By Lisa Lowrance//Missouri Baptist Children’s Home (MBCH)
“I don’t even like kids!” These were the words I uttered for nearly 17 years. I have never wanted biological children. It was never important to me. In all honestly, I hate hospitals, needles and pain, so pregnancy was never going to be a good fit for me. Plus, I had big dreams for my career (none of which panned out, of course).
I didn’t like kids. So, of course, I found myself working for the Children’s Division in 2004, an agency with the Missouri Department of Social Services designed to protect children and reunite families. I had really, really good intentions of this agency being a mere stepping stone to the wonderful future I had laid out for myself. Somehow, though, this stepping stone turned into 12-and-a-half-years of social work by 2016. A little over 10 of those years were spent as a front-line worker, working directly with children and families involved in the foster care system. I tried to leave. I really did. But I never could. I could never find anything that interested me or that I thought wouldn’t bore me to tears. Around the ninth torturous year of my career, I just gave up. I thought, “Maybe this is where I am meant to be. Maybe this is what God intended for my life.” And I spent the next 16 months going through the motions of being a case worker.
Sometime during these 16 months, when I fully released control and let God lead, things began to change in the most unexpected way. In September 2014, I was taking a little girl back to her foster home after a visit with her birth parents. As I was driving, a desire appeared in my heart and sat like a ton of bricks. The most random thing at the most random time. … I wanted to foster. I’m sorry … What?? I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me and sat dumbfounded wondering why I felt this way. I called my husband, and we agreed right then and there to start praying about the situation.
Shortly afterward, a job opportunity surfaced, even though I had not been looking. In September 2015, we decided to begin the foster care classes, and we began praying for the child who would enter our home. We were able to get into a class almost immediately and were licensed in January 2016. A few weeks after we were licensed, our licensing worker did a home visit with us. I distinctly remember the day she came. She talked to us about three little boys who were available for adoption. We immediately declined, since we had planned for one child, maybe two, whom we assumed would be at least school-aged.
About two and a half weeks after this home visit, the agency I worked for set up a photo shoot for foster children as a fundraiser for the agency. Since I knew the sibling group of three boys would need some recruitment, I invited the foster family to the event so the boys would have a professional recruitment picture. The family walked through the door, and as I watched and briefly interacted with the boys, my mind started running in circles with thoughts that I couldn’t make sense of. I called my husband immediately afterwards to tell him about the boys, and we decided to move forward in asking that we be considered as the pre-adoptive placement for the sibling group. I asked our licensing worker if she thought we were crazy for considering this. I felt crazy. None of it made any sense. I’m a germophobe who hates needles and hospitals. How can three little boys, one of whom has medical issues, be a good fit for us?
Well, the rest is history, and we have been incredibly blessed with three spunky, energetic, sweet, amazing sons who are now 14, 12, and 9. A lot of times I don’t feel like we deserve them, and I’m still in complete awe of how things worked out. There’s definitely something to be said about giving everything to God. My life completely changed when I stopped fighting and gave that control to the One who knows it all. My past has proven time and time again that, left to my own devices, I make a royal disaster out of things. But, with God in control, I know we can’t go wrong.
Jeremiah 29:11 says, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”
If you are interested in learning more about fostering or adoption, contact MBCH at 1-800-264-6224. We are currently looking for foster parents and respite providers who will accept children 8 years old and older and who will accept sibling groups and elevated needs children.