This post is from Moms Take Ten episode 54, “The Struggle Against Complacency”, which you can listen to wherever you listen to podcasts or at https://sites.libsyn.com/403493/foster-care-and-adoption-the-struggle-against-complacency
When Jonathan and I first responded to the prompting to open our home to children in need of a safe space, we were passionate, hopeful, and also naive. We readied our house, picking our furniture and decor, making sure that themes could easily be swapped depending on who was staying with us at the time. Our first placement we stepped into with more excitement than fear, and then we learned. Yes, there were many good things about hosting, but there was also a lot of hard. It took energy, self-control, patience, and understanding to meet the needs of the ten year-old boy who was living with us. We had to navigate school conferences and calls from the principal. We had to think about things we had never had to think about before. When he went back home, we were a little concerned for him and the situation his family was still in. We wondered if we should have done more for them, or advocated for him to stay with us longer. There was a mourning period that followed his departure, and then there was relief. The weight of responsibility was no longer on our shoulders. It was just us again. Almost as though we had entered a honeymoon all over.
We have experienced that period of calm many times over since that first placement. Sometimes we have laughed as suddenly having three kids feels like a breeze when child number four or five heads back to their family. Who would have thought we’d ever be saying that?! Our last placement ended in September of 2022, right before my kids all started preschool. For the past five months, I have had three mornings a week to myself. I started working out, even getting a gym membership for the winter months. I have a weekly coffee date with a dear friend. Instead of sitting in the kitchen working on an episode to the sounds of my kids playing and fighting, as I am doing now, I was able to get work done in peace. Those three mornings have been a gift. My kids are all old enough for me to take them rock climbing, and we can head out on adventures a little more easily than when they were two and three.
This calm was starting to draw out the question of whether we should host again or not. I mean, life is nice right now. And also full of enough of its own challenges. Do I really want to change things? Maybe we should just leave things as they are.
Those aren’t new questions for me. I have them every time we are in between placements. It is the wrestling between feeling content in the season that God has me in and becoming complacent. See, every time a placement ends, Jonathan and I have a choice. We can enjoy the period of calm that the Lord has given us while we look towards and prepare for the child he wants us to care for next. Or, we can become so used to it that we no longer want to do what God wants us to do, we just want to be where we are, we want a life of ease. Ok, not that having three kids is easy, but you understand what I mean…it is easier than having three kids and also hosting.
I don’t think this wrestling between contentment and complacency is unique to those of us in the foster world. It can be easy for all of us to choose not to do something because of the inconvenience of it. We don’t invite the friend out for coffee, or host a playdate. We don’t join the small group or volunteer at church. We don’t give it our all at work or school or seek to grow in our parenting or spiritual walk because we are getting by with good enough. We tell God that we like things how they are, we don’t want them to change, and we stop asking him for his guidance. If we asked him, he might tell us something we don’t want to hear, or maybe he has already told us and we are trying hard to ignore it. The enemy delights in our complacency, God delights in our contentment. 1 Timothy 6:6 says, “But godliness with contentment is great gain.”
God invites us to be content when we are in the season of calm and when we are stepping into the hard. Paul spoke about this often. In Philippians 4:11-12, Paul says, “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.” In 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Paul speaks specifically about the harder times. “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Being content is not about staying put and refusing to change, it is about being thankful for what God is doing in you and for you where you are at. Rarely does God leave us in one spot for long, be that physical or spiritual. He is a God at work, moving us towards Heaven and holiness. If you find yourself in a season of great blessing and rest, thank him, and ask him to prepare you for obedience to whatever he asks of you next. If you are in a season of hard, thank him for being with you in it and for the promise that be it in this life or the next, this season will end.
A few weeks ago, I drove into the city to pick up a sweet two year-old boy. It was the day after my family had returned home from a long-awaited birthday cruise. As I readied the house and drove to get him, I mourned the loss of my three mornings a week. But when I looked into that little boy’s face and felt his arms wrap around my neck, when I saw my children welcome him with joy, and I watched as he made himself comfortable in our home, I was reminded why we say yes. Because ultimately, my life is not about me, it is about God and bringing him glory. It is about loving him and loving others. When we do that, we experience such joy and have the privilege of being part of the good work of God.
What has been interesting to me in these past couple of weeks is that God has changed my heart so that I don’t even miss those three mornings. This little boy has simply become part of our life, our routine. God has expanded our capacity to love and to care, and has helped us bring him into the routine of our lives, as well as shape our routines around him. When we step into what God is calling us to do, be it inconvenient, something we are afraid of or something that for whatever reason we are not wanting to do, he changes our hearts and helps us to embrace whatever it is that is required to do what he is calling us to do. And he equips us to do what he has called us to do as well.
I am so thankful that God gave me the strength to say no to complacency this time. I pray that each time I am faced with that struggle, it will get easier and easier to hold to godliness with contentment instead.
What is God calling you to today?
Lyssa Stoyko 