When starting our journey in foster care many years ago we were looking for a child that was the perfect fit for our family. At first our wants were very specific, age, race, and sex. Then we became a little more open and wanted a child that was much like our other kids and that would not cause waves and problems in our family.
But as we started opening our homes and our hearts to these children we realized the needs. With over 397,000 children in the foster care system in the US the need is great and the workers are few. There are people that would be willing to adopt if they knew the need however it would probably be that perfect fit for their family. What about the ones that sit in foster care for years never finding a home. The teen, the inner city kids, the special needs kids, the kids that are moved from home to home to home and then judged by how many times they have been moved as hard to care for. Who will take those kids?
Families like ours that have grown beyond the perfect fit mentality and have experienced the joy of seeing these beautiful broken children move from hurt by having someone speak life into them. So my prayer has changed from God send me the perfect fit to God send me someone that I can help. God has answered this prayer many times. 19 times to be exact.
So ask yourself if not you than who?
Patti Rooks writes about her crazy life with a large multiracial, multicultural, multi diagnosis, multi-personality family in her blog http://extremeadoption.
