Start with Yes- A 5 Day Foster Care and Adoption Reading PlanSample

Day 4- Start With Yes

When you get a call for placement, whether it is the first call, or the 32nd, a thousand questions fill every inch of your thought capacity in record time. 

You think about your schedule that week, about the effort it will take to find a daycare or to register the kiddo for school. You think about the tubs of clothes you have, wondering if you have the sizes you need. You wonder if you have a new toothbrush and pillow, or if you need to have your husband stop by the store on the way home. You wonder how it is going to alter the dynamic in your home, or if this new child will like what you have cooking on the stove for dinner.

I think sometimes when we ask all these questions we are looking for reasons to say "no". Not because we don’t want to help or welcome a new person into our home. But because there is so much unknown that comes with saying "yes". 

What foster parents do, what you do in those moments is to have grace enough to acknowledge the fear of the unknown, and the strength enough to still say "yes".

But starting with yes doesn’t mean we say yes to every call. 

We recently got a phone call for a sweet little man who entered this world with a battle bigger than himself. I wanted nothing more than to say, “YES!", without hesitation. "I’ll head to the hospital now.” But after a conversation with my husband, “no” needed to be our answer this time. For our family—for the girls, for our little man, for each other—and for that precious little person, no was the right answer. 

But I have to tell you, it still threw me off. My fierce mama-heart struggled BIG TIME. 

We very rarely say no. In fact, it was the second time in six years. The first time we said no, our worker met me in that torn place and reminded me that when we say no, it helps that child land in the home they are supposed to be in. 

Our prayerful “no” is us stepping out of the way and giving someone else—the right someone else—the opportunity to say “yes.” Our hearts are always in a position where we start with "yes", but sometimes, that is saying "yes" to each other, "yes" to the children in our home, and "yes" to landing that baby in the home he was meant to be in. 

Sometimes our best yes is a no, and that is okay.