being the one to try to implement it. They involve running to Lowe’s 7 times because you don’t really know what you need until you just start. And start again. They involve rubbing shoulders with others- and sometimes bumping hard into them- because of living life so close together. They include a lot of the same get to know you questions, showing up early’s and leaving late’s, giving help and asking for help, and waiting around to see if all this work is really producing anything. These are the growing pain days. Because to grow up, you have to fail and to fall. And sometimes the fall is hard and the pain is heavy and the wait is long.

3. Our hands

As most things in life, anything we want to grow has to be tended to. Anything we want to stand with structure, has to first be built. It takes actually doing it. And that can be really daunting and frustrating. It can also be really fulfilling and rewarding. The reality is that good things really do take time. Time and determination and grit. Often a lot of hard, sometimes thank-less and show-less, work. But in both the physical structure of our house and the familial heart of our home, there are no guarantees. The storms of life are out of our control. And they can bring damage and destruction to even the sturdiest of foundations. So while we work to build, we also have to rest in knowing we ourselves can not force it or secure it. Not any of it.

4. His work

In this season of building, the most freeing and humbling thing that we have to constantly reorient ourselves around is that ultimately it is all the Lord’s. He is the one who has birthed all that is being built. And unless He builds it, we labor in vain. With our friendships and families and houses and churches. It’s a striving and a surrendering. Holding our hands open in trust and lifting them high in praise. Knowing it’s all His, in both the coming and the going. The change and the transition. And just like in our our house, we keep building from the ground up. Brick upon brick. Hoping we enhance what we’ve been given and make it something we love and something that lasts. Seeking even more deeply to make a sacred place of peace and of refuge. Of truth and of welcome. But it is ultimately The Lord who draws those who come in and leads us each as we go out. He sovereignly holds the house together as He tenderly holds those who dwell inside.

Oh how true this is of His Church. His beloved Bride. He is building up His church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And here we are, getting in close to work hard and then standing back far to wait and watch Him really do it all.