Teens and Foster Care

Another year has come and gone. Each one seems to pass much quicker than the one before. Over the past few days I have reflected on all the families that have welcomed children into their hearts and home this past year. I smile because I know their lives have been eternally changed, and it is wonderful. But I am also reminded of all the children without permanent loving homes and grieve over them not having the love and stability of a family. Why do so many suffer? Why do so many long for a family but never see this become a reality? As I watched the older children at the Rutherford County Foster Care Christmas Party (we had over 30 teens), I was saddened and felt a sense of urgency for them. Some of them will have the opportunity to be reunited with their birth families. Others will hopefully be adopted into loving, stable homes. But most will age out of the foster care system without a family to call their own.

Studies have shown that 90% of children that age out of any system in the world, including the US foster care system, will turn to a life of theft, gangs, prostitution, and drugs. Close to 30% of the children that age out of the foster care system will become homeless. Each year about 20,000 teens leave foster care, no longer a ward of the state, without a permanent family.

This year my heart is heavily burdened for the older children. The ones that are getting dangerously close to their 18^th birthday. The ones that seem to have been forgotten. My ultimate prayer is for them to know their Heavenly Father. The One who will never “leave them nor forsake them” (Deuteronomy 31:6). The One who desires to give them “hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11) The One who wants to adopt them into His family through His son, Jesus (Ephesians 1:5). I cannot imagine what it would have been like to navigate through my late teens and early adulthood without the guidance and direction of my parents. Will you join me in praying for these precious teenagers that so desperately need a family?

'For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD,plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.' (Jeremiah 29:11)