April God Story – Learning to Love the Bio Mom

God had put a desire in my heart to minister to orphans since I was a child because my dad was orphaned at age 2.  However, I didn’t know what that ministry would look like.  Then, God started moving my heart to foster children.  It seemed like several Sundays in a row our church focused on caring for orphans! I was like, "Okay, God, I get it." The Sunday that it finally hit me was Orphan Sunday. God made it very clear, so my husband and I surrendered our YES to God.

We chose The CALL because it is a Christian organization looking for Christian homes to love and disciple these little people. It went right along with what God was leading us to do. The CALL made the process to foster through the state look "doable" and not so scary and overwhelming.

Along this journey, I have had the opportunity to mentor the biological mother of one of the children in foster care in our home.  I never sought out to mentor. In fact during certification, I told my husband I wanted to strictly deal with the children and not have to deal with the parent. Well....God had other plans. I saw a mom that was broken just like me. She deserved all the respect anyone else did. In God's eyes, “sin is sin”. It certainly wasn't easy to make the choice to mentor this mom. God is the only way I'm capable of doing it. I have given her the “Jesus Calling” book, and at Christmas I gave her the “12 Step to Recovery” Bible.  I've met with her on several occasions mainly just encouraging her to not give up and to make the right decisions. One thing I learned through this is that these bio moms just need someone to listen to them without passing judgement on them. They know they've screwed up and don't need to be preached at. These moms typically don't have anyone to speak Truth into their lives, so they're lost, hopeless, and have hit rock bottom. What better time in a person's life to speak of a loving God who forgives you and loves you no matter what you've done!

God has absolutely blessed us during this journey! We have always tried to teach our girls to be in the world but not of it. We want them to understand that it takes guts to be different and stand out in a world that is focused on only ourselves! We've watched them love the babies that we've had whole heartedly. We've observed our teenagers sacrifice what they desire in order to help out with the babies we've had. As a family, we have been taught a lot from these little people. As hard as the journey of fostering can be, there's also much joy that comes with being obedient to God.

By Jenny Davis, Foster Mom through The CALL in Pulaski County