Why would God do that to me?

What a year this has been.  I can hardly believe it is already September and that my first born is 24 today.  Time stands still for no one.

I never knew when we said yes to opening our home and fostering to adopt that we would be exposed the way we have.  It has been a crazy six years and some days I really do have a hard time making sense of it all.  If I was warned at the beginning of 2016 that my world was going to be shaken in ways I never expected with my 'YES' to care, I am not sure I would have said yes then, because perhaps in foresight I would have believed I could never have made it, but we have and it could be why God does not reveal the whole picture to us when we go the narrow road.

Back to the terrible exposure I have felt.  Cracks showed up!  I was not all who I thought I was or as together as I thought I was...  things were coming out about my biological children that nearly broke me.  My attempt at being a good mom was now being exposed as flawed and worse than that I had four more children in my care that I now had to be mother to!

Why would God do that to me?  I have mourned deeply over all this, after all God knows me better than anyone! Why would He have opened doors like He did and led us on this road if He knew I was going to come undone?

Perhaps it is that God used this all because of how deeply we are all loved?  

Today, this piece I have included below came to my inbox from the Henri Nouwen foundation and it resonated with me.  I read it in the context of all the dying I have had to do to myself on this journey and not death as in physical death, although there have been points where that felt like that may be a gift.  My weakness and need has been so exposed and I wanted to run and hide, yet I found kindness in the midst of it all.

"Our weakness and old age call people to surround us and support us. By not resisting weakness and by gratefully receiving another’s care we call forth community and provide our caregivers an opportunity to give their own gifts of compassion, care, love, and service. As we are given into their hands, others are blessed and enriched by caring for us. Our weakness bears fruit in their lives." Henri Nouwen This is my current experience and I am still trying to rest in it all and finding a new way of being in a world that became very unsafe to me.  I have been led into a safer place and experiencing new grace in it all.  There are some very exciting things on the horizon and the fulfillment of dreams we have dreamt for a long time.  It is less grand than the original 'dream board', but... my idea of what it needed to be was not given by the grace of God, but my idea of what I thought God wanted from me and I needed to be almost 50 years old to understand this level of protection I am so thankful to every single person who has stood with us in the last 6 years specifically, it has been rough and miraculous and rough... and some more rough.  However, because of the love and grace of people we still have a roof over our head and food on our table every day.  We are grateful for the love we have received.