Choosing social work as a career field often means giving up other things such as the concept of weekends off or evenings without work phone calls.  Choosing to be a foster parent comes with the same sort of mindset.  Date nights now revolve around who is available for respite and family pictures can no longer be posted on Facebook for the whole world to see.  Life is just different when you get involved in foster care, but the knowledge of helping to restore hope in a  traumatized child makes all the life differences—big and small— fade away.

Answering God’s call to help orphans, whether through social work or fostering, means trusting in and relying on God in every aspect of the process.  During our devotional today, we talked about how important it is to give every little part of our jobs over to God.  One staff member mentioned how scary it would be if she were responsible for all of our kids on her own without help from the Lord.  God oversees each part of our agency, from the children we place down to the office supplies we buy.

The scripture we looked at today really reinforced the concept that God handles everything and takes on the tasks that seem too big for us to achieve:

“All things have been committed to me by my Father.  No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.  Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Matthew 11:27-30

After reading these verses and meditating on them, we felt the Lord revealed two truths: 

1) God created us to live in the garden in paradise.  When He tells us that His yoke is easy and His burden is light, it is because He desires that we once more live in a world free of the burden of sin.  We can come to Him through Jesus in our earthly weariness and rejoice knowing that one day we will be in paradise with Him forever.

2) God wants us to experience more than we can hold onto, more than we can handle, more than we can dream up.  He will show up every single time and take from us what we cannot handle.  Our prayer is that we stand with open hands and a sense of expectancy for whatever God sends our way because we know He is there to shoulder the weight of each situation.  With each new placement, new court date, new foster family, and new appeal we can rest in God’s promise of an easy yoke and a light burden.  He will orchestrate His plan, and we simply need to trust in Him and turn over our troubles to Him.

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”