What About My Birthday?

Joel 2:25-27

I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.  You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you.  Any my people shall never again be put to shame.  You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God and there is none else.  And my people shall never again be put to shame.

On the first night they arrived they were so squirrelly, and wild, and scared.  It was all we could do to get them cleaned up and calm enough to get to bed before midnight.  Traumatized and terrorized by the journey that had led them into foster care, they had a hard time settling down.  They worried if we would feed them and asked repeatedly if we would leave the door open a crack.  Repeatedly.  Every 30 seconds they asked again and again as we got closer to tucking them in.  In not so few words they indicated that they had been locked in a room before.

The next day there were more questions.  Hard questions.  Questions no child should ever have to ask.

Why are we here?

When can we see our parents?

When will our parents get out of prison?

How long will we be here?

Will you feed us?  (Again and again!)

And constant reminders that they like the door open a crack at bedtime.  Always the reminders throughout the day.  Horrible questions.  Heartbreaking questions that gave a terrifying glimpse into what life must have been like.  Questions which revealed that the circumstances which landed them here were considered routine in their day-to-day lives.  The one question that caught me off guard and revealed the childhood innocence that had not yet been stolen was this:

What happens if we are still here when my birthday comes?

She quizzed me mercilessly about the date of her birthday, making sure I would not forget.  Together we rehearsed plans, menus, birthday gift ideas, favorite cake, and frosting flavors.  We talked about family birthday traditions in our home and theirs.

Days and weeks passed and her birthday got closer and closer while the certainty of her future got less and less clear.  I had no answers for her about the length of prison sentences or why her parents hadn't completed the plans that child protection officials offered them to help them reunite with their children.  I didn't know how long they were staying, if there were relatives who could care for them, why the relatives they knew hadn't called or come for them or completed any type of kinship licensing process.

I didn't know where they were going next but I knew that her birthday was right around the corner and I determined that we would not be the ones to break her heart on her birthday.  We were going to celebrate her precious life and the God who had sustained her through unimaginable hardship, who was in fact making all things new while we lived in the midst of the unknown.

We celebrated with singing, balloons, and cupcakes that she helped bake and decorate, a trip to the beach, a meal of her choice, and the kinds of gifts that little girls love.  It was a sweet day and my hope was that when she went to bed that night that she knew that God loved her and was caring for her even in the midst of the unknowns.  Secretly I also hoped that she was so tired and exhausted by the fullness of her birthday that there was no time to mourn for the sorrow and grief in her life that was real and consuming.  As I prayed over her and sang her the nightly choice of three songs, I lingered a little longer that night and rubbed her back, singing extra verses of each song until she had fallen asleep.

It is hard to wrap my mind around the preciousness of that birthday night and the days and weeks surrounding it, that opportunity to love that little sweetheart and her siblings for a short season while God was at work redeeming the years of brokenness in her life.  Being able to celebrate this birthday with this little one made the challenges in foster care seem so very faint and distant in comparison to the joy we got to experience with her that day.