The ones we don't adopt....

Here is a bit of my heart for the kids left in foster care...... The hard to place....the ones with issues..... This is how it might look to them


"I was working outside on the garden today (obviously not written today as the rain is falling!) and I started thinking again about the reasons we have for not adopting particular 'hard to place' children. I imagined what one of those unadopted children might say to us if we ran into them later in life.What would they do? Would they smile weakly and offer the words that we offer others as our justification for living safe and not bringing 'them' into our families. Or would their hearts cry out to us even as adults? Here is my thinking on how one conversation might go......

"I understand that you couldn't make room -
that there wasn't a place,
I was not of your womb.
That my age was all wrong,
and my history belonged,
to a place and a people you know have all gone.

I see in your eyes that my life was a chore,
that my needs were too big,
my emotions to raw.

That you were afraid I might never leave home,
or I might find anger and by failure be known.
That my heart was too broken
my mind was too slow,
That the drugs in my system
defined me, you know.

And maybe, just maybe,
I wouldn't love you -
for my mind was too battered
too deep were the wounds.

But I wish you had tried,
I wish you had found room,
For this one tiny boy who
so achingly stood
and looked in the windows and watched
as you prayed,
and asked the Lord Jesus
to move you each day.

To bring out the family
that He had prepared
but none came forward
as I stood lonely there.

I understand - that man would say
my childhood has slipped away.
I have a father, this is true,
I know the same strong God as you.

But I wish that I had, had a mom -
a brother, a sister, a dog, some lawn.
That you had tried to reach me there
not left me to my own despair.

To people who were paid to feed,
and paid to wash and paid to read.
To those who didn't stay too long
and those who chose to teach me wrong.

I wish,
that you had found a way
to wedge me in and let me stay."


Reposted from urban servant