They Don't Belong to Me

They Don’t Belong To Me

Right out of college, I spent a year in a Discipleship Training School (DTS), which if you don’t know, is basically Bible classes and internship combined that you don’t get paid for and in fact, have to raise money to pay your bills while there. 

My DTS was not only a Bible training but counseling training as well.  Part of our internship portion was living and working in a residential care facility for troubled teens.  

Until that year, I always felt being a foster parent would be too challenging for me because I didn’t think I could say get attached then say goodbye to a child. My year of DTS challenged that presumption, as teens were often taken to other places abruptly as seen fit by their parents or counseling team.  It wasn't uncommon to wake up or return from an errand to discover a teen had been moved to another facility and was no longer with us.  It was hard.  I learned to love some of these teenagers as if they were my own children.  The thought of not getting to say goodbye crushed me, and did a few times.  

But I learned through that experience a very valuable lesson.

Those teens didn’t belong to me or even their biological parents.  Each one belonged to God.  Even if some of what they were subjected to by other humans was traumatic, God still loved them and had a plan for their lives. 

It wasn’t my job to ensure God's plan happened; it was my job to love and train them in the time that God had them in my care. This really aided me as I transitioned into the role of youth pastor.  I was able to take advantage and make the most of the time I had to love on and train the teens in my path.  

This truth became a challenge for me after birthing a child.  As you venture through pregnancy, a connection develops with the human living inside your body. A woman houses that baby for 9 months, that is three-quarters of a year!  (Or fight in court for the baby you are about to adopt for months, even years on end). Next, you give up every single moment to the helpless angel who needs you constantly in the midst of its simplistic eat, sleep, poop lifestyle.  Even with the exhaustion and stench from your own, showerless body - you can’t help but love your child.  The sleepless nights get exchanged for a million other challenges you face each day over eighteen years and its easy to think…

THIS KID BELONGS TO ME!

God had to remind me, that those children that came from my body (or from a court process) still are his.  I am the guardian not the owner. Knowing I have my kids on loan provides me with some great accountability.  I have to answer to God one day for how I “trained up” (Proverbs 22:6) his children. 

Parenthood can be a helpless existence as our kids face sickness, disease, injuries, emotional traumas, relational issues and for some, even death.  We don’t have control often in the things our kids go through, but when we keep the proper perspective of their ownership we experience a freedom in the knowledge that they belong to an all-powerful God who loves them and has a plan.  It doesn’t always make sense and can even seem like God has forgotten or is no longer there.  

That is why the story of Joseph (Genesis 37 - 50) resonates so much with me.  In the beginning of the story, this boy is subjected to great injustice, even cruelty, but knowing the whole story you see that God used the horrible to bring about not only wonderful but salvation for multiple nations.  

We live these timelines and we try to define each moment and yet sometimes the best endings come through the strangest and hardest of paths.  

You will screw up as a parent, spouse, employee, boss, friend, and even human, but God is bigger than that. He fills in our gaps and leads us to places we never imagined if we hang on through the tough stuff.  

Knowing he is the owner of our kids and our lives can free us to be the people we were made to be and give us peace in the midst of tragedy and loss.