Love the Little Ones

By Rachel Fordham on Deena Adams

This week’s hope story comes to you from multi-published author, Rachel Fordham. I met Rachel online and have enjoyed reading several of her Historical Christian Fiction books. As I followed her on social media, I learned of her heart for foster care and adoption and asked her to share part of her story. She graciously agreed. I hope in the future, we’ll learn more about Rachel’s journey into foster care.

The concept, love the little ones, has always been written on my heart. From a young age, stories of children, particularly adoption and foster stories, resonated with me. 

Going through an agonizing health trial with one of our children reminded me that love, family, and faith mattered most of all in this life. 

We got brave and asked God how we could serve Him.  

The journey to fostering is a post for some other day, but suffice it to say it was a road with bends and bumps that required endurance and bravery.

We kept going and then one night a little girl showed up. 

She’d suffered from severe neglect and trauma. The effects of her former lifestyle were evident in the way she communicated, her fears, her ability to live in a functional home… in every aspect of her life.

Parenting her was incredibly hard and had God not given me a deep love for her and wisdom beyond my own, I may have walked away. 

That deep love for her carried us through day after day!

We were determined to help her succeed. During those first weeks as my love grew for her, my hate grew for her biological mother. I could not understand how anyone could let what had happened occur. 

Anger that I hadn’t gotten her out of there sooner set in.

In many ways, my innocence was taken as I learned about her suffering, and I directed all my big feelings toward who I perceived as the villain in the story. 

When the social worker informed me that I would attend a meeting with the biological mother—a meeting that would be pivotal in deciding where this sweet girl spent her time while in foster care—I felt sick.

I was sure this woman would feel the hate I’d let grow inside me over the last two weeks and would not want her child, whom I already loved, to stay with me. 

The meeting location was an hour drive from my house, and I spent that entire drive pleading with the Lord to take the hate from my heart and help me see this mother the way He saw her. 

I’ve witnessed miracles in my life before, but this was a unique experience for me. 

Over the course of that hour drive, I felt my heart changing.

I still had opinions about what should and should not happen in the case, but the hate and anger left me. I walked into the social worker’s office nervous but not afraid of my own heart. 

When my foster child’s biological mother entered, I introduced myself and told her I was sure this was hard for her. I hugged her, and my feelings of compassion were sincere. We sat and talked about how her daughter was doing, and I listened when she explained how distraught she was. 

When the topic of placement came up, she told the room full of social workers that she wanted her daughter to stay with me. I cried. 

For a year and a half, I raised that sweet girl. There’s no doubt we would not have spent those tender months together if I had allowed the hate to stay. 

God worked a beautiful miracle inside my heart that day, and I will be forever grateful. 

Heartache, growth, and miracles have filled my years of fostering and taught me how to truly love the little ones—which includes loving more than just the child.

God revealed to me that day that He was aware of me, He was aware of my foster daughter, and He was aware of her biological mother.

It’s a miracle of hope I will never forget.

CLICK TO TWEET: Heartache, growth, and miracles have filled my years of fostering and taught me how to truly love the little ones.

Join the conversation. Have you ever been a foster parent? Has God ever used a difficult situation in your life to teach you to love better? When you’re angry, do you find it easy to separate the person from the action?

Rachel Fordham is the author of The Hope of Azure Springs, Your’s Truly, Thomas, and A Life Once Dreamed. She started writing when her children began begging her for stories at night. She’d pull a book from the shelf, but they’d insist she make one up. Finally, she paired her love of good stories with her love of writing and hasn’t stopped since. She lives with her husband and children on an island in the state of Washington.

Rachel’s latest book, A Life Once Dreamed, released August 4, 2020, by Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group. Purchase your copy now!

When Agnes Pratt discovered a shocking secret, she fled her hometown in search of a new life. Now, six years later, she has made a predictable life for herself as the lone school teacher in the rugged Dakota Territory town of Penance, which is devoid of romance but filled with work and friendship. But when her childhood sweetheart, James Harris, arrives on the scene, her life threatens to be upended by a man who must never know her secret.

James accepts a position as the town doctor with an ulterior motive—to finally get answers from the girl who left him behind. Undeniably still carrying a torch for “Aggie,” James can tell she’s desperate to keep her distance even if he doesn’t know why. Can James convince Aggie that her secret—and her heart—are safe in his hands?

A Life Once Dreamed is a beautiful story of love and healing that affirms that where you come from matters far less than where you are going.

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Check out this blog post to learn more ways you can help kids in foster care.