I frustrated my friend.  Strike one.

I said something stupid that made my child feel self-conscious.  Strike two.

I didn’t lead well at work.  Strike three.  You’re OUT!

(Sigh)

She was 16, and kind of a punk, although I fell in love with her the first time we met.  Life wasn’t easy.   A bad family situation had landed her in foster care by the time she finished grade school, and she had moved around a lot since then.  Mostly not her fault, although she wasn’t the easiest kid to deal with either.  But I was convinced I could change that.  After all, we had a great conversation.  We connected.  She needed some stuff and I got it for her.  Name brands that I don’t even buy myself.  She moved again.  Then she came back.  Needed some more.  “Where did it go?” I wondered.  But I helped again.  Encouraged her.  Expected her to do better.  To make something of herself. 

Time went by, then I saw her again.  She was heart-broken over a bad choice and a destroyed relationship.  I held her while she cried.  “Stay close,” I said.  “Let me walk through this with you.”  A few hours later she was gone, running to God knows where.

Strike out.

I sit here at my desk typing this and I can see her name on a little purple index card that is taped to the wall behind my computer.  It is one of many.  I wonder where she is.  If she has food and shelter and safety and friends.  Maybe I pushed too hard.  Maybe I enabled.  Maybe I should have done something different. 

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:  because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”    Lamentations 3:21-23 (NIV)

Maybe tomorrow I will get another chance to serve.  To influence.  To hit a relational homerun.

She was 14, with thick, auburn hair that fell in unruly layers around her face.  She was beautiful but rough.  Even in her short life she had experienced her share of hardship, and it showed in the stiffness of her posture and the edge in her voice.  I found out she was in 8th grade, and that she liked math but didn’t want to be thought of as a nerd.  She had a brother but didn’t get to see him much.  She was not a stranger to foster care – had slept in other people’s homes off and on as long as she could remember.  Said she’d learned how to fold towels “correctly” ten different ways.  As she talked, she waved her arms, and I saw it.

HATE

Carved across her knuckles.  Other words across the back of her hands.  Horizontal stripes on her forearms.  Scabbed.  Fresh.  Evidence of pain that extended much deeper than the wounds that marked her skin.  She seemed surprised when I touched her arms, gently massaging antibiotic ointment into each line, grieving with each stroke. 

How do I fix that kind of pain?  How do I speak life to someone who has only known death?  I don’t always know how to heal.  But I do know how to touch, how to provide the most basic of human contact.  I hope that was enough for today…

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)

“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?

“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)

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.

“We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist…”  1 Corinthians 13:12 (MSG)

Four years is a long time in kid life.  I remember meeting the sibling quartet four years ago.  They were strung out across three foster homes, and it took me a couple of clinic visits to figure out they were one family.  The boys were all a little unruly, but their freckled faces, dimpled cheeks, and quick smiles got them out of a lot of trouble.  The girl was harder to connect with – she was older, and less trusting.  But over time, the relationship grew. 

Time went by, and somewhere along the way I met their parents.  Fell in love with them.  Poured into them.  Opened my heart, my mind, and occasionally even my checkbook.  They got their kids back. 

I thought I saw progress, or did I just imagine that?

Then the kids showed up with foster parents again.  And I was devastated.  And angry.  A little at the parents.  But mostly at God.  “Why don’t you do anything?”  I complained.  “When are you going to show up?  I am tired of this, tired of being disappointed.  Tired of watching foster kids come and go.  Tired of hoping that their lives will improve, only to realize later that nothing is better.  When are you going to do something about this?” 

His answer?  I did.  I sent you.

I don’t like that answer.  Because I can’t see very well.  I don’t know if what I am spending my life doing makes any difference.  I don’t know what happens to that group of three brothers and a sister whose parents can’t get their act together.  I don’t know if they get to stay with each other or get separated.  I don’t know at what point hope is lost in them.  At what point they give up.  I just don’t know…

“Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity…Three things will last forever – faith, hope, and love – and the greatest of these is love.”  1 Cor. 13:12 (NLT)

She was not a very noticeable person – a little short, with shoulder length brown hair, brown eyes, and a quiet, not very memorable manner. I guess I had seen her before in the clinic, bringing in the kids she fostered for checkups or illness. At least that is what my clinic notes said. Honestly, when I went in the room this time, she didn’t seem familiar at all. We talked about the child she had with her today – general health, school, behavior, vaccines – the routine stuff. But for some reason, the conversation turned a little. I was curious why she became a foster parent. Her face changed a little bit and she paused, as if weighing her next words.

“I was never in foster care, but I probably should have been.”

She went on to briefly describe years of emotional and sexual abuse that left her broken as a teenager, looking for ways to end her life. But right in the middle of that chaos came a series of relationships that showed her she was valuable. That her brokenness was normal, it was to be expected, and it wasn’t her fault. That she was lovable, and in fact, was loved very much. It changed her, and now she has learned to love. The object of her affection? Broken kids.

It was an amazing story – one that inspired me, but also convicted me of my own inattention to what is sometimes right in front of my nose. Be sure and look around you today – there might be someone amazing in front of YOUR nose.

I remember those moments like they happened yesterday. She was 14, and was in my office for a check-up. We talked through some of the normal stuff that I like to know – how she is doing in this foster home, her school grades, whether she has good friends. Oh, and what about boys? Any of them hanging around? On that day the conversation was easy, though it had not always been. After a few moments of catching up, she handed me a notebook. The cover was faded blue and torn a little bit. It was also a little discolored, as if water had spilled on it. Or perhaps tears. I didn’t say anything, but my eyes must have asked the question. “It’s my story,” she answered. “My counselor made me write it, then told me I had to find someone I trust to give it to. I have carried it around for a while, but I decided I want to give it to you.”

I opened the pages slowly, carefully. Contained there were stories, poems, and drawings, each representing a piece of her history. Stories about her family, about loss and grief, but also joy and excitement. Pictures of her siblings, who she rarely saw but thought of often. I sat next to her on the exam table as we thumbed through the pages, and she filled me in on even more details than the pages contained.

It was a holy moment, a sacred time – one that changed me. Like many people, somewhere between childhood and adulthood I quit trusting people. Got burned a few times. Once bitten, twice shy – that sort of thing. But the truth is that trusting people is part of our DNA. Without it, we aren’t able to fully engage the humanity around us. Aren’t fully able to enjoy all that a relationship offers. It is not something to enter carelessly, to be sure. But if we are able to trust and be trusted, we will experience an unusual depth to our relational interactions.

That kid needed someone to trust, and I needed the reminder that I do too.

Watch cartoons.  Play with your doll.  Draw a picture.

She could be distracted for brief periods, but not for long.  Frustration was evident in my voice.  “Leave me alone for 5 more minutes, and then I will hold you.”  Five was probably more like 10, but once the project was successfully saved on my computer, I looked up, expecting a warm hug and a little cuddle time.  But she was gone – not interested in me anymore.  She had given up on trying to get my attention.

I met a little girl who reminded me of my daughter.  She was new to foster care – it had only been a couple of days.  She tried to be stoic, but that didn’t last long, and she melted into tears and cries for her mom.  I pulled her into my lap, and she rested her head on my shoulder, sobbing quietly while I held her.  After a few minutes she climbed down, leaving behind some tears on my shirt sleeve.  I cried too – not publicly – but in my soul.  Cried for the little girl who was separated from her mom by physical space.  And I cried for my own little girl, who at least for today was separated from her mom by emotional space.

Tomorrow I have to do better.