When Perspective Changes

Do you ever look back on your life and notice details you somehow missed before—pieces of a memory that suddenly change how you see a situation? Maybe you recall something you had forgotten, or a new experience gives you a different point of view on an old wound. As we experience life and grow, our minds and perspectives grow with us. We begin to see things differently than we did as the person we once were. Our perspective of the past shifts, and the pieces of our story start fitting together in new ways.

I don't have children of my own. For a long time, I told myself I didn't want any. Looking back now, I realize that was a coping mechanism. As a teenager, I already knew that it would be difficult for me to have kids and feared I wouldn't be able to. So, I convinced myself that if I didn't want them, I wouldn't feel the pain of not having them. As I got older, I realized I did want children, but I never met someone I could see a future with, and while I was waiting for him, my health issues returned. And just like that, another surgery took away any chance I may have had to be able to get pregnant. I've spent many tear-filled nights wondering what might have been. Now, with a child in my life, I'm starting to see it differently. But to help you understand, let me go back.

At the age of 18, I had to have surgery to remove precancerous cells from my cervix. After surgery, the doctor told me that it may be difficult to carry a pregnancy to full term because he had to cut away more tissue than expected. At the time, I didn't understand the depth of that news and was just relieved to have the surgery behind me. But in the years that followed, reality began to sink in, and I handled it very poorly. I did everything I could to try to numb the pain instead of facing it.

Fast forward to my late twenties, and I was finally tired of running. That was when I gave my life to Christ, and everything changed. For the first time in years, I felt real joy and peace in my life. God's Word filled me with a hope that I couldn't describe. What I didn't know then was that even harder times were ahead. Honestly, if God had shown me what was coming, I probably would have run the other way. Those years turned out to be some of the hardest years of my life. As I worked through my pain and came to terms with my past, I slipped into a deep depression. I felt so alone, but I clung to the belief that God would carry me through.

During that season, I made a choice not to date. I owed it to myself to focus on my personal growth without distraction. In that time, I learned so much about who I was becoming—what I valued, my strengths and weaknesses, and how pain had shaped me. I also began facing the hard truth that I probably wouldn't be able to have children and tried to make peace with it. That was about the time the abnormal pap smears returned, and I don't believe that was a coincidence.

As I worked toward accepting my reality, I began to feel a pull to foster. At first, I resisted with everything in me. The thought of getting attached to a child only to have them leave felt unbearable. I wrestled with the idea for two years before finally submitting to God and answering His call on my life. Through lots of prayer, fear, and faith, I was approved to foster and adopt in the state of Tennessee. I pictured myself welcoming a placement right away and finally feeling the satisfaction of helping a child in need.

But that's not what happened at all.

In the silence that followed, I started second-guessing God. Had I heard Him correctly? Was I truly called to foster, or was it just something I wanted to do? Those are two very different things! Maybe the lack of phone calls meant I had misunderstood Him altogether. I questioned everything so much that when the call finally did come, fear got the best of me. My house was empty except for me and my dog. My schedule was as open as I wanted it to be. I wasn't in a relationship, and outside of work, I had no major responsibilities. But I hid behind excuses of being too busy or too tired, burying myself in work and using it as a shield.

Eventually, I became more open to a placement, but still not ready to say yes. The thing is, God didn't wait for me to be ready. He made the need impossible to ignore and pushed me to step up to fill it, ready or not. He has a way of doing that when we're stalling. It was supposed to be just a respite weekend. I was taking two brothers for two days. That was it. But the day they were supposed to arrive, I got a call that everything had changed, and now they were in need of emergency placement. I didn't get details, and I didn't get time to think. Completely caught off guard, I heard myself say yes to taking the older brother. The moment I hung up, panic set in. I immediately started Googling everything I could about foster care—as if the months of training and testing I had just completed weren't enough to prepare me.

Over the next three months, we struggled to learn each other and to relate. As his trust in me grew, so did his acting out—at home and at school. I felt completely overwhelmed and completely under-equipped. When he finally moved in with his biological grandfather, I felt the first wave of relief I'd had in what felt like forever! And then I fell apart. The weight of everything hit me at once—mostly defeat—and I broke. I was convinced I wasn’t cut out for fostering, so I quit. And in doing so, I beat myself up relentlessly. I told myself I had failed. I questioned whether I had even heard God correctly. Had He really called me to foster, or had I stepped into it out of my own longing for a child? And if He did call me, why would He lead me into something He knew I would fail at? What was I supposed to learn from a season that broke me so deeply?

Now, fast forward to today, and I can finally see that season more clearly. That foster kid and I both needed each other, though for very different reasons, and it was never meant to be forever. Not everyone who comes into our lives is meant to stay, and that's okay. God used that experience to prepare me for the child I have now. The foster training gave me the tools to understand her better, to recognize how trauma has shaped her, and to be able to respond in ways I might not have known before. My time with him showed me what worked and what didn’t with a child carrying deep wounds. Because of my experience with him, I’m able to better serve her. I am also able to find gratitude in the middle of very hard days—where it would be easy to slip into self-pity instead.

There is always purpose in the pain. God promises us in 1 Peter 5:10 that He will “perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle us after we have suffered a while.” He does allow things that feel deeply unfair, but He never wastes them. If we pay attention and look for His hand, we’ll see how He uses even the hardest seasons to grow us.

I’ve spent years hurt, angry, and resentful over my situation. I’ve questioned why God would allow it. But now I can see that she was always part of His plan for me. I needed an empty home so I could dedicate myself fully to her. She requires so much, and He placed me exactly where I needed to be, so I'm able to meet her needs. What I once saw as years of torment, I now see as years of preparation. Though I struggle daily with my new normal, I know it’s just a different kind of hard. I’ve searched for my purpose in life for so long, and now I see—at least for this season—it’s her.

I don’t know that I will ever fully get past the grief of not having children of my own. I don’t know what the future holds—whether I’ll raise her into adulthood or if our lives will shift again and she’ll be gone in a year. But I do know this: I’ve learned to carry my grief differently, and that shift has allowed me to live and choose differently. I know the struggles I face today are teaching me more about myself, about life, and about what truly matters. I know I am where I’m supposed to be, even when it feels unbearable. And I’ve discovered that even in the lowest valleys, peace can be found in God, regardless of circumstance. Jeremiah 29:11 reminds me that He has a plan for my life—a plan to prosper me, to give me hope and a future. I trust Him. And whatever you may be walking through, however impossible or unfair it feels, remember this: there is purpose in it, it will be used for your good someday, and you can trust Him, too.