Foster Care is Broken. I Am Broken.
My path into brokenness began with a prayer: God, break my heart for the things that break yours.
He broke my heart. And he broke the lie that this life was about me and my happiness, broke the quest for a perfectly average life, broke the desire for ease and success and passing joys.
He broke my heart for foster care and led me to become a foster parent. I upturned my one-girl, one-boy perfect little life, for one of chaos and unpredictability. I signed on to a life of continual hellos and goodbyes, one of sadness chosen and loss embraced. I dove into a life of brokenness.
This broken life is so often sweet and joyful. Two forever daughters through adoption; former foster children in my heart, and some even in my life, forever; joyful reunifications and families healed; Jesus magnified in my heart and in my life.
But broken it is. Terrifying, anxiety-inducing reunifications; diagnoses given and suspected diagnoses yet-to-come; tragic deaths of biological parents; allegations and investigations; trauma and panic attacks and night terrors and hallucinations.
Broken children, broken parents, broken relationships, broken families, broken lives, a broken system. Broken, broken, broken.
And I could be sitting on the sidelines, in blissful ignorance of the brokenness that surrounds me, enjoying the whole-ness of a sweet and sheltered life. Missing out on the beauty of breaking off pieces of my heart and my life to make another whole. Missing out on the joy of offering those broken pieces in worship to my Savior.
That's the beauty of a life of brokenness-by-decision: A shattered heart, seeping out the sacrifice of praise. A life cracked open and poured out in worship to Him. An invitation for God Himself to make me whole.
Kintsugi is the centuries-old Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with gold. The pottery becomes even more refined and valuable thanks to its brokenness.
