There is a truth all parents know hypothetically and acknowledge deep down, but we hardly want to admit out loud: My children are not truly mine. They are on loan, a gift from heaven, a treasure entrusted to me for perhaps a short time or perhaps a lifetime. And nobody knows how long the gift will be given.
I remember crying over the crib of my newborn second son when this realization woke up deep inside me: he wasn’t mine to keep forever. Oh Silas. I want always to keep him small, sweet and squishy. And it breaks my heart a little that he’s growing into boyhood now. Every year a step further away from mama’s care and protection.
But this truth that children are not ours has hit the most deeply with our beautiful foster-to-adopt children. My youngest son–feisty and fearless (with us for almost 3 years now!). My oldest daughter–wild and wonderful. My youngest daughter–cute and cuddly. They are all knit into our hearts as only God can do it, and yet in a very real, concrete way: they are not truly mine. With my biological sons, I live this hypothetically. But with our foster-to-adopt children, it is a literal, imminent reality. They Are Not Mine. A random stranger could make a crazy accusation against us and case workers remove them from our home this afternoon. Or we could make one “wrong” decision as parents and the agency decides that our home isn’t the right place for them anymore. Or bio mom could suddenly get her act together and the court rules to send them back to her. And we would have zero recourse with all of this because we have absolutely zero claim on the children right now, according to the laws & the courts. There is an ever-present and deep heartache for closure, finality, some sort of real possession. Mine!
Even though it is painful and painfully slow, I think I am gradually learning (and accepting) the gift of these days: the opportunity to practice truly living with hands open.
“Good parenting . . . begins with this radical and humbling recognition that our children don’t actually belong to us. Rather, every child in every home, everywhere on the globe, belongs to the One who created him or her. Children are God’s possessions (see Ps. 127:3) for his purpose. That means that his plan for parents is that we would be his agents in the lives of these ones that have been formed into his image and entrusted to our care.” Paul David Tripp, Parenting
I am learning to daily offer to God these little people, all five of which are not mine. Slowly learning to live in gratitude for their little lives, little quirks, little silly moments, little hearts. Living grateful for each day given with our wonderful children; each moment is a gift, is it not? My role is to entrust them to God’s great hands. His are the hands that hold them for eternity. Not mine.
They are . . .
Not mine. But His.
More reading on foster care and adoption: Living in the “Not Yet”
