Last night I worked at the after-prom party for my oldest daughter. She is a junior and that is the job for the parents of the juniors at her school. We were actually the chair persons for the games committee for after-prom party….but that is a different story. As I was saying, I was hard at work, from midnight to 3:30am at the afterprom party, supervising the games. I walked around at midnight to start our part of the prom night, supervising the games, and another mom walked in beside me and said, “I like your shirt!” We both had on the same shirt with the verse: Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. It was a shirt sold by a local family to help them raise money for their next adoption. I love this shirt. It is soft, it says something I believe and it is a perfect smoky shade of grey and goes with everything in my wardrobe.
At about 2am, I was running out of steam for this very social event. I was exhausted physically, emotionally and socially. I found this other prom mom back, on my rounds at the party, and checked to see how her game was going. We started talking, because, well, we had the same shirt on and obviously supported the same family on their journey to adopting a child. She knew that we had bio and also adopted children. She knew the work I did regarding families in community and she wanted to talk. She wanted to talk about becoming foster parents, and what the Safe Families program was about and how to navigate feeling called to foster when her husband wasn’t feeling the same calling.
We had such a good conversation. I think she was God’s gift to me. I was more than done with all of the glitz and glam of prom. I was tired and spent. This prom mom was searching, wondering, waiting for how God was going to use her to care for His children who were fatherless…..and God placed me there to have a meaningful conversation with her during the after prom party. I wonder if the main reason I ended up on the supervising assignment of after prom this year, was just so that I could have a conversation in the middle of the night with this mom.
My advice to her, about a husband who was reluctant, was to commit it to prayer. To ask her husband to also pray and let God lead and decide. I told her that she should search her heart and mind and work at becoming the woman who could handle this hard thing, and to look for opportunities to serve other families in foster care work. Make meals. Offer to clean houses or help buy things they need.
Together, we will both do what the t-shirt verse said, and we will remember that God let us have a few moments alone to share this calling at 2am at a prom party. Lord God, may we be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and above all else…..faithful in prayer.
