A few days ago I opened a particular cabinet in my kitchen, something I do on a frequent basis, but this time my eyes locked on a row of binders and folders, and I took pause. The worn black and white binders each bore their own label; “adoption,” and “foster care.” Though these haven’t been pulled out and used for years now, I have never been able to swallow the lump that forms in my throat when I think about throwing them away.
Each binder, filled to capacity with neatly organized forms and checklists, represents hours of work, celebrations and tears, and countless prayers. And yet with the flood of memories attached to each binder hangs a thick question mark in my mind. “Why Lord, did you put in my heart the desire to foster and adopt for it to only be a short punctuation mark in my story?” “Why did you prepare my heart to care for the multitude of children needing homes, to only have one child take up residence in our home, and so temporarily at that?”
For years I haven’t understood why so many doors opened before us, just for the story to keep having unexpected plot twists.
But standing there in the quiet of my kitchen, staring at those faded labels, a gentle realization began to settle over my heart. Maybe the reason I couldn’t throw those binders away wasn’t because they represented a broken promise, but because they represented a sacred altar. They were proof of a time I said yes, even when it was terrifying.
I’m starting to see that some things God asks of us are simply to refine our obedience and trust in Him. He doesn’t always call us to a specific outcome; sometimes, He calls us to a posture of surrender. The lesson is in the footsteps, not the arrival.
It is so easy to get caught up in the destination. We think that if God gives us a burden for the orphan, the only successful conclusion is a full house and a finalized adoption decree. But God operates on a different economy. He is far more interested in who we are becoming on the path than where the path physically leads.
Isaiah 55:9– “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Maybe I never was meant to be the mom to a house full of adopted or foster children. And as painful as that is to type out, I can finally say it with a peaceful heart. The lesson was never about the destination; it was entirely about the journey to get there.
Looking back, those years of preparing, praying, and waiting stretched me in ways comfort never could have. Through the twists and turns, God refined my faith. He tested my willingness—like Abraham on the mountain, God wanted to know if I trusted Him enough to lay my plans down at His feet. He broke my heart for what breaks His; even if those children never slept under my roof, I learned to love the vulnerable with a depth I didn’t know I possessed. Most of all, He became my anchor. When the doors shut and the plot twists came, I had to learn to trust His character when I couldn’t trace His hand.
I closed the cabinet door, but the heavy question mark that had hung over me for years felt a little lighter—maybe it was even starting to look a bit more like an exclamation point. Those binders aren’t a monument to a failed dream. They are a monument to a beautiful, messy, obedient yes.
If you are in a season where God seems to have changed the coordinates on a map He gave you, take heart. He hasn’t wasted a single step, a single tear, or a single prayer. The destination might look different than you imagined, but the refining of your trust along the way? That is exactly what He was after all along.
Choosing Hope 