One More Day

"I'm going to hurt you!" my foster daughter screamed, her six-year old face red with fury.

"What are you talking about?!" I yelled back, failing in my efforts to stay calm in the presence of a little girl who had spent months doing everything she could to make me hate her.

"I don't know, but you're going to be bloody!" she threatened, punching my bed as if to punctuate her intention.

"That's it," I thought as adrenaline pumped through my body. "I'm done." I turned abruptly and walked down the hall into the kitchen. I grabbed the phone and quickly dialed the social worker's phone number. Three rings later, I was uttering the words I'd promised myself I would never say. "Come get her. I can't do this anymore."

Two days from now, I will tell this story. As I stand in front of a classroom of potential and current foster parents, I will talk about the little girl that I wanted to give up on. I will tell them that I thought I had done everything I possibly could do, loved as much as I thought I could love.

As I pass around a family picture of my ten beautiful children, I will recount the rest of that conversation from so long ago:

"Can you do it for three more weeks?" he asked quietly.

"I don't think so. I don't think I can do it one more day." Defeat was so hard for me, but with four children to take care of and my baby daughter growing inside me, I already felt like I had done as much as I could do.

"Well, it is going to take some time. I know that you feel it's impossible, but can you try?"

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Phil. 4:13)

"All right," I conceded softly. "I can try."

It won't take me long to tell them what happened next. It's my favorite part of Breanna's story. Because two weeks after I tried to give up, she finally allowed a crack in the hard exterior she had surrounded herself in.

A crack was all I'd wanted. Renewed and hopeful, we blasted her with love. And just a day or two before our three week deadline, she let us into her heart.

"When you feel like you can't do it," I will say on Saturday, "when you feel like there is no hope left...you can do it one more day."

Ten smiling children. Four children we brought into this world by birth. Three girls who we didn't even know back then, who God knew would one day be our daughters. Breanna's brother and sister, who are an integral part of our family even though they don't live with us. And my Breanna... the little girl who I almost gave up on...who I can't imagine my life without.

Holding out the picture, I'll end with this simple statement: "You can do it for this."

I hope that they will listen. I hope they will take my story and remember it when they have a chance to love their own Breanna. Because I don't want to know what my family would look like today if that social worker hadn't had the wisdom to ask me to try one more time.

"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)