Like so many, I felt the calling to foster care long before saying “yes.” It was Fall 2016 when I first felt compelled to get involved, thinking I was called to begin a foster care support ministry. I met with a life coach and explained that I wanted all displaced youth to have the opportunity to encounter Christ. I just knew this relationship had to be kindled in order to sustain them through life’s inevitable tough times.
After nearly a year of phone calls, emails, and research, I still wasn’t making progress with my vision for the ministry. All I knew was that I wanted children to know God, but couldn’t pinpoint how that would happen.
One day, as my coach and I rehashed what this ministry would look like, she gently, almost cautiously, said, “Maybe God is calling you to motherhood.” I felt almost stupid in that moment, because I knew without a doubt that I had been putting off something that God was lovingly asking of me. When Matt and I got married in 2013, I said the proper “I do” to him and to children, but I’m not sure how much I meant that second part. I wanted children to know and love God, but never truly wanted children of my own. When she suggested motherhood might be where God was leading me, I finally trusted His plan.
Fast forward 4 years and 3 children later, I was still thinking about foster children. Who would introduce them to God’s love? Who would teach them that they were firstly children of God and that nobody and nothing could ever change that? As I felt my heart grow to love more biological children, I realized that it was me. I would love His children, every single one that He would send my way.
Yet, I continued to live in denial for a time. I spent many hours with the Blessed Sacrament, asking God if He was sure that I could take this on. Then, even as I gained confidence in this calling, Matt struggled with it. He had been so jubilant to become a father, yet really hesitated to start fostering. It was such a big unknown for us, for we didn’t know of even a single foster family and had zero experience with child protective services. We were afraid, and doubted this was something God would ask of us, especially with already having children ages 4, 3, and 1.
There were so many subtle nudges, though, it slowly became clear that we must answer the call. When I met Kimberly and the Springs of Love ministry at the Catholic Women’s Conference in 2023, I felt as though they had been planted there just for me. I was in the process of reading The Next Right Thing: A Simple, Soulful Practice for Making Life Decisions, by Emily P. Freeman. Conversation with Kimberly affirmed what I had been reading, and I realized that over-scrutinizing this calling was trapping me with worry and indecision. We had to accept a lot of unknowns and have faith that the next right step would provide clarity.
So, we did it. We did the next right thing.
We called an agency and asked for some reference families that would be willing to speak with us. This gave us a lot of insight as to what foster families go through, helped us to build a community of support, and steered our next steps. The next right thing was to apply. After that, we started our training classes, underwent a home inspection, and got to work filling out what seemed to be mountains of paperwork. Just one right thing at a time.
Eventually, in March 2024, we got our license!
Three weeks later, as I was almost 30 weeks pregnant with Baby #4, we got the call.
We said “maybe,” then prayed and prayed. As I whispered “Amen,” I waited for Matt to answer, because “yes” is always on my lips. He finally said “yes,” and we agreed we would pick up the newborn baby from the hospital the following morning!
People look at our current “situation” and make comments about how busy we must be, how full our hands are, and seem to ponder how we’re going to make it through. I have determined these comments to be related to a difference in perspective.
In those first days and weeks with our sweet newborn foster placement, I felt God’s presence so palpably that I could cry. You see, I have long dreamed that I might do mission work. I yearned to travel to far away countries to care for His neediest children, with St. Teresa of Calcutta being my heavenly mentor. As I snuggled this helpless babe at 3am, I realized that it had happened. I had truly welcomed Our Lord into my heart by surrendering to His callings. Being that I was also called to marriage and biological motherhood, going to an underdeveloped country as a mission worker was not feasible, but God knew where to find me. Jesus came into our home, as a wee babe, and we get the great privilege of loving Him through her.
We have our natural fears. Wanting to provide enough quality time and attention to all children entrusted to us, wondering the long term impact this will have on our biological children and our family as a whole, and fearing what the future will hold for this placement. The day might even come that foster care breaks all of our hearts; goodbye might come and it might hurt.
In his book, The Forgotten Language: How Recovering the Poetics of the Mass Will Change Our Lives, Fr. Rennier boldly challenges us to take up the heaviest cross we can carry and to carry it as far as we can, strengthened by the liturgy. We realize there are so many forms of heavy crosses and ours by no means would be considered the greatest. But this is our current cross, our current suffering for Christ. There are few greater emotional crosses than that of a broken heart. We are hopeful, though, that we are teaching our children, and ourselves, to live with a giver’s heart.
You might ask, how do we manage the craziness of this season? Like we would do anything: through trust, surrender, and taking it one day at a time. For we confidently believe God has led us here and will continue to guide our next steps. For this season of abundance is a joyful one. Yes, this vocation sometimes brings challenges and struggle, but what a gift it is to be refined through the loving of His beautiful creation!
Monica and her husband, Matt, have been married for ten years. They have 3 biological sons, a baby through foster care, and now a biological daughter. Their farm is also home to varying livestock, which includes more chickens and ducks than is prudent, and a dog with a Napoleon complex.
