This is my Mom and our kids in Tennessee last fall.  Since I was on vacation, we got to attend Sunday Morning services at the Westside church of Christ in Cookeville with some of my cousins and their families.



So, I work on Sunday's at the Police Department.  That's good and bad.  Bad because obviously I'm missing a great day with the family.  But ok (really not good or ideal, but ok) because I work for a department where on Sunday's, many of the officers take their "lunch break" and attend church services and I get the same freedom.  Only it's a tad different for dispatchers.  If I'm by myself that particular Sunday (which I'm not often) I can't leave to go.  And if we're busy, I will not leave my co-worker and go. In either case, I only have 1 hour for lunch and that has to include my time going to actually get lunch, so I work it out so that I can go to church for about 35 minutes or so; until after the Lord's Super.   As a family, we go most Sunday nights.

Last Sunday was one of those Sunday's where I got to go both Morning and at night.  In the morning service, we sang the familiar hymn, Anywhere With Jesus, by Jesse B Pounds.  I've pry sang it a thousand times.  Heard it a thousand times, but I don't guess I've ever listened to it.  At least not closely, cuz Sunday it struck me how this song relates to foster kids. 

Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go,
Anywhere He leads me in this world below;
Anywhere without Him dearest joys would fade;
Anywhere with Jesus I am not afraid.

I pictured a foster kid, maybe one that I've had, in somekind of desperate situation. Being beaten.  Sexually abused.  Starved. Neglected. We had a little boy, I think he was 6 years old at the time, he had been sleeping outside and eating out of dumpsters, so I kinda pictured this kid.  He was so under nourished, he was no bigger than Addy who was 4 at the time and he weighed less!  I imagined him dumpster diving for food scraps..."Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go" as rats were surley around the dumpster, as well as broken glass, in his neighborhood, probably used needles.
"Anywhere he leads me..." I pictured this kid and all the others, holding the hand of a kind, but overworked DHS worker and being led to the safety of her car. "Anywhere with Jesus I am not afraid." 

I've seen some brave faces come through our doors.  Teenagers put on the bravest face.  They act like it's no big deal when I explain the rules of our household to them. They agree to the chores I set out in front of them.  They promise to do good.  But I know they're scared.  Weary.  Maybe a little bit unsure of themselves. 

"Other friends may fail me, He is still my own" reminds me of a 17 year old girl we had that had such low self esteem, from years of being tossed around like garbage by her biological Mom, and then being tossed out by an adoption placement worse case scenerio when the "adoptive Mom" and her new Honey decided a 17 year old troubled teen didn't fit their picture of a "family." I used to try to encourage her and uplift her and get her to be a leader.  Enstead, she seemed bent on following other kids that seemed "outcast."  Self esteem is a hard battle to fight, especially when you've never had an edge to begin with. 

This verse really gets me:
Anywhere with Jesus I can go to sleep,
When the dark’ning shadows round about me creep,
Knowing I shall waken nevermore to roam;
Anywhere with Jesus will be home, sweet home.

I remember one time, one of our older foster kids was having trouble with a new foster kid he was having to share a room with.  The older one complained that the younger one didn't sleep well at night and kept him up.  I told him to give the younger one time to adapt."Don't you remember your first couple of nights in foster care and how you felt?"  And the older one, who was about 11 at the time said, "Yes, I do!  I remeber how good it felt to sleep in a bed, all by myelf with pillows and a blanket!  That was my first time ever!"  That child was 5 when he came into foster care, and that was the first bed he ever slept in!!  I now understood where he was coming from!
That same older kid once told me when he was really little, maybe 3 or 4 years old, they lived in an old trailer, deep in the wooded hills of a neighboring county.  At night, he thinks when his Mom and step-dad were doing drugs or fighting, they would push this little boy outside, in the dark and the cold.  They would tell him to walk to his Grandmothers neighboring trailer, even though her trailer was a ways off, into the trees and unknown.  Scared, this little boy, who I remind you was only 3 and 4 would just go to sleep on the porch of the trailer, uncovered and usually unfed.  The "porch" was actually just a couple of pallets close to the ground, stacked up and barely above the mud and earth.  And this song, "Anywhere With Jesus" struck me Sunday.  I thought of that little boy and the other kids we've had while we've fostered.  You might be surprised at how relisient these kids are!!  They have taught me so much about Jesus!  About his compassion.
A friend of mine, who adopted 5 foster children and fostered many more, said one time a little bitty boy told her, as she tucked him in at night, that he wasn't scared to go to sleep, "Cuz God never sleeps!"
Many times, these kids have told me they weren't scared, that they just trusted Jesus! 

Especially when a kid has been physically abused, the first thing we tell them is that they will not be "hurt" at our house!  The next thing and the most important is about Jesus.  I love reading to these kids and telling them stories.  All kinds of stories, but especially Bible stories.  Our girls have some of the best, neatest little Bible books and stories.  It's so important.  When a potential foster parent says to me, "I don't know if I can really help them or not."  I tell them, "If you touch that child for one day, one week, a year, you have showed that child Jesus.  You have shown them how a "normal" family interacts.  They take that with them forever!"  I just so believe that we make a difference.  We as foster parents.  We as a community.  We as families. 

Thanks for reading!! Have a great rest of the week!

Lola Philpott