Lately, my attitude has been suffering. Wouldn't you know that on my new journey to find Christ, Satan would try to smack me down right off the bat? It's true. He has. And it hasn't been pretty. I have been grumbling. I have been complaining. I have been throwing myself a week long pitty party. I have been fighting the urge to want "more" in life than what I have been given. I have been desiring more money and more time with my husband. I have been preoccupied and less than patient with my children, and I have been less than a tuned out house parent. Truthfully, a lot of my mood stemmed from feeling burned out of house parenting. It's nothing that the kids in our care have done or not done lately, I had just been desiring my own home and my own life. Carrying the burdens of so many people's lives had just gotten too heavy, and I wanted to quit. Or at the very least lock my door, crawl into my bed (alone), and pull the covers up to my chin. And not get up until summer. I am not proud of the way that I have been acting, but I am being honest. I needed a kick in the pants to get back on track with what truly matters in this life. Tonight I got one.
K (we will call her that for privacy), has lived with our family for a year and a half. When she first moved in with us, she was very angry. In fact, she ran away that very first week :). She had adoptive parents who loved her, but at that time she wanted nothing to do with them. She didn't want anything to do with anyone, really, unless we were talking about boys. She was (and still is) a teenage girl, after all:). But time passed, and day after day,month after month,we began to see layers of her anger and her rebellious spirit chip away. She began to smile and take pride in the way that she cared for herself and dressed. She raised her grades and started making plans for an academic future. She mended broken relationships with her family. Instead of tolerating worship services with our family, she began seeking and desiring answers on her own. Her heart changed and it showed in the way that she began to live her life. While I consider K one of our few "success" cases (out of 36), I had sadly (for me) began to think that our work with her was done. When you are in this field for any length of time, sometimes you begin to lose hope as so many young girls with great potential never amount to anything. It can become quite disheartening. So with all of the progress that K had made, I had somewhat believed that was as good as it was going to get. Shame on me. Because God was still at work.
A couple of weeks ago, K began to discuss baptism with Boss and I. She has been studying her Bible for quite some time, and she had decided that she believed that Jesus Christ was in fact the Son of God, and that she wanted to be baptized. When a child in the custody of the county wants to make a decision such as this, they must have county approval, so we started making calls, praying, and waiting for the final decision to be made. K's decision was already made, and I am confident that God knew her heart, regardless of what the county ended up deciding. Anyway, I did not know that tonight was going to be "the night" going into it. But it was. And it was awesome.
Boss got the privilege of baptizing K. A first for him. Bless his heart, he was so nervous. Everything he had planned to say flew right out the window, and he stuck with the basics, but that doesn't matter (I have reassured him:). What matters is that a soul has been saved. What matters is that a slate has been wiped clean, and a heart has been made new. It was a beautiful, sobering moment that reminded all who witnessed it that God does not give up on us, and that we are never so lost that we cannot be found. It was a sobering moment for me and my bad attitude that wanted to quit. That wanted to be selfish and lazy. And as we walked with K to the front of the auditorium tonight, my sweet husband whispered in to my ear, this is why we do what we do. And he is right. Not that it in any way, shape, or form is about us, but instead it is about God working through us, and everyone who surrounds these kids, to bring about His purposes for their lives. And even if K is the only one that we ever influence in this manner, then it is still worth it. I needed that reminder. With God, all things can be made new, whether it is K's heart and soul, or my bad attitude. With Him, anything is possible. This, I believe. I am so very proud of you, K!
