My journey to motherhood hasn’t been normal.
There was no clever gender reveal or registry or monogrammed nursery décor. There were no doctors and nurses taking care of both of us or family pacing the waiting room or someone there to hold my hand.
I was home on a Friday evening in October when I got the call. I had just enough time to run to the store to buy a car seat before a 5-year-old little boy walked through the front door and into my life. Once the social worker dropped him off, it was just the two of us. I asked him if he had eaten and fed him dinner, then we got on with the business of learning how to be a family.
I would say I spent the first week and a half simply in survival mode. He immediately started calling me Mom. I had always imagined the first time someone called me “Mom” would be a beautiful moment, but the weight of its meaning was terrifying.
Over the last year, God has faithfully shown me that the moment I became a mom was beautiful, but sometimes beautiful is messier than we expect it to be. While I love that he calls me Mom now, it also breaks my heart that it’s such a transferrable title to him. It should only ever be one person who has that honor, but at least for right now, God has made that honor mine.
You did it to me
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me (Matthew 25:35-36a).
My journey to Mom may not be normal, but it is not unusual. Today, in your city, there are children being removed from everything they know. Perhaps they are allowed to put a few favorite toys or clothes into a garbage bag to bring to their new home. Perhaps they come from a contaminated environment, and even the clothes they are wearing will be taken.
Not all are called to foster, but all can love and support these children. There are enormous needs at the beginning of a foster placement. Foster parents simply cannot anticipate the necessities of every age and size of child who may be brought into their homes. Through the Restoring Dignity campaign, Send Relief has provided a step-by-step outline for starting and maintaining a clothing closet for children coming into care. Learn more about how to launch this ministry at your church.
K. Faith Morgan writes for Send Relief and blogs about her journey as a single, foster mom at momunprepared.wordpress.com.
Published December 13, 2016