Deb Shropshire
It doesn’t rain much in western Oklahoma. The wind blows all the time, and the soil gets dry and crusty and cracked. Rows of winter wheat seedlings struggle to survive.
Farmers aren’t the only ones who experience drought. Pediatricians do too. So do case workers. And foster parents. And judges. Not enough help. Not enough time. Not enough resources. Not enough good judgment. Not enough compassion. Not enough hope. Not enough. And when the foster system experiences a drought, the children and families who are touched by it suffer. Mightily.
That’s where I have been living for a few months. Operating out of a mentality of scarcity. Consumed with the flood of children shifting from their own homes to a stranger’s house, or worse, to nowhere. A temporary place. A shelter. An office. Depressed by the collective sadness of their stories, and at the same time worried that many people they meet aren’t even interested in listening to them. Fatigued from sleepless nights and exhausting days. Dry. Cracked. Struggling.
A long time passed. Then God’s word came to Elijah. The message: “I’m about to make it rain…” (1 Kings 18:1, MSG)
Really? I’ve been doing this a long time, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. I can’t tell if there is any progress. Kids who I saw 10 or 12 years ago as preschoolers come back under my care as teenagers. Struggling. With no healthy, meaningful relationships. No mentors. No one speaking into their lives. No hope. No opportunity.
(The servant) looked, and reported back, “I don’t see a thing.” “Keep looking,” said Elijah, “seven times if necessary.” (1 Kings 18:43, MSG)
Occasionally, some encouragement. A mom reunited with her kids who is doing awesome. A foster family who is tickled pink to be adopting. A case worker who is busting her tail to get a kid to football practice.
And sure enough, the seventh time he said, “Oh yes, a cloud! But very small, no bigger than someone’s hand, rising out of the sea.” (1 Kings 18:44, MSG)
A small non-profit supporting foster families. A pastor teaching about the importance of mentoring. A news reporter telling the behind-the-scenes story of foster kids. A business owner hiring a dad who needs a job to get his kids back. A mechanic repairing a car for a mom who needs to complete some parenting classes. A neighbor providing respite for a grandma who is raising her grandkids. A Bible study group praying every week for wisdom and courage for the case workers and police officers and district attorneys and judges who are faced with gut-wrenching decisions every single day they get out of bed.
Elijah said… “Up on your feet! Eat and drink – celebrate! Rain is on the way: I hear it coming!” (1 Kings 18:41, MSG)
It’s coming. The rain is coming. Right now there is a drought. There is scarcity. Only a tiny little cloud of hope in the sky. But that tiny little cloud is growing, in the hearts of people who are just beginning to hear about foster kids as well as those who’ve done this for years. There is a sound, the sound of a few voices beginning to mention foster care from stages and pulpits and podiums. It’s coming.
A long time passed. Then God’s word came to Elijah. The message: “I’m about to make it rain…” (1 Kings 18:1, MSG)
It had been two years since our first encounter, when she came to foster care as a victim of years of sexual abuse by a close family member. My mind flashed back to that day, to that kid. To the anger, fear, and depression, the desire to leave this world far behind, with no hope at all that the next would be any better. Flashed back to the fresh carving on her stomach.
“Worthless”
The sound of a baby crying in the next room snapped my attention back to the present. To the confident, half-smiling young lady sitting on my exam table. “I remember you from when I was here before,” she said. She was so different. I was speechless, didn’t know what to say or how to even ask what the difference was, so I stalled. Listened to her heartbeat, looked in her ears, that sort of thing. Finally, the words came.
“How are you doing? Or maybe the real question I want answered is how are you doing so well?”
She smiled even wider, and told me about the family that had taken care of her after she left the shelter. How they had treated her like one of their own kids. Had taught her about family and trust and relationships and value. Her answer to my question?
“I have been with someone who loves me.” 
Simple. Powerful. Life-changing.
Will someone say that about you or me? That being in OUR presence meant that they were with someone who loved them? I hope so. With all my heart, I hope so.
leech – noun
1. a bloodsucking worm
2. a person who clings to another for personal gain, especially without giving anything in return, and usually with the implication or effect of exhausting the other’s resources; parasite.
I would guess she was early 20′s, although the fatigue in her face made her look a little older. Growing up in foster care had certainly not preserved her youth. She sat quietly, watching the toddler explore every corner of the room. “Is parenting getting easier?” I wondered. She nodded, and responded that they were in a pretty good place – past infancy but not yet to the terrible two’s and three’s. She enjoyed him, that much was apparent. “You have a place to live?”. Yes. “Enough food?”. Yes again. “Friends your own age?” Hesitation, then no. “Why?”, I asked.
They all want something from me, you know? Something I’m not willing to give. Sex, drugs, money, you name it. The people I know who are my age are a bunch of parasites.
The impact of her statement silenced my questions. I leaned against the padded back of the chair and my mind raced to my own friendships. The value of having people my own age around me. People who simply wanted to share conversations about the difficulty of raising kids, of maintaining romantic relationships, of shouldering the responsibilities of life. Friends on whom I could call for help without the expectation of “payment” for their favor.
What value can be placed on unconditional love? On unconditional friendship? On offering to weave your life together with someone simply because they are human, rather than because they can do something for you. Want to end child abuse? Stop the suffering of countless generations of families? Start by finding someone who needs a friend and losing yourself, your own interests, your own expectations. Start by falling in love with others.
(Christ’s) love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to GET something from us but to give everything of Himself TO us. Love like that. Ephesians 5:2 (MSG)
definition from dictionary.com
“There are no concerns.”
I stared at the paper, but the words didn’t change. “There are no concerns.” There it was, my handwriting in black ink on the medical chart. In medical language, it means that the patient isn’t sick. They don’t feel bad. There is nothing wrong. Normally that is a good thing. But this time, as I sat filling out yet another medical form for yet another child entering the emergency foster shelter, I found myself overtaken with emotion.
Anger. Disgust. Frustration. Sadness. Worry.
I wrote that there were no concerns. But that isn’t true. I have concerns. I have lots of concerns. Concerns about these children. About what they will think about and what they will feel when the lights go out at night and the shelter is quiet. About where they will live next, and whether the family who takes them in will treat them as their own or merely as transients. About whether their social worker will get to know them as human beings or just by a case number. About when they will see their family again, and whether that reunion will be filled with joy or anger or fear.
We should be concerned. And may that concern fuel our actions. May it compel us to get out of our comfortable lives where most of our concern is for ourselves, and to be concerned for someone else for a change.
I stopped watching the weather forecast a month ago. That is when the weatherman said the dreaded words:
heat dome
In Oklahoma, we know what that means. It means that a high pressure system is sitting right on top of us. It means that the atmosphere has a lid right over our heads, a lid that allows the sun’s rays to find their way in but never out. It means that you can fry an egg on the sidewalk, or cook dinner on your car hood if you wanted to.
Heat. Pressure.
His shoulders slumped slightly, as if he carried the world on them. Quiet at first, but when I asked about his younger siblings, he spoke up, telling humorous stories about his attempts to keep them somewhat out of trouble. The conversation shifted to his dad, and the quiet returned. Alcoholic, violent, angry. When dad was awake, the kids hid. In their rooms, the garage, under the porch. One day a neighbor saw the kids playing and brought them some lemonade. A conversation started. Over time, they felt safe. Then one night, when they needed a hiding place, they ran to the neighbor’s house. There are new challenges now, but no hiding. No drunken rage.
Some kids feel heat and pressure every single day. It doesn’t go away when the seasons change. But it can be relieved when we are willing to be a refuge, a safe place for those around us who need it.
Will you be a refuge?
Recently I was asked to speak about the health needs of foster kids at a conference. As part of the preparation, the conference planners asked me to send them a bio, a paragraph about who I am, that they could use to introduce me. I quickly jotted down the standard stuff – pediatrician, faculty at a medical school, medical director for foster care, mom – and sent it off. But over the last few days, I have been haunted by some questions:
“Who am I? What is the first thing I want someone to be told about me? If what I am about could be summed up in a word or phrase, like an epitaph on a tombstone, what would it be?”
I love my job. And I love my role as a wife and a mom (well, at least when the kids are behaving…). And I can’t even begin to explain how much I love working with foster kids. But the truth is, that all of those answers are incomplete. They are a little hollow. Today, though, I found the right words, the right phrase.
I am an investor. An investor in people. An investor in the possibility that tomorrow can look different than today, that under the right circumstances a person’s life course can be altered in a positive way. An investor in the idea that a few people can change the world, and that maybe I can help push those few people along.
Investing is costly. It takes my energy, my money, my time, my reputation. It is also risky. Sometimes things don’t go the way I want them to. Sometimes people aren’t willing to be invested in. Sometimes they don’t seem to believe in themselves as much as I believe in them. But when we choose to invest in people, the dividend that is paid is priceless, more precious than anything else in the world.
So if I was writing my bio, or designing my tombstone, I think I would want it to simply read:
Deb Shropshire, Investor in Humanity
What would you want your tombstone to read?
It was a balmy 95 degrees on the San Antonio river walk. As the boat drifted along its half-hour sightseeing voyage, I took in the sights, smells, and sounds of a city that was founded a century before the American Revolution. The captain was commenting on points of interest, and then he said something that caught my ear. He said, “Here in San Antonio we don’t like to get rid of things that are old. We prefer to rehabilitate them and make them into something that is new.”
The rest of the tour was lost on me, as my mind’s focus shifted to foster kids. I thought of a girl I met once. At 16, she was used to taking care of herself. From the few stories she shared, I knew that life had been chaos, and I suspected that what she spoke barely scratched the surface of what childhood was actually like for her. Her family tree included generations of substance abuse and domestic violence. I asked how she coped, and she laughed a little. “I used to smoke 2 packs of cigarettes a day – started when I was 7. By 10 I was drinking alcohol every day, and by 12 I was on meth. But all that is in the past now – been clean for a year.”
My usual poker face must have failed me, because she laughed again. “How?” is all I could muster. She went on to tell me how most people just saw her as yet another chapter in the old story of a broken family – a kid with no hope and no future. But then she met a teacher who was different. Who paid extra attention to her. Offered to help her after school so she could catch up with her peers. Believed in her. Told her how she could be different from her family history, how she could be somebody new.
I leaned back in my chair, unsure what to even say. The truth is that sometimes I see teens in foster care who I don’t believe are fixable. Who I don’t spend much time with because the yield seems so low, so unlikely to be worth anything of value. Who I don’t love as much as I should because I don’t think it will matter. And yet the truth is, we are not in this field to throw out kids, to deem them as old and useless, but rather to REdeem them, to give them opportunities to be made new and useful.
I need new eyes today – ones that can see what is possible.
I thought I just needed a break – a vacation. Thought I was tired. Seemed like every day, every kids’ story was more painful than the one before.
“Pain is good. It helps you know you are alive“. What? Who thought that was a great idea?
So I took a vacation. Ate good food. Visited friends. Rested. Played.
Then I came back to the world where foster kids live. Where there is no such thing as a break. Where kids haven’t ever seen the beach or the mountains. Where there is no opportunity to hang out and act silly with your friends and family. Where rest is elusive, and hope even more so. And suddenly there it was again – pain.
I don’t think pain helps me feel alive. Rather, I think it helps me realize what I am alive to do. I did need the break, not to escape from the pain, but to learn how to better embrace it.
What are you alive to do?
“Before I shaped you in the womb, I knew all about you. Before you saw the light of day, I had holy plans for you” Jeremiah 1:5 (MSG)
Hope is an amazing thing. It shines a light on dark times. Helps us see a future that is better than the past. Gives us a reason to wake up in the morning. But it can also be exhausting. In fact, I would argue that the the opposite of hope is not hopeless. The opposite of hope is fatigue.
Tired. Out of gas. Empty.
Hope and fatigue are mortal enemies. Anyone who works around foster kids knows this, but if you’re like me, taking a break doesn’t seem like a good idea.
After all, how will the world survive if I’m not in the middle of running it? But perhaps that is for another conversation.
And yet the truth is, rest is not just a good idea. It’s an absolute necessity. We must intentionally take time to rest, to regenerate, to dream, to create, to heal from the day in and day out beating of living for others, and most of all, to hope again.
Are you tired? Bitter? Losing hope? Take some time to rest, to enjoy life and people and doing nothing that is stressful. You need it. And so do the people you are helping.
“Can I ask you a question, doc?” Something about the tone of her voice made me stop writing and look up. “We have a granddaughter on the way, and the ultrasound shows some kind of heart defect. Can you tell me more about it? Is she going to be OK?” The answer I had for her wasn’t good. One of the worst kinds of heart defects. Could go very badly, very quickly.
Time passed, and the baby came. She was blue, and sick. Months in the intensive care unit. Multiple surgeries. Nights that she shouldn’t have survived, at least according to medical wisdom.
Yet she did. For first steps and birthday parties and the terrible two’s (and three’s).
She is an amazing kid, coming from an amazing family of people who have dedicated their lives to serving abused and neglected kids. But there are still challenges ahead. More surgery. More time in the ICU. She needs your help. Because today, hope has a name. And her name is Haven.
