I Need a Hero

At 4:07 p.m. yesterday we excited the Juvenile Justice court and my heart was broken.

The judge agreed with the agency’s recommendation to terminate my kids’ mom’s parental rights.

Many have asked us what this means.

It means that the State, instead of working towards reunification will now be building a case against her to show that she is an unfit mother. The foster agency will now be switching their goal-oriented services from fostering a continued relationship with mom to building a foundation for the kids to be with us permanently.

Some people have congratulated us.

I feel sick to my stomach.

There are no winners here. Certainly not their mom. Nor their dad, whom we saw for the first time yesterday. Shackled, head bent low, shuffled into a court room. Do you know what it feels like to look at the face of your boys’ dad and see them in him? In this state? It made it real. It made their memories real. It made their stories true.

And here I am, standing there in this court room with my wonderful husband and my charmed life and I’m looking at these two young, attractive, lost people and I’m asking God why? Why does it have to be me, here, loving and raising their kids? Taking their kids away?

I know what you will say. “You’re not the one taking their kids away.” “It’s best for the kids.” “Maybe this will move them to get their lives together.”

Yes, all those things we’ve been conditioned to say. They’re true in their own way. No, I’m not the one who took their kids away; I’m the one who was there to swoop them up, provide a safe home, love them through their tears. And yes, it is best for the kids in nearly every way. Better home, better school, happily married mom and dad, involvement in church. Yes, in those ways, it’s exponentially better. And yes, this rock bottom, this dark pit of a circumstance, of a sentence, may stir change, hope, resolve to fight for themselves so that one day they may fight for their kids….

But so what?

Do any of those condolences masquerading as truth mean that their hearts are not crushed? That their spirits are not devastated? That their hope is not gone? That my children may never, never, live with their natural family again? Does any of my better make it better?

No.

It does not.

As I sit here, and grieve this heavy loss for people I barely even know, but whose children I now call my own…as I sit here and grieve for them, all I can see is my kids. Their parents were once kids like my own. And there was no one there to help them, nurture them, encourage them, love them, point them to Jesus. I look at them and I see a young girl and a young boy, and the unfair hands they were dealt and the family, born into a cycle, who were unprepared and ill-equipped to raise them into the people my kids would ultimately need them to be. They are victims, too.

They are not the enemy.

I am not better than them.

I had better than them.

And that is part of my why.

Why did my life turn out the way it did? Why did God choose me for this moment in time? Why not them?

As I struggle to grasp the gravity of this decision, of this new life, I recall my Pastor’s words last night when we told him the news.

He said, “Everyone needs rescue.”

Me. My kids. Their parents. You.

We all need rescue.

So come, Jesus. Please come.

The weight of these broken hearts is unbearable.

Please come.

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted And saves those who are crushed in spirit.”