“For me, children are the very essence of life. We need them for our future. Their joy and curiosity about life are contagious. When they are not protected or are in vulnerable situations, it has always tugged at my heartstrings. The implications of the Bible verse James 1:27, ‘Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world’ became very real to me when I lived at an orphanage in Nicaragua one summer during my college years. It became part of who I was then and still am now. The varieties of brokenness that innocent children experience even led me to pursue a degree in counseling. Eventually, after we birthed our three children, there was still a longing to care for more. So we became a licensed foster family. It was a mix of crazy hard, but beautiful chaos to bring children who found themselves in DSS custody into our own home. This was always done in an effort to partner in redeeming children’s stories, no matter the outcome of their cases.
Years later, going through the process of becoming a Guardian ad Litem felt like a sincere way to understand the system better while advocating for children stuck in that same system. I am only a year and a half into this volunteer role. Already my empathy has grown for some of the biological parents who are stuck in systemic brokenness as well as the many passionate yet tired DSS caseworkers.
My ‘why’ is because I want love to be felt by the children I serve, but I also want that love & sincere hope to be felt by every person involved in each case. Change and growth is always possible and as a GAL I have to believe that instead of giving into despair. We interact for seemingly long periods of time with each child in each case. To go the distance with each one, hope must prevail and goodness and truth must be advocated. It is a privilege to enter into the hard and sad and to assist in giving these children a voice. They are worth every visit, every related phone call, every mile driven, every day in court, and every written report.”
